#RPGaDay2021 Day 20: Lineage

Oooh... another tough day for me. Today, let's choose "Lineage." Every movement, art or music style, or even academic field or trend has some individual or core group taken as foundational, then as that idea is explored, expanded and evolved, branches form and certain ideas or trends are said to have a lineage. In music, for example, you might put Black Sabbath at the foundation of Heavy Metal and explore how metal evolved, or talk about how Punk evolved into New Wave and Hardcore, etc. A lot of times in the arts being well versed in this stuff can easily lead to a snobbish place, but it is also useful. In music, again, I've personally fell in love with bands and back in those pre-internet days you'd read liner notes and see mention of other bands that influenced your favorite band, and start your way down the path. Basically, if you love a band and they are considered a part of a sub-genre, you can look across that sub-genre, or trace your way up or down from it in search of things that bring you similar or new joy. RPGs are no different. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in a way are to RPGs as Elvis Presley is to Rock'n'Roll (with, perhaps, similar debate that could be made as to how deserved those places are, etc.). If you wish, you can trace out from there.

Tracing a game's lineage is aided a bit by knowing original release dates, knowing the company that published the game, if they developed a "house system", and knowing authors and designers involved. Another thing that aids in getting a feel for the evolution of RPGs is tracking down early examples of when certain approaches or rules were used. Like, we all know about D&D and levels and classes, and this all started back in 1974, spawning many later editions, clones and imitators. 1975 you have Tunnels & Trolls, which is quite different in its approach. In 1977 you get Traveller and The Fantasy Trip, one has a randomized life path style character generation with little to no advancement, the other is maybe the earliest point buy character generation? In 1978 we get RuneQuest, bringing a lot of percentile rolls, the "if you use it, there is a chance you get better at it" style advancement system, and it kicks off a whole line of games including Elric, Call of Cthulhu, Mythras and many others. A decent series of books I'd recommend if you want to familiarize yourself with the broad development and history of the hobby is the "Designers & Dragons" series by Shannon Applecline. The series covers the history of RPGs in a decade per volume. Of course, it doesn't have all of the latest developments, but it's solid stuff.

So, to flesh out what I see as the possible benefits of familiarizing yourself with the history of RPGs and various games' lineages... Well, I'd already noted it as a way to possibly discover new games you might enjoy. Other times you may have assumptions about an RPG, and taking a clean look at original editions can cut through all of the cruft that has accumulated over the course of time to reveal the core coolness and brilliance of what a game had to offer. There can be this tendency to imagine that the current hotness is unprecedented, and old games are "outdated technology", but it's far from always the case. There are some forgotten gems of ideas hiding in those old games, along with some clunkers. Every once in a while, the new hotness in RPGs has a precedent, and reading up on it gives you new insight into that new hotness you're liking so much that makes you like it even more. Also, just paying attention to creators lets you draw fun connections. Like, "The guy who wrote the review for Champions in Dragon Magazine, and the guy who wrote the review in Space Gamer both went on to later write for Champions themselves (Scott Bennie & Aaron Allston)." Or maybe you're a big fan of Blades in the Dark (John Harper), then come across Talislanta 4th edition and see he was the main guy on that edition? 

So, by no means is it crucial to consider the lineage of different RPGs or the hobby as a whole, but if you are interested in the hobby itself there are fun things to discover and connections to be had. Additionally, I think that if you are interested in creating your own RPGs, educating yourself on this sort of material can only help broaden your horizons, to know what's been done and how, it's all good.

If it's your bag and something you're interested in exploring, I wish you luck on your journey!