The History of Tabletop Role-Playing Games: A Correction

One of the assigned articles, from Zach Waggoner's My Avatar, My Self, goes into the history of role-playing games. Mr. Waggoner's accounting of the origins of tabletop role-playing games is not correct, and his factual errors are relevant in the way that gamers in general--across all gaming media--relate to their characters, and by extension to the milieu wherein they enjoy gameplay, and thus to the matter of identity.

I enjoy a certain privilege in that I met not only one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons before both of them died, but I am also a friend of one of the people who was there when D&D came into being back in the early 1970s. I've learned, from those who were there when it happened, what went on and what they thought at the time. These are not the oft-repeated claims that Mr. Waggoner repeats, most probably out of ignorance. Rather than spend time while in session addressing these errors, I will take this post to issue the corrections and other relevant details.

• Gary Gygax created D&D in conjunction with Dave Arneson. (The linked Wikipedia article is correct in its presented facts, but is neither complete nor comprehensive in its coverage.)
• Both Gary and Dave were avid wargamers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, favoring medieval through Napoleonic wargame scenarios and multi-scenario campaigns. This play preference greatly influenced the design of D&D, evolving out of a variant Napoleonic scenario called "Braunstein".
• At this time time M.A.R. Barker taught at the University of Minnesota, and began to interact with this community, which focused upon an axis between the Twin Cities and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Professor Barker, following J.R.R. Tolkien, created a fantasy world known as "Tekumel" as a youth; during the 1970s Prof. Barker adapted his creation for use in role-playing games.
• Neither Arneson nor Gygax like Tolkien and the High Fantasy subgenre in general, preferring the Sword & Sorcery subgenre typified by Robert E. Howard, Lin Carter, Fritz Lieber, and (as a writer whose's famous creation was originally a counter-example which became a trope of its own in this genre) Michael Moorcock.
• Arneson, Gygax, Barker and all of the other early RPG creators never conceived of their products as a storytelling medium. The language today for their designed and intended mode of play is "vicarious life experience", where there is no outside force acting to enforce a narrative framework as one expects from passive media such as film or print fiction.
  
  Players kept a stable of characters, each of which would be at different levels of power and influence, and would exist at different points in time and space. (Bob the Fighter is at the Dungeon of Terror from 3 March to the present, but tonight's play session starts on 1 July of last year so Jack has to make a new character if he wants to play tonight.) All of this is far better explained at Ars Ludi.
• Player identification with their character did not happen in the manner we're talking about until the snot-nosed kids that had no wargaming background (i.e. my generation) got into this through our older siblings (or the siblings of our friends) between 1978-1983 or so. What Waggoner calls "ego investment" was something that came along with my age cohort's entrance into the hobby; the effects are not ones that we--as remaining hobbyists--agree as being beneficial. James Maliezewski, author of Grognardia, uses his typical allusions to mythical age reckoning to summarize the matter.
  
  Originally, players--coming from that wargaming background--did not have an avatar-like identity with their character. What today is "your character" was then "your hero", as in a classical Greek hero of "an individual of extraordinary ability that champions the desired virtues of his people", and your hero led a band or an army.
  
  The original scenarios were variations on traditional wargame scenarios meant to scale down the action to single figures or small warbands, which further changed when Arneson demonstrated a fast-play variant to Gygax that let the then-neutral third party referee run the opposition forces instead of an opposing player. (This is where your Dungeon Master came from.) Gygax ran with that, creating his (and the second) D&D campaign: Castle Greyhawk.
  
  The first, by the way, was Arneson's "Blackmoor". Both freely mixed fantasy and science fiction in their settings, as was the fashion in popular literature at the time. (The firm divide between the two genres is a post-D&D invention.)
  
  In short, the early days of RPGs had little or no avatars and a hell of a lot of agents; identification came with the collective stable of characters one had, and not with any specific individual character. That changed with the 1980s, and the shift in the business of the RPG hobby as a generational turnover occurred; a lot of the founding cohort, being college students at the time, graduated and entered the work force so their careers and marriages took off- time for hobbies went away. Mine was the up-and-coming cohort, and we were the ones that made the changes happen- and not for the best of reasons.
• Because we lacked the wargaming background, and we were children lacking both in maturity and perspective, a lot of what was unspoken (and thus assumed) about how to play RPGs went by the wayside. Rather than seeing our characters as Heroes (and thus Leaders), with sidekicks and proteges performing the role in gameplay that today we see with easily-reversible death/maiming/etc. due to magic or like-magic technology, we saw them as Power Fantasy figures and acted accordingly. We invested our egos into our characters all right, and in the process created a toxic subculture that had consequences far beyond our little hobby niche.
  
  A lot of tabletop RPG tropes that still directly influence console, PC and MMORPGs are the result of my cohort collectively acting like spoiled shits to each other and thus ruining it for everyone, because damn near everyone that's a big deal in videogame RPGs has quite the background in tabletop RPGs. (More than a few fantasy fiction authors after 1974 also have such a background, which is why that genre is so homogenous now.)
  
  Only in the last decade has that changed, as the original cohort is at or past retirement age and the survivors are now online to tell us what the hell we did wrong (and how to fix it).

If you want more on the history of tabletop RPGs, you can start with Grognardia, written by an acquaintance of mine by the name of James Malizewski. He links to other hobby bloggers that focus on D&D, or other tabletop RPGs--Traveller, RIFTS, Call of Cthulhu and Champions are commonly discussed in addition to D&D--of note. I also recommend "Playing at the World".

Still with me? Thanks. With this in mind, I'll go straight to online RPGs tonight in session; if you have any questions regarding tabletop role-playing games and the subculture thereof, please save them for the break.

There's a stranger in my house!

Two week ago my daughter brought home a laptop from school. She has pretty much always had access to a computer, either from my husband or me. But, generally she is in our presence and monitored to an extent. Now, thanks to our progressive education, my thirteen year old has been unleashed into the cyber world alone and unattended. I can’t say I’m overjoyed with this.

My fear of the internet begins with a movie called “StrangeLand”. In this movie a psychopath, who loves to inflict pain on his victims, lures a cop’s daughter and her friend to his house and proceeds to torture them and others. An avid lover of scary movies- this movie was especially scary to me because the killer was exceedingly sadistic. This began my mistrust of the internet.

Now my precious teen sits in her room skyping and sharing pictures and God knows what else! Who let this entity in my house? I’m happy my daughter is being more social, though. She, like me, is not very social and usually avoids engaging with or talking to friends after school. This, perhaps, will bring her out of her shell and help her to be more social and develop true friendships.

But, I still can’t help but think of Amanda Todd’s story and others where kids have been abused on the net and worry that the wrong person will enter her cyber space and cause her pain- all right under my nose, in my very home, amongst the internet.

Gender and Performance

Throughout my grad career here at Metro, I have looked a lot at gender, as it applies to my TPS. What the Gayming article said is pretty standard--that biological sex is something we are born with, but gender is performative. That being the case, it would seem as though gaming and online activities really have the ability to disrupt some cultural boundaries. But, I think that has a lot to do with who is in power--the content makers.

As Shaw says, "Like girl gamers before them, the homosexual market for games is being appealed to as gays, not as gamers" (238). If we apply this to all online aspects--in my case, shopping, since that is much of my online experience aside from email (esp. during the holidays)--we will find that marketing can still target the stereo types. Simply knowing my biological sex could make ads pop up on email or Facebook or other such sites.  

However, that being said, the marketing online seems to be more savvy--that "they" are assessing what people browse for. Can a computer figure out one is "queer" by what is being purchased? Not necessarily. So, My browser  will show things like Big and Tall cycling clothes after I have been shopping for dad, or cat toys when I have been cruising Drs. Foster and Smith.

I think the problem of reinforcement really comes from the media stereotypes--particularly on TV/in the movies. For example, in Will and Grace, Will was the "typical" gay male who appeared "normal" but he had his "ginger fag-hag," Grace; and their friend was the stereotypical musically inclined gay male with the "bitchy (and boozin') fag hag," Karen. Granted, the show is older; but many stereotypes cling.

SO! I think that the online ether has the capacity to disrupt the "norms" and boundaries of offline society. But, it is a change that will likely be slow in the coming, and could very well depend on how other media (movies, TV) start to change with the times.

Adrienne Shaw and Video Game Culture

Initially skeptical, in the end I enjoyed reading Adrienne Shaw's 2009 article, "Putting the Gay in Games: Cultural Production and GLBT Content in Video Games."

While I am not an enthusiast in that kind of game culture, I thought that she did a thorough job of examining the issue of having LGBT characters in video games, and did it in a way that acknowledged the complexity of the problem and the difficulty in defining it.

I found it particularly interesting that Shaw wrote another article about a year later titled "What is Video Game Culture? Cultural studies and game studies" that was the most downloaded article from Sage Journals in 2009 and 2010. From the abstract:

What is video game culture, however? What does it mean to have a culture defined by the consumption of a particular medium? Moreover, what are the implications of defining this culture in a particular way? While there has been a great deal of ink split on video game culture, the actual definition of the term is often treated as common sense. Unpacking the discourses surrounding ‘‘video game culture’’ allows us to see the power dynamics involved in attributing certain characteristics to it, as well as naming it ‘‘video game culture’’ as such. This has implications for how video games are studied and is connected with how culture is studied more broadly. By critically examining how video game culture has been defined in both press and academic articles, this paper illuminates how this definition has limited the study of video games and where it can move.

In this examination, Shaw opens up the whole concept of a gaming culture to scrutiny. Rather than focusing on the inclusion of LGBT characters in games, she articulates a reality for real life LGBT gamers, and others who play, as falling outside what we have traditionally stereotyped as "gamers."  In her critique of the approaches that have gone before, Shaw identified two separate and intertwined perspectives in the reporting of video game culture.

Video game scholars, however, tend to write about the culture from the
inside, as many of them identify as gamers. Journalists, however, tend to write about video gaming from this outside. Game studies academics often try to describe video game culture against the mainstream discourse. Likewise, journalists often quote, or misquote, game scholars. To get a sense of what is meant by games culture, we must take account of how it has been described in the popular press as well as the academe.

So, as we continue, in this class, to look at the many ways that digital identities are forged and "lived," I think that it will be interesting to remember that there are perceptual differences in defining of these identities.

Fandom as Tribes: An Ill-Acknowledged Aspect Driving Culture Clashes

Online gaming culture, as I noted in session tonight, is what's sometimes called a "dudebro" culture, better known as a macho culture. As gaming is a fandom-driven subculture, it creates cohesive communities built around an emotional investment--a passion--into the thing one is a fan of. As I noted last week, many people construct their identity around a fandom; gamers are no different.

The issue, in part, stems from the way that gaming--and this includes hobbyist tabletop games, those beyond what we known as "traditional family boardgames" like Scrabble or Monopoly--arose out of what was solely (and remains primarily) a set of male pursuits: warfare, espionage and mercantile endeavors. (This definitely applies to sports, which are outgrowths of military and similar male-dominated pursuits.) The games arose out of training techniques meant to develop skills and knowledge needed to succeed in war, trade and at court; though some degrees removed, one can (e.g.) still see the value in playing Chess to develop a far-thinking strategic mind.

For most that got involved in such hobbyist pursuits, they were the normative actor of our culture: the hetero-normative white male. They also were often the also-rans amongst such people--dorks, geeks and nerds--and thus their fandom communities were also resistance communities, with clearly defined and starkly defended territories. Women, non-whites and queer folk were not and are not still welcomed with open arms universally; several long-running Internet memes revolve around this fact. (This is changing, but we're talking at the usual rate of generational turnover.)

In the last couple of generations, a general breakdown of a formerly clear--permeable, but clear; exceptions to norms still existed--border between Male and Female work spheres happened. For many boys and men, this is taken as encroachment--trespassing, violation--of was once their clearly marked and defined territory. (I suspect that this is, in part, due to a lack of reciprocity with regard to accepted gender roles in our culture.) We can see proof of this in advertising, marketing, and the themes expressed with approval in artifacts of popular culture--literature, journalism, music, film, television, toys, etc.--over the last 100-150 years as this sense of territorial definition weakened.

Yes, "territory". Space is not merely a physical thing, as in the size of one's yard or the acreage of one's farm; it also has to do with conceptual areas, such as the social space for one's pursuits. If someone unwanted encroaches into territory claimed by, staked out by, and patrolled by another then reactions are inevitable as soon as that violator gets detected. This, I think, is an ill-acknowledged aspect driving the phenomena surrounding all non-normative identity issues online- not just LGBT folk, and not just the gaming/geek subculture.

There is a common pattern to the narratives told by those that run afoul of the online dudebros (and the women that go with them): insults- often vulgar as well as degrading and shameful, then harassment, escalating into stalking online to continue the online harassment; this can escalate into action in real-space, with the last step being physical violence with intent to kill but rarely gets that far, either because the target relents or because others intervene and shut down the aggressors. (When it doesn't, that's news, which is why we hear about it in online and offline media outlets; otherwise, it takes targeting a media darling or someone with clout to bring attention to the matter.)

(e.g. Rebecca Wilson of the Skepchicks and her head-on encounter with the dudebros in the Atheist crowd.)

This is, quite frankly, a tribalist behavior pattern and therefore it is based on an irrational foundation. That is why engaging through rational argument doesn't work reliably; the dudebro sees the girl gamer, the gay gamer, etc. as an Other that is Not One Of Us and therefore Does Not Belong On Our Turf--on irrational terms that are immune to logical, rational thought--and therefore must be engaged emotionally to unlock that belief and render it open to change. (This is where those stories of an outsider winning over a gang, tribe, or clan comes from.)

A successful strategy for ending the dudebro/macho subculture, wherever it exists, is one based on a two-fold method executed simultaneously. The first is a short-term one of containment and quarantine; the dudebros that are loudest and most charismatic, yet not violent, are to be deliberately targeted and hit with attacks that paint them as the insecure and untrustworthy characters that they are.

The audience is not the targets, but the quiet supporters that enable them. Cut those people out and you cut the targets out of the scene entirely- it's a lot like dealing with a psychopath (and like waging guerrilla warfare, because that is what you're doing), but with the possibility for reintegration once rehabilitation is confirmed.

To make these moves stick takes either the assimilation of the existing social structure, or outright conquest of it; the second part is doing just that, which is more long-range because you need turnover to make reforms stick long enough to become the "new normal". We're talking no less than five years, and probably 15-20, during which time you need to hold your ground against retaliation- and hope that they do not have a violent psychopath amongst them. (Be glad that such individuals are very rare, and usually either in prison or out of the country working for Uncle Sam.)

(Yes, I am witnessing this happening locally in the SF/F fandom community; the local fan conventions drive the local culture, and the leadership committed to this course of action years ago- and is now showing some significant desirable effects.)

As for the game companies themselves, it's far more difficult.

We will not see significant change towards LGBT acceptance in gaming until both the players and the makers get the dudebro/macho paradigm purged from them. The issue here is that gay-friendly games are not seen as sufficiently better than not being so to make it worthwhile on the quarterly report- which, I remind you, is all that matters to a corporation. (You must maximize profits above all else.)

Do not expect the gay-friendly games out of BioWare or other past creators or publishers to endure as such if shareholders can show that not being so friendly is more profitable to BioWare's shareholders; it's not fair, but that's how corporations work. Every publisher wants a sure-money franchise such as Halo, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, Madden, etc. so they have even more reason to favor the dudebros over the LBGT community. The culture-jamming that works against the fan tribes is not enough here; you've got to overcome basic structural elements designed to shut down resistance to anything other than mindless consumerism, so unless you're willing to turn yourself into a zombie (as it were) you're going to get shut out by those that wield real power in our world. The LGBT community is best off doing for itself, going independent, and making games by and for gay gamers.

(Note: The last I heard of a conflict like this ending violently in real-space precedes social media, when South Korean player-clans of Lineage would sometimes resort to raiding each others' preferred Internet cafes when online combat was not effective; this got the euphemism "offline PK", where "PK" means "Player-Killer" and originally referred to the act of attacking another player online in a game that allowed for player-vs.-player violence.)

Where is this digital divide?

What is it, now, that separates us from cyberspace? Cords, electricity, our smartphones? The more research I do about Internet addiction and the more I read for class, the more the “digital divide” seems to exist only in people’s minds. While avatars and online gaming allow users to create separate identities, it is more common for people to represent themselves online as themselves than it ever was before.

Reading about Amanda Todd (I don’t think I’m related) really got me thinking about online and offline identities. Perhaps it is naïve to think that you can represent yourself truthfully without others taking advantage of it. This girl literally was so distraught by what was happening in cyberspace that she took her own life. Where was the divide then? She COULD NOT separate her real life from her digital life despite her efforts.

This also made me think of her harasser and his hidden identity. Although the public doesn’t know who this person is, would it be too outlandish to assume that if he harasses teenagers online that he thinks about or actually does it in real life as well? Could this personality trait of his be contained solely in cyberspace? Unfortunately, I think not. Despite the anonymity of the Internet, our true colors eventually show. At least, that’s what I think. 

Gayming

As a female gamer, I am often seen as a minority in the gaming world. While these demographics are constantly changing, the game content seems to lag (haha) behind. This, of course, includes LGBT content. My shelf has quite a few video games on it. The overwhelming majority include playable male characters or half naked playable female characters, which clearly signifies a hole in the gaming community already. But if I think about the games I own that includes LGBT content, I can only come up with two: The Sims and Dragon Age Origins. 

Dragon Age Origins was created by Bioware in 2009 and received the  Role Playing Game (RPG) of the Year award. This video game was different from previous RPGs. Why? The fact that male and female characters seemed more balanced in the game is overshadowed by the ability for the main character to have heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual relationships with others in their traveling party. This, of course, is not mandatory; it is simply an option available to players.

One player apparently had an issue with these options, and posted so in the discussion boards saying:

"To summarize, in the case of Dragon Age2, BioWare neglected their main demographic: The Straight Male Gamer. I don’t think many would argue with the fact that theoverwhelming majority of RPG gamers are indeed straight and male. Sure, thereare a substantial amount of women who play video games, but they’re usuallygamers who play games like The Sims, rather than games like Dragon Age. That’snot to say there isn’t a significant number of women who play Dragon Age andthat BioWare should forgo the option of playing as a women altogether, butthere should have been much more focus in on making sure us male gamers were happy.”

And of course he had more to say, but I won’t make you read it. You get the gist of it. Seems like an instance of Shaw’s stereotypical gamer market to me.

Bioware’s David Gaider respondedback in a rather passionate post saying that “The majority has no inherent"right" to get more options than anyone else” and that “…the personwho says that the only way to please them is to restrict options for others is,if you ask me, the one who deserves it least.” And while he seems to be taking a stance for equality in the gaming industry’s content, he doesn’t shy away from saying that it was just simply more cost effective to have the romances available the way they were in the game.

Obviously, the gaming industry, along with the media industry, are constantly disrupted by these new identities within these technological communities, however, that is only because they have not yet caught up with the “real” world. Straight male gamers around the world may be angry at these changes, but they are necessary and will come no matter what because the line between reality and technology is only fading with time. The boundaries are constantly being tested and pushed. Once this line is gone, for good or bad, media will begin to resemble the diverse reality that surrounds us.