In
order to better understand the role-playing gamer subculture it is important
that we understand the origins of what primarily defines them as a culture,
namely the role-playing game. It is the
glue that holds the community together, although it’s forms and styles vary
from group to group and from person to person.
To touch every detail in the evolution of role-playing games would be a
work unto itself, so here I am only trying to give you a broad sense of the
history of its development.
It
is generally agreed that the precursors to role-playing games were the war
games and simulations. According to
Daniel Mackay, in his book, The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing
Art (2001), the earliest of the modern war games was created in 1811 by a
Prussian soldier and his father Herr von Reiswitz. This new game, called Kriegspiel, was used to train
Prussian officers and proved so successful that the English soon developed their
own version of the game. Opponents
moved markers, symbolic of different groups and types of soldiers, about a
representational battlefield, rolled dice and looked to a referee to decide the
victor of any given battle (the referee decided this through a complex set of
guidelines) (Mackay p. 13). For a
little more than a hundred years the war game remained a tool for the military
alone.
Mackay
says that by the turn of the century, the war game had started to make its way
into the leisure time activities of the middle class. “In 1915, H.G. Wells
adapted Kriegspiel into a game he designed for amateur gamers…[called] Little
Wars (p. 13).” War games no longer
need referees and became increasingly popular and increasingly more complicated
through the next fifty years (Mackay p. 13), but the end of the sixties brought
with it some radical alteration to war gaming that would lay the foundation for
role-playing games to make their appearance on the world stage.
What
might seem the most unlikely of places was the site of this revolution. In Minneapolis-St.Paul, 1968, Dave Wesely
altered the face of war gaming (Mackay p. 14).
According to Lawrence Schick in his book Heroic Worlds (1991),
Wesely introduced his friends to a style of war gaming different than they were
used to. Inspired by the eighty year
old war game called Strategos, Wesely re-introduced the referee, but
took the game one step further. In most
war games up to this time victory conditions were of the zero-sum, or the last
army standing wins, variety, but Wesely did away with that idea, creating
different objectives and conditions for victory. The game turned into a chaotic mess once it got started and
Wesely regarded his experiment as a failure, however his friends became
enamored with it and begged him to run another game along the same lines
(Schick p. 17). Eventually every game
the group played followed this model, with everyone taking a turn at refereeing
According
to Schick, at roughly the same time as Wesely and his friends were innovating,
Michael J. Korns of Iowa developed his Modern War in Miniatures game in
which the player to miniature ratio was one to one. Within two years Wesely and
friends had gone from the standard mass-combat war-game to having each player
control only one character and making that character reusable from session to
session, but most importantly the characters were free to do more than just
fight (Schick p. 18). The foundation
for role-playing had been laid with these innovations.
One
of the local war gamers was Dave Arneson, who, according to Mackay, introduced
the players to the concept of playing scenarios where the characters fought in
underground labyrinths and faced fantastic creatures such as dragons and
hobgoblins (Mackay p. 15). Schick
elaborates on this, telling us how Arneson contacted a fellow war gamer named
Gary Gygax, who had authored a set of medieval warfare rules called Chainmail,
and asked for help in solidifying his rules.
Gygax supplied an unreleased fantasy supplement (heavily influenced by the
writing of J. R. R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard) for Chainmail, which Arneson
modified to fit his game. Eventually
Gygax was invited to join the group and the two men spent the next two years
expanding and modifying the rules (Schick p. 19-20). It was this collaboration that led to the January 1974 birth of
what is considered the first, official role-playing game, Dungeons &
Dragons.
While
the two authors thought the game would only appeal to a select group of war
gamers and was written under the assumption that anyone buying it would be
familiar with the war-gaming world. The
concept caught on and within a year Dungeons and Dragons (D&D)
was “outselling all miniatures rules” (Schick p. 20-21). The greatest innovation in the game,
according to Schick, was that each character was different because specific
“characteristics” were used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each
individual character, making it easier for the players to assume the role of
their individual character (i.e. A character with a low strength is less likely
to try and fight a monster than a character who has a high strength, forcing
the character to find different solutions to the situation). While these characteristics tended to lean
towards those applicable in fighting, other areas of conduct could be adapted
into the rules, creating even more complex characters (Schick p. 20).
From this point on a bevy of
role-playing games (including new editions of D&D) entered the
market. Some were serious and highly
detailed (Empire of the Petal Throne), some were humorous knockoffs of D&D
(Tunnels & Trolls) and others delved into a science fiction setting
(Traveler). Mackay says that by
1982 role-playing games had gone from an obscure hobby to being found in major
retail outlets such as K-Mart and Toys ‘R’ Us.
Established game companies became interested in joining the frenzy, but
ultimately decided against it when the media made claims that the game had
“occult roots and practices” (Mackay p. 15-16). Such stories lead to a transitionary period in the role-playing
world.
While the negative press
caused many national retailers to stop carrying the games, it also sparked
interest in others, if only to see what all of the fuss was about. According to Mackay most of the major publishers
would not touch role-playing games for fear of attracting negative attention,
so the creators of these games had to publish themselves. The literary influences of the growing gamer
culture took form in role-playing games, visiting the worlds of Howard Phillip
Lovecraft, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, William
Gibson, J. R. R. Tolkien and many more.
By the mid-eighties there was a role-playing game to satisfy any
science-fiction/fantasy fan (Mackay p. 17).
Role-playing was here to stay.
When
I tell most people that I play role-playing games I’m met with a blank stare
and the inevitable question that follows, “What’s role-playing?” The quick and easy answer is to simply tell
them, “Dungeons and Dragons.” Most people identify with the name because it is one of the few
games to get media attention (granted, the attention is negative) and so they
nod with understanding, but that is when the more specific questions come out:
“Is it a computer game? How do you play? What is it exactly?” There are other questions and statements,
but I’ll approach those later. I’ve
discussed where role-playing games have come from and touched on their
differences from war games, but ultimately it is important to explain what role-playing
is.
In
an article from ReligiousTolerance.org titled “Dungeons and Dragons and
Other Fantasy Role-Playing Games,” there is a fairly good, generic description
of what a role-playing game is. Played
by a group of approximately half a dozen people at a time, the majority are
considered players, each running a single character while one person acts as
the referee. The referee develops the
adventures and worlds the players play in, runs all of the “Non-Player
Characters,” and decides the outcome of events.
Adventures may include play-acting the rescuing of people, the quest for money, treasure, power, knowledge and sometimes even survival of the pretend character. Each player makes ethical, philosophical, physical, and moral decisions on behalf of her/his imaginary character as the game develops. The GM describes the environment, the events and the actions of supporting characters (also called non-player characters or NPC's). The players describe their pretend character's actions and reactions. The GM then tells them the results of each event. Many games use the rolling of dice in order to resolve conflicts and to determine the results of various actions (e.g. trying to disarm a trap or leap across a chasm, etc.). Future sessions begin where the previous session quit. Games can continue for years. (ReligiousTolerance.org)
The only thing I can add to this description is that in most games pencils, paper and a number of rulebooks are also required for play. There are any number of additional tools at the disposal of the group including miniature for use in visual representation, music for setting the dramatic mood, and often times food.
According to a 2000 Market
study if you were to see a group of six gamers proportioned along statistical
lines you would see one twelve to fifteen year old, one sixteen to eighteen
year old, two people between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four and two
people between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five and at least one of the
members would be a woman (Dancey). Interestingly
these numbers have changed a great deal in the last twenty years. Gary Allen Fine, from 1977 to 1979,
performed a study on the growing gamer subculture and according to his findings
at the time most of gamers were found in the roughly eighteen to twenty-two
year old age group with an increasing number of people in the thirteen to
seventeen age group (Fine 1983 p. 39).
He goes on later to say that the female gaming population represents
only about five to ten percent of the total gamer population (Fine 1983 p. 62)
as opposed to the roughly 19% of 2000 (Dancey). The question as to what has driven the changes in age is one best
asked in another study, however, I will address to some extent the increase in
female gamers later in this paper.
Role-playing
games are most often played in one of three locations: a participant’s house, a
public space (such as school, recreational center or the like), or a local
hobby/game/comic book store (another possible location is at a gaming
convention, but using such a location is infrequent at best). While each place has its advantages they all
usually have some sort of area where everyone can sit around a table
comfortably for the average three to six hours of playing time.
Most people associate gaming with acting (which isn’t too far a stretch), where the gamers actually move about, acting out the actions of their characters, playing a role. While role-playing games do encourage a touch of theatrics, it is mostly found in the words of the players and referee. In order to distinguish between the players talking as themselves and talking as their characters they are encouraged by most referees to develop a voice and mode of behavior for their character. As an example, in a game I’ve been running for the last four months a player introduced a new character who spoke with a lisp, and it was this specific trait that clued us in whenever it was his character speaking since the player affected the lisp at the appropriate times.
There is a particular off
shoot of the role-playing game called the Live Action Role Playing Game, or
LARP, in which the players and referee move about, playing out the part of
their characters, following a set of rules specifically adapted to this medium. The most famous of these is associated with
the game Vampire: The Masquerade, a role-playing game based loosely on
the writings of Anne Rice. In the last
few years it has been the live action version of Vampire (as it is
commonly called) that has gotten the most negative media attention instead of Dungeons
and Dragons.
When presenting background
information about role-playing games it is important to talk not only about the
development and description, but the negative side as well. If I were to present a list of all news
articles that talked about role-playing games (most probably Dungeons and
Dragons and Vampire would render the greatest number in a search)
and broke them down into favorable or unfavorable in their regards to the game
or culture, the vast majority would be negative. Since the early eighties there have been numerous claims made by
the news media and conservative religious groups that Dungeons and Dragons
(and later Vampire) lead to any number of social ills including drug use,
suicide, murder, depression, satanic worship, etc.
Most of the claims of criminal or behavioral problems have their
roots in actual criminal cases or psychiatric diagnoses where the individual
being prosecuted or diagnosed just happened to play a role-playing game. Never has it been shown conclusively that
the role-playing game was responsible for the actions of the accused. Most often it is discovered in these cases
that there was some problem not associated with role-playing that was
responsible for the incident in question.
An example of this is seen in Michael A. Stackpole’s Pulling Report (1990),
which was the end result of an investigation into the claims of Patricia
Pulling that her son, “Bink,” committed suicide because of Dungeons and Dragons
and that the game was a doorway to the occult and satanic worship. Through the course of the investigation
Stackpole shows that there were obviously signs of depression and mental
instability that had nothing to do with gaming. In fact most of the people who knew Bink prior to his suicide
said that it was following his inability to find a campaign manager for his
attempt to run for school office that Bink’s began acting differently. Mrs. Pulling sued the school principle for
allowing the game and not taking note of her son’s problem, but the case was
dismissed. Stackpole argues that in
this case, like others, the parents and media were simply looking for someone
or something to blame for the loss of their boy. It is easy to see why the media might latch onto such a story;
conspiracy, death and the shadowy presence of the occult all inspire the
popular imagination and make for good copy.
Conservative religious
groups do not care for role-playing games on a number of levels, including the
ones mentioned above, but the most common reasons are based in their beliefs
(especially in regards to magic and gods).
In a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) list from the
Soc.Religion.Christian newsgroup the question, “I have [heard] that Christians
are opposed to Dungeons and Dragons. On what grounds?” is asked. David Fisher tells us in the FAQ that the
answer is threefold. The first reason
is that the goals in the game are not looked upon kindly by God (killing,
looting, accumulating power over others, etc).
The second reason is that the depictions of occult material such as
demons, spells and magic circles will lead people into the occult and away from
God (consequently demons and the drawings of magic circles were not printed in
the second edition of D&D).
The third reason given is that God would condemn the actions taken in
the game if they were done in real life, so the thought is as bad as the act
(Fisher). While there are far more
arguments than these three, they do serve as a good distillation of the main arguments
against role-playing games.
When
computers entered the home they were quickly followed by computer based
role-playing games. At first these
games were simple and text based; the options were limited and the objectives
fairly straightforward. As home
computers became more powerful so too did the computer role-playing game become
more entertaining; graphics and more complex situations and decisions arrived. In time these games grew into the incredible
games of today: Baldur’s Gate, Everquest, Diablo, etc. As these games grew so did the Internet and
it was the marriage of these two that saw the computer role-playing game really
take hold of the computer gaming world.
Millions of people spend hundred of hours online, interacting with other
gamers and partaking in an offshoot of the traditional role-playing game.
Before these
games of high graphics were introduced to the market there was another
alternative, a free alternative. Multi-User Dungeons, or MUD’s as they are
commonly referred to, are text based role playing games played over the
Internet. In these games, much like the traditional games, players play a
single character whose attributes are determined by race and class selection. The genres range from science fiction to
horror to fantasy (by and large the most common setting available), and are
often based directly on traditional role-playing games, novels or movies. There
are no specific goals, but as Muramatsu and Ackerman (1998) show in their
article “Computing, Social Activity, and Entertainment: A Field Study of a Game
MUD,” the primary motivators in a MUD are “conflict and cooperation.” They go
on to say that it is important for the people running the MUD to make the
gaming environment interesting and different while fostering the motivations
noted previously. It is easy to draw a
parallel between a traditional role-playing game and a MUD: The players in one are similar to those in
the other and in place of a referee creating the world and making decisions you
have the MUD’s designer creating the world and its controllers telling the
computers what the outcomes should be and what the rules are.
While many role-playing gamers do play computer role-playing games, approximately 40% (Dancey), they have not replaced the traditional role-playing game amongst its players. If anything computers are beginning to be used more and more for the enhancement of the traditional game. The form of this enhancement varies, but the most common uses are connecting with others and playing over the computer, using various programs to allow for easier preparation by the referee and in a growing number of cases laptops (and palm pilots) are being used at the gaming table for ease of reference and data storage. It is conceivable that in the near future computers will play an ever-greater role in the role-playing gamer’s world.