Michael J. Tresca - The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Gary Alan Fine for his kind advice on role-playing games of yesterday and today, Nick Montfort for taking time out for my questions about interactive fiction, Alexander Hinkley of Alexs DBZ RPG for his insights on browser-based games, and Jeff Martin for sharing his thoughts on the creation of True Dungeon.

To the families of the wizards who made fantasy gaming what it is today J.R.R. Tolkien, Gary Gygax, and Dave Arnesonthank you for the gift that keeps on giving. To the bards who crafted the games I loveMonte Cook, Raph Koster, Erik Mona, and Rose Estesthank you for your inspiring work. To the paladins who fight the good fight in defending our hobby, including Stephen Colbert, Vin Diesel, Mike Stackpole, Paul Cardwell, and M. Alan Thomas II ... never give up the fight!

I also want to give a shout-out to my old gaming groups: Kevin Herriman from my very first basic Dungeons & Dragons campaign, Jason Varrone from my 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign, Bill Jellig from my 2nd edition campaign, and George Webster from my 3rd edition game. I would also like to thank Jeremy Ortiz and Robert Taylor, who participated in my Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and contributed art to this book.

My insights about MUDs came from the many years of working with the outstanding staff of RetroMUD, especially fellow administrator Mazyar Fallah. Im also thankful for all the players of RetroMUD who taught me volumes about the power of virtual groups, and Arianna Simes and Brandon Smith in particular for sharing their thoughts about gaming in general.

There are plenty of folks whom I didnt interview for this book but were nevertheless influential in my gaming life. Doug Schonenberg introduced me to Ultima Online. Mike Ettlemyer dragged me kicking and screaming into first-person shooters and now he cant get rid of me. I blame Chris Bibbs for sharing my thesis with Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade, which started me on the path of writing this book.

There are also organizations and places online where I lurk that deserve mention: geezergamers.com, enworld.org, RPG.net and Yog-Sothoth.com all provided valuable input over the years on games and gamers of all stripes. ICON has been my home convention for many years. If it wasnt for me attend ing the World Fantasy Convention with Fred Durbin, Nick Ozment, and Gabe Dybing this book might not have seen the light of day.

Preface

When we submitted John Gabriels Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, we were not aware that it already had proponents in centers of higher learning. Except, when they talk about it, they call it The Impact of Anonymity on Disinhibitive Behavior Through Computer-Mediated Communication. Same thing, though [Holkins 2004].

Why write yet another book about role-playing games? There are plenty of authors who have written quite a bit about fantasy gaming in a variety of mediums without having ever actually experienced their evolution firsthand. One of the reasons I chose to write this book is that I was there. Ive certainly experienced a wider variety of gaming media than some of the developers who created the more popular massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) today. There are scholars who have written books on MMORPGs with considerably less gaming experience. The gaming medium is not very old, but there is so much more to gaming than MMORPGs alone.

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. Ive 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. Ive 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 Gabriels 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: Nor mal 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.