Zombie Makeover Day!

It's been a while since I've posted, mainly because I've dropped some research in favor of jumping into actually creating my game. Without further ado, here's some of what I've been doing:

I'm making a zombie apocalypse game, so where are the zombies?! I searched Creative Commons and found a really nice drawing that would work for my zombie game pieces.

Isn't it cool how this...

...turned into these?

I needed to color code them as a part of their artificial intelligence, the way I'm making them move around the board and "chase" the player characters. The basics of that are six differently-colored pawns from another board game that correlate to 6 colored parts on a spinner wheel. The zombies all start from the middle of the board and head to a specific location (building) that's color-coded to match their color. Once the zombie gets there, the players spin the spinner and move the pawn, indicating the zombie's next target location.

I figured that the zombies' speed should be 3 spaces, since that is the average roll on a 6-sided die. The human players should move the zombies to their locations via the shortest route.

So yes, the players are responsible for moving their own character pieces as well as the zombie opponents around the board. It's a bit clunky and slow but so far it's the best I can come up with for a randomized way to make the zombies roam. It will probably take some further testing.

More on that in a few posts!

Capstone Research: Heny Ellington's "How to Design Educational Games and Simulations"

Today's research was about something different than the last few posts. Instead of researching theory about games and culture or the societal effects of video games, I read about when it is appropriate to design a new card, board, or role-playing game and some ways to go about it.

Ellington's article deals with creating a game for educational purposes, but the overall principles he writes about work for my zombie-themed board game as well.

In the first part of his article, Ellington makes the point that it is not always necessary to create a whole new game. He argues that sometimes it is more prudent and cost-effective to use a game that already exists or tweak another person's idea rather than start from scratch. This may be true in the realm of education, and could work in my case, however, the audience Ellington writes for is not getting a grade for their game.

Ellington writes that once the need for a new game is established, the content of the game should be chosen. He gives the example of a chemistry simulation for a science classroom in which students can better understand different types of chemical reactions as one possibility for game content. Ellington also mentions that game content may be much more broad and abstract. Things such as interpersonal skills, interpretation of the ideas of others, and decision making skills could be the focus of content for other games.

I already have my content chosen, but I could use Ellington's descriptions to fine-tune what I have brainstormed already and narrow some things down.

The next step in the process of game creation, according to Ellington, is choosing a format for the game. Ellington describes four main formats:

• Simple manual exercise: This type of game or simulation does not involve the use of cards, boards, or computers. The only materials needed are role assignment sheets and a sheet describing the objective(s) of the game. This is a role-playing exercise.
• Card game: This game or simulation involves the use of a specialized pack or packs of cards.
• Board game: In this type of game or simulation, players use a specially designed surface (game board).
• Computer-based exercise: This game or simulation involves the use of a computer. (Ellington describes it in some really old-school terms. This was published in 1987.)

In regards to these formats, Ellington writes, "In choosing the format for your exercise, your aim should be to decide which of the various possible formats would be best suited to serve as a vehicle for achieving your selected design outcomes, using the content that you have provisionally selected, and bearing in mind the constraints of your individual situation". Basically, Ellington is telling his colleagues to choose the game format that will best suit their content and goals, but not to get ahead of themselves in what they can do. He makes the point that no matter how much someone might like to make a computer game, if they do not have the knowledge or the programming skills to make one, it's not worth their time and effort to do so.

Ellington goes on to discuss different structures for how players interact and how gameplay will flow. He provides useful diagrams for each type of structure. Choosing this is the next step in creating a game.

Ellington also discusses prototyping, a step that I will definitely need to take before I make the final version of my game.

I learned a lot from this article and will definitely be referring back to it throughout this project.

Citation:

Ellington, Henry. "How to Design Educational Games and Simulations. Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 19." (1987): 1-19. Http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED289502.pdf. ERIC. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.

Capstone Research: Developing the "Gamer Disposition" by David C. Wyld

This time for research, I read David C. Wyld's article "Developing the 'Gamer Disposition': The Key to Training and Learning with the Digital Native Generation May be 'Serious Games'...Seriously". Wyld's article was published in Competition Forum in 2009.

Wyld's article opens with the fact that the video game industry has grown rapidly and at the time of publication was almost a $50 billion industry. A good chunk of this money goes towards the development and design of virtual worlds. Surprisingly, these virtual worlds are meant for children. Wyld, like Jindra (see last post) mentions that children and teenagers aren't the only age groups playing video games, but they are the demographic that spends the most time and money on video games.

This article mentions the term "digital natives" and says that today's youth are the epitome of the term. Children and teenagers now grew up with the internet and video games and know the lingo of computers, know their way around the Internet, and know how to pick up a new gadget and use it. Parents, educators, politicians and the like speak "DSL, or digital as a second language". (Sidenote: I personally found that reference funny, since DSL Internet connection is outdated, so that is a perfect term in more ways than one!) It shouldn't be surprising, then, if the likes and dislikes of the digital native generation help shape trends in digital technology and its marketing, kid-friendly virtual worlds not excluded.
(Sorry, you'll have to zoom in!)
The gist of my diminutive chart is that the names of sites going down the y-axis are different virtual worlds, ranging from Webkinz (a virtual pet site) and Club Penguin (a site where kids can deck out their penguin avatars) in the top two slots to Second Life, which is generally more for adults, in the bottom row. The numbers across the x-axis range from 0-6 and are in millions of users. Keep in mind that this data is from September of 2007, so in one month Webkinz got traffic from roughly 6 million users with Club Penguin a close second with over 4.5 million users. In one month. Second Life, the "grown-up" virtual world, had only 0.5 million users in that same span of time. The digital natives are winning.

Wyld's article mentions that while the digital native generation is perfectly at ease in virtual worlds and can even learn leadership and social skills in these worlds, they are bored and not doing well in their classrooms. There needs to be a way to make learning almost as fun as gaming. The military and medical fields use "simulations" for training--don't you dare call them games. According to the article, the Chief Officer for the U.S. Army Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation Program Executive Office said, "The word 'game' is not appropriate...". These are serious training methods done digitally.

The article concludes with a discussion of the "gamer disposition" mentioned in its title. The point is made that MMOs encourage leadership skills among groups as well as other skills that may be valuable in the workplace. Wyld cites the work of authors Brown and Thomas who defined the gamer disposition in an article from 2008. Brown and Thomas give a list of five characteristics of the gamer disposition:

1. Being bottom-line oriented.
2. Understanding the power of diversity.
3. Thriving on change.
4. Seeing learning as fun.
5. Marinating on the "edge" (seeking new ways of solving problems)

This type of employee, as described by Brown and Thomas, will be "flexible, resourceful, improvisational, eager for a quest, believers in meritocracy, foes of bureaucracy"...and have "exactly the disposition you should want in your work force".

Digital natives, then, seem to already have a head start on becoming this type of employee. Their tech-savvy way of life and domination of the U.S. virtual gaming market has them well equipped to develop the gamer disposition.

Citation:

Wyld, David C. "Developing the "Gamer Disposition": The Key to Training and Learning with the Digital Native Generation May Be "Serious Games"…Seriously." Competition Forum 7.2 (2009): 354-261. EBSCOhost. Web. 22 Feb. 2011.

Capstone Research: Michael Jindra's "Video Game Worlds"

I'm making a board game for my senior capstone project, but before I start I need to research game design, game development and testing, and games and culture to get some background information.

I just read Michael Jindra's article "Video Game Worlds" from the journal Society. The article was published in 2007 but its concepts are still true today.

In the article, Jindra reviews other non-fiction books about video games and culture and discusses how valid the other authors' arguments are. He even sets up a sort of debate in his article, and brings up opposing concepts from the books he read to show contrasting ideas.

Something Jindra spends a lot of time talking about is what another author, Edward Castronova, calls "synthetic worlds", the virtual universes of MMOs like World of Warcraft, SecondLife, and Everquest. Castronova, who coined the term synthetic worlds, seems to be in favor of them and the escapism they provide from the real world. According to Jindra, "In fact, he argues, most of the activities of the real world can be replicated in online societies. This, of course, is already happening for millions that already use MMOGs, but Castronova foresees a time when 'hundreds of millions' decamp into cyberspace".

One of Jindra's arguments against Castronova's support of synthetic worlds is the neglect for the real world that occurs when one is so caught up in a virtual world. Castronova mentions little about the player's mind, health and real social life deteriorating, and says that we as a society should make the virtual world a beautiful place that we want to spend time in. Jindra thinks this is backwards, and we should spend time on bettering the real world. The dangers of synthetic or virtual worlds are also discussed in the article in regards to dating and sex simulations that make a game out of infidelity.

If synthetic worlds impact people so negatively, why are they so popular? Jindra brings up the ideas of some other authors who explain that players have nearly unlimited control in virtual worlds. The feeling of power is something people love, and in synthetic worlds players can control anything from people (the Sims) to history (Civilization) or battle against other players and guilds for fame, money and glory (World of Warcraft and other fantasy MMOs). With this euphoric feeling of control, multiplayer games bring a second attractive element, the element of social interaction. No matter how superficial or fleeting these encounters may be, players feel less alone in their quest for domination. It's no fun to conquer the world alone, and players need allies, and sometimes enemies.

Another major discussion point in Jindra's article are the effects of video games on children. The article mentions that children are not the only age demographic playing, but they tend to play the most hours a day. Studies showed that young adults in college had dropped classes or gotten low grades because of hours spent playing video games. The article pointed out that the amount of hours played per day should be limited, and that parents should think before letting their young children play violent or graphic video games.

Citation:

Jindra, Michael. "Video Game Worlds." Society 44.4 (2007): 67-73. EBSCOhost. Web. 22 Feb. 2011.

TSR Powers Up

In the wake of the crusade against RPGs brought on by Pat Puller and BADD, the RPG industry was recovering, but definitely not down for the count. The adversity that the gaming community had faced brought players closer together, and the publicity resulting from the events surrounding the alleged "D&D Suicides" brought the game into the public eye.

While still under pressure from the non-gaming community, role-playing clubs and conventions became more popular for those who shared the hobby. According to this article , Frank Metzer of TSR created the gaming society RPGA in 1980.
The Role Playing Games Association (RPGA) promoted quality group role-playing, using (of course) TSR's line of RPG products. Events featured Advanced D&D (AD&D), espionage-themed RPG Top Secret, and sci-fi RPG Gamma World. By the late 1980s, the RPGA used RPGs by other publishers, but the RPGA was one way that TSR ensured its success in the RPG market.

D&D and AD&D were still popular, but TSR wanted to make sure that the company and its products remained ahead of the competition. The designers of AD&D soon realized that they were creating the same worlds over and over again. If this were to keep happening, other RPGs such as FASA's 1982 Star Trek RPG would outsell TSR's products.

This did not happen, as Astinus mentions in RPG History Part 4. Instead TSR decided to design new worlds and release novels based on the worlds at the same time new game supplements would hit stores. TSR used staff writers Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, whose names are now well known in the fantasy genre, to breathe more life into the worlds of AD&D. A series called The DragonLance Chronicles resulted, and gained D&D massive popularity. Shortly after the series's 1984 release, it became the first fantasy series to make the New York Times bestseller list, and sold over three million copies worldwide since release.

Twelve D&D campaigns were written based on the novels. By the 1989, TSR had broken not only the industry's records but its own in sales of books and game supplements--twice!

Now that TSR is doing very well again, next time RPGs in other genres will be the topic of discussion.

Role-Playing's "Golden Age", Part 2: Culture, Conventions, and Criticism

While the RPG industry was flourishing commercially, role-playing as a type of gaming sub-culture was emerging along with it. In the same vein as wargames and science fiction, role-playing had found its niche in society, however small. Amateur and professional magazines were abundant, and a gaming mindset was created. According to the article "History of Role-Playing Part III", slang, gaming jargon, and in-jokes became common, since, like the gaming sessions themselves, the hobby of role-playing produced a strong sense of cameraderie within it and a need to isolate those outside of it.

Conventions were set up so gamers could communicate and collaborate. The first GenCon, a gaming enthusiast's convention, was held in 1978. The information for this year's GenCon 2010 is available, and it looks to be an exciting event! (I'm almost considering going, myself...) At conventions, role-playing gamers learned that they were not alone in their interests, and experienced an environment where they could feel confident and assured about their hobby. Publishing companies grew larger because their audiences had grown as well.

With role-playing at a cult status, the hobby had stability, which allowed writers and designers of RPGs to explore alternate venues of game design. Fantasy had been more or less exhausted, and science fiction was still in the works. Superhero games were published--Superhero 44 and Villains & Vigilantes. Crime RPGs got their start with Gangster!, a game based on movies like Scarface and Bonnie and Clyde.

Dungeons & Dragons was still popular, and the Advanced version of the game now came in three volumes: the Player's Guide, which held the class, racial features, and other information for players to create characters; the Dungeon Master's (DM's) Guide, which was helped someone create game worlds and rules to host a game for their friends; and finally the Monster Manual, the book full of big fantasy beasts and creatures for the characters to encounter and engage in battles with. D&D still does things this way today, but there will be a post on modern RPGs sometime in the future.

With the history of RPGs, just as with all histories throughout time, good things must come to an end. "History of Role Playing Part IV" discusses how, in the case of RPG history, the "Golden Age" was interrupted by tragedy. In August 1979 at Michigan State University, student James Dallas Egbert III (aka Dallas Egbert) ran away from the school intent on killing himself. He left a convoluted note that mentioned steam vents under the university and D&D, which he played avidly. Dallas did not kill himself at this time, and was found by a private detective.

During the case investigation, there was a terrible mistake. Irresponsible journalism as well as confusion by authorities spread a false story that D&D was responsible for Dallas's disappearance. Dallas commited suicide the next year, and gave birth to the story of the first "D&D" suicide, although it was known that he was under pressure as a child prodigy (he was enrolled in college at the age of 16), an alleged drug addict, and mentally unstable.

Although facts were few and mundane, the story of Dallas Egbert quickly exploded into myth, and D&D became a media scapegoat, being presented as a dangerous, cult-like activity that threatened children. After another suicide blamed on D&D, Pat Pulling, the mother of the victim, created the society BADD (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). Pulling brought a propaganda war against RPGs, including distribution of flyers and pamphlets, appearances on radio and TV talk shows, and live protests.
In 1984, Darren Molitor was on tirial for the muder of a girl which occurred while he was acting out a Halloween prank. Pulling, along with BADD, was able to convince him that D&D was controlling his actions, and that he was under the game's occult influences at the time of the event.

BADD may have fought dirty, but the RPG industry and its fans and followers fought back. Eventually the "Golden Age" continued.

The "Golden Age" of RPGs--Science Fiction Games

I know it's been a while since I've blogged about my research topic, or anything else really. Rather than waste time with excuses, I'll just jump right into the information.

I left off last time describing and discussing some of the RPG games that were created to challenge Dungeons & Dragons in the commercial arena. Now it's time to look at how well RPGs caught on and where the genre went next.

By the late 1970s, RPGs were established as a new and creative type of game that could be played over and over in different scenarios with different characters playing. According to Astinus's "The History of Role-Playing Part III", role-playing was a genre of gaming "...around which could be built literature, and convention, even a whole sub-culture. It had the potential to be very big, but at that time, it still had some way to go before it got there".

Fantasy RPGs such as D&D, Tunnels & Trolls, and Chivalry & Sorcery were making money and gaining popularity. Science fiction literature and subcutlure was the new craze in the U.S. so naturally it followed that sci-fi RPGs would be created next. StarFaring, by St. Andre press (the publishers of Tunnels and Trolls)was one of the first science fiction RPGs out in 1976. The game had a very small run, as well as the obscure Metamorphosis Alpha from TSR (D&D's publisher) and a few other games.

The most successful of early science fiction RPGs was Traveller by Mark Miller from Game Designers Workshop in 1977. The game was ground-breaking because it presented new ideas and was well designed. Up until that point, sci-fi RPGs had focused on the skill system, which is highly important, but had neglected to flesh out the design of the game. Besides creating a good skill system that was influential to other games later down the road, Miller also rejected a class or occupation requirement for player characters. Players only had to roll dice to find out what skills their character learned during their life.

The setting of the game was boundless. The rules of the game allowed for the creations of solar systems, planets, and countires. The books provided simple and easy to follow tables for generation of a random planet with factors such as size, temperature, government system, and religion. There were also tips for creating richly detailed cities and worlds. Miller provided his own game setting of a powerful yet decentralized empire instead of stealing from popular sci-fi movies and TV shows of the time. If players didn't like Miller's setting, they could easily change it. Part of the appeal of Traveller was the game's incredible flexibility.

Another of the major reasons that Traveller became so successful was that it was released close to the same time as the Star Wars movie. Now Star Wars fans could act out the adventures they had seen at the movie theater with their friends and "be" their favorite Star Wars character.

That wraps it up for now with science fiction games. In the next research post I'll be discussing the role-playing subculture.

More Research-- D&D and its Spin-offs

Once Dungeons & Dragons had become relatively popular, it was only natural that other companies would publish their own spin-offs and versions of the game. Today's post is a look at some of these, with most of the information from the History of Roleplaying, Part II article referenced last time.

• Tunnels and Trolls (St. Andre, 1975): Created by Ken St Andre, T&T is very similar to its counterpart D&D, but the most interesting point between the two games are their differences. T&T's rules relied on 6-sided dice rolls for just about everthing, whereas in D&D, there are all different shapes of dice, from 4 sides up to 20-sided. T&T's combat and spell tables were well presented and clear for players to understand. The final difference between the two games is that Tunnels and Trolls was built to be fun. It was supposed to be silly and the writing was full of jokes. Enemies were giant squirrels instead of fierce dragons or other mythical creatures.

• Chivalry and Sorcery (Fantasy Games Unlimited, 1976): While T&T was all fun and games, Chivalry and Sorcery got down to business about being historically accurate, much more so than D&D. The rules and style of the game intend to recreate late 12th century France, not as just a setting, but as a society. Players must find their character a place in a complete feudal system including nobles, serfs, and the widespread power of the Catholic church. C&S did away with much of what D&D had established as RPG canon. Instead of dungeon battles, C&S used overland quests, and the enemies were Vikings and Picts instead of mythical creatures. Players could use magic, but their characters needed to study to learn more. C&S tried to do too much to be realistic. Besides having complex rules and tables, Cleric characters had to preach sermons, knights had to earn money from quests to buy swords and armor, and magic users had to collect ingredients, study spells and perform rituals! All of this took time away from adventures (and fun!).
• Empire of the Petal Throne (M.A.R. Barker, 1975): Barker created a fantasy world called Tekumel, including a complete language for its main country, but, lacking talent in writing, had nothing to do with either. Twenty years after Barker abandoned Tekumel, he discovered D&D, using the world of Tekumel as his game setting. Petal Throne's detail and descriptions were laid out precisely for players since Barker knew exactly what the world looked like. The world of Tekumel was not based on a Westernized, medieval world, but rather Barker's own experiences in India and Asia. One of the biggest problems with Petal Throne was that it wsa so specific. It was said that only Barker himself could successfully run a Petal Throne campaign. Players had to know Tekumel before they could role play well in the strange setting, so the game often confused players.

Each of these games did help the RPG industry, borrowing ideas from one another to enrich players' experiences, although none stayed as popular as D&D.

Research Findings, Part 2-Fantasy Wargames to D&D

I left off last in my research findings telling how the release of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy revolutionized the traditional, historical wargaming format and changed it into a fantasy genre. The next step in the evolution of fantasy war games into true role playing games is credited to two men: Ernest "Gary" Gygax and David Arneson. Referring back to Steve Darlington's article "RPG History Part One", Gary Gygax and some of his friends in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin had created a war game that "gave an accurate model of most aspects of medieval warfare". The game was called Chainmail, and was published by Tactical Studies Rules, or TSR, which was Gygax's company, and later versions of Chainmail include rules about giants, trolls, dragons, and magic spells.

While Chainmail wasn't a role playing game at the time, big changes were on the way for Gygax. Gygax was a member of a local medieval warfare enthusiasts' group called The Castles and Crusades Society while he was writing the rules for Chainmail. David Arneson, another member of this group was experimenting with role palying concepts in 1968. Arneson assigned roles and responsibilities to the members of the warfare group while they acted out battles, and the players had to stay in their role of the king, or the knight. This idea interested Gygax and together he collaborated with Arneson in the early 1970s to modify the Chainmail game system into a true role playing game. Later versions of the modified Chainmail rules became the earliest versions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Unfortunately, all was not magical and perfect with Gygax and Arneson's business partnership. According to Darlington's article, Arneson left TSR less than a year after Dungeons and Dragons was realeased. TSR continued to prosper and publish the game, but did not pay Arneson the royalties he was legally entitled to. Gary Gygax is thought of as the sole founder of role playing games, but Arneson has been forgotten.

Dungeons and Dragons got off to a slow start. In "A History of Role-Playing Part II", Gygax is quoted as saying that the public's opinion of the game was "not a hot reception". It took over a year for the first thousand copies of the D&D system rules to sell out, however the second thousand copies sold out in under six months. By 1979, D&D was selling 7000 copies a month.

D&D received criticism for being too complicated or too simple. The game rules written for the players belonging to Gygax and Arneson's gaming circles, so the rules and styles were unfamiliar to beginner players. The rulebooks for early D&D rely on the players already having extensive knowledge of the Chainmail combat rules. Spells were vague and combat statistics tables were difficult to interpret. This forced players to create their own rules and work around the vague or complex parts of the game. It was the idea and potential of the game that kept people playing.

Research Findings Part 1 (With Links!)

As I mentioned in my general overview of my topic, my research for game design class this semester is dealing with the history of role playing games (non-computer). In this portion of my research findings, I will discuss the history of RPGs pre-Dungeons & Dragons, since, as I mentioned before, that entire tale is far too complex to relate in just part of a post. The D&D saga is probably going to be its own mini-series of posts so that I can throughly cover the information and still keep things relatively short. (I know I've already failed to do that in some previous posts!) I've already found some great information about the beginnings of role playing games, or at least their origins.

Role playing games grew out of strategy and wargames. According to Steve Darlington's "A History of Role Playing, Part 1", as far back as four thousand years ago, people in ancient Sumeria simulated battles, and Chess and Go, which are the world's oldest games, are based on teaching military tactics. Darlington mentions that contemporary wargames developed at the turn of the 19th century in Prussia, and was called "kriegspiel", which means "war game". I'm going to make all of my English teachers cringe and cite Wikipedia, but the Wikipedia page gives a bit more detail into kriegspiel. The Wikipedia article on the subject states that the Master of Pages to the Duke of Brunswick created a similar game 1780, and the Prussian General Staff developed the game between 1803 and 1809. In kriegspiel, pieces would be moved around the table, with blue pieces indicating their forces, while red pieces represented enemy forces. Dice rolls were used to indicate random chances in battle and a referee would score the results of the game. Games such as kreigspiel became a routine part of military training.

According to an article from E-zine Articles, parlor games that incorporated elements of role playing became popular. A game called "Jury Box" involved players in a mock trial. In the 1960s, historical re-enactment groups would every now and then host "creative history" events which re-enacted historical events with a few fantasy elements incorporated in.

Separate from the live-action role play games, most RPGs were still wargames. Referring back to Darlington's article, it was science fiction visionary H.G. Wells that brought wargames from the armies to the amateurs. Wells published a set of wargaming rules in 1915 in a book entitled Little Wars. The games laid out in Little Wars suggest using miniature figures, such as toy soldiers, to play the game and create a sense of involvement and realism. In 1953, Charles Roberts released a commercially available board-game-type wargame. By the 1960s, wargames had caught on, and were recieving popularity. The battles were still historically based, and there was little role playing action. This changed when The Lord of the Rings trilogy was release in the United States in 1966. I just have to use this quorte from Darlington's article because I love it's references, and it speaks volumes about the impact that The Lord of the Rings had on the wargaming world and its players:

"No longer did players want to recreate the battle of Gettysburg, but the battle of Helm's Deep. The Napoleonic Wars were discarded in favor of the War of the Ring, goblins and orcs replaced foot soldiers and calvary. People wanted to know just how much damage a Balrog could do, and what the range was on a lightning bolt spell."

That about brings us to the next phase in the history of RPGs, which is the partnership between Ernest "Gary" Gygax and David Arneson. These two men are responsible for role playing games as we know them today.

Research Topic

I am now at that exciting point in the semester where I have chosen a research topic and can begin to gather my information! WARNING: If you think this is too nerdy now, turn back! It will get much worse! I'm really enthusiastic about my chosen research topic, and I spent a good chunk of Thursday night into Friday morning (till about 1:30 a.m.) beginning the hunt for reliable sources to use for my project. My super-exciting-top-secret research topic is...the history of roleplaying games. ( I warned you all...)



I want to cover the history of these games, from the beginning of their development up to current times. Let me clarify what I mean by "role playing games". The term "role playing game" or RPG, for short, gets tossed around a lot and can be used or abused to cover anything from Dugeons and Dragons (and similar dice-roll and pencil and paper games) to a genre of video games (and a subset called "MMORPGs"--massive multiplayer online RPG, such as World of Warcraft and others) to LARP (Live Action Role Play, basically acting out anything from being a society of vampires to being engaged in medieval battles). I strictly want to cover the first kind of RPG, the "tabletop", dice-rolling, writing down a character and giving him a personality type of role playing game.



I have already found some really great information (links to sites are to come, I am not on my own laptop now, where the bookmarks folder currently resides). For example, the first role playing games were military strategy games. There were ancient versions and variations in China and Sumeria (I think, I need to check on the second one), and a later version developed for the rulers of Prussia (now Germany) centuries later. Similar games hit the U.S. much later, but the common tie between all of the military-themed games was that the emphasis was mostly on the dice rolls and the strategic movement of the miniatures in battle.



Role-playing came later, with parlor games in the 1900s. These games were meant for dinner parties, and the guests would act out things such as "whodunit" murder mysteries.



The history, creation, and evolution of Dungeons and Dragons (aka D&D) and its similar games is a saga unto itself. That's most likely going to be its own post. I also want to shed a little bit of light on the religious opposition surrounding the game (I say "a little bit" because there is a great deal of opposition!) and discuss how Dungeons and Dragons specifically has evolved on its own. D&D as we know it today has been around since the '70s, so there's a lot of game history there!

Magically Delicious Gaming

One part of Chris Crawford's article, "What is a Game?" that really struck me as being interesting as well as relevant to the type of games I play was the part about the significance and of interaction in games, which Crawford also refers to as his scale of “gaminess”. Crawford explains the nature of interaction in games (a.k.a. the “gaminess” scale) by comparing puzzles, which have little to no interactiveness in them, to slightly more interactive games, such as blackjack and tag. Crawford argues that blackjack and tag are higher on the “gaminess” scale because they are more interactive than puzzles: there are more players involved, and there are decisions to be made or physical activities to be performed. The higher tier games on the scale are the more interactive ones, such as football (a whole team of players, more complicated plays on the field), bridge, and poker (bluffing, decisions to bet or fold, many players).

I found this part so interesting because it really matches up to some of the games I enjoy on a day-to-day basis. I am going to call it a board game, even though it is a card game, but I’m going to post that my favorite “board” game is Magic: the Gathering. Yes, it’s those strange cards with the pretty yet trippy pictures on them that all the nerdy kids at your high school played at their own secluded lunch table, but I play it and I think if Chris Crawford knew about it, he’d rank it an 11 out of 10 on the “gaminess” scale. First off, there are a few hundred cards that come out in each new “set”—the most currently printed cards, so combined with all of the old sets, there are thousands of possibilities to put in each 60-card deck. That allows for creativity on the players’ part, so two players may have decks with the same basic colors (there are 5 colors in Magic cards, each representing elements…I told you, it’s nerd stuff) but the decks can be completely different when played. Magic is also highly interactive, because each player needs to be able to play cards on his or her turn and often be able to stop the opponents on their turns with special "Counterspell" cards. As Crawford describes with the traditional card games bridge and poker, there is also deception, cooperation, lots of strategy, as well as trying to interpret what the opponent will do.

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