Where did gaming come from?

I guess this will probably be the third and final introductory post before we get to more contentious topics, but the question was asked (although not posted) and it did seem to me like a vital piece of information for this topic. From whence came this weird pastime of controlled, collective daydreaming? Odd as it may sound, I believe this hobby grew from the same seed as did professional sports.

I can already hear many of your protests to this assertion (“Well I never!” “Surely not!” “Poppycock!” “He’s gone mad!” “Relieve this man of his dice!”). Don’t worry, I’m not really a fan of professional sports either so I can understand you taking offense at my comparing our pastime with this festering sore on the ass cheek of society; this drainer of educational funds and vector for cheap beer sales/consumption; this testosterone fueled worship and grossly unbalanced rewarding of what amount to whiny, self-centered, meat-head, prima donas who just happen to have been born a little better physically coordinated than the rest of us. Believe me, I understand, but hear me out.

Professional sports are currently a vector to support conflict and rivalry between schools, cities, states and even countries without actually having to go to war. The best example of this was the US and the USSR during the Cold War where both the Olympics and the Space Race were used as political pacifiers to stave of the necessity of a nuclear holocaust. No one really wanted to go to war, but we still had the question of who was dominating and who was the dominated to answer and it seems that we as humans simply can’t function without such distinctions. All I can say is at least we can get by having them symbolically instead of in actuality.

Both of these things, professional sports and gaming, are modern surrogates for warfare. In the case of gaming here’s how the progression went:

1. Warfare.

2. The telling of war stories.

3. Armchair quarterbacking of past battles.

4. Miniatures reenactment of past battles. This step kind of blurs with the previous step in the creation of games like Risk.

5. Miniatures enactments of battles that never happened. This step is important because it is where the direct connection to actual historical conflicts is severed.

6. The One Tolkien Geek of Power. This was that dude who showed up to the miniatures battles with armies of Elves instead of Germans or French like everyone else. The transition between steps 5 and 6 are what many D&D geeks refer to as The Gygax Factor. Actually, I suppose they don’t, but they really should. If you’d like more detail on this step see the Wikipedia on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons#Game_history

7. Small group tactics. What about a smaller team where each player controls an individual instead of an army? Thank you Dave Arneson.

8. Continuity. This is where the various small groups became the same small group each time gaining experience, more skill, and an expanding history with each session.

9. Conversation between characters instead of just between players. This point is also one I would list as very important because it is where the minis began to become more than just minis. The players were now a group of people expressing views that were not their own, but those of the fictional character they were imagining.

10. Conversation with enemies. The first time an Orc threw its hands up and said “Please don’t kill me!” Here is, in my opinion, probably the most important development along this chain. Before now, anything on the board that wasn’t a PC was just a collection of combat stats there only to be slain, looted and occasionally quipped at or mocked. Enemies that talk. This is where the role of the GM truly blossomed and it is also unfortunately a step many modern GMs forget to take. This is the step that changes Rule-playing into Role-playing and allows for there to be non-combat based developments in the story and forces the Players to actually make decisions.  “He’s a bad guy, but he’s surrendered and he’s defenseless.  Should we kill him or let him go?”  It makes combat secondary to role-playing and, lets be honest, the best games are the ones where combat takes a back seat.

So here we are. That step between 9 and 10 set off what was for gaming a bloom of diversification for games akin to what the Pre-Cambrian Explosion was for organisms. At step 9 there were a small number of variations of games most dealing with movement on a board and the killing of opponents. At step 10 many games dispensed with the need for boards at all relying solely on the imaginations of the participants. It was at this step that we (or at least some of us) realized that the viability of certain actions ought to depend more on how those actions affect the story being told rather than on whether or not the numbers involved with the game allow it to happen. I mean, numbers have never written a good story; people do that, but I digress.

Does that make our origins any clearer? Does it also cool any hostility toward me for comparing Monday Night Football to Saturday Night D&D? May I have my dice back now?