Read Online Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who by David M. Ewalt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David M. Ewalt
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were inevitably all-male; while the mainstreaming of the pastime broadened the player base enough so that teens might face off against crusty World War II vets, women were still nowhere to be seen. This likely had as much to do with the hobby’s martial subject matter as it did with the bellicose tone of the gatherings: Players would spend hours arguing about rules and fighting over results. (It also probably had something to do with the presence of certain nerdy, poorly socialized males—there is good reason why a group of gamers has come to be known as a “stink.”)
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One of the largest war-gaming groups in the U.S. was the Midwest Military Simulation Association, based in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. Founded in 1964 by a small group of amateur historians, miniature modelers, and gamers, it grew quickly as war games became more popular. Before long, the meetings were crowded and increasingly contentious, as the old problem of bickering over rules reared its head.
A solution was found in the form of an eighty-year-old army training manual, Strategos: A Series of American Games of War, published in 1880 by Charles A. L. Totten, a lieutenant in the Fourth United States Artillery. Dave Wesely, an undergraduate physics student at Saint Paul’s Hamline University, unearthed the book in the University of Minnesota library and rediscovered the centuries-old idea of an all-powerful referee. It quickly became standard practice.
By 1967, the association had about sixty members and had grown so big that it fractured. Wesely and the rest of the young war-gamer crowd coalesced around the home of David Arneson, a University of Minnesota student. They’d meet several times a week to play out traditional Kriegsspiel-style Napoleonic battles and board games including Avalon Hill’s Gettysburg, Parker Brothers’ war game Conflict, Milton Bradley’s Cold War–simulator Summit, and a French game called La Conquête du Monde, or “The Conquest of the World,” known in the U.S. as Risk.
In the fall, Wesely left the Twin Cities to attend graduate school in Kansas. Away from his gaming friends, he had months to plan something memorable for his return home over winter break. What he came up with was the first modern role-playing game.
The scenario was set during the Napoleonic Wars, in the fictional town of Braunstein, Germany, surrounded by opposing armies. But Wesely didn’t put the armies on the board. Instead, he assigned each player an individual character to control within the scenario. Someplayers controlled military officers visiting town. Others took nonmilitary roles, like the town’s mayor, school chancellor, or banker. Wesely then gave each player their own unique objective, forcing them to consider motivations for their actions and to think beyond battlefield strategy.
The game quickly spun out of control. Players wanted to do things Wesely hadn’t planned for, like duel each other, so he had to make up rules on the spot. They also wandered away from the table in small groups to hold secret negotiations—a supposedly all-powerful referee’s nightmare. Wesely returned to school thinking the game had flopped.
But the players felt otherwise. Before long, they were begging Wesely for “another Braunstein.” He obliged by designing new scenarios, like one set in 1919 amid the Russian Civil War. Another explored a Latin American dictatorship through the eyes of student revolutionaries, secret policemen, and corrupt government functionaries.
Wesely’s friend David Megarry was one of the players in the second “Braunstein” game, set in the fictional country of Piedras Morenas. “It was sort of a banana republic,” Megarry says. “I was a revolutionary and trying to blow up something.” The players were intrigued by the freedom of the game and excited for the opportunity to play more. “It was a new dimension,” he says. “It was really quite electrifying.”
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David Wesely’s innovations—using a
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One of the largest war-gaming groups in the U.S. was the Midwest Military Simulation Association, based in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. Founded in 1964 by a small group of amateur historians, miniature modelers, and gamers, it grew quickly as war games became more popular. Before long, the meetings were crowded and increasingly contentious, as the old problem of bickering over rules reared its head.
A solution was found in the form of an eighty-year-old army training manual, Strategos: A Series of American Games of War, published in 1880 by Charles A. L. Totten, a lieutenant in the Fourth United States Artillery. Dave Wesely, an undergraduate physics student at Saint Paul’s Hamline University, unearthed the book in the University of Minnesota library and rediscovered the centuries-old idea of an all-powerful referee. It quickly became standard practice.
By 1967, the association had about sixty members and had grown so big that it fractured. Wesely and the rest of the young war-gamer crowd coalesced around the home of David Arneson, a University of Minnesota student. They’d meet several times a week to play out traditional Kriegsspiel-style Napoleonic battles and board games including Avalon Hill’s Gettysburg, Parker Brothers’ war game Conflict, Milton Bradley’s Cold War–simulator Summit, and a French game called La Conquête du Monde, or “The Conquest of the World,” known in the U.S. as Risk.
In the fall, Wesely left the Twin Cities to attend graduate school in Kansas. Away from his gaming friends, he had months to plan something memorable for his return home over winter break. What he came up with was the first modern role-playing game.
The scenario was set during the Napoleonic Wars, in the fictional town of Braunstein, Germany, surrounded by opposing armies. But Wesely didn’t put the armies on the board. Instead, he assigned each player an individual character to control within the scenario. Someplayers controlled military officers visiting town. Others took nonmilitary roles, like the town’s mayor, school chancellor, or banker. Wesely then gave each player their own unique objective, forcing them to consider motivations for their actions and to think beyond battlefield strategy.
The game quickly spun out of control. Players wanted to do things Wesely hadn’t planned for, like duel each other, so he had to make up rules on the spot. They also wandered away from the table in small groups to hold secret negotiations—a supposedly all-powerful referee’s nightmare. Wesely returned to school thinking the game had flopped.
But the players felt otherwise. Before long, they were begging Wesely for “another Braunstein.” He obliged by designing new scenarios, like one set in 1919 amid the Russian Civil War. Another explored a Latin American dictatorship through the eyes of student revolutionaries, secret policemen, and corrupt government functionaries.
Wesely’s friend David Megarry was one of the players in the second “Braunstein” game, set in the fictional country of Piedras Morenas. “It was sort of a banana republic,” Megarry says. “I was a revolutionary and trying to blow up something.” The players were intrigued by the freedom of the game and excited for the opportunity to play more. “It was a new dimension,” he says. “It was really quite electrifying.”
----
David Wesely’s innovations—using a
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