Comments on: R&D

By: Old School, New Histories

Old School, New Histories — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:34:00 +0000

[...] Indian fighter, pyramidologist, and Anglo-Israelite who brought refereed wargaming to America, and R&D, on Cold War simulation gaming at RAND. One of the things I’m not proud of is that it’s [...]

By: Chuck Turnitsa

Chuck Turnitsa — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:23:13 +0000

One of the interesting features that I always run into when reading a history of military simulations, is the fact that the first Airplane Simulator, the Link simulator, is often included in the list.

For those that don’t know, this was a miniature airplane, that looked like a $0.25 ride from in front of a department store, big enough for a pilot to sit in. The stubby wings and tail are laughable. But the whole thing was moveable on a pedestal, and motions would be used to help pilots learn how to react (at the controls) to different air and wind conditions. It was considered in the between-the-wars era to be a Great success by the US Department of Defense.

My confusion is over including this in a list of military simulators. It did not offer anything at all related to combat, but WAS developed for use by the military. Is that enough to warrant its inclusion in a history of wargames/simulations?

Chuck

By: Vin Diesel on D&D « High Adventure Games

Vin Diesel on D&D « High Adventure Games — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:43:51 +0000

[...] D&D thing, but apparently, it is old news. When looking for a suitable GWB/DC image online, I found this image….apparently from their regular weekly [...]

By: The Deep History of Role Playing Games | RolePlay Gateway: WeBlog!

The Deep History of Role Playing Games | RolePlay Gateway: WeBlog! — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:26:16 +0000

[...] few months back, Rob MacDougall posted an awesome article on the origins of modern roleplaying. It’s definitely worth a read! RAND analysts revived the [...]

By: Airminded · War games

Airminded · War games — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 21:12:45 +0000

[...] of my recent museum visits has been, I suppose, the popular origins of wargames (as opposed to the intellectual origins): I’ve been coming across a number of games, produced in the first half of the twentieth [...]

By: Settembrini

Settembrini — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:34:07 +0000

Again, the Reisswitz Kriegsspiel has mechanical resolutions, involving maps and charts.
For a more thorough history of wargaming for fun and military training with a look at the US, look here:

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/caffrey.html

http://www.hmgs.org/history.htm

Sorry, if you already checked those out. I really appreciate your effort, actually, I´m a bit envious that you did all the legwork, that´s still on my reading list (Weseley´s ispirational reading etc.).
Keep going!

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 03:24:56 +0000

Settembrini, you’re right about the referee being a long-standing feature of wargames – that’s what my previous post, Dungeon Master Zero, is about.

DFF, absolutely there are other kinds of “role-playing” of the sort that goes on in moot courts and theater games and so on. What I think distinguishes the RAND games and D&D (and many wargames) from that lineage is the combination of sort of free-form “assume a role” roleplaying and at the same time fairly mechanical resolution systems involving dice or charts or maps. But I’m still working all this out, and I’m not claiming a 1:1 correlation or that this is the only lineage. Just trying to show that roleplaying’s history is longer, deeper, and more interesting than many might think.

Thanks very much for reading, and even more for commenting!

By: DFF

DFF — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:39:48 +0000

Very interesting. I wonder, though, if another type of academic role-playing had some influence on RPGs. From the 1940s, there seems to have been a burgeoning literature on role-playing in sociometry (and the journal of the same name). The term was also bandied about in discussion of the training of managers and nurses. Of course, lawyers had been doing moot court for centuries before this, but calling that sort of thing ‘role playing’ seems to have been a relatively new thing in the 1940s.

I wonder if any of this approach to role playing influenced the RAND folks and in turn, indirectly, early entertainment RPGs?

Finally, re hex paper–does this derive from the game hex invented by the mathematician John Nash? Or was it just convenient?

By: Rob Runs RAND « Bleeding Play

Rob Runs RAND « Bleeding Play — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:34:10 +0000

[...] by Jonathan Walton in Push 2. trackback While we were all sleeping, Rob McDougall secretly posted another section of his Secret Pre-History of Roleplaying thing. It’s super interesting, since it’s [...]

By: Settembrini

Settembrini — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 18:29:55 +0000

Hiya there!
Awesome blog.
I´m unconvinced about the RAND influence. Military (staff) exercises have been using roles and a GM-equivalent since the days of Reisswitz at the very least.
Although it´s interesting how the wargaming hobby came to be.

Keep up this impressive series!