02-25-2021, 06:20 AM | #11 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: First rules-light roleplaying game?
I'd add my vote to T&T. We picked it up because some old review or ad said, to paraphrase, "Like D&D, but shorter and faster."
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
02-25-2021, 10:47 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: First rules-light roleplaying game?
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Having answered my original question, I'd like to ask a follow-up: Dungeon fantasy requires relatively little preparation, with its implied setting, casual world-building, and acceptance of procedural generators (i.e., random tables). Many early dungeon fantasy rpgs (including, I think, T&T) emphasized the expansive but minutely stocked dungeon anyway. "Low-prep" and "pick-up-and-play" are more often associated with quasi-roleplaying boardgames,* but at some point that philosophy was applied to straight rpgs. I suspect this occurred as gamers got older and busier with Real Life (tm), with less time to devote to the hobby. "Beer and pretzels" is the corresponding wargamer's term for this type of game. I would be surprised to find that it was not applied to any rpg prior to Kobolds Ate My Baby! ("The Original Beer and Pretzels Role-Playing Game!") in 1999. So, Tunnel & Trolls is likely the first rpg deliberately offered as simple and rules-light. Is it also the first explicitly low-prep and/or pick-up-and-play rpg, or is that a later innovation? *For my purposes, I will define the difference between boardgames and roleplaying games as instantiation: in a boardgame, you play "the" barbarian -- the one that is provided in the set -- whereas in a roleplaying game, you play "a" barbarian -- one instance, perhaps, of a type. If you play the boardgame again or another player takes your place, "the" barbarian will remain essentially the same, but one barbarian in a roleplaying game need not be more than superficially like another. |
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02-26-2021, 07:44 AM | #14 | |
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Kentucky
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Re: First rules-light roleplaying game?
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Character creation is prettty quick in T&T, and monsters are far quicker to stat than most other RPGs (you just assign a single numerical Monster Rating, unless you're really wanting to do something special), but this all still assumes more prep on the GMs behalf than a true "pick up and play" game. But I think it's worth pointing out that T&T was also the first RPG to have solo books (like The Fantasy Trip would later come out with). Buffalo Castle was published in 1976 as an adventure for people who wanted to play but couldn't find a GM (it even predates the Fighting Fantasy books). If you knew how to make a character and had a copy of that, then I think the level of prep would be equivalent to any pick up and play game. But that's still quite different from the social dynamic of a pick up and play RPG. |
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02-26-2021, 07:53 AM | #15 |
Aluminated
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
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Re: First rules-light roleplaying game?
It's a little weird about that, unsurprisingly. Early Paranoia isn't particularly rules-light. Rather, it advocates an approach to GMing which is comfortable with ignoring the rules where it seems convenient. The point of playing the game is to be fast and funny, and if skipping over the die rolls seems the way to achieve that, go for it. It might be regarded as rules-light in play, but not as written.
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02-27-2021, 06:15 AM | #16 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: First rules-light roleplaying game?
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02-27-2021, 09:52 AM | #17 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: First rules-light roleplaying game?
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I can get back to a (c) 1998 version with identical text via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. The Wikipedia entry for Risus states that Risus was first published in 1993, and a precursor (GUCS: The Generic Universal Comedy System) dates from 1989. Does anyone have earlier versions of Risus (or even GUCS!) to confirm when this text was first introduced? Does TWERPS have a similar statement? Last edited by thrash; 02-27-2021 at 04:16 PM. |
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03-03-2021, 09:55 PM | #18 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: First rules-light roleplaying game?
No, it does not. I picked up a reprint from DTRPG. It jumps straight into introducing the rules through a canned scenario, with barely a word on why one would do all this -- and that word is "fun."
We are left with Risus as the earliest documented claim to being a pick-up-and-play ("beer and pretzels") sort of roleplaying game. How early (1998 vs. 1993 vs. 1989) is still to be determined. |
03-03-2021, 11:34 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: First rules-light roleplaying game?
Nothing like looking through the wikipedia list of tabletop RPGs to realize how many things I never knew about. I'm pretty sure Dinky Dungeons was after that market, but not sure what its actual advertising blurb said.
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03-04-2021, 06:08 AM | #20 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: First rules-light roleplaying game?
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