Comments on: Dungeon Master Zero

By: Leo is Brilliant « Mim and Dave

Leo is Brilliant « Mim and Dave — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:35:19 +0000

[...] would also be good to ease Mim K/W back into things; she’s gamed before, but I suspect that Charles Totten was her last [...]

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:16:02 +0000

Daniel: Thanks for the kind words, and especially for the excellent Greg Svenson interview. That is good stuff.

On Totten, what you say has come up before, so it’s probably worth clarifying: I think people are reading more into my article than I intended. I’m not really trying to make a case for Totten as a key innovator in the history of wargaming. When I say things in that essay like “the first Dungeon Master?” I am playing around. I think I was careful to always put the phrase in quotation marks or with a question mark after it, and I do say right off the bat that Totten adapted his game from the Prussians.

My reasons for writing about Totten were: a) Dave Wesely specifically cited Strategos as an inspiration for Braunstein – yes, he could have cited the original Kriegspeils, but in the post I read, he didn’t, b) Totten was _to me, at least_ an unknown figure in the lineage of the hobby, and most importantly, c) Totten is a glorious kook! I just think it’s fascinating and cool that this guy with a small but not insignificant role in the history of gaming is such a splendid example of the 19th century crank. That’s my main justification for all of the above.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks especially for commenting.

By: Daniel Boggs

Daniel Boggs — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:35:46 +0000

The articles in RPG history are very, very interesting. The context of Totten is a bit thin however and there is really no merit to the idea that he was somehow a pioneer of RPGs any more so than hundreds of other military wargamers in the 19th century. Sure Wesley got some ideas from him but he could just as well have cited the prussian kriegspeil games that Totten and other military wargame designers were essentially copying. Totten doesn’t deserve being singled out as a prototypical Dungeon Master. On a different point. you might be interested in this interview with Greg Svenson, where he discusses some of the other wargames – particularly Michael F. Korns Modern War in Miniature, 1966 – that influenced Blackmoor. http://shamsgrog.blogspot.com/2009/05/q-with-greg-svenson.html

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:33:18 +0000

Alex:
Thanks for visiting the site, and for the comment. I have been corrected (by email and in comments upthread) on the Chainmail/Blackmoor lineage. I’ll add this comment as an asterix to that effect. If this ever gets published anywhere else, I’ll correct it, or more likely, take the whole line out. As I say in my followup on the subject, the exact order of priority is not especially interesting to me: the history of RPGs is far too complex to be reduced to a series of begats.

As for Totten, your point is well taken. But besides the Patient Zero, Guinea Pig Zero, Ground Zero reference, I like “Dungeon Master Zero” because of the acronym it makes.

By: Alex von Thorn

Alex von Thorn — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:47:20 +0000

“Zero” seems like a much higher number than is warranted here; I would put this guy somewhere way into the negatives.

“Blackmoor begat Chainmail”? Don’t know if I heard it that way, so I’d want to see some corroborating evidence.

By: Old School, New Histories

Old School, New Histories — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:29:32 +0000

[...] that I’m rather proud of are my essays on the secret history of tabletop roleplaying games: Dungeon Master Zero, on the eccentric Indian fighter, pyramidologist, and Anglo-Israelite who brought refereed [...]

By: Robert Fisher

Robert Fisher — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:19:45 +0000

Thanks for this info about Totten. Very interesting.

As I understand it, Chainmail did have some influence on Blackmoor, but Arneson discarded it pretty quick. Braunstien begat Blackmoor begat Greyhawk begat D&D is how I’d put it. Tho’ any summary like that of necessity leaves out a lot of stuff.

By: Thomas Jordan

Thomas Jordan — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:07:28 +0000

Interesting article.

I still own an original copy of Totten’s Art of War. It served as the basis for the rules I developed with Dave Wesely (yes, the Dave you reference) for our Napoleonic minatures games in Baltimore from 1969 (when I met Dave) through 1972, when I graduated, got commissioned, and when off to do other things. I hired Dave to work for me around 1984 in Tacoma. After that assignment ended, I lost track of him.

Rob

By: Burger Time Event Horizon

Burger Time Event Horizon — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:40:08 +0000

[...] and the proto-roleplaying game Braunstein, the taking-off point for my two old posts about the deep history of roleplaying games and Cold War roleplaying at RAND. I know it’s been more than a year, but I do still mean to [...]

By: Best of the Carnivals « Imbroglio

Best of the Carnivals « Imbroglio — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:38:52 +0000

[...] analysis, a *headdesk* moment (esp’ly for one who was quite recently an undergrand), and a possible candidate for the first dungeon master (though he doesn’t seem very [...]