The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games - Michael J. Tresca [1]
I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons at age seven and have been playing it for over twenty years. I snuck into university computer labs to play multi-user dungeons (MUDs) as a teenager long before I could attend college. I’ve played just about every form of fantasy gaming. By the time I went on to graduate school, I was an administrator for a MUD and had published several tabletop gaming supplements for the game I loved.
Every year, I attend I-CON on Long Island and participate in panels on gaming. I grew up with the convention, attending nearly every I-CON since I was twelve. I’ve also participated in discussion panels about gaming at Dragon*Con and Bakuretsu Con.
By the time I went to graduate school at Michigan State University, I was a man on a mission. Scholars were tut-tutting about the marvelous world in which boys played online, while I was facing down death threats, fighting spammers, and grappling with the ugly side that was part of everyday life on the Internet. My masters’ thesis would come full circle when Penny Arcade shared “John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.”
The theory, explained in an online comic in March 2004, explains the unsociable tendencies of online players when combined with anonymity: “Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad.” It was an enlightening lesson about the state of journalism to see the April 2, 2004, Washington Times quote me, as if I had been interviewed, in their column “Watercooler Stories,” where it stated that a “graduate of Michigan State University” had determined that anonymity made people more likely to be offensive. A thesis I had written five years before gained national prominence in a syndicated newspaper because a buddy of mine (Chris Bibbs) mentioned it to a gaming site. It was at that moment that I realized gamers were an international force to be reckoned with.
When I bought my first game console, an Xbox, I wasn’t really keen on many of the first-person shooter games that are so popular today. But a coworker, Mike Ettlemyer, convinced me to join Geezer Gamers (2010). Before I knew it, I was hooked on Halo. And Halo 2. And Halo 3. And Gears of War. And ... you get the idea. I now participate in online games with likeminded Geezers every Wednesday night on Xbox Live. Look for Talien!
I’m also one of the top 1,000 reviewers for Amazon.com, a relationship I’ve cultivated since Amazon.com was launched. I review everything I read, watch, or play, which keeps me pretty busy. In short, I am quite sure there are authors out there who know more about games than I do—but I don’t think they’ve played quite as many games.
When I first considered writing this book, I faced a daunting challenge: How to combine all these different experiences into one book that’s entertaining as well as informative?
Beginning with J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fellowship as envisioned in The Lord of the Rings, I decided to follow the long and twisty thread that is group play inperson and over the Internet. There are echoes of this motley group of races and professions, nationalities and ethos, in every fantasy game created since Dungeons & Dragons. The fingerprints of the tabletop role-playing game are everywhere, and sometimes even the developers don’t realize they’ve been influenced by all the games that have gone before.
Just as the Fellowship helped mold fantasy gaming, it also helped shape how players get together to play. And that’s where my thesis comes in: There are different stages of anonymity that influence how people play together, be it in costume, at a table, over the phone, or on the Internet. In-game and outof-game roles have a powerful effect on the game itself and it is that common thread we will pursue throughout this book.
There is a distressing lack of history knowledge in the gaming community. Tabletop role-players