probably the best description of the game and part of the reason why I bristle every time I hear somebody say Wesely‘s game was Proto-roleplaying he literally was experimenting with the ideas of what happens before a battle that affects the outcome of a battle. In other words, the people in the area may do stuff that can either help or hinder armies. He did tease everyone they were going to do a war game to get everyone to come over. And then he did the bait and switch. He had said that if they didn’t like the game or it failed, he would then break down and do a typical wargame. He thought he failed at the game only to discover that everyone loved it and kept bugging him to do another. He had four different iterations with different back stories and different places and time for each of the versions. In his experimenting, he thought he lost control so the second game was him trying to take control further I can go over what exactly happened, but David would better explain that than me The third one tried even harder. He kept thinking he kept failing and couldn’t figure out how. The gaming people from the game kept pestering him to do another It was at this point that he realized what he did wrong. He was trying to control the players too much and loved the idea of them making up their own actions, and it has become a hallmark of his game. arneson was doing fictional Napoleonic around the same time in which the outcome was not historically to what happened. He had done two of those. Part of the kerfuffle between Arnesen, and some of the older players was, he was not so much of a stickler to history being absolutely what it said in the history books, shall we say He was beginning to adopt evil setting based upon an initial chitchat with Gary. But known to Gary, Arneson had already started, throwing in some fantasy elements because his players asked for it. There is some discussion between about Arneson, pushing to put more fantasy in what Gary was in the process of developing in Lake Geneva when Arnesen had played the Wesley game, he was enamored by the role-play aspect And had already added that to his medieval game. Initially more skirmish style type play with Hoyt holding Williamsport, which became the black mark castle. The initial combat rules that Wesley had to create was literally rolling two D6. it was the classic any wargame would apply. I think instead of trying to roll an eight or better to succeed. It was whoever had the bigger die roll. Wesely did not prepare any combat rules for his game because he wasn’t planning on doing any. but being an avid wargamer, it wasn’t hard to create something on the spot. The emphasis of your video is spot on. And I think you said it best compared to anyone else who talked about the game I’m wondering if any of those who have been yammering on Twitter from the group beOSR have any clue at all. This video will be very good and educational to them.
Thanks for that enthusiastic reply, Valar. In the case of the mechanic to resolve the duel, you are correct it was high roll wins. Arneson got to roll two dice and Wesely gave Clark 3. Areneson wondered why he got another die since his person was the captain of the fencing team at the university. Wesely explained to him that the guy had over 20 years in the military and had fought a great number of duels. He said the roll was not even close. Clark rolled something in the very high teens and Arneson got something in the low single digits. hahaha Great tales!
@@CeruleanRex At the game of Braunstein that I played, Wesely said that he was very curious to see if Arneson could pull an upset rolling 2d6 versus 3d6 but that Arneson rolled a combined total of 3. Needless to say he got skewered, lol.
Nice video CR .... Great breakdown of the game and yes if you never played it with Mr Wesely you should go to a convention where you get great access to the originators like DaveCon.
Thank you for the overview and insight. I had heard the term used many times by "experts" proclaiming the one true way. The different pronunciations may come from some kind of Mandela effect. :P I thought it sounded like a LARP, which makes it even more innovative.
It is reported that Strategos: A Series of American Games of War was part of the inspiration for it; Also, the Compleat Strategist and Conflict and Defense: A General Theory both are fonts of inspiration, apparently. In the process of reading all these. You do repeatedly emphasis LARPing, or real role-playing a role, not a roll; Which sort of grew out of RPGs (I think), but may be more accurately said, going back to RPG roots; The Society of Creative Anachronism, a form of this kinda LARPing? Any info of how these book influences and how the tie back or are synthesized, may be informative Thanks again
Hi JD. So Strategos by Totten is from the late 1800s as I guess you know. The key take away from that book was that fo0r purposes of maximizing the game for purposes of learning, a player could 'try anything' with the caveat that some things are more likely than others to be successful. That idea was kept obviously and is a core idea of Blackmoor later and then D&D. DM: "You are in a round room with no corners. There is a ring on a pedestal in the center of the room. What do you want to do?" We know that we can try anything. Totten's Strategos is the reason. Major Wesely condensed STrategos way down into a game with a manageable number of pages and rules for them to use for wargame play. That one is called "Strategos N" Yes SCA and other clubs are forms of LARPing. Some more than others. It is important in my opinion when talking about D&D and a lot of other RPGs that ROLEplay and ROLLplay are both good. I run games that have a good balance of using those skills. Braunstein however is almost pure ROLEplay. It is just the nature of what Wesely was trying to accomplish. D&D expects more of a balance between the two disciplines in my opinion.
