The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games - Michael J. Tresca [31]
In 1972, Don’t Give Up the Ship! was released by Guidon Games. It was the first collaboration between Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and was the progenitor of such features as armor class, hit points, and morale (Raymond 2010) that were later incorporated into Dungeons & Dragons.
Warhammer Fantasy Battle, a tabletop miniatures wargame, was released in 1983 by Citadel Miniatures. A combination of Renaissance Europe and Middle-earth, it assigned Earth-like analogues for nations and civilizations to the traditional fantasy races of elves, dwarves, and orcs. Warhammer also drew on the fiction of Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock as inspiration. The game would continue to evolve over seven editions and is the most popular fantasy wargame to this day (published by Wargames Workshop).
In 1985, Chainmail’s successor was released—Battlesystem. It was compatible with both the advanced and basic versions of Dungeons & Dragons. Like Chainmail before it, Battlesystem merged with Dungeons & Dragons to provide rules for large-scale battles. Battlesystem used units; each figure represented a single hero or groups of two, five, or ten people. The system didn’t provide statistics for monsters, instead using the experience point value of monsters gained from defeating them as point values. Battlesystem assumed two players without a Dungeon Master refereeing between them.
Battlesystem was designed for both 15-millimeter and 25-millimeter figures. Although the rules accommodated 15-millimeter scale minatures. The latter scale became the standard for heroic miniatures, and the revised Battlesystem in 1989 switched to 25 millimeters as the standard.
Wizards of the Coast revolutionized the card game industry with Magic: The Gathering in 1994, launching a dizzying variety of collectible card games. The collectible card game created several conventions, including releasing installments of the game in packs, a mutable series of rules that interacted with one another, a near infinite level of customizability, and the “tapping” of cards by arraying them on the table against an opponent (Lang 2007:87).
The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game was released by Games Workshop in 2001 to coincide with the movie release of The Fellowship of the Ring. It featured all the elements common to the wargaming hobby: collecting and painting miniatures and terrain.
After a failed reboot of Chainmail as a collectible metal miniatures game and the success of WizKids Games’ Mage Knight, Wizards of the Coast changed tactics. They released a series of plastic pre-painted miniatures in 2003 as the Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game. Each set came with a card detailing statistics for the miniature for both Dungeons & Dragons and the Miniatures Game. Miniatures were divided into common, uncommon, and rare types, signifying how often a miniature of any particular type was likely to be included in a randomized pack.
The D&D Miniatures Game removed the game master from the equation, thereby simplifying the rules to allow for skirmishes without a referee. Where Battlesystem and Chainmail attempted to integrate with Dungeons & Dragons through crossover rules, the D&D Miniatures Game connected to its sister game on a much simpler level; the miniatures served as useful representation for the Miniatures Game as well as for Dungeons & Dragons. The game proved very popular and served for a time as both a miniatures skirmish system and a role-playing accessory for Dungeons & Dragons. In early 2009, support for the skirmish game was stopped, and the miniatures now exclusively serve as an accessory for fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons.
Also in 2009, the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game was expanded to encompass the large battles described in the books with the publication of the War of the Ring rules by Games Workshop. It featured more troops and a simpler combat resolution.
Fellowship
In wargames, troops are generally