Read Online Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who by David M. Ewalt - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David M. Ewalt
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ten. Somehow, my troops not only avoided destruction but also took no casualties. My infantry was immune to bullets.
Game master Tom leaned across the table and smiled. “What’s the difference between a fairy tale and a war story?” he asked. “A fairy tale begins ‘Once upon a time,’ and a war story begins ‘No shit, this really happened.’ ”
The victory was short-lived. When our game hit the four-hour time limit, the French army held three out of five towns on the map. Napoleon took the day.
I thanked the game masters and left the table, the ballroom, and the conference center. I traced a march column across the parking lot, unlimbered my car, and sent two hundred horses down the left flankof the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Four hours of little war was enough for the weekend—or for a lifetime, really.
Historical-miniatures battles aren’t for me. It’s not just that there are too many rules—I can handle rules; I love rules. It’s that these rules are too complicated, and they’re the absolute focus of the game; it’s not about telling a story and having an adventure but about accurate simulation. For me, at least, historical-miniatures war games have too much regimentation and not enough imagination.
It’s interesting, but it’s no Dungeons & Dragons.
----
1 . But not extinct: Apple Computer founderSteve Jobs was a Kriegsspiel fan; in the early days of the company, he’d play games with engineer Daniel Kottke, sometimes while they were both tripping on LSD.
2 . “This creature seems to be a cross between a stunningly attractive human and a sleek lion. It looks human from the waist up, with the body of a lion below that.” Monster Manual, page 165.
4
DRUIDS WITH PHASER GUNS
R idiculously complicated rules and hand-painted miniatures are not a recipe for success. Despite H. G. Wells’s efforts to take war games mainstream, the hobby remained obscure into the mid-twentieth century. The general public proved more interested in simple, self-contained board games like Monopoly, which debuted in the 1930s, and Scrabble, first published in 1948. Kriegsspiel and its brethren continued to have their fans, but they were few in number, almost exclusively older men, and usually veterans who wanted to relive a bit of the thrill of the world wars.
In 1952 someone finally figured out how to make war into a family pastime. By the age of twenty-two, Charles Roberts had already worked at two newspapers, completed a four-year stint in the army, and then enlisted in the Maryland National Guard. Hoping to be assigned to combat duty in Korea, he decided to study up on military strategy. “To be conversant with the Principles of War is to a soldier what the Bible is to a clergyman,” Roberts wrote in a 1983 article. “The Bible, however, may be readily perused . . . wars are somewhat harder to come by. Thus I decided that I would practice war on aboard as well as the training field . . . Since there were no such war games available, I had to design my own.”
Roberts’s game, Tactics, used the tools of mass-market board games to simulate war. It had a simple preprinted board with a hand-drawn map; it used cardboard chits to represent units, instead of metal miniatures; and it did away with all historical baggage, imagining a hypothetical conflict between two imaginary countries.
In 1954, “almost as a lark,” Roberts decided to manufacture and sell the game to the public. It sold only two thousand copies in the next five years, but Roberts saw an untapped market for adult board games and pressed on. In 1958, he designed and published Gettysburg, which simulated the American Civil War battle; it was a hit, and by 1962 Roberts’s Avalon Hill game company was the fourth-largest producer of board games in the United States.
Around the country, small groups began to coalesce in community centers, hobby stores, and private homes for weekly sessions of Gettysburg and other war games. These gatherings
Game master Tom leaned across the table and smiled. “What’s the difference between a fairy tale and a war story?” he asked. “A fairy tale begins ‘Once upon a time,’ and a war story begins ‘No shit, this really happened.’ ”
The victory was short-lived. When our game hit the four-hour time limit, the French army held three out of five towns on the map. Napoleon took the day.
I thanked the game masters and left the table, the ballroom, and the conference center. I traced a march column across the parking lot, unlimbered my car, and sent two hundred horses down the left flankof the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Four hours of little war was enough for the weekend—or for a lifetime, really.
Historical-miniatures battles aren’t for me. It’s not just that there are too many rules—I can handle rules; I love rules. It’s that these rules are too complicated, and they’re the absolute focus of the game; it’s not about telling a story and having an adventure but about accurate simulation. For me, at least, historical-miniatures war games have too much regimentation and not enough imagination.
It’s interesting, but it’s no Dungeons & Dragons.
----
1 . But not extinct: Apple Computer founderSteve Jobs was a Kriegsspiel fan; in the early days of the company, he’d play games with engineer Daniel Kottke, sometimes while they were both tripping on LSD.
2 . “This creature seems to be a cross between a stunningly attractive human and a sleek lion. It looks human from the waist up, with the body of a lion below that.” Monster Manual, page 165.
4
DRUIDS WITH PHASER GUNS
R idiculously complicated rules and hand-painted miniatures are not a recipe for success. Despite H. G. Wells’s efforts to take war games mainstream, the hobby remained obscure into the mid-twentieth century. The general public proved more interested in simple, self-contained board games like Monopoly, which debuted in the 1930s, and Scrabble, first published in 1948. Kriegsspiel and its brethren continued to have their fans, but they were few in number, almost exclusively older men, and usually veterans who wanted to relive a bit of the thrill of the world wars.
In 1952 someone finally figured out how to make war into a family pastime. By the age of twenty-two, Charles Roberts had already worked at two newspapers, completed a four-year stint in the army, and then enlisted in the Maryland National Guard. Hoping to be assigned to combat duty in Korea, he decided to study up on military strategy. “To be conversant with the Principles of War is to a soldier what the Bible is to a clergyman,” Roberts wrote in a 1983 article. “The Bible, however, may be readily perused . . . wars are somewhat harder to come by. Thus I decided that I would practice war on aboard as well as the training field . . . Since there were no such war games available, I had to design my own.”
Roberts’s game, Tactics, used the tools of mass-market board games to simulate war. It had a simple preprinted board with a hand-drawn map; it used cardboard chits to represent units, instead of metal miniatures; and it did away with all historical baggage, imagining a hypothetical conflict between two imaginary countries.
In 1954, “almost as a lark,” Roberts decided to manufacture and sell the game to the public. It sold only two thousand copies in the next five years, but Roberts saw an untapped market for adult board games and pressed on. In 1958, he designed and published Gettysburg, which simulated the American Civil War battle; it was a hit, and by 1962 Roberts’s Avalon Hill game company was the fourth-largest producer of board games in the United States.
Around the country, small groups began to coalesce in community centers, hobby stores, and private homes for weekly sessions of Gettysburg and other war games. These gatherings
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