Thank you for watching and commenting! I'm glad you found the channel and I hope you are finding it educational and interesting. New video dropping tomorrow (Tuesday, March 26th) about two later-era 1st Edition Advanced D&D books.
Love to see Tunnels and Trolls get a shout out. As a kid in the 70's Liz Danforth's art in the main book blew my mind. To this day her black and white illustrations are some of my favorite RPG art, bar none.
That is such a nice call-out/tribute to Liz Danforth and her art! It's awesome that she's one of the earliest TTRPG artists for Tunnels & Trolls & MERP (and other stuff as well) and that she also became a game designer, and is still with us! I know her work also from Magic: The Gathering. Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it!
Thanks for a fascinating video. When you mentioned City State of the Invincible Overlord it sent me scurrying up into the loft and I found the copy I bought in about 1981 when I first started playing D&D tucked away in a box. I doubt I've seen it for about thirty years!
That is so cool! I would love to have a loft, and then to go up into it and find an undiscovered treasure! For me, it happened a few years after my mom died, and my dad sold his house. I had to help him clean it out, and while I had a vague idea of what was in there, mostly what I found were folders and folders of old characters sheets, maps, etc. So I still have pretty much every TTRPG note/character/game/etc. that I created since 1981! It was fun looking back on stuff that I had only a very small memory of. I'm jealous of your City State of the Invincible Overlord! And... as always, thank you for watching and commenting, and for your support. I truly appreciate it!
Great to learn about these oldie's. You missed Glorantha, which Wikipedia tells me was first written about in 1966 and first used in a published product in 1975. I'm sure there are a few other lurking out there, and I'd love to hear about them!
Thanks for the documentary recommendation. My wife has no interest in D&D but LOVES documentaries, even on topics she doesn't enjoy herself, so my this will become a date night movie for us. 🙂
So much in this video that I really had no idea about, very interesting run through. I had no idea Forgotten realms was so old, or that it was created by an eight year old, I couldn't even write an interesting short story at that age. I'd love to see something more in depth, about specific campaign settings and their evolution. I don't know where your knowledge lies, or where it runs deepest, but I'd love to learn how the Pathfinder setting came to be. Primarily because the game was a split from D&D and I feel there may be an interesting story in the formation of a new world for a new game, but because I've just started running a Pathfinder 2e game. I'd also like to see a video where you discuss your favourite ttrpg games, which ones you enjoy playing most, and why, and which one you think has the best rules for the way you like to play. I'd certainly watch :)
That's awesome! Thank you so much for supporting me by buying a t-shirt. I really hope you like it. I was really happy when I commissioned my graphic designer friend to create that design. I think a lot of people don't realize that each character/creature on the shirt is based on the die associated with their hit dice (D4 Pixie, D6 Sorcerer, D8 Druid wildshaped as a Crococile, D10 Paladin, D12 Barbarian, D20 Tarrasque). Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your suggestions for future topics! I am still DMing a long-running 3E/3.5/Pathfinder1E campaign that began in May 2001 and I have followed the development of Pathfinder and the world of Golarion over the years. It's a fun setting and an interesting story how the game came to be. I can also add some videos on my favorite TTRPGs, what mechanics they have, etc. I was planning on a series about the 1981 Basic D&D game I run for my 13yo daughter and her friends: how I set it up, how I got the players involved, and the different sources (TTRPG books, videos, old materials, etc.) I use to help prep for each session. They're just kids but I think the advice and tips would be useful for any age group. Hopefully that would be of interest to you!
@@daddyrolleda1 I love the T-shirt :). You're suggestions sound great. I would find the videos about your daughter's game interesting. I'd love to see the differences and similarities with your choices, compared with a game you'd run for us oldies :)
Even older than that. He actually laid the foundation when he was 5 and worked on it ever since. It was originally just a way for him to make/ tell/ explore stories that shared a common setting. It was a way of coping with the death of his mother. There is a pretty interesting video about our on his CZcams channel.
I have been making my way through your videos and I am enjoying them! I feel that the Lanhkmar setting should have been included. Although the D&D supplement for it did not come out until the 80's there was an oft forgotten board game made by TSR in '76. It is by far my favorite D&D setting and would love to see a video about it.
I can definitely add that to the list! It is a fun setting and I have chatted (VERY briefly) about the 1976 board game version, but a deeper look is a definite possibility.
also about this time the beginnings of what would become the Harn campaign setting; N. Robin Crosby began the setting in '77 before publishing in '83. Likewise Raymond E. Fiest and his friends begin creating the Midkemia setting in '78 that would eventually become the setting of the "Magician" and "Riftwar Saga" as well as several game books such as "Carse"
Thank you for watching and commenting. Yes, there were a lot of early settings that were developed during this time, but didn't see publication before my cut-off date of 1977, as I mentioned in the video. The only reason I included the Forgotten Realms and the Known World, both of which were developed before, but not published before, 1977, is because the last time I made a video about Greyhawk, a few folks though to "correct" me for having supposedly "forgotten" them. Harn, Midkemia, Glorantha, and a broader discussion of licenses such as Middle Earth and Star Trek were on my list to include if I were to make a follow-up video. Thanks again! Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Since you included sci-fi, you missed the Starship Warden setting from Metamorphosis Alpha. I think that was published in '76. Great vid. Keep up the good work and keep having fun.
@@jasonjacobson1157 Thank you for watching and commenting! And yeah, I totally goofed. I own Metamorphosis Alpha but forgot for record the segment. I wasn't checking my notes well enough whole recording. There's a super quick mention (text and picture only) in the 1976 section of the video, but if you blink, you'll miss it.
Yeah, it's a great look at the early days of the hobby and how the game we now play evolved from its wargame beginnings. I really liked that they were able to interview so many of the players from Arneson's and Wesely's games to get first-hand accounts of how things developed over time.
Seriously, 1977 is a fantastic year! Star Wars; Holmes Basic; Wilderlands of High Fantasy; the AD&D Monster Manual; the New Adventures of Batman; the comic book debuts of Black Lightning, Judge Dread, Machine Man, Ms. Marvel, Sabretooth, and Spider-Woman; and 1977 is one of only two years in the 1970s (the other being 1970) that has a designed Port (wine) year. THE BEST! Thanks for watching and commenting!
Played a heap of EPT in the late 70s/early 80s. Tekumel became part of our regular RPG multiverse. Interestingly, in the Harnmaster setting the world of Teku is mentioned and is a portal to Tekumel in that game setting.
@@daddyrolleda1 Harn's multiverse is called Kelestia. There is another world in the "family" of worlds that is a high magic fantasy world - a possible location for DM's to put their version of any D&D world.
It's extremely unfortunate. That part of his history stayed hidden for many years but when it came out, it was so much worse than I think any of us would've thought.
To some extent, those of us who enjoy telling stories, by necessity, also engage in making up a world in which the story unfolds. The difference is often how far afield we venture in our fictional world building. Authors of historical fiction adhere reasonably close to the factual world, at least to someone else's interpretation of the events and the people of record who comprise history. Science fiction and other fantastic stories obviously involve some creative content added to our setting. Good food for thought!
There is one campaign setting/system Glorantha/Runequest that I'm seeing left out of your TTRPG history. It's inception like many you mentioned, created long before it was published and has been fleshed out continuously for decades. Like T&T it was competing with AD&D in 1979.
I love love love that you included "Tunnels & Trolls" and "Monsters! Monsters!" These games are still around with current editions, but so few people seem to talk about them and recognize their place in our hobby. I hope these games get caught up in the Old School Renaissance soon.
I am friends with William W. Connors on Twitter (he's a past TSR game designs who worked on a lot of Ravenloft stuff among other products during the late 80's and 90's) and he is a huge fan of Tunnels & Trolls. He talks about it quite a bit, so who knows? Maybe it will have a bit of a resurgence someday! I'm glad you enjoyed the reference in this video. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Rebellion recently acquired the rights to Tunnels and Trolls. I'm eagerly awaiting a full announcement of their plans for the game. Here's hoping it leads to a much deserved resurgence. 🤞🙂🤞
Yeah, I think that's really the main catalyst. I mean, it's a really fun and interesting world, but TSR really seems to have doubled-down on it after Gygax's departure as well as after Hickman and Weis left (so limited Dragonlance game materials after that time, even as they kept pushing out new novels).
Back in 82 I managed to get a pre-owned copy of the Judges Guild First Campaign Setting. It came in a plastic folder, and the previous owner had done a load of work on filling in a lot of the blanks and had typed it all out and stapled it together to make an additional booklet. It was about 40 pages with a hand drawn cover! They had also made a load of really careful, nicely drawn changes on the map and it was fantastic! I know where most of my original books and sets went (mostly got passed onto my little brother) but I could never remember what happened to that plastic folder.
@@daddyrolleda1 I'd email my brother and ask if it ended up in with the stuff I passsed on to him, but I'd hate to have him say "Yeah... I got a small fortune for it on eBay..."
I remember reading that the folks at TSR used to look forward too and simultaneously dread the arrival of Ed Greenwood's manuscripts in the office. Greenwood (who worked in a library here in Canada) would wrap his creations to within an inch of their lives, causing much cursing over the many layers of "Canadian" Cellotape on each delivery.
Yes, I remember reading that same story! I think it was an interview in Dragon magazine with Kim Mohan, maybe? But yes, in any event, I heard how Mr. Greenwood would wrap things in aluminum foil, then plastic wrap with copious amounts of tape, making them very time-consuming to open! Thank you for watching and commenting!
You're welcome! Very enjoyable video The version I read came from. Ben Riggs book "Slaying the Dragon", a history of the Lorraine Williams years at TSR, but possibly the same interviewee.
@@jeffmason3785 I read that book, too! So it was fresh in my mind... you're right, it might have been that book, or now as I think about it, I think maybe there was also something about it in "Art & Arcana"? In any event, such a fun story!
City State 😁 I love that one. The original version, never seen the revamped and re-released version, gloriously messy (or maybe 'dense' is a better word), trying to find anything specific in the text can be a nightmare (much like the first edition AD&D rules themselves until you've become 'very' familiar with them 😉) .. but there's just something about it that somehow feels more D&D to me than a lot of early actual TSR offerings. It's probably just that I had that one and was using it first long before I got my hands on that second Greyhawk box set.
That makes a lot of sense to me... there are a lot of early products I spent so much time with that were organized poorly and/or had poor layout, but that I find much more useful than later more slickly produced versions!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate you watching and commenting! I'm happy to add some more settings to the queue. I was considering the Known World/Mystara, as that's one of my favorites, but also perhaps some 2E stuff like Dark Sun. Any preferences?
Didn't know the Forgotten Realms are that old, I read of it in a later Dragon Magazine and thought the gray box to be written especially for D&D. Personally I preferred playing in the Known World / Blackmoor and Glorantha (RuneQuest) by Greg Stafford, first published in 1975 as well. And later Midgard from the first german rpg with the same name from 1981.
I am a "Known World" person myself! It's probably my favorite D&D setting, although I do also like Blackmoor and I find fun things in Greyhawk, the Realms, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Kara-Tur, and more. I love when folks outside the U.S. comment on the games they played, such as our comment on Midgard, as I have almost no knowledge of non-U.S. games, so it's great to learn! Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it!
Really in depth and interesting. I thing it would be cool (if interesting to you) to see recap the early days and origins of Runequest as its first real competition. Also thought up as a thought experiement in the 50s by Greg Steffard, first made into a war game and shortly after convinced by Perrin to make it a ttrpg.
Thank you for subscribing. I really appreciate it! And thanks for watching and commenting. Let me know what are some other topics you'd like to see me cover. I have a list, but always willing to listen to suggestions!
Yup. There was a ton to fit into this video and there are a few that didn't make the cut. Ideally one day I'll make a follow-up to include them. Thanks for watching and commenting. I hope that omission didn't negatively affect your enjoyment.
@blackstaff798 I saw another reply from you, but it seems to have disappeared. But yes, fair enough, Arduin is undoubtedly a more important part of RPG and campaign setting history that Realms of Yolmi. My video turned a bit into a history of RPG systems rather than settings, but that's because the two are usually tied together and I wanted to make sure I covered every system and associated setting that came out. Anyway, thanks for your note. I appreciate you watching and commenting and I've definitely added Arduin to my list of future videos. Cheers.
@@daddyrolleda1I deleted my post by accident as I was trying to edit it. That said,, you're doing a great job on your videos and look forward to the next one.
@@blackstaff798 Thank you very much for your encouragement. I appreciate it. When you get a chance, if you could hop over to my latest video and let me know in the comments what your 4 "desert island" TTRPG books would be, that would be awesome. I'd love to start some conversations there about the key books that folks would want to run all of their future campaigns if they could never get another book. Cheers!
2nd City under Viola Spolin in 1946 organized what they called Theatre Games. There were no rules per say. Same for Psycho Dramas done in the 1920's. All of these lacked any sort of real structure or rules as say presented in D&D.
You say that D&D had no setting, but I believe that what you say about Space Quest having an "implied setting from character options" also applies to D&D. Players were advised to use the "Outdoor Survival" map for the campaign wilderness. The "Underworld and Wilderness" booklet tells us about the encounters and character types. "Monsters and Treasure" also contributes a vast amount of information about the default setting of the game. We may not know the names of places or the gods but otherwise we can find a great deal of information about who lives there and what they have and what they want. Plus it says right on the cover "Medieval Fantasy Adventure" so the setting in this case is stated.
Fair enough. The use of the word "setting" has different connotations, and I could have done a better job of being more specific on the one I meant. When I think of a "setting," I'm thinking of a guide that I can use to describe cultures (political entities, faiths, species, etc.) that exist. The World of Greyhawk boxed set is a Campaign Setting that a DM can use to understand the relationships between between nations and other political entities, the gods, the weather, etc. Empire of the Petal Throne has that information largely built in to its game rules. OD&D does not include that kind of information. That is left up to the referee to create. There's nothing wrong with that approach at all. I mentioned it specifically because in earlier videos, when I talked about Greyhawk, I got a few comments from people who said that, for example, Blackmoor: Supplement II is a "setting" publication. It is not, by my definition of what constitutes a "setting" in terms of information that would enable a Referee to run a game in said setting without having to do a lot of additional work.
@@daddyrolleda1 I understand what you mean by setting as a supplemental product that outlines all the needed names and places that add much to the background of the game and helps facilitate role playing. I would just not characterize as original D&D as having "no setting". The setting is European Medieval Fantasy. In like manner Boot Hill has a Wild West Gunslinger setting and Top Secret has a Modern Spy setting. Obviously there is more that can done to expand on that very basic setting and as the "Wargame Campaign" gives way to the new world of Role Playing, we needed answers to more of the specifics of the setting. I know this is a nit picky difference in wording. Thank you for engaging patiently.
@@anymajordude87 All that makes sense, and I do understand your point. I always appreciate the chance to chat and share our mutual love of the hobby. Cheers!
I will add that to the list! There have been quite a few! I remember first hearing about it from some articles in "Best of Dragon, Volume I." I finally got the game decades later off Ebay.
RPG's in the 1940's? Did everyone wear suits and ties and hats when they played? 😎😃🙂 Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm looking forward to watching this. Gonna share it too.
I have a home movie from the 1970s of my Dad shooting pool with the other neighborhood Dads after work. Every single one of them was in full business suits.
@@davidfinch7407 I was 8 years old in 1970. Many still wear suits today, but not nearly as often as they did in the 70s, and more people wore hats in the 70s : )
Will you be reviewing Marvel Superheroes TSR? Reading comics back in the 80s I remember seeing the advert for it and wanting to play it but never got the chance to.
I can definitely add that to the queue! That games is the reason I got back into comics in the 80's! I started reading comics in the late 70's with Marvel Star Wars that my mom gave me after she saw how much I liked the movie. But I stopped reading them after around issue #15 and didn't read too many more until I saw ads in Dragon Magazine for Marvel Super Heroes RPG and I saw characters I didn't recognize. The next time we visited the mall, I went to the spinner rack at Waldenbooks and grabbed a copy of X-Men #197 (I still have it, as well as my Star Wars comics!) and that got me started on a comics reading and collecting spree that lasted until the early 90's, only to quit again, then getting back in with Dark Horse Star Wars comics and some trade paperbacks like Kingdom Come, House of M, and Avengers Disassembled. Around 2012 I got back into visiting a local shop once a week with my daughter in tow, and I've kept that up ever since, for the past 12 years (you'll see my post my weekly pick-ups in my "Shorts" videos). Anyway, after I got that X-Men comic, I got the Marvel Superheroes RPG and my friends and I had a blast with it. We mostly made our own heroes rather than using ones from the comics, but it was still a ton of fun. Thanks for watching and commenting, and for suggesting a topic!
@@daddyrolleda1 Thanks for the reply and I look forward to watching your review. I don’t want to derail your video by going off on a slight detour but Secret Wars was when I really jumped into comics but like you I jumped back off again during the 90s a culmination of being a teenager interested in other things plus I thought the stories and storytelling (art wise) was not very interesting. About 8 years ago I discovered Jim Shooter’s blog and it got me wanting to read comics from the 80s again. On another note. I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and wow! What a game! It set me on the path of really learning about D&D I know the brief history but this channel as really gotten some in depth info. Grazie!
I too started creating a fantasy world when I was a kid. I even have an old map that made up of taped together paper squares that looks just like the one at 4:21, as well as much nicer one done on 4 poster boards I made later. I worked on it all the way up into my mid 20's. I figured I work it all into a novel someday, but I was always better at making worlds than writing a compelling story in them. Plus writing a fantasy story as a first time author is a lot like tossing a message in a bottle into the ocean.
We could be twins! I started working on my world around age 12 or 13, but really got into it in High School and early college, at which point my friend and I decided it would be better if we used it for a series of fantasy novels instead of D&D, so we plotted out a 7-book series, but instead of writing just kept creating more and more stuff for the world. I finally shelved the project but when 3E came out, my work friends asked me to run a game for them and I dug out my old world and used it for our campaign. That game is still running ~22 years later!
@@daddyrolleda1 I did write about 2 million words over 6 books and 3 rewrites and 10 years. I enjoyed writing about my world and characters, I just was never satisfied with the actual plot of any of iteration. They all felt either too biographical, too aimless, or too trite. I am hopeful to start up a 4th draft in the nearish future though, and finally finish one complete version of the story, whether I ever publish it or not.
I have never heard of this gentleman or this game. I find this history you dig up informative and interesting in that it gives me a greater sense of what the game is. It's grounding. I stopped playing AD&D in the early 2000's. About the time 3.5 was really strong. I had been running a 2e game for a small group but life changes brought that to and end. I'm about to get back into the hobby as a first time VTT player sometime this month. It's a 2e game btw. It will also be the first time I've got to be a PC since my 1st Ed days way back in the 80's. Yes I'm the guy who always "got stuck" so to speak as the DM. I like the roll btw but am very excited to be an actual PC again. I will eventually run a world again and this sort background keeps my head in a realistic space as far as world building goes as I do watch and keep up on current state of the hobby and DO NOT like what I consider the unrealistic PC's are "special" OP characters in the story that no NPC can match we're in easy mode you'll always win way I see the game played today. Fantastic stuff sir. I will keep coming back to your channel for inspiration and knowledge. EDIT. One thing I've never been able to wrap my head around or have knowledge of is how would one conduct warfare in the game? It's mentioned in many modules and stories as background information but I've never seen it done as part of a campaign setting. Note in my mind a campaign is a living world and what's called campaign today, though a correct use of the word, is really just extended single adventures. I get that many 5e players only play adventures not connected but each being a basically a separate thing often using new characters each time rather than how we did things back in the day. Anyway getting long winded as I'm prone to. I have the 2e boxed Battle System but I could never get anyone to try it out with me and I find it overly complicated as a system to actually use in any campaign I ran. Do you have any information on the history of how mass battles where, if they ever where, used in a world setting?
My knowledge of Dave Wesely and Braunstein came mostly from the Playing at the World Blog (playingattheworld.blogspot.com/) and also from watching the documentary I mentioned, "Secrets of Blackmoor." If you have the means to rent it, I highly recommend it. Congrats on your new game coming up! I also will be using a VTT to play in a game next weekend (for Dragonlance) and it's not something I am comfortable with - I'm much more of an in-person player. I get too distracted and lose interest quickly when playing online, but that's just me. I know a lot of folks love playing that way. The connection between wargames and roleplaying games is funny in a way, since RPGs developed out of wargaming, then became their own genre in which running a wargame was no longer the primary purpose of the game, then going backwards to create rule systems for running wargames in RPGs, such as Battle System that you mentioned, or with the Companion Set's War Machine rules. There was even a 3E-era resurrection of Chainmail published by Wizards of the Coast. None of them stuck around long, and the wargames aspect for conducting large military scale operations in RPGs hasn't really stuck. I've seen many different ways of handling it, but my personal approach is go give the PCs different "missions" with time clocks (e.g., take this single tower before nightfall, or poison the enemy's water supply before sunrise, etc.). Each PC can even have a different mission, and then I give them victory conditions: They have to accomplish X number of missions before Y number of failures (e.g., if the PC trying to poison the water supply is caught and/or if the enemy discovers the water is poisoned and uses clerical magic to fix it, that's a failure). If the victory conditions are met, that means the PC's side won the battle. I change the missions depending on the type of battle, and also how many missions must be completed before failures (e.g., if the PCs side is hopelessly outnumbered, they might need to complete six missions before three failures, whereas if their side has the advantage, it could be reversed, etc.). Hope that helps!
@@daddyrolleda1 ty for the lengthy reply. I feel you've gone above and beyond here for a stranger that's just barely discovered your channel. I humbly give thanks. The doc is on CZcams btw. Watched it. I'll check out that website and see what gems find their way into my treasure pouch.
@@WayneBraack No problem at all! People on Twitter know I like to chat and have conversations. I'm known for my multi-part tweets! I've had a nice time chatting with you and I'm glad you found my channel (which is brand new, less than two months old, so you're one of the first to find it!). I had no idea the documentary was on CZcams. Years ago it was on Amazon Prime, but now you have to pay for it to watch it there. I own it on old-school Blu-Ray and have started watching it again within the past couple of days. Cheers!
I see you slipped into your old habit of pronouncing David‘s last name. Understandable it only took me five years of him making fun of me to get it straight myself. I am about eight minutes in and noted you skipped over brownstone, which is in between David Wesley‘s game and Dave Arneson’s game. very informative. I know MAR Barker was creating his fantasy setting, but he didn’t have game mechanics until he bumped into Dave Arneson, who gave him a pre-print copy of the rules I think Monard was also involved with this. in the early days, Dave did play a lot with anyone out there, including Meyer, which they collaborated on a few games. The detail and complexity of that world setting was intense. Both Dave and Gary liked his world. Barker used his own printing press to print off the boxes and rules. Back to Dwayne Jenkins and his brownstone: you have David Wesley with his role-play, modern players would not understand. Dwayne re-introduced persistent characters instead of a character that would exist for a game. Dave Arnesen then took those persistent character, ideas, and leveling beast upon experience points. Which was gleaned off of Mike Carr Who had a merit based leveling. It’s interesting. We are going full circle onto that idea with current players. The game mechanics and their effect on the world settings is also rather interesting
Yes! This was one of my very early episodes I made when I realized I was going to be focusing the channel more on the history-side of things, so this was before I knew how to pronounce David Wesely's last name. I don't know why I tended to forget mentioning Brownstone back then - I was aware of it from the documentary and I know I mention it sometimes but not every time. I think it's partially because I don't script my videos but just chat spontaneously so sometimes I forget stuff.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I did include Metamorphosis Alpha (kind of! I forgot it in my original audio but I included a quick nod in the video) at this point: czcams.com/video/Rrbei_hxDnQ/video.html Gamma World came out in 1978 and I stopped the overview in 1977, which I picked because starting in 1978 and onward, there's a huge explosion of tabletop RPGs and settings and it it's just too much to fit into one video. I do love Gamma World, though - it was the second RPG I ever played, and I'll be doing a video on it and MA at some point.
@@daddyrolleda1 I know you said in the video that you were cutting off because of the explosion in 1978. I just didn't make that connection lol. Thanks for the really quick response! I'm watching the second part of your video on alignment and the planes now
It's super quick... I think less than 2 seconds. I forgot to mention MA in my video so I put up a pic of the cover with a short text blurb that just said, "I forgot to mention Metamorphosis Alpha: 1976!" So... you didn't "miss" anything. I had MA on my list of notes but since I do these off the cuff without looking at my notes (partially because my printer is broken so I can't print them out...) I just completely forgot about it.
Please, remake this to add Dwane Jenkins Brownstone Western setting at some point, when Braunstiens where happening he had already had his game group going, I believe. Amazing video, otherwise.
I do remember that Brownstone game, primarily from having watched the Secrets of Blackmoor. I will make a note to include it should I revisit this era of TTRPG history again. Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
He definitely wrote a set of rules for miniatures wargames, but there was really no "setting" attached and I wouldn't call it a TTRPG. Braunstein and Blackmoor both have roleplaying elements (and can be considered the "original" TTRPGs in terms of having actual detailed rules for roleplaying) whereas H.G. Wells' "Little Wars" (more properly, "Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books") is about miniature wargaming and contains no rules for roleplaying.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I can see that - they both involve some roleplaying features mixed with tactical wargaming. En Garde focused more on man-to-man dueling whereas, as I understand it, Braunstein's wargame aspects were still more focused on bigger picture combats. Wesely had to invent man-to-man combat rules on the fly when two players said they wanted their characters to duel. Anyway, a great insight!
@@daddyrolleda1 besides the occasional duel En Garde really focuses on the character's social power and a long term development. I've recently refereed a game. Playing Gangbusters again after over 30 years, there is a strong En Garde "weekly actions" mechanic we ignored as kids. That game is a class-level system with a lot of skills, though the class and level don't seem to have as great an effect on character abilities as D&D.
@@owenbloomfield1177 Thank you! I never got a chance to play En Garde back in the day, but it sounds like something I'd like! And, alas, Gangbusters was one of the few TSR RPGs that I never played (never played Conan or Indiana Jones, as well as Dawn Patrol, if that counts as an RPG). I think I played the rest of them, though.
@@owenbloomfield1177 After D&D, our main games were Gamma World, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, and Marvel Superheroes. I was very partial to Gamma World in the 80's. I'm a sucker for a good post-apocalyptic setting.
I have been a DM since I was a child, and I regret not having written down any of my world's "stuff" before now. I have started doing so, but there are a lot of random notes, sheets of paper, even napkins, with thoughts, ideas and lore. I will only be able to recreate parts of the world, but that will be enough for years of gaming with my friends
That is heartbreaking! I have tons of notes on scraps of paper, including post-it notes, half-used Steno pads, discarded pieces of dot-matrix printer paper, and more. I'm a terrible packrat so I have all of that stuff still saved. About 25 years ago, I began re-writing all of my old notes into a notebook just to organize them and reduce the paper clutter, but I never finished the project. I'll have to show that notebook here some day!
@@daddyrolleda1 When I'm getting closer to something that isn't just notes I'll share a link to World Anvil where I write the world. But, due to work and play, this is a slow prosess 🙂
Thanks for watching and commenting. I tried to make that clear in the thumbnail image and also in my introduction to the video when I talked about only covering settings through 1977. There were just too many new settings to cover starting in 1978 and the video was already 20+ minutes long. Honestly, the only reason I included the Forgotten Realms and the Known World, neither of which saw print before 1977, is because the last video I made about Greyhawk, some folks wanted to "correct" me about leaving them out. While Glorantha began development in 1966 and saw print in 1975 with White Bear and Red Moon, that was a board game, not a TTRPG and I was really try to focus the video on TTRPG settings that were published through 1977. I planned to cover Glorantha in a follow-up video if people were interested.
Technically, Greg Stafford started Glorantha stories in the 1960s, and the first "wargame" (White Bear and Red Moon, later Dragon Pass) based in the World was published several years before Runequest.
I was saving that for my next video starting in 1978 since that's when Runequest came out. I realize Stafford was working on it since 1966 and the White Bear and Red Moon came out in 1975, but that was a board game and I was trying to focus on RPGs prior to 1977. The only reason I included the Known World and the Forgotten Realms is because the last video I made, people kept asking about them, implying I "forgot." Plus the video was already 20 minutes long. But yes, I had in my notes to cover Glorantha next time.
@@daddyrolleda1Viewers can and will be overly critical, but... I'm baffled by the notion that anyone could claim that you are uninformed about these subjects.
@@D--FENS Thank you - I appreciate it! I think the main thing is that people are really passionate about these subjects, which I appreciate, and also I'm keenly aware that a lot of folks make statements or ask questions based not on having actually watched the video but on what they *think* I'm going to say or perhaps they only get part way through, etc. It's all good. I'm happy to have a chat with anyone who has information to add, even if it's about something that I already addressed. I thank you again! Cheers!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! For Empire of the Petal Throne, I have a whole video dedicated to the subject: czcams.com/video/TePumzEe5CM/video.htmlsi=DZ9TWc5Ezwybnzpq For Harn, I was focusing on system from 1940 - 1977. The first *published* version of Harn was in 1983. I do need to dig a little more into its history as to when it was *created* but there is much less published information on its creation than there is for stuff like Blackmoor, the Wilderness of High Fantasy, Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, etc.
His last name is spelled "Wesely," not "Wesley." I've heard it pronounced both ways, but never from the man himself, so I was unclear on the pronunciation.
As someone who got into gaming in more recent years I love learning all the history of this hobby. I am so drawn to the older games and settings.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I'm glad you found the channel and I hope you are finding it educational and interesting. New video dropping tomorrow (Tuesday, March 26th) about two later-era 1st Edition Advanced D&D books.
Love to see Tunnels and Trolls get a shout out. As a kid in the 70's Liz Danforth's art in the main book blew my mind. To this day her black and white illustrations are some of my favorite RPG art, bar none.
That is such a nice call-out/tribute to Liz Danforth and her art! It's awesome that she's one of the earliest TTRPG artists for Tunnels & Trolls & MERP (and other stuff as well) and that she also became a game designer, and is still with us! I know her work also from Magic: The Gathering.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it!
these videos are a motherlode of info for everyone. much appreciated.
- 80s OG gamer
I'm so glad you enjoy them, and I appreciate you taking time to watching and comment. Thank you!
Thanks for a fascinating video. When you mentioned City State of the Invincible Overlord it sent me scurrying up into the loft and I found the copy I bought in about 1981 when I first started playing D&D tucked away in a box. I doubt I've seen it for about thirty years!
That is so cool! I would love to have a loft, and then to go up into it and find an undiscovered treasure! For me, it happened a few years after my mom died, and my dad sold his house. I had to help him clean it out, and while I had a vague idea of what was in there, mostly what I found were folders and folders of old characters sheets, maps, etc. So I still have pretty much every TTRPG note/character/game/etc. that I created since 1981! It was fun looking back on stuff that I had only a very small memory of.
I'm jealous of your City State of the Invincible Overlord!
And... as always, thank you for watching and commenting, and for your support. I truly appreciate it!
Very interesting! The history of Table Top is fascinating.
Thank you for doing the deep dive!
I agree! It's one of my favorite subjects! Thanks for watching and commenting!
Thanks for the video. I really enjoyed hearing all the background about how our hobbies got started
I really appreciate that! Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Great to learn about these oldie's. You missed Glorantha, which Wikipedia tells me was first written about in 1966 and first used in a published product in 1975. I'm sure there are a few other lurking out there, and I'd love to hear about them!
Thanks for the documentary recommendation. My wife has no interest in D&D but LOVES documentaries, even on topics she doesn't enjoy herself, so my this will become a date night movie for us. 🙂
Ooh, fun! I hope she likes it! My wife came in and out of the room several times while I was watching it and asked a few questions and such.
Great video. Would love to see the campaign settings after 1977.
Thank you so much! I will add it to my list of potential future topics. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
So much in this video that I really had no idea about, very interesting run through. I had no idea Forgotten realms was so old, or that it was created by an eight year old, I couldn't even write an interesting short story at that age. I'd love to see something more in depth, about specific campaign settings and their evolution. I don't know where your knowledge lies, or where it runs deepest, but I'd love to learn how the Pathfinder setting came to be. Primarily because the game was a split from D&D and I feel there may be an interesting story in the formation of a new world for a new game, but because I've just started running a Pathfinder 2e game. I'd also like to see a video where you discuss your favourite ttrpg games, which ones you enjoy playing most, and why, and which one you think has the best rules for the way you like to play. I'd certainly watch :)
Plus my Dice & Dragons Tee- shirt arrived today. I'll be wearing it at my next game.
That's awesome! Thank you so much for supporting me by buying a t-shirt. I really hope you like it. I was really happy when I commissioned my graphic designer friend to create that design. I think a lot of people don't realize that each character/creature on the shirt is based on the die associated with their hit dice (D4 Pixie, D6 Sorcerer, D8 Druid wildshaped as a Crococile, D10 Paladin, D12 Barbarian, D20 Tarrasque).
Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your suggestions for future topics! I am still DMing a long-running 3E/3.5/Pathfinder1E campaign that began in May 2001 and I have followed the development of Pathfinder and the world of Golarion over the years. It's a fun setting and an interesting story how the game came to be.
I can also add some videos on my favorite TTRPGs, what mechanics they have, etc. I was planning on a series about the 1981 Basic D&D game I run for my 13yo daughter and her friends: how I set it up, how I got the players involved, and the different sources (TTRPG books, videos, old materials, etc.) I use to help prep for each session. They're just kids but I think the advice and tips would be useful for any age group. Hopefully that would be of interest to you!
@@daddyrolleda1 I love the T-shirt :). You're suggestions sound great. I would find the videos about your daughter's game interesting. I'd love to see the differences and similarities with your choices, compared with a game you'd run for us oldies :)
@@MrChasanDayve Okay, cool! Thanks! I will start working on that, but I'll also continue making some history videos as well. Thanks again!
Even older than that. He actually laid the foundation when he was 5 and worked on it ever since. It was originally just a way for him to make/ tell/ explore stories that shared a common setting. It was a way of coping with the death of his mother. There is a pretty interesting video about our on his CZcams channel.
I have been making my way through your videos and I am enjoying them! I feel that the Lanhkmar setting should have been included. Although the D&D supplement for it did not come out until the 80's there was an oft forgotten board game made by TSR in '76. It is by far my favorite D&D setting and would love to see a video about it.
I can definitely add that to the list! It is a fun setting and I have chatted (VERY briefly) about the 1976 board game version, but a deeper look is a definite possibility.
also about this time the beginnings of what would become the Harn campaign setting; N. Robin Crosby began the setting in '77 before publishing in '83. Likewise Raymond E. Fiest and his friends begin creating the Midkemia setting in '78 that would eventually become the setting of the "Magician" and "Riftwar Saga" as well as several game books such as "Carse"
Thank you for watching and commenting. Yes, there were a lot of early settings that were developed during this time, but didn't see publication before my cut-off date of 1977, as I mentioned in the video.
The only reason I included the Forgotten Realms and the Known World, both of which were developed before, but not published before, 1977, is because the last time I made a video about Greyhawk, a few folks though to "correct" me for having supposedly "forgotten" them.
Harn, Midkemia, Glorantha, and a broader discussion of licenses such as Middle Earth and Star Trek were on my list to include if I were to make a follow-up video.
Thanks again! Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Since you included sci-fi, you missed the Starship Warden setting from Metamorphosis Alpha. I think that was published in '76.
Great vid. Keep up the good work and keep having fun.
@@jasonjacobson1157 Thank you for watching and commenting!
And yeah, I totally goofed. I own Metamorphosis Alpha but forgot for record the segment. I wasn't checking my notes well enough whole recording. There's a super quick mention (text and picture only) in the 1976 section of the video, but if you blink, you'll miss it.
just saw the secrets of Blackmoor movie. inspiring to anyone who has an interest in games
Yeah, it's a great look at the early days of the hobby and how the game we now play evolved from its wargame beginnings. I really liked that they were able to interview so many of the players from Arneson's and Wesely's games to get first-hand accounts of how things developed over time.
Star Wars and wilderlands of high fantasy released in the same year. It was a great time to be a kid. 😄
Seriously, 1977 is a fantastic year! Star Wars; Holmes Basic; Wilderlands of High Fantasy; the AD&D Monster Manual; the New Adventures of Batman; the comic book debuts of Black Lightning, Judge Dread, Machine Man, Ms. Marvel, Sabretooth, and Spider-Woman; and 1977 is one of only two years in the 1970s (the other being 1970) that has a designed Port (wine) year. THE BEST!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Played a heap of EPT in the late 70s/early 80s. Tekumel became part of our regular RPG multiverse. Interestingly, in the Harnmaster setting the world of Teku is mentioned and is a portal to Tekumel in that game setting.
I actually didn't know that about Harn. Thank you for sharing! And, thank you for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it.
@@daddyrolleda1 Harn's multiverse is called Kelestia. There is another world in the "family" of worlds that is a high magic fantasy world - a possible location for DM's to put their version of any D&D world.
@@briansmaller7443 Thanks for that info. I appreciate it!
this RAH barker turned out to be some piece of work!
It's extremely unfortunate. That part of his history stayed hidden for many years but when it came out, it was so much worse than I think any of us would've thought.
@@daddyrolleda1 seperate the art from the artist...
To some extent, those of us who enjoy telling stories, by necessity, also engage in making up a world in which the story unfolds. The difference is often how far afield we venture in our fictional world building. Authors of historical fiction adhere reasonably close to the factual world, at least to someone else's interpretation of the events and the people of record who comprise history. Science fiction and other fantastic stories obviously involve some creative content added to our setting. Good food for thought!
There is one campaign setting/system Glorantha/Runequest that I'm seeing left out of your TTRPG history. It's inception like many you mentioned, created long before it was published and has been fleshed out continuously for decades. Like T&T it was competing with AD&D in 1979.
I love love love that you included "Tunnels & Trolls" and "Monsters! Monsters!" These games are still around with current editions, but so few people seem to talk about them and recognize their place in our hobby. I hope these games get caught up in the Old School Renaissance soon.
I am friends with William W. Connors on Twitter (he's a past TSR game designs who worked on a lot of Ravenloft stuff among other products during the late 80's and 90's) and he is a huge fan of Tunnels & Trolls. He talks about it quite a bit, so who knows? Maybe it will have a bit of a resurgence someday! I'm glad you enjoyed the reference in this video.
Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Rebellion recently acquired the rights to Tunnels and Trolls. I'm eagerly awaiting a full announcement of their plans for the game. Here's hoping it leads to a much deserved resurgence. 🤞🙂🤞
Thanks for mentioning how FR's publication really grew from Gary's ouster.
Yeah, I think that's really the main catalyst. I mean, it's a really fun and interesting world, but TSR really seems to have doubled-down on it after Gygax's departure as well as after Hickman and Weis left (so limited Dragonlance game materials after that time, even as they kept pushing out new novels).
Back in 82 I managed to get a pre-owned copy of the Judges Guild First Campaign Setting. It came in a plastic folder, and the previous owner had done a load of work on filling in a lot of the blanks and had typed it all out and stapled it together to make an additional booklet. It was about 40 pages with a hand drawn cover!
They had also made a load of really careful, nicely drawn changes on the map and it was fantastic!
I know where most of my original books and sets went (mostly got passed onto my little brother) but I could never remember what happened to that plastic folder.
That sounds amazing! What a fun and unique item to have in your collection. I'm so sorry you lost track of it!
@@daddyrolleda1 I'd email my brother and ask if it ended up in with the stuff I passsed on to him, but I'd hate to have him say "Yeah... I got a small fortune for it on eBay..."
That would be heartbreaking!
I remember reading that the folks at TSR used to look forward too and simultaneously dread the arrival of Ed Greenwood's manuscripts in the office. Greenwood (who worked in a library here in Canada) would wrap his creations to within an inch of their lives, causing much cursing over the many layers of "Canadian"
Cellotape on each delivery.
Yes, I remember reading that same story! I think it was an interview in Dragon magazine with Kim Mohan, maybe? But yes, in any event, I heard how Mr. Greenwood would wrap things in aluminum foil, then plastic wrap with copious amounts of tape, making them very time-consuming to open!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
You're welcome! Very enjoyable video
The version I read came from. Ben Riggs book "Slaying the Dragon", a history of the Lorraine Williams years at TSR, but possibly the same interviewee.
@@jeffmason3785 I read that book, too! So it was fresh in my mind... you're right, it might have been that book, or now as I think about it, I think maybe there was also something about it in "Art & Arcana"? In any event, such a fun story!
City State 😁 I love that one.
The original version, never seen the revamped and re-released version, gloriously messy (or maybe 'dense' is a better word), trying to find anything specific in the text can be a nightmare (much like the first edition AD&D rules themselves until you've become 'very' familiar with them 😉) .. but there's just something about it that somehow feels more D&D to me than a lot of early actual TSR offerings.
It's probably just that I had that one and was using it first long before I got my hands on that second Greyhawk box set.
That makes a lot of sense to me... there are a lot of early products I spent so much time with that were organized poorly and/or had poor layout, but that I find much more useful than later more slickly produced versions!
Always interesting. Thanks again for the hard work..
I really appreciate your comments. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Excellent!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it. Cheers!
These videos are awesome!! Please more settings videos. Thank you. 👏🙏🎲
Thank you so much! I really appreciate you watching and commenting!
I'm happy to add some more settings to the queue. I was considering the Known World/Mystara, as that's one of my favorites, but also perhaps some 2E stuff like Dark Sun.
Any preferences?
Didn't know the Forgotten Realms are that old, I read of it in a later Dragon Magazine and thought the gray box to be written especially for D&D. Personally I preferred playing in the Known World / Blackmoor and Glorantha (RuneQuest) by Greg Stafford, first published in 1975 as well. And later Midgard from the first german rpg with the same name from 1981.
I am a "Known World" person myself! It's probably my favorite D&D setting, although I do also like Blackmoor and I find fun things in Greyhawk, the Realms, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Kara-Tur, and more.
I love when folks outside the U.S. comment on the games they played, such as our comment on Midgard, as I have almost no knowledge of non-U.S. games, so it's great to learn!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it!
great video. thank you
I appreciate that - thank you for watching and commenting!
You got some cool stuff
Thanks! Yes, I've been playing and collecting for years, since 1981 and have tried to keep my stuff in good shape. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I'd love to see more
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I will add a Part 2 to my list.
Thanks again.
Nice job!
Thank you! I really appreciate that. Your videos are always so well put together and "professional." One day I'll get there. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 you’re doing great!
Really in depth and interesting. I thing it would be cool (if interesting to you) to see recap the early days and origins of Runequest as its first real competition. Also thought up as a thought experiement in the 50s by Greg Steffard, first made into a war game and shortly after convinced by Perrin to make it a ttrpg.
Finally won my sub, so little BS, so much information.
Thank you for subscribing. I really appreciate it! And thanks for watching and commenting.
Let me know what are some other topics you'd like to see me cover. I have a list, but always willing to listen to suggestions!
You forgot Arduin. Which was first published in 1977 and dates back to 1974 in its unpublished form.
Yup. There was a ton to fit into this video and there are a few that didn't make the cut. Ideally one day I'll make a follow-up to include them.
Thanks for watching and commenting. I hope that omission didn't negatively affect your enjoyment.
@blackstaff798 I saw another reply from you, but it seems to have disappeared. But yes, fair enough, Arduin is undoubtedly a more important part of RPG and campaign setting history that Realms of Yolmi. My video turned a bit into a history of RPG systems rather than settings, but that's because the two are usually tied together and I wanted to make sure I covered every system and associated setting that came out. Anyway, thanks for your note. I appreciate you watching and commenting and I've definitely added Arduin to my list of future videos. Cheers.
@@daddyrolleda1I deleted my post by accident as I was trying to edit it. That said,, you're doing a great job on your videos and look forward to the next one.
@@blackstaff798 Thank you very much for your encouragement. I appreciate it. When you get a chance, if you could hop over to my latest video and let me know in the comments what your 4 "desert island" TTRPG books would be, that would be awesome. I'd love to start some conversations there about the key books that folks would want to run all of their future campaigns if they could never get another book. Cheers!
2nd City under Viola Spolin in 1946 organized what they called Theatre Games. There were no rules per say. Same for Psycho Dramas done in the 1920's. All of these lacked any sort of real structure or rules as say presented in D&D.
You should get Spolin's Book Improvisation for the Theater it was sort of the first published larp book. It describes the role of the Side Judge.
You say that D&D had no setting, but I believe that what you say about Space Quest having an "implied setting from character options" also applies to D&D. Players were advised to use the "Outdoor Survival" map for the campaign wilderness. The "Underworld and Wilderness" booklet tells us about the encounters and character types. "Monsters and Treasure" also contributes a vast amount of information about the default setting of the game. We may not know the names of places or the gods but otherwise we can find a great deal of information about who lives there and what they have and what they want. Plus it says right on the cover "Medieval Fantasy Adventure" so the setting in this case is stated.
Fair enough. The use of the word "setting" has different connotations, and I could have done a better job of being more specific on the one I meant.
When I think of a "setting," I'm thinking of a guide that I can use to describe cultures (political entities, faiths, species, etc.) that exist. The World of Greyhawk boxed set is a Campaign Setting that a DM can use to understand the relationships between between nations and other political entities, the gods, the weather, etc. Empire of the Petal Throne has that information largely built in to its game rules.
OD&D does not include that kind of information. That is left up to the referee to create. There's nothing wrong with that approach at all. I mentioned it specifically because in earlier videos, when I talked about Greyhawk, I got a few comments from people who said that, for example, Blackmoor: Supplement II is a "setting" publication. It is not, by my definition of what constitutes a "setting" in terms of information that would enable a Referee to run a game in said setting without having to do a lot of additional work.
@@daddyrolleda1 I understand what you mean by setting as a supplemental product that outlines all the needed names and places that add much to the background of the game and helps facilitate role playing. I would just not characterize as original D&D as having "no setting". The setting is European Medieval Fantasy. In like manner Boot Hill has a Wild West Gunslinger setting and Top Secret has a Modern Spy setting. Obviously there is more that can done to expand on that very basic setting and as the "Wargame Campaign" gives way to the new world of Role Playing, we needed answers to more of the specifics of the setting. I know this is a nit picky difference in wording. Thank you for engaging patiently.
@@anymajordude87 All that makes sense, and I do understand your point. I always appreciate the chance to chat and share our mutual love of the hobby. Cheers!
I'd like to see you go over the various editions of Metamorphosis Alpha.
I will add that to the list! There have been quite a few! I remember first hearing about it from some articles in "Best of Dragon, Volume I." I finally got the game decades later off Ebay.
I am contractually obligated by the Fraternity of Order to request a setting video featuring Planescape.
I will add it to the list!
And, thank you for watching and commenting!
RPG's in the 1940's? Did everyone wear suits and ties and hats when they played? 😎😃🙂 Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm looking forward to watching this. Gonna share it too.
I have a home movie from the 1970s of my Dad shooting pool with the other neighborhood Dads after work. Every single one of them was in full business suits.
@@davidfinch7407 I was 8 years old in 1970. Many still wear suits today, but not nearly as often as they did in the 70s, and more people wore hats in the 70s : )
Thank you! I hope you enjoy it when you get a chance to watch!
Will you be reviewing Marvel Superheroes TSR? Reading comics back in the 80s I remember seeing the advert for it and wanting to play it but never got the chance to.
I can definitely add that to the queue! That games is the reason I got back into comics in the 80's! I started reading comics in the late 70's with Marvel Star Wars that my mom gave me after she saw how much I liked the movie. But I stopped reading them after around issue #15 and didn't read too many more until I saw ads in Dragon Magazine for Marvel Super Heroes RPG and I saw characters I didn't recognize. The next time we visited the mall, I went to the spinner rack at Waldenbooks and grabbed a copy of X-Men #197 (I still have it, as well as my Star Wars comics!) and that got me started on a comics reading and collecting spree that lasted until the early 90's, only to quit again, then getting back in with Dark Horse Star Wars comics and some trade paperbacks like Kingdom Come, House of M, and Avengers Disassembled. Around 2012 I got back into visiting a local shop once a week with my daughter in tow, and I've kept that up ever since, for the past 12 years (you'll see my post my weekly pick-ups in my "Shorts" videos).
Anyway, after I got that X-Men comic, I got the Marvel Superheroes RPG and my friends and I had a blast with it. We mostly made our own heroes rather than using ones from the comics, but it was still a ton of fun.
Thanks for watching and commenting, and for suggesting a topic!
@@daddyrolleda1 Thanks for the reply and I look forward to watching your review. I don’t want to derail your video by going off on a slight detour but Secret Wars was when I really jumped into comics but like you I jumped back off again during the 90s a culmination of being a teenager interested in other things plus I thought the stories and storytelling (art wise) was not very interesting. About 8 years ago I discovered Jim Shooter’s blog and it got me wanting to read comics from the 80s again. On another note. I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and wow! What a game! It set me on the path of really learning about D&D I know the brief history but this channel as really gotten some in depth info. Grazie!
I too started creating a fantasy world when I was a kid. I even have an old map that made up of taped together paper squares that looks just like the one at 4:21, as well as much nicer one done on 4 poster boards I made later.
I worked on it all the way up into my mid 20's. I figured I work it all into a novel someday, but I was always better at making worlds than writing a compelling story in them. Plus writing a fantasy story as a first time author is a lot like tossing a message in a bottle into the ocean.
We could be twins! I started working on my world around age 12 or 13, but really got into it in High School and early college, at which point my friend and I decided it would be better if we used it for a series of fantasy novels instead of D&D, so we plotted out a 7-book series, but instead of writing just kept creating more and more stuff for the world. I finally shelved the project but when 3E came out, my work friends asked me to run a game for them and I dug out my old world and used it for our campaign. That game is still running ~22 years later!
@@daddyrolleda1 I did write about 2 million words over 6 books and 3 rewrites and 10 years. I enjoyed writing about my world and characters, I just was never satisfied with the actual plot of any of iteration. They all felt either too biographical, too aimless, or too trite.
I am hopeful to start up a 4th draft in the nearish future though, and finally finish one complete version of the story, whether I ever publish it or not.
I have never heard of this gentleman or this game. I find this history you dig up informative and interesting in that it gives me a greater sense of what the game is. It's grounding. I stopped playing AD&D in the early 2000's. About the time 3.5 was really strong. I had been running a 2e game for a small group but life changes brought that to and end. I'm about to get back into the hobby as a first time VTT player sometime this month. It's a 2e game btw. It will also be the first time I've got to be a PC since my 1st Ed days way back in the 80's. Yes I'm the guy who always "got stuck" so to speak as the DM. I like the roll btw but am very excited to be an actual PC again. I will eventually run a world again and this sort background keeps my head in a realistic space as far as world building goes as I do watch and keep up on current state of the hobby and DO NOT like what I consider the unrealistic PC's are "special" OP characters in the story that no NPC can match we're in easy mode you'll always win way I see the game played today. Fantastic stuff sir. I will keep coming back to your channel for inspiration and knowledge.
EDIT. One thing I've never been able to wrap my head around or have knowledge of is how would one conduct warfare in the game? It's mentioned in many modules and stories as background information but I've never seen it done as part of a campaign setting. Note in my mind a campaign is a living world and what's called campaign today, though a correct use of the word, is really just extended single adventures. I get that many 5e players only play adventures not connected but each being a basically a separate thing often using new characters each time rather than how we did things back in the day. Anyway getting long winded as I'm prone to. I have the 2e boxed Battle System but I could never get anyone to try it out with me and I find it overly complicated as a system to actually use in any campaign I ran. Do you have any information on the history of how mass battles where, if they ever where, used in a world setting?
My knowledge of Dave Wesely and Braunstein came mostly from the Playing at the World Blog (playingattheworld.blogspot.com/) and also from watching the documentary I mentioned, "Secrets of Blackmoor." If you have the means to rent it, I highly recommend it.
Congrats on your new game coming up! I also will be using a VTT to play in a game next weekend (for Dragonlance) and it's not something I am comfortable with - I'm much more of an in-person player. I get too distracted and lose interest quickly when playing online, but that's just me. I know a lot of folks love playing that way.
The connection between wargames and roleplaying games is funny in a way, since RPGs developed out of wargaming, then became their own genre in which running a wargame was no longer the primary purpose of the game, then going backwards to create rule systems for running wargames in RPGs, such as Battle System that you mentioned, or with the Companion Set's War Machine rules. There was even a 3E-era resurrection of Chainmail published by Wizards of the Coast. None of them stuck around long, and the wargames aspect for conducting large military scale operations in RPGs hasn't really stuck.
I've seen many different ways of handling it, but my personal approach is go give the PCs different "missions" with time clocks (e.g., take this single tower before nightfall, or poison the enemy's water supply before sunrise, etc.). Each PC can even have a different mission, and then I give them victory conditions: They have to accomplish X number of missions before Y number of failures (e.g., if the PC trying to poison the water supply is caught and/or if the enemy discovers the water is poisoned and uses clerical magic to fix it, that's a failure). If the victory conditions are met, that means the PC's side won the battle. I change the missions depending on the type of battle, and also how many missions must be completed before failures (e.g., if the PCs side is hopelessly outnumbered, they might need to complete six missions before three failures, whereas if their side has the advantage, it could be reversed, etc.).
Hope that helps!
@@daddyrolleda1 ty for the lengthy reply. I feel you've gone above and beyond here for a stranger that's just barely discovered your channel. I humbly give thanks.
The doc is on CZcams btw. Watched it. I'll check out that website and see what gems find their way into my treasure pouch.
@@WayneBraack No problem at all! People on Twitter know I like to chat and have conversations. I'm known for my multi-part tweets! I've had a nice time chatting with you and I'm glad you found my channel (which is brand new, less than two months old, so you're one of the first to find it!).
I had no idea the documentary was on CZcams. Years ago it was on Amazon Prime, but now you have to pay for it to watch it there. I own it on old-school Blu-Ray and have started watching it again within the past couple of days.
Cheers!
I see you slipped into your old habit of pronouncing David‘s last name. Understandable it only took me five years of him making fun of me to get it straight myself. I am about eight minutes in and noted you skipped over brownstone, which is in between David Wesley‘s game and Dave Arneson’s game.
very informative. I know MAR Barker was creating his fantasy setting, but he didn’t have game mechanics until he bumped into Dave Arneson, who gave him a pre-print copy of the rules I think Monard was also involved with this.
in the early days, Dave did play a lot with anyone out there, including Meyer, which they collaborated on a few games. The detail and complexity of that world setting was intense. Both Dave and Gary liked his world. Barker used his own printing press to print off the boxes and rules.
Back to Dwayne Jenkins and his brownstone: you have David Wesley with his role-play, modern players would not understand. Dwayne re-introduced persistent characters instead of a character that would exist for a game.
Dave Arnesen then took those persistent character, ideas, and leveling beast upon experience points. Which was gleaned off of Mike Carr Who had a merit based leveling. It’s interesting. We are going full circle onto that idea with current players.
The game mechanics and their effect on the world settings is also rather interesting
Yes! This was one of my very early episodes I made when I realized I was going to be focusing the channel more on the history-side of things, so this was before I knew how to pronounce David Wesely's last name. I don't know why I tended to forget mentioning Brownstone back then - I was aware of it from the documentary and I know I mention it sometimes but not every time. I think it's partially because I don't script my videos but just chat spontaneously so sometimes I forget stuff.
Curious where Gamma World might fit and also metamorphosis alpha?
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I did include Metamorphosis Alpha (kind of! I forgot it in my original audio but I included a quick nod in the video) at this point: czcams.com/video/Rrbei_hxDnQ/video.html
Gamma World came out in 1978 and I stopped the overview in 1977, which I picked because starting in 1978 and onward, there's a huge explosion of tabletop RPGs and settings and it it's just too much to fit into one video. I do love Gamma World, though - it was the second RPG I ever played, and I'll be doing a video on it and MA at some point.
@@daddyrolleda1 I know you said in the video that you were cutting off because of the explosion in 1978. I just didn't make that connection lol. Thanks for the really quick response! I'm watching the second part of your video on alignment and the planes now
@@daddyrolleda1 I rewatched from that point to the end of the video three or four times and didn't see any text or other mention.
It's super quick... I think less than 2 seconds. I forgot to mention MA in my video so I put up a pic of the cover with a short text blurb that just said, "I forgot to mention Metamorphosis Alpha: 1976!"
So... you didn't "miss" anything. I had MA on my list of notes but since I do these off the cuff without looking at my notes (partially because my printer is broken so I can't print them out...) I just completely forgot about it.
Please, remake this to add Dwane Jenkins Brownstone Western setting at some point, when Braunstiens where happening he had already had his game group going, I believe. Amazing video, otherwise.
I do remember that Brownstone game, primarily from having watched the Secrets of Blackmoor. I will make a note to include it should I revisit this era of TTRPG history again. Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
Didn't H G Wells "publish" the first table top rulez
He definitely wrote a set of rules for miniatures wargames, but there was really no "setting" attached and I wouldn't call it a TTRPG. Braunstein and Blackmoor both have roleplaying elements (and can be considered the "original" TTRPGs in terms of having actual detailed rules for roleplaying) whereas H.G. Wells' "Little Wars" (more properly, "Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books") is about miniature wargaming and contains no rules for roleplaying.
Braunstein sounds very similar to En Garde.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I can see that - they both involve some roleplaying features mixed with tactical wargaming. En Garde focused more on man-to-man dueling whereas, as I understand it, Braunstein's wargame aspects were still more focused on bigger picture combats. Wesely had to invent man-to-man combat rules on the fly when two players said they wanted their characters to duel.
Anyway, a great insight!
@@daddyrolleda1 besides the occasional duel En Garde really focuses on the character's social power and a long term development. I've recently refereed a game. Playing Gangbusters again after over 30 years, there is a strong En Garde "weekly actions" mechanic we ignored as kids. That game is a class-level system with a lot of skills, though the class and level don't seem to have as great an effect on character abilities as D&D.
@@owenbloomfield1177 Thank you! I never got a chance to play En Garde back in the day, but it sounds like something I'd like!
And, alas, Gangbusters was one of the few TSR RPGs that I never played (never played Conan or Indiana Jones, as well as Dawn Patrol, if that counts as an RPG). I think I played the rest of them, though.
@@daddyrolleda1 I pretty much purchased all of their games. I loved Dawn Patrol. Played a lot of Star Frontiers as a teen.
@@owenbloomfield1177 After D&D, our main games were Gamma World, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, and Marvel Superheroes. I was very partial to Gamma World in the 80's. I'm a sucker for a good post-apocalyptic setting.
Do you like to know more?
By TSR, you corrected yourself.
I have been a DM since I was a child, and I regret not having written down any of my world's "stuff" before now. I have started doing so, but there are a lot of random notes, sheets of paper, even napkins, with thoughts, ideas and lore. I will only be able to recreate parts of the world, but that will be enough for years of gaming with my friends
That is heartbreaking!
I have tons of notes on scraps of paper, including post-it notes, half-used Steno pads, discarded pieces of dot-matrix printer paper, and more. I'm a terrible packrat so I have all of that stuff still saved. About 25 years ago, I began re-writing all of my old notes into a notebook just to organize them and reduce the paper clutter, but I never finished the project. I'll have to show that notebook here some day!
@@daddyrolleda1 When I'm getting closer to something that isn't just notes I'll share a link to World Anvil where I write the world. But, due to work and play, this is a slow prosess 🙂
No mention of Runequest originally published in 1978 with the Glorantha setting? Great video though - thanks for this.
Thanks for watching and commenting. I tried to make that clear in the thumbnail image and also in my introduction to the video when I talked about only covering settings through 1977. There were just too many new settings to cover starting in 1978 and the video was already 20+ minutes long.
Honestly, the only reason I included the Forgotten Realms and the Known World, neither of which saw print before 1977, is because the last video I made about Greyhawk, some folks wanted to "correct" me about leaving them out.
While Glorantha began development in 1966 and saw print in 1975 with White Bear and Red Moon, that was a board game, not a TTRPG and I was really try to focus the video on TTRPG settings that were published through 1977. I planned to cover Glorantha in a follow-up video if people were interested.
@@daddyrolleda1 All cool - :) Great video all round.
Technically, Greg Stafford started Glorantha stories in the 1960s, and the first "wargame" (White Bear and Red Moon, later Dragon Pass) based in the World was published several years before Runequest.
No Glorantha?
I was saving that for my next video starting in 1978 since that's when Runequest came out. I realize Stafford was working on it since 1966 and the White Bear and Red Moon came out in 1975, but that was a board game and I was trying to focus on RPGs prior to 1977. The only reason I included the Known World and the Forgotten Realms is because the last video I made, people kept asking about them, implying I "forgot." Plus the video was already 20 minutes long. But yes, I had in my notes to cover Glorantha next time.
Ha! Sorry. It’s happening again!
Subscribed for the next episode.
@@daddyrolleda1Viewers can and will be overly critical, but... I'm baffled by the notion that anyone could claim that you are uninformed about these subjects.
@@TAFMSV No worries at all! And thank you for watching and commenting, and for subscribing! I really appreciate it!
@@D--FENS Thank you - I appreciate it! I think the main thing is that people are really passionate about these subjects, which I appreciate, and also I'm keenly aware that a lot of folks make statements or ask questions based not on having actually watched the video but on what they *think* I'm going to say or perhaps they only get part way through, etc. It's all good. I'm happy to have a chat with anyone who has information to add, even if it's about something that I already addressed. I thank you again! Cheers!
I thought Judges Guild was very good. I wouldn’t mind see Empire of the Petal Throne. Where is Harn”
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
For Empire of the Petal Throne, I have a whole video dedicated to the subject: czcams.com/video/TePumzEe5CM/video.htmlsi=DZ9TWc5Ezwybnzpq
For Harn, I was focusing on system from 1940 - 1977. The first *published* version of Harn was in 1983. I do need to dig a little more into its history as to when it was *created* but there is much less published information on its creation than there is for stuff like Blackmoor, the Wilderness of High Fantasy, Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, etc.
I believe David Wesley would not be pronounced Weaselly
His last name is spelled "Wesely," not "Wesley." I've heard it pronounced both ways, but never from the man himself, so I was unclear on the pronunciation.
@@daddyrolleda1 that seems fair. I just had never heard it pronounced that way.