T his is the first part of a four part series that will outline the history of the fantasy role- playing game hobby. In this brief history, I hope to cover the major milestones in the hobby, as well as provide some context for understanding how it developed. While it would be nice to write a comprehensive history, that would take up a great deal of room. Therefore, my primary focus is on role- playing games, specifically. I will mention other sorts of gaming and related sub-cultures, but only insofar as they relate to the FRP hobby itself. My purpose in writing this history is twofold: to illustrate the trends and influences that have helped shape the hobby, and secondly to provide some sense of how it all developed for those who have only recently been introduced to FRP. Let's begin with the historical antecedents of roleplaying. Wargames - strategy games - have existed for hundreds of years, going back to chess, fox and hounds, and other highly abstract forms of strategy game. But we tend to think of role-playing as being a relatively recent phenomenon; 1974 is often mentioned as the starting date for the hobby, with the publication of Dungeons & Dragons*. Does that make sense? No, not really. The first strategy game that attempted to realistically model conflict was the Kriegspiel, developed by a Prussian staff officer, von Reisswitz, in 1824. His game was developed from an earlier one used in the Napoleonic era, and quickly became a staple of training Prussian officers. In it, topographical maps and metal markers were used to represent terrain and troops, and dice were used to resolve combat. The practice of wargaming quickly spread to other countries' militaries, and officers learned how to direct their commands using these somewhat abstract models of conflict resolution. Historical Background of the Hobby The military interest in miniatures gaming eventually developed into a hobbyist interest, as well. Shortly after the turn of the century, H. G. Wells wrote a slim set of miniatures rules called Little Wars, published in 1913. It set out parameters for engaging in battles and resolving combat, using the miniatures available at the time, including "flats" as well as more threedimensional figurines. While not nearly as successful as his science fiction, Little Wars was the catalyst for the development and growth of the miniatures gaming hobby, in Britain and later in the United States, during the first decades of the 20th Century. In the 1930s, more developments took place. Fletcher Pratt, a Civil War historian and fantasy author, developed a set of n-des for naval engagements, known by the unimaginative title Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame (Pratt himself may have a different name for it, but the name given is how it is known today). Covering everything from effects of long-range gunfire to tracking torpedoes once launched, it became a staple part of the wargames hobby. Pratt was respected for his historical writing, and for his fantasy authorship, an interesting combination for that time. With L. Sprague de Camp, he wrote about the adventures of Harold Shea, a psychologist- turned-wizard in a variety of mythological and fantastic settings. These were later assembled into The Compleat Enchanter. Pratt also wrote two of the best fantasy novels of that period, The Blue Star (1952) and The Well of the Unicorn (1948). Pratt's circle of friends included other science fiction authors and fans, including Isaac Asimov, then a student at Columbia. This connection between science fiction and fantasy and the games hobby would continue all the way to the present day. In Great Britain, a professor who taught Old English, Saxon, and Old Norse completed a children's book published in 1938, called The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a member of the Inklings, a literary club which also included C. S. Lewis, and Tolkien moved onwards after this to write what became known as the Lord of the Rings, eventually completing it in the late '50's. Published in hardcover in 1954, the Lord of the Rings saw only modest critical interest, at least initially. But the elements to be found in it, including the conflict between good and evil in a fantastic world populated by elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, men, and others were to become an integral part of fantasy role-playing gaming. World War II had a profound effect on all sectors of American society: the pulp magazines of the 20s and 30s were virtually shut down due to paper shortages, and many later game designers found themselves in real combat. So it was not until the 50s, when Charles Roberts founded The Avalon-Hill Games Company, that there was a resurgence of interest in strategy games as a hobby. The games produced by Avalon-Hill, including Tactics II and Gettysburg, and some design elements pioneered by the company, including the Combat Results Table and the hexagonal grid system used on gameboard maps, would later affect the design of role-playing games. Some of these elements were significantly refined, and new ones added, by Simulation Publications, Inc., or SPI. Both companies produced magazines to go along with their game offerings, The General from Avalon-Hill, and Strategy & Tactics from SPI. Setting the Stage in the 1960s By the 60s, then, there was a well-developed miniatures hobby and a growing strategy game hobby. Both were very small in numbers and scale, but there were enough enthusiasts to have clubs in most major American cities, and a few conventions to help connect game players of all sorts. Parallel to this was the emergence of the science fiction genre in publishing, marked by the paperback publication of the Lord of the Ring in 1965. By a curious twist, the first paperback edition was not authorized by Prof. Tolkien or his publisher, which led to the publication of an authorized edition a year later. Immensely successful, the paperback edition went through several printings in short order, and alerted publishers to the popularity of science fiction and fantasy. Various "sword and sorcery" novels soon appeared, including works by Robert E. Howard about his barbarian hero, Conan of Cimmeria, as well as stories by authors such as Fritz Leiber and Poul Anderson, and many others. The influence of science fiction was not confined solely to the literature itself. Science fiction conventions and fandorn also had their effect. In many cases, wargamers were also science fiction fans, reading science fiction and fantasy, and some were instrumental in the formation of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), a group dedicated to the recreation of the Middle Ages as they should have been. The SCA was founded in 1966, as a result of a party hosted by Diana Paxson in Berkeley, CA. In addition to Poul Anderson, Steve Perrin and Steve Henderson were a part of the very earliest days of the SCA and the West Kingdom. Perrin and Henderson were later involved in the development of Runequest from Chaosium, Inc. By the end of the 60s, there were a considerable number of strategy game clubs around the country, with connections in some cases to science fiction fandom, others to the SCA, still others to the military, and yet others to historical recreation. Historical recreation had also blossomed, due in part to the interest around the centennial of the battle of Gettysburg. In general, these clubs and groups were made up of men, between the ages of 20 and 50, often with a higher than average number of military personnel, active, in the reserves, or retired. In Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, a group of gamers known as the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association had its home. Among its members were E. Gary Gygax, Donald Kaye, Brian Blume, Rob & Terry Kuntz, and others. Lake Geneva was the site of GenCon, which originated in 1968 as a small Midwestern convention with connections to the International Federation of Wargaming (IFW), of which Gary Gygax was an active member and founder of the Castle & Crusade Society (a sub-group of the IFW) The LGTSA was active in the play-testing of a set of medieval rniniatures rules called Chainmail, written by Jeff Perrin and Gary Gygax. Chainmail was initially published by a very small company, Guidon Games, which operated mostly on a shoestring, like most of the other small wargames companies of the time. What needs to noted was that Chainmail, after its first edition, included a fantasy supplement which laid out rules for elves and heroes, and dwarves, and wizards. These were interpreted as being essentially fantastic additions, functions somewhat like command figures and somewhat like mobile field artillery or shock units. In Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, another group of gamers existed, called the Midwest Military Simulation Association. Its members included David L. Arneson, Dave Wesley, Ken Fletcher, Dave Megarry, John and Richard Snider, and others. Dave Arneson had written a set of Napoleonic ship combat rules, Don't Give Up The Shipl also published by Guidon Games in 1971, which helped establish his relationship with Gary Gygax. It was this relationship that brought about the creation of fantasy role-playing as we know it today. A Brief History of Role Playing Games Part 1: RPGs to 1976 Introduction and Historical Background of the Hobby Of Brownsteins and Midgard, Diplomacy and the War of Empires Dungeons and Dragons? What's That? Entering the Second Year Back to Shadis #17 Table of Contents Back to Shadis List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines © Copyright 1995 by Alderac Entertainment Group This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com