(Note: I know I try to keep this blog mostly devoted to documentation of actual play, but I think this is the appropriate place to put this. I started this review thinking it might be interesting reading on Ferretbrain, but on balance I think the subject matter, whilst fascinating as an example of subcultural history, is still probably too niche for a more general audience. Hence its appearance here.)

Although the idea of a scholarly examination of the history of Dungeons & Dragons may sound like an exercise which can only be interesting to hobbyists, Jon Peterson’s Playing at the World is also a genuinely interesting artifact in its own right, since it’s not so much a cultural history as a subcultural history. Peterson’s methodology is to begin with a detailed and focused examination of the specific subculture that Dungeons & Dragons arose in – the wargaming fandom which had grown up around Avalon Hill’s board-and-counter wargames and various miniatures wargames – and details how Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and their early players and collaborators met through this fandom and what each of the main inventors of the game contributed. Following this introduction, Peterson then spends three chapters more closely investigating the history of wargaming, the fantasy genre, and the concept of roleplaying itself, and how each of the three are incorporated into the original game. This is important not only as a means of giving the game an autopsy and seeing what it ticks, but also to try and recapture the point of view of wargamers and fantasy fans of the era when coming to the fifth chapter, which examines the reception of the game, the development of the fan community, and the interactions between TSR and that community (and some of TSR’s internal politics) during the period between the original release of the game and 1977 – an appropriate enough point to leave the detailed history of the game, since it is then that the original three-booklet boxed set began to be supplanted by the new J. Eric Holmes-edited basic set and the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. An epilogue gives a brief overview of the wider impact of the game – its influence on early videogames (both CRPGs and text adventures which Peterson notes rely on a similar “dialogic” structure to tabletop RPGs) in particular, but also the cultural controversy surrounding the game (which, like most impotent accusations of Satanism levied at pop culture, did wonders for sales).

What sets the book apart from previous accounts of the history of the hobby is Peterson’s deliberate attempts to excise anecdotal accounts offered up years after the fact from his considerations. So far as I can tell, Peterson conducted no interviews when it came to compiling this history; instead, he has consulted a mountain of source material from the eras under discussion, ranging from centuries-old German kriegsspiel manuals to the magazines and fanzines which served as the forums for gaming and fandom discussion in the pre-Internet era. In the process of doing so he accomplishes an unparalleled level of detail and can unpick who is responsible for what innovation whilst setting aside the frequently self-contradictory and self-aggrandising claims made by various parties years after the event.

Continue reading “Playing at the World, Winning at History” →