Why did Dungeons and Dragons styled tabletop roleplaying take until the 1970s to invent? I know they had tabletop wargames before that as far back as the 17th century, but what was so hard about making the next step to personalized characters going on adventures with stats? Die, paper, pens/pencils, figures, etc are all cheap to manufacture. Minor nobility or even knights would have access to all they needed, they could even store stats on a chiseled piece of rock, stack counters as a record, or use an abacus if they were really broke. They had wargaming with figurines way back stretching centuries, but they lacked the imagination to take it a step further with a full adventure?Is it really an egg of Columbus situation where it's so intuitively obvious when discovered, but hard to actually discover? Or was it just sheer bad luck in that it remained undiscovered for so long?
>>96627640why wasn't literally everything invented immediately in year 0
Why didn't someone write Lord of the Rings during the Middle Ages?
>>96627702>>96627706It's a fair thing to speculate on you dismissive homos. Was there some inhibiting factor that prevented it from being invented, when you could pretty much play it with ancient Egyptian levels of technology? Or was it just sheer (bad) luck that nobody invented this sort of tabletop roleplay gaming for thousands of years?
>>96627721back then they used to roll in mud for recreatingit was a different time
>>96627640The original D&D was sold as a wargame supplement. Its predecessor Braustein (and Arneson's fantasy variant called Blackmoor) was, as its players understood it at the time, a type of wargame. They had a feeling of what they were playing, but they didn't have the term "role playing game" to describe it yet.Strangely, the wargame rules circa the 17th century being interpreted by wargaming enthusiasts in the 1970's was what gave rise to Dungeons and Dragons styled tabletop roleplaying.I know there was something resembling what we understand to be a role playing game from 11th century Norman England. It was an educational tool to teach young nobles courtly etiquette. It didn't really catch on, though.
>>96627721I agree OP, it is quite odd how limiting a lot of board games were in ye-olden-days despite the fact that they 1) had the technology for it from the moment writing existed and 2) was entirely able to be done from word of mouth theoretically.It is odd that "game where people pretend to be something they aren't, with randomness to help influence what will happen, lead by one person who generally directs the events" is thousands of years from when it was created.At least with bikes a lot of the materials were shithouse at the time, even if the mechansms for a bike were all individually understood.I think there *is* a game written as if it was created in an alternate 1600s though - can't remember the name sadly.
>>96627640Actually we have evidence of roleplaying games (maybe not with dice but definitely roles and such) going back hundreds of years, back to at least Norman England.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwFU9Xjzork
>>96627752>>96627762I posted about it on /int/ and bullied the Co-pilot AI for a reason. The AI talked about the influence of Tolkien and other fantasy writers during the time, but that's a pretty shit reason, the Romantic movement of the 19th century was just as hard on the medieval romance.Only one answer the AI gave seemed likely, the high amount of people holding systemizing and cognitive jobs involving mathematics. Cognitive roles involving mathematics had exploded due to the computer science boom, electrical engineering boom and aerospace boom. Like those years from 1945-1990 are what lead to such massive cognitive sorting that feed into class differences. With nerds becoming $200,000 codegarchs writing trading algorithms in between gay furry erotica roleplaying while wearing programming socks, instead of being the eccentric porter at the local hotel who collects beetles in his free time like he was in ye olden times. Advanced Mathematics wasn't even regarded as a valuable skill in the 1910s. I have mathematics books on my bookshelf from that era where, in the introduction, the author struggles to justify why you should care. It was like "show off proofs to your friends!". It had about as much relevancy as poetry.Having a significant amount of people systemizing like that, working with numbers all day, increases the likelihood of creating a tabletop system with systemized numbers and stats for traits I guess.Also the fact it fed right into video game RPGs within the space of what, three years? Colossal cave adventure came out in 1976, many of the early computer networks were utilized for MUDs and tabletop gaming. Tabletop gaming predated computer RPGs by a few years and was instantly transplanted over, perhaps that's not much of a coincidence.
>>96627706People were too busy fighting dark lords and dragons.
>>96627640Roleplaying games existed everywhere in the world for thousands of years. What was missing to create modern RPGs was 1) wargaming communities (providing a precedent and foundation for rigid dice based rules) who were also heavily invested in...2) modern (19th century) fantasy like LOTR, conan, moorcock, grey mouser, ect. You could easily make a D&D-like game in the 1600s, its just that your inspirational works are the bible, greek myths, chivalric fantasy, courtly romances, beowulf, and so on, since pulp fantasy hadnt been invented yet (no printing press) and tolkien hadnt invented his whole deal, and the enlightenment hadnt happened. Same for a game as far back as the romans or egyptians, the hard part is just finding an audience for it when you have to hand-write every page of every rulebook you publish, and most people who speak the language you publish in wont be able to read it
>>96627640There's a very likely chance it was invented much earlier but simply had been lost to the shadows of history until it was "invented" again.Think on how much technology, literature, art and music has been lost due to a lack of documentation, the march of time, carelessness or plain old misfortune? The Antikythera mechanism is one such example. Who would have thought Romans/Greeks had access to complex devices like analog computers? It would have been unthinkable until it's discovery at the beginning of the 20 century.I feel like you can visualise humanity as akin to attempting to climb upward through a mudslide, making progress but constantly sliding backward and having to refind itself.
>>96627640its called FantasyAdventureGaming,not roleplaying, fag!
>>96627640Because roleplaying is gay and gayness wasn't accepted enough until the 70s.
>>96627721>>96627640The point of early wargaming was the simulationist aspect. It was valuable as a way to predict how things would go in real life if you ever found yourself leading an army.Wanting to play as a wizard exploring a cave full of treasure just didn't have any practical goal beyond having fun, so nobody thought about it until Arneson.
>>96627640D&D comes from the Wargame tradition. It was basically: Hey! What if we run a small squad of soldiers (adventurers) rather than you giving orders millions of them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDCQspQDchIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDCQspQDchIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADzOGFcOzUE
>>96627721>>96628138The most compelling argument for why RPGs and other fiction like LoTR was not invented before is because our own era is so particularly unfulfilling that it drives us to different worlds where we can have fun and empower ourselves to do stuff.
>>96627640Early wargaming was all about teaching to direct armies. Also, the tradition of dickass GMs misinterpreting your intentions come from that era, to punish officers-in-training for not giving clear orders.
>>96627640Believe it or not. While ancient civilizations certainly had cartography (map-making), the use of detailed, to-scale battlefield maps for tactical planning during a battle, as we understand them today, was not a common or well-documented practice in antiquity. In ancient times (like Greece and Rome), maps were primarily for large-scale logistics (e.g., Roman road networks) and regional strategy. Generals relied on mental maps, local guides, and personally visiting the battlefield. Battle plans were often relatively simple and conveyed verbally. The success of maneuvers depended more on the discipline, training, and unit cohesion of the soldiers, and the commander's ability to react to the unfolding situation, rather than on a detailed "top-down" map overview.The widespread military use of maps accelerated with the Renaissance and the development of modern surveying. The invention of the printing press and advances in surveying led to more accurate maps. By the Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815), detailed topographic maps became standard for planning battles. This marked the widespread use of battlefield maps as we understand them today.
>>96627640As others have mentioned - Roleplaying games became a thing thanks to XIX-XX century wargaming and fantasy stories. One provided rigid base for mechanical gameplay, the other provided the general concept of adventuring and party-based interactions.You had pen, papers and miniatures for millennia, but the concepts that met and connected into roleplaying games just did not existed yet in shape and form needed for it.
>>96628141having pulp style adventures for inspiration is a big factor i think
LiteracyPeople didn't write a lot of things they found fun because they didn't know it even was an option, and without a corpus of books people probably ended up running circles around the things they could see.Beyond that it obviously existed, it's called playing pretend. Children do it on their own, it's a pretty instinctive thing to do. Pretend with rng hinged on mechanics and a structure that even now you have to explain to people even though videogames exist around us, expecting people with no access to paper to spread this is absurd.
>>96627640People have been roleplayed since forever. What do you think theater is?
>>96630927>By the Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815), detailed topographic maps became standard for planning battles. This marked the widespread use of battlefield maps as we understand them today.it was also a boom (lol) in artillery and the math aroud it, which meant developing industry and its logistics and so on. Technological developments tend to snowball and accelerate.
The Victorian age is sometimes considered the "Golden Age" of the parlour game. During the 19th century, the upper and middle classes had more leisure time than people of previous generations. This led to the creation of a variety of parlour games to allow these gentlemen and ladies to amuse themselves at small parties. Boxed parlour games were very popular from around 1920 until into the 1960s, especially around Christmas. Mock trials, charades, and role-assumption games became popular social entertainments.
>>96627640Insane Christians would have pushed back.
>>96627640By the 1960s, miniature wargamers had already begun experimenting with storytelling and character-driven play. Dave Wesley’s Braunstein games let players control individual characters (like a mayor, spy, or revolutionary leader) rather than entire armies. This was a direct precursor to D&D.Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign (early 1970s) expanded Braunstein ideas into a fantasy setting with continuing characters — the direct prototype of role-playing games.By the time Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson released Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, roleplay already had a deep lineage. What D&D did was combine them into a codified, rules-based system for collaborative fantasy storytelling.
>>96627640>Die, paper, pens/pencils, figures, etc are all cheap to manufacture.Nope. That's very new. Same with immediate delivery.
The Royal Game of Ur is considered the oldest playable boardgame in the world, with well-defined game's rules. It's 4000 years old at least.
>>96630822buy an ad, faggot
>>96631249the rules are not well defined, they dont even exist, fucktard
>>96631193>collaborative storytelling
>>96631754dice can tell a story too, reactionary fuckwit
>>96631754Gary was an infamous bullshitter who said whatever he thought sounded the coolest or made him look smart in the moment. The fact that they released campaign books and adventure modules contradicts this "no storytelling" shit that fake grogs love to parade around because they're too retarded to understand words that can have numerous contextual meanings.
>>96631858>person says thing>schizo says "well thats not what he *meant*!"
>>96627640I think that TTRPGs are just an adult variation of children live role-playing, dolls, and toy soldiers. I think what changed is that adults of developed countries get the luxury of playing as children do once again.
>>96631907>guys says "games should be played a specific way">same guy sells products for decades that directly contradict his stated beliefs about how to play games>point this out>this makes (You) upset for some reason
>>96627752>I know there was something resembling what we understand to be a role playing game from 11th century Norman England.There were a few, ackshully. And many of them are a lot older than the 11th century.>It was an educational tool to teach young nobles courtly etiquette.There were some that did that, and others that were just a level if separation to let nobles swing without social stigma.>It didn't really catch on, though.Lol, no. Exiting in one form or another from the 700s to the 1500s means it really caught on.
>>96632015Ah, the schizo has arrived. Time to abandon this thread.
>>96631987so he sold out his beliefs for money, pretty much everyone does that. Doesnt mean he neither said nor meant the aforementioned quotation
Have you ever played the original D&D? It's unplayable without house rules. In fact, it is more fair to say that everybody was making his own house D&D because of how bare it is. The original three "Little Brown Books" (1974) were quite spare and assumed a lot of prior knowledge from miniature wargaming, often requiring a Dungeon Master (DM) to fill in the blanks with their own interpretations or "house rules."The ambiguity and missing mechanics in OD&D led to a massive variety of homemade rulesets across different gaming groups, giving rise to the idea that everyone was playing their own version.Gary resented this idea. He felt like people were making money off the back of his work and so AD&D was an attempt to close the loop so to speak. The reason ad and has so many insanely detailed rules about everything you can image is because Gary wanted to make a game with no space left for any competing future products. Which is funny because AD&D needs a lot of house rules due to its sheer complexity, occasional contradictions, and its often cumbersome mechanics.
>>96632166do you have fun examples of missing stuff you had to make up?
>>96627640>>96627762>>96628141I remember seeing recently that there was a sort of medieval version of a roleplaying game, where everyone would draw lots from a poem or story, and then act out the lines of their respective characters. You'd also have stuff like a theater troupe or court entertainers, who would do a sort of improvisation version. I'm sure more than one of those had to whip up a story of a knight slaying a dragon on the fly in order to please a noble. Although that was to make a living, rather than a pure hobby. The logical leap would be deciding that, instead of simply improvising whatever feels right, that the results should be left up to chance or done alongside a game of chess.
>>96632197>>96632166*cricket noises*
>>96632197>>96632310Every single weapon in the game deals 1d6 so there's literally no difference between a dagger and a handaxe.
>>96632345Ok?
>>96632197For starters: The rules don’t tell you what a session actually is. Are you wargaming? Roleplaying? Exploring hexes?There are no shortage of rules with imposing pages of charts and exposition. The books illustrate how to generate characters and underworlds, and how to dice against tables, to derive Random Encounters, but they provide strikingly little instruction on how to integrate those activities into the moment to moment play of a game.The original D&D rules do not instruct players to take turns. The game retains the word "turn" but defines it solely as a measure of time for deriving movement rates and similar calculations. There was an absence of turn sequences. It was not at all obvious from pouring through the books what the participants in a D&D game actually were supposed to do.The original game in 1974 was incomplete. The folks who designed it were using Chainmail for combat, outdoor survival from Outdoor Survival from Avalon Hill. Nobody outside Wisconsin had those. There’s no universal initiative mechanic written down in 1974 OD&D. Groups often flipped coins, rolled a d6 for “side initiative,” or cobbled together Dexterity-based systems.There were also no skills. The books give you attack matrices and saving throws, but no unified skill or task resolution system. Want to pick a lock? Convince an NPC? Jump a pit? There’s nothing in the rules.The equipment list has swords, axes, spears, etc., but all weapons in the core rules do 1d6 damage. Want a halberd vs. dagger distinction? You had to make it up.People even had debates about if players should be allowed to roll or allowed to know the rules at all to make it more "immersive."
>>96632375>For starters: The rules don’t tell you what a session actually is."The rules don't define every single word in them, how am I supposed to play???">but they provide strikingly little instruction on how to integrate those activities into the moment to moment play of a game."The rules don't describe step by step every single thing I should do when making an adventure, this is UNPLAYABLE!">It was not at all obvious from pouring through the books what the participants in a D&D game actually were supposed to do."How do I play the game if it doesn't tell me every single thing I can do and the exact times I can do it??? this is so busted"
>>96632375
>>96632398The Original D&D are notoriously brief and reference Chainmail (another wargame) frequently, leading to the perception that the turn sequence (and other detailed combat rules) were missing unless you owned the wargame.For players who did not use Chainmail, the OD&D booklets offered an "Alternative Combat System" which was simpler and used a Combat Table based on Armor Class and the attacker's level or Hit Dice. This alternative system, however, largely skipped the detailed turn sequence, movement rules, and weapon class comparisons found in Chainmail, often leaving the minute-to-minute flow of combat up to the Dungeon Master's (DM's) adjudication.
>>96632442>often leaving the minute-to-minute flow of combat up to the Dungeon Master's (DM's) adjudication.Sounds pretty playable to me. Ahead of its time, even.
>>96630756>Because roleplaying is gay more of a reason for it to have been invented in Ancient Greece.Come on, some of those myths even sound like RPG campaigns (like the Odyssey, the Argonautica, or many of Heracles' adventures).
>>96631796So can pencil-pushing at a 9 to 5 job, but they're usually equally drab without gameplay aspects.
>>96632479dice aren't, you lose.
>>96632487They are if their sole purpose is storytelling, Gygax wins.
>>96632500>They areNope.
>>96632398Here's the thing. There was no old guard. They have no precedent to rely on. Early D&D treated even player participation in die rolls as a matter of the DM discretion. Some dungeon master types prefer to do all the die rolling, providing a narrative for the players, others let the players roll their own attacks. However, this lead to situation where the same encounter could be deadly for some groups under some GM, while solvable for others. If you allow the players to roll, the players at least know that even if they roll high and miss, it is probably because they are facing a hard challenge. If your GM rolls for you, and hides the dice, there are few hints if it is because you are facing a challenging encounter or it is just back luck.
>>96632505Yep
>>96627702
>>96632512>I need someone to walk me through every single step of how to play!See >>96632427
>>96630846
>>96627702War created civilization.
>>96632398why would I chose to play a new game that doesn't tell me what to do? Monopoly and Clue tell me what to do, your game is shit.We're discussing design failures in a prototype, no need to be defensive about something that changed. No one though this was the final ideal version
>>96632527that's not the postIt was a post about how exclusive DM rolling made getting information about the world harder than intended. You're replying to some hallucination you had, please take your medications and meanwhile lurk more.
>>96632551>>96632543Nogames spotted.
>>96632427As much as I love the comics and anon is rambling incoherent bullshit, here is a thing:If you tried to put someone to TTRPG and they were outside the target bubble, they literally have nothing to grasp at, and the rules of the game are unlikely to explain anything at fucking all - right down that this is a game of pretendI know, because I run for newfags as a side gig to my job at a library. The whole idea by default was to cater to people that are outside the bubble. And before I picked that gig, I decided to do a simple test - I had the entire pep talk ready, all the handy explanations and what not, rehearsed and with props needed to play, basically doing a test-run...... on my retired mother. She had no prior exposure, no idea what the hobby is about, I deliberately had a rule light game to not get bogged down and everything was as idiot- and newfag-friendly as it could be, clocked for exactly 45 minutes (I did it in 42, but that's because there was nobody else in the audience to answer the questions I had to players)And it was at 39th minute she finally connected the dots - that spark in the eyes when someone finally get something totally alien - that it's a form of entertainment where people play pretend and roll dice39 minut of careful pep talk explaining the concept to someone who never played, for them to get "ooo, so it's just people telling story together".Explaining her board games takes about 3 to 10 minutes, depending on how esoteric the goal. She taught me classic card gamesAnd most people who always try to defend terribly written rulebooks are all "oh, you can figure it out on your own". Maybe. Probably. But the point isn't if you should be able to figure it out yourself, but how an overwhelming majority of books don't actually explain how to play this stuff, and the few that do, do it terribly. The entire hobby relies on the fact it's "obvious" how it is played and people "know" that"And it works as long as you operate in a bubble
>>96632567Deliberately missing the point spotted
>>96627706Arthurian Romance was popular for centuries, during a point where the average person could understand and play something like this. Same period having had board games, card games, things that required math and arithmetic, as well as other games like Chess existing.They had 'fantasy' with Arthurian tales and similar stories. There absolutely was the imagination and captivation that inspired the fantasy literature that made up DND's bedrock. It was definitely there.
>>96632620Card games didn't became a thing until mid-16th century. You need quality print and quality paper for those to work, which means you gonna wait until both mature and cheapen out enough.So close, but no cigars
>>96632620I'll riddle you this:Why imagining you are going to an invented place, when you can readily recruit yourself to go into far away places, potentially to loot treasures? And many of those places being literal blank space on maps.
