Some projects; the Naissance Role-Play Research Group

 In my play and reading I've identified a few strands that really excite me. If I stick to them they should fill up the next five or fifty years of play, easy. I'll still play other games of course!

Old School Naissance

I'm very clever with the name.

For the past four years I've held that the original sin of the OSR is that it only investigated old-school Dungeons & Dragons. And it was really only interested in D&D as understood by people who played B/X (or, if you're really crusty, some AD&D). That's bullshit. l If you've read The Elusive Shift you know that old-school play was tremendously diverse, as were old-school rules. I'm interested in all the forgotten possibilities at the birth of roleplay.

I've put together a list of games from the first decade of the hobby (1974 to 1980) with distinctive features that interest me. This turned out to be most games published in that era! Every one had something of interest, based on its wikipedia summary at least; not a single game was itch.io-level mass-produced junk. I intend to read each game (with the exception of the Arduin Grimoire, which is totally unappealing to me), and, if it sparks enough interest in me, play it. Naturally I'll report on my findings here.

Again, to be clear, this isn't a check-list of obligations to be filled out. I'm only reading and playing insofar as the rules-texts inspire joy and interest in me.

  • Dungeons & Dragons, 1974, Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson, TSR (aka "LBB")
  • Empire of the Petal Throne, 1975, MAR Barker, self-published (ignoring the TSR version)
  • Boot Hill, 1975, Brian Blume & Gary Gygax & Don Kaye, TSR (playing 2nd ed 1979, which is a full-fledged rpg)
  • En Garde!, 1975, Darryl Hany & Frank Chadwick & Paul Evans, Game Designers' Workshop, 1975 (2nd ed 1977; what's the preferred version?)
  • Tunnels & Trolls, 1975, Ken St Andre, Flying Buffalo (playing 5th ed, 1979)
  • Starfaring, 1976, Ken St Andre, Flying Buffalo
  • Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, 1977, John Holmes, TSR (aka Holmes Basic)
  • Traveller, 1977, Game Designers' Workshop (books 1 to 3 only, no navy, no third imperium)
  • Runequest, 1978, Steve Perrin & Ray Turney, The Chaosium (playing 2nd ed 1979, republished as Runequest Classic, 2016)
  • Bushido, 1979, Robert Charrette & Paul Hume, Tyr Games (also 1980, Phoenix Games, 1981, Fantasy Games Unlimited; what's the preferred version?)
  • Dallas, 1979, Jim Dunnigan, Simulations Publications, Inc
  • Gangster!, 1979, Nick Marinacci & Pete Petrone, Fantasy Games Unlimited 
  • Villains and Vigilantes, 1979, Jeff Dee & Jack Herman, Fantasy Games Unlimited (2nd ed 1982, 2.1st ed, 2010, Monkey House Games, 3rd ed, 2017, Monkey House Games; what's the preferred version?)
  • Top Secret, 1980, Merle Rasmussen, TSR (2nd ed 1981, "Top Secret/SI" 1987, "Top Secret: NEw World Order" 2017, Solarian Games; what's the preferred version?
In addition to these games, it would be well worth playing wargames popular in the era (and getting good with modern wargames too!), for instance, work by Tony Bath, Donald Featherstone, and Phil Barker.

Concepts in violent action resolution

Ron Edwards said somewhere that there are three games which invented and express key concepts of action resolution in combat:

  • Tunnels & Trolls, 1975, Ken St Andre, Flying Buffalo (playing 5th ed, 1979)
  • Melee, 1977, Steve Jackson, Metagaming Concepts (playing 3rd ed, 2018, Steve Jackson Games)
  • Runequest, 1978, Steve Perrin & Ray Turney, The Chaosium (playing 2nd ed 1979, republished as Runequest Classic, 2016)

When playing these games, I want to look closely at the way IIEE is expressed in them, and the relationship between a human player's actions and the fiction. That is, I'll want to see what someone has to say, when, in the process of resolution.

At this point I can already speak to Tunnels & Trolls and maybe Melee but those will wait for other posts.

Attempts at fantasy

Many many of the first role-playing games were fantasy games. ("Fantasy" has by this time been constructed in opposition to things like "sci-fi", "superheroes", "horror", and "romance". I don't approve of the distinction, but I'll abide by it here since the people who designed these games usually seemed to think it was important.) I have limited interest in actually playing these games, but maybe someone else feels otherwise. Here I list every single fantasy RPG published before 1981.

  • Dungeons & Dragons, 1974
  • Empire of the Petal Throne, 1974
  • Tunnels & Trolls, 1975
  • Knights of the Round Table, 1976
  • Metamorphosis Alpha, 1976 (seven different editions, holy hell)
  • Monsters! Monsters!, 1976, Ken St Andre & Jim "Bear" Peters, Metagaming Concepts
  • Arduin, 1977 
  • Chivalry & Sorcery, 1977, Edward Simbalist & Wilf Backhaus, Fantasy Games Unlimited (2nd ed 1983; what's the preferred version?)
  • Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1977--1979
  • Flash Gordon & the Warriors of Mongo, 1977
  • Gamma World, 1978
  • High Fantasy, 1978
  • John Carter, Warlord of Mars, 1978
  • Legacy, 1978
  • What Price Glory?!, 1978
  • Adventures in Fantasy, 1979
  • Ironhedge, 1979
  • Ysgarth, 1979
  • Archaeron, 1980
  • Basic Role-Playing, 1980
  • The Castle Perilous, 1980
  • DragonQuest, 1980
  • The Fantasy Trip, 1980 
  • Land of the Rising Sun, 1980
  • Melanda: Land of Mystery, 1980
  • Odysseus, 1980 
  • Rolemaster, 1980
  • Thieves' Guild, 1980 
If you do actually play these games, please let me know! (Well, not D&D or any of the other popular games. Just the weird ones.) Even if you just read one, let me know if it's mostly character creation and combat rules, or if there's an actual game there.

Boardgames and roleplay cross-fertilization

Turns out a couple RPG designers also made board games before and during their tenure as game designers.

  • Triplanetary, 1973, Marc Miller & John Harshman, Game Designers' Workshop 
  • White Bear and Red Moon, 1975, Greg Stafford, The Chaosium (playing 4th ed, 2025, when it releases)
  • OGRE, 1977, Steve Jackson, Metagaming Concepts (playing Pocket Edition, 2013, Steve Jackson Games)
  • Melee, 1977, Steve Jackson, Metagaming Concepts (playing 3rd ed, 2018, Steve Jackson Games)
  • Nomad Gods, 1977, Greg Stafford, The Chaosium
  • Wizard, 1978, Steve Jackson, Metagaming Concepts (playing 3rd ed, 2018, Steve Jackson Games)

I guess I could add Dave Megarry's Dungeon boardgame here. And plenty of others, if I go through FGU's backlog.

Anyway the historical interest is obvious if you are familiar with the names of these designers. Marc Miller is the lead designer of Traveller, which is a sci-fi game focusing on ship travel, like Triplanetary. White Bear and Red Moon and Nomad Gods are Greg Stafford's first attempts to put Glorantha into playable form. Steve Jackson developed Melee and Wizard into The Fantasy Trip, which he in turn developed into GURPS. His game OGRE is supposed to be good, and he considers it a role-playing game, so I've added it to the list too.

Supers

I like superheroes!

I think they offer a legible and familiar fictional model for play. Everybody knows the sorts of activities superheroes get up to, so scenario creation should be easy.

It's kind of funny to me that role-play needed superheroes to get out of its autocannabalistic obsession with dungeon fantasy, while comics need to get away from superheroes for the same reason.

  • Villains and Vigilantes, 1979, Jeff Dee & Jack Herman, Fantasy Games Unlimited (2nd ed 1982, 2.1st ed, 2010, Monkey House Games, 3rd ed, 2017, Monkey House Games; what's the preferred version?)
  • Champions Gen I, 1981 to 1988, George MacDonald & Steve Peterson et al, Hero Games (though I would probably just use Champions Now, 2020, Ron Edwards, Hero Games as a greatest-hits substitute, I don't want to have to assemble my own game from all the disparate publications)
  • Marvel Super Heroes, 1984, Jeff Grubb, TSR
  • DC Heroes, 1985, Greg Gorden, Mayfair Games
  • With Great Power... Master Edition, 2016, Michael Miller, Incarnadine Press (totally different rules from With Great Power... Classic Edition, 2005, supposed to be much improved)
  • Masks: A New Generation, 2017, Brendan Conway, Magpie Games 
  • Vigil, 2023, Ron Edwards, Adept Press
  • Supervillain You, 2024, Ron Edwards, Adept Press

Games with badass combat that can be run as its own game

Everybody likes a fight scene! Key games here:
  • Boot Hill, 1975, Brian Blume & Gary Gygax & Don Kaye, TSR (playing 2nd ed 1979, which is a full-fledged rpg)
  • The Fantasy Trip: In the Labyrinth, 1980, Steve Jackson, Metagaming Concepts (playing Legacy Edition, 2018, Steve Jackson Games)
  • Cyberpunk, 1988, Mike Pondsmith, R. Talsorian Games (aka Cyberpunk 2013)

Challenge-oriented games

I wrote about this in more detail here but as long as I'm making lists I might as well chuck this one in too. I don't think I've found any good candidates to add to the list, strange to say.

  • Dungeons & Dragons, 1974, Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson, TSR (aka "LBB")
  • Tunnels & Trolls, 1975, Ken St Andre, Flying Buffalo (playing 5th ed, 1979)
  • Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, 1977, John Holmes, TSR (aka Holmes Basic)
  • The Great Ork Gods, 2004, Jack Aidley
  • A Thousand and One Nights, 2006, Meguey Baker
  • Agon, 2006, John Harper
  • Beast Hunters, 2007, CW Griffen & Riis Griffen
  • Blood Red Sands, 2013, Ralph Mazza 
  • Agon 2e, 2020, John Harper

Games about normal people in the real world

I will edit this in later, I'm tired from writing all these lists (as you can probably guess, given that I've used less and less detail on each subsequent list!). 

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