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FANTASY GAMES and SOCIAL WORLDS Simulation As Leisure

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FANTASY GAMES and SOCIAL WORLDS Simulation As Leisure >> Version of Record - Sep 1, 1981 What is This? Downloaded from sag.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on December 8, 2012 FANTASY GAMES AND SOCIAL WORLDS Simulation as Leisure GARY ALAN FINE University of Minnesota As the longevity and success of this journal attest, simulation games have had a considerable impact on the scholarly commun- ity, spawning cottage industries and academic specialties. Simu- lation gaming is now well established as a legitimate academic pursuit and teaching tool. Simultaneous with the growth of educational games, the 1970s witnessed the development and popularity of other role-playing games, essentially simulations, which have enjoyment and fantasy as their major goals. These games are known generically as fantasy role-playing games. My intent in this article is to describe the games, discuss the relationship of these games to similar activities (including educational simulations), describe the players, and examine their reasons for participating in this social world. By studying these play forms, researchers who specialize in educational simulations can observe parallels in this leisure activity. AUTHOR’S NOTE: The author would like to thank Sherryl Kleinman and Linda Hughes for comments on previous drafts of this article. SIMULATION ~c GAMES, Vol. 12 No. 3, September I981 251-279 @ 1981 Sage Pubhcations, Inc. 251 Downloaded from sag.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on December 8, 2012 252 WHAT IS FANTASY ROLE-PLAY GAMING? A &dquo;[fantasy] role-playing game&dquo; has been defined as &dquo;any game which allows a number of players to assume the roles of imaginary characters and operate with some degree of freedom in an imaginary environment&dquo; (Lortz, 1979b: 36). Several dozen such games are now on the market, with a majority of these games based on science fiction settings (such as Metamorphosis Alpha, Traveller, Gamma World) or on medieval European fantasy (such as Dungeons & Dragons, Chivalry & Sorcery, Runequest). However, some games are set in other periods and places, including the American West (Boot Hill), Watership Down (Bunnies & Burrows), and fantasy worlds created by the game designer (Empire of the Petal Throne). These games, like most simulations, are complex and are diffi- cult to describe succinctly. TSR Hobbies (1971: 1), the largest fantasy game producer, describes the structure of their best-sell- ing game Dungeons & Dragons as follows: While one of the participants creates the whole world in which the adventures are to take place, the balance of the players-as few as two or as many as a dozen or more-create &dquo;characters&dquo; who will travel about in this make-believe world, interact with its peoples, and seek the fabulous treasures of magic and precious items guarded by dragons, giants, werewolves, and hundreds of other fearsome things. The game organizer, the participant who creates the whole and moderates these adventures, is known as the Dungeon Master, or simply the DM. [In other games this person is called the Game Master, or simply the referee.] The other players have game personae-fighters, magic users, thieves, clerics, elves, dwarves, or what have you-who are known as player characters. Player characters have known attributes which are initially determined by rolling the dice.... These attributes [such as strength, charisma, intelligence] help to define the role and limits of each character.... There is neither an end to the game nor any winner. Each session of play is merely an episode in an ongoing &dquo;world.&dquo; ... Each Dungeon Master runs a &dquo;campaign,&dquo; the series of connected adventures, for his or her participants.... D&D is basically a cooperative game where the group teams to defeat the hostile environment developed by the Dungeon Master.... [A] typical expedition to explore a dungeon labyrinth has a Dungeon Downloaded from sag.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on December 8, 2012 253 Master narrating to players what they see.... The entire game board is seen only by the moderator, players having to create their own as they go along and &dquo;see&dquo; and &dquo;experience&dquo; the dungeon and what lurks therein! This role playing is oral and does not involve the acting out of behavior. Often it is necessary for the players or the referee to roll dice to determine the outcome of battles or other encounters among players, or between players and hostile creatures. Although fantasy role-playing games differ from most games in that they lack a competitive structure, they can be included in the standard definition of games as &dquo;an exercise of voluntary control systems in which there is an opposition between forces, confined by a procedure and rules in order to produce a disequilibrial outcome&dquo; (Avedon and Sutton-Smith, 1971: 7). Fantasy role-play games originally did not have a large follow- ing, and the first 1,000 copies of Did published in 1974 sold out in eleven months. It was not a &dquo;hot&dquo; reception (Gygax, 1977: 5). The second 1,000 copies did somewhat better, selling out in less than six months, and the sales curve continues to increase geometrically. By March 1979, the Dungeons Dragons set was selling at the rate of 7,000 copies per month, and E. Gary Gygax, the president of TSR Hobbies, has estimated the number of players at 300,000 (personal interview, May 1979). Whatever the sales potential of Dungeons & Dragons, it is apparent that it has had an impact on the gaming &dquo;industry.&dquo; One writer even suggests that &dquo;the recent growth of interest in role- play is not just a passing fad, it’s the birth of a major popular art form.&dquo; (Lortz, 1979a: 27; italics added). Fantasy role-playing games have parallels to wargames, educa- tional simulations, and folie a deux. A brief discussion of each of these activities exemplifies the central features of these games. WARGAMES Wargaming has had a direct influence upon fantasy gaming. Wargames attempt to preserve the strategy and competitive excitement of battle without the personal hazards by simulating Downloaded from sag.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on December 8, 2012 254 the strategy of battle These games have been traced to the lower valley of the Nile and the Tigris and Euphrates valley in the third millenium B.C. (Murray, 1952: 229), and include such well- known games as chess and wefch’i (or go). The development of modern wargames can be traced to the 1780s in the German Duchy of Brunswick, where the master of pages developed a game which he named War Chess. This game was expanded and developed in 1811 as Kriegspiel (the War Game) by Herr von Reiswitz and his son, a Prussian artillery officer. (Young and Lawton, 1967: 4; Hausrath, 1971: 5) Their game, played on a &dquo;sand table,&dquo; which simulated a hypothetical, though feasible, terrain, helped to train Prussian officers. The game required an umpire who, after receiving (secretly) the deci- sions of the opposing military commanders, would determine the outcome of that encounter. Dice were introduced later to simu- late the chance factors associated with military encounters. Two groups of contemporary wargames exist-some simulate history through miniature battles (see Wells, 1977; Young and Lawton, 1967), while others simulate history through board games (such as those published by Avalon-Hill and SPI). Although many similarities exist between the two approaches, the primary differences are the precision of the topographical repre- sentation of the battle environment (greater in miniatures in which players are not constrained by the structure of a two- dimensional board), the options for battle moves (highly struc- tured in board games; relatively open in miniature combat), and the technique for determining outcomes (the dice and rules in board games; the decision of a referee in miniatures). While miniature gaming has higher prestige because of its historicity and flexibility of decision making, both contrast with fantasy role-playing games. Features of both types of wargames limit their appeal~ and have led to the development of fantasy role-playing games. First, most wargames place great emphasis on replaying historical battles. One expert wargamer commented that historical knowledge &dquo;really helps you enjoy the game.&dquo; This concern with historical Downloaded from sag.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on December 8, 2012 255 accuracy is limiting to some players, who wish to discover what might have happened if they had control of the entire situation, not only control of the tactics and strategy of historically given armies. A second limitation of wargames is the constraint imposed by structured rules. As Coleman (1968: 7-8) notes, games magnify certain aspects of interaction, ignoring others. Thus, in chess, players cannot move their pieces off the board, mutiny, or commit suicide. The options open to players in the context of the game are deliberately limited. Further, decisions are strictly rule- governed, and any deviation undermines play, and is considered dishonest. A third feature of wargames is the relative lack of involvement of players. Although wargames provide more engrossment in the game and identification with one’s side than do other leisure-time activities, players identify with a side, an army, or a nation. One does not act as oneself in the game. Even in Diplomacy, the sttuc- tured semi-role-playing game, individuals identify with nations. Full engrossment is unlikely because of the structured positions in the games. Since FRP games are fantasy, rather than historical simulations, they permit more flexibility than is possible in a game with a single scenario, which has the same structural constraints each time it is played. The referee constructs a &dquo;world&dquo; (in medieval fantasy games) or a &dquo;universe&dquo; (in science fiction fantasy games), and these terms suggest that players can do what- ever they wish within the confines of their characters.
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