The Breakthrough: Dungeons & Dragons
Wargaming with miniatures has remained a visible genre of gaming in its own right, particularly in the United Kingdom. However, in 1973, a small company known as Tactical Studies Rules published an “Adult Fantasy Role-Playing Game� based on a variant of the rules of Chainmail, one of their own medieval miniatures wargames. Assembled by Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons borrowed heavily from the formats and tables of contemporary wargaming, adding descriptive elements that alluded to the fantasy motifs established by J.R.R. Tolkien, which had gained popularity across college campuses in the 1960s. Known in gaming circles as simply “D&D,� the game moved away from realistic military strategy and focused on the activities of a small group of distinct individuals traversing dungeons designed by the umpire, who was elevated to the lofty title of “Dungeon Master�. D&D also emphasized an open-ended attitude that “offered no definitive way to win ,� a stark contrast with the typically goal-orientated trends of wargaming. In D&D, players were no longer nameless strategists directing the ebbs and flows of military forces on the theatre of battle; instead, they took on alternate personas that lived only on graph paper and “gained experience� by slaying subterranean monsters.
Despite its departure from these elements of wargaming, gaming audiences took to D&D’s innovations with enthusiasm. In 1979, evidence of D&D’s influence could be found in the new releases of pioneering computer roleplaying games such as Zork, Temple of Apshai, Akalabeth and the very first online Multi-User Dungeon (MUD). Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, also published in that year, has superseded D&D in prominence. Its copious rules, tables, clarifications and supplements has spawned an entire format of gaming literature and publishing that has outpaced wargaming in popularity and market sales in many developed countries.
Of particular note is the roleplaying game’s focus on the individual. Although players can opt to control multiple characters in the game, creating a single character extremely complex. Most players prefer to micro-manage and reuse a single character design. Over many sequential games, also known as “campaigns,� players form a personal attachment with their character, resulting in an interesting a player-character dichotomy. During a game, the player may be calculating numbers or crossing out checkboxes on a sheet of paper but the character is in a dank dungeon performing daring and dangerous deeds. Although this cognitive dissonance does not cripple game play (as evidenced by the bestselling nature of D&D and its kin), this tension is important for understanding the appeal of Live-Action Roleplaying.
Most wargamers never expect to find themselves in a position to control real troops unless they happen to be military personnel. In a roleplaying game, however, characters often perform tasks that the players could do perfectly well. The difference between two characters in an adventuring party talking to each other or two players chatting across a table is slight. If players need to imagine the environment that surrounds their characters in order to play a tabletop roleplaying game, it does not take much more effort to imagine that same environment surrounding the player. Even the issue of providing the right backdrop can be addressed by moving the game from an indoor table to a forest or a building basement. In fact, with enough space and planning, Dungeon Masters could use real spaces to represent the architecture of the game world, making issues between players such as line-of-sight and conversation as simple as whispering to somebody around a corner.
In 1979, a student from the University of Michigan disappeared and the press reported that he played “live D&D� in the university steam tunnels. Although investigations later showed that his disappearance had nothing to do with Dungeons & Dragons or roleplaying, Rona Jaffe published a work of fiction named “Mazes and Monsters� (later adapted into a film) in 1981 that developed this premise. This media attention, coupled with the proliferation of new roleplaying games in 1979, probably influenced the rapid appearance of a number of live-action roleplaying groups across the United States over the next five years.
