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mytholder for pointing me at geek-archaeology, a series of articles by Robert MacDougall on the history and pre-history of the gaming hobby. I particularly like the most recent post, which draws together the RAND corporation, war games and The Compleat Strategyst: Being A Primer on the Theory of Games of Strategy by John D. Williams (a book I've read and enjoyed), as the fertile environment in which the earliest role-playing experiments began.
My favourite bit from the article:
After a few years, the RANDies moved away from gaming, finding it too time-consuming and intense. “Even short periods of game activity elicit a considerable drain on intellectual capital and resources,” read one 1956 report–which is code, judging from my own experience, for “eventually, the RAND analysts got girlfriends.”
It was ever thus.
mytholder for pointing me at geek-archaeology, a series of articles by Robert MacDougall on the history and pre-history of the gaming hobby. I particularly like the most recent post, which draws together the RAND corporation, war games and The Compleat Strategyst: Being A Primer on the Theory of Games of Strategy by John D. Williams (a book I've read and enjoyed), as the fertile environment in which the earliest role-playing experiments began. My favourite bit from the article:
After a few years, the RANDies moved away from gaming, finding it too time-consuming and intense. “Even short periods of game activity elicit a considerable drain on intellectual capital and resources,” read one 1956 report–which is code, judging from my own experience, for “eventually, the RAND analysts got girlfriends.”
It was ever thus.