I've been thinking about Roleplaying
games a lot lately. Possibly the recent fortieth anniversary of
Dungeons & Dragons and the associated articles have put in my
head. Ther';s a pleasing circularity to the relationship between
wargaming and role-playing. Role-playing was originally a development
of historical wargaming, that went on to inspire fantasy and science
fiction wargaming, which in turn have influenced historical
wargaming. There's probably a blog post in that. But this isn't it.
One thing that is striking, and easily
forgotten, about role-playing games, is that in the late 1970s and
early 1980s, they were a huge craze. In many ways this was very
unlikely. Consider what a roleplaying game actually requires. You
need a group of at least two, but preferably three or four, ideally
willing to regularly give up a good two or three hours of time
together. On top of that, the game places a hugely disproportionate
burden on one player, namely the games-master, dungeon-master,
referee or whatever else you want to call him or her.
As well as controlling all non-player
characters, describing the setting and keeping track of everything
that's going on. This player either has to read through adventure
books, in detail, possibly adapting them to suit the group, write
fresh adventures from scratch on a weekly basis or have the
improvisational skills to make it all up as they go along. Often,
this player is the only one that fully understands the rules. This a
hugely demanding role, requiring a combination of actor, accountant,
writer, editor, rules master and referee. Frankly, given the
requirements of the job (and it pretty much is a job), its amazing
that any role-playing groups were able to get off the ground. Let
alone that it became a craze.
There is another oddity about
role-playing games. The genre sells itself on the idea of complete
freedom. The players can be anything or go anywhere. And yet, so many
of them are built around the same basic template. The players roles
are a band of highly specialised and dedicated killers committing
acts of small-scale genocide against a variety of semi-humanoid
opponents in exchange for money that is mostly spent on equipment and
training to make them even more effective killers, set in the
backdrop of a world whose disaster management is so poor that in
times of crisis they have no choice but to recruit a band of freelance
troubleshooters. This is the essential template of most role-playing
games. The settings vary, fantasy of one sort or another is standard,
but the same basic template has been exported to science fiction, the
wild west, pulp adventure serials and even various periods in
history, albeit with a few liberties taken.
Of course this doesn't represent all
role-playing. There have been a number of games that have emphasised
other aspects of human experience and have reduced the emphasis on
violence. But the interesting thing about these games is that they
are taken as being reactions against the norm. And, weirdly, there
has recently been a sort of reaction against the reaction in the form
of the “old school renaissance” in which a number of games have
appeared that actively try to be more like “traditional”
role-playing games.
Part of the reason for this emphasis on
combat is the fact the RPGs grew out of wargaming. Obviously a game
genre that developed from wargaming is going to have an emphasis on
combat. But beyond this, it also develops out of a tradition of
confrontational gaming in which two, ostensibly, evenly-matched
players, attempt to defeat each other on the field of battle. RPGs
transfer that conflict to a similar, but slightly different context,
in which the group takes on the games-master. It's significant that
many early RPGs treat the player/game-master relationship as strictly
confrontational.
But, when you think about it, why
should that be the case? The concept of RPG's, a collection of
players taken through a scenario by a games-master, could have
developed from board games, experimental theatre, book groups or any
number of places. Why did it develop out of wargaming in the first
place?
I think part of the reason is the
demands placed on the games-master. Given the amount of work required
to be a good games-master, any reduction in the workload is going to
be helpful. The advantage of the simple confrontational setup, is
that it significantly reduces the amount of work that has to be put
into the scenario. Writing, adapting or improvising a complex plot
that can go in any direction is a lot more complicated than filling a
dungeon, cavern or evil Wizard's tower with monsters is a much
simpler task. And the players know what to expect and don't react
against the template. At least not in groups that actually work.
If seen from that point of view,
Role-playing games could only have grown out of wargaming. It's the
only setup that makes it practical.
And yet, by placing such an emphasis on
clearing monsters out of dungeons (or variations on that idea), RPGs
place an inherent limit on their central concept that leaves them
fatally exposed to their competition. I'm talking about computer and
video games. The kind of “do anything, go anywhere” that RPG's
could theoretically offer isn't anything that video games could
duplicate, even today and certainly not in the early 1980s. On the
other hand, populating a dungeon full of monsters is simple.
So the very limitation that allowed
RPGs to develop in the first place is the very thing that ensured
they would be overtaken by something that could do the same thing
just as well, but with less effort. Of course pen and paper RPGs have
continued to influence the development of computer RPGs to the point
where MMORPGS even replicate the need for groups of people to set
aside time to play together. But, by taking over the role of
games-master, they replace the most difficult part of the experience.
