As my gaming friends know, I have been roleplaying for something like 30 or more years. The roots of my hobby have been documented elsewhere, but over the past two or three years I have been revisiting those roots. It began with a trip into the Red Box of Dungeons & Dragons (1981) and led to my discovery of Classic Fantasy.
This past couple of weeks has been intense, challenging me mentally and physically in a number of ways.
The prime means of my recovery has been to rest at home and read. I’ve not been actively gaming, having had to cry-off sessions to instead spend time at home and to sleep. These two weeks have proven illuminating and engaging in ways I did not expect.
Back to 1974…
In the summer, following a comment to my post, “Hargrave’s Old School“, I followed up on ironface’s recommendation that I get hold of David Hargrave’s contributions to Alarums & Excursions. Having done so, I decided to expand upon that collection (which begins at Issue #22) by getting the first 21 issues too. This took me back to June 1975, near to the birth of the Dungeons & Dragons phenomenon, and proved fascinating.
Following this initial foray into the origins of the hobby, a journey aimed at trying to uncover the roots of roleplaying that necessarily came before I was able to read, I undertook two further journeys.
Around six weeks ago, just at the tail-end of the summer holiday from school, I printed off and re-read the original Dungeons & Dragons game. I’ve owned it ever since Wizards of the Coast released it to the DM’s Guild, but I’d not taken much time to read it.
This week I began to read the seminal text on the origins of Dungeons & Dragons by Jon Peterson, “Playing At The World“, which explores the influences upon the game’s designers and seeks to account for the development of this new form of wargaming. Although it’s a more scholarly text, filled with analysis and referencing sources that lead to the 1974 edition of Dungeons & Dragons, it’s no less fascinating for a curious fellow like me. As of today, I am part way through this book and devouring it as time and energy allow.
Altogether, given that I have read several other texts outlining the history of the hobby and of Gygax specifically, it suddenly struck me that I have begun to uncover the roots of my hobby. What I have found is drawing me into a desire to recover the spirit of the game as an antidote to the mechanical fascinations that have plagued me for years.
What I Have Found…
I’m not really sure I can most fully recount, or indeed have even begun to fully process, the learning that I am experiencing… but there are a couple of streams of thought that I want to suggest are worthy of attention.
Dungeons & Dragons arose from the wargaming community but spread into the public consciousness within a remarkably short period of time. By 1977, when Holmes codified Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, the hobby was reaching shores far from Lake Geneva and drawing commentary from a global audience. If the conversations in Alarums & Excursions are representative of the era, this was a phenomenon that inspired great creativity and controversy alike. It was evolving far faster that the authors could have truly appreciated, morphing and generating games based upon that original design from its inception. It was never a static and fixed set of rules.
The original game presupposed that the Dungeon Master who organised each game would bring their own extensions to the table. Easiest to add would be new monsters and spells. This is exactly what happened… and more than just those two things. The hobby evolved through a misunderstanding of the original intent of the rules, and in many cases the specific application of those systems, combined with a desire to improve upon the things that people disliked. Alarums & Excursions recounts dozens of suggestions for improvements, new character classes, new spells, new monsters, and criticisms of the play styles of other groups. Each Dungeon Master brought their own ideas to the table, as was intended.
For me, the practical upshot is the realisation that (whatever game system you use) the roleplaying hobby we have been sold for the past forty years is simply the repackaging of different takes on the core idea. In other words, each new game system is another iteration of the original core design – one or more person’s own attempt to improve on the original.
On top of this, the idea that you should play in one or another person’s game setting, whether inspired whole-cloth from wider adventure story media (to improve profits from said intellectual property) OR spun from the mind of a creator designing for their own amusement, is simply an embellishment of the process which began with Arneson’s Blackmoor being re-imagined by Gygax in his own campaign of Greyhawk.
I have internalised the basic idea. Heck, I’ve been playing in that mould for three-quarters of my life! What is necessary for me is that I embrace the process of creation, appropriation, and modification that has lain at the roots of this hobby the whole time.
I want to crib those ideas that interest and amuse me, bringing them to my own campaign. I seek to recover the spirit of adventure and free-thinking that clearly characterised the pre-commercial early years of the hobby. It’s time to enjoy the game instead of worrying about whether or not it’s “right” or “correct” by someone else’s standards.
I am Dungeon Master. Mine is the decision of what to offer the players who sit at my table.
Game on!
Bravo Che! Bravo!