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Heroic Worlds
This history of role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons explains their evolution and gives complete definitions and descriptions for related game products. Arriving on the scene in 1973, such games caught on rapidly and spawned a thriving industry. These games are regularly played improvisations, with rules that allow for consistent resolution of action, in which heroic characters created by the players battle enemies or solve mysteries. Featuring essays by eighteen top industry designers, Heroic Worlds explains the evolution of role-playing games and their influence on other forms of entertainment. The art and jargon of game design, play, and collection are defined in detail.
448 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 1, 2011
Lawrence Schick knows what he's talking about. Working at TSR when it was the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons "factory," Coleco during the early phase of the video game era, MicroProse during its glory years, and AOL during the transition to the Internet as we know it, Schick has designed games, produced games, managed designers, and managed expectations. He's observed gaming from the ground up and is the most eminently qualified person I can think of to have written this book (although Lester W. Smith would do an amazing book on this subject and could probably update the pen and paper aspects of this book even better than Lawrence's original effort described here).
Heroic Worlds is a reference work about pen and paper role-playing games. It is written by a veteran of pen and paper game design, as well as a veteran of PC-game design and online game management. Very few people will read it through from cover to cover as I did (occasionally skimming the notes on systems in which I’m not as interested), but everyone remotely interested in the history of the role-playing genre or collecting old rule sets and modules can benefit from this jewel of a reference book. I teach a university course on the “History of Games,” so the entire book is relevant to me. I heartily recommend it.
Although the introductory chapter on defining a role-playing game and describing it uses the age-old conceit we’ve seen dozens of times in new rulebooks, writing out a dialogue as though it was a conversation between the players and the Dungeon Master or Game Master. I suppose that if it were not effective, it wouldn’t be seen so much. Still, it’s somewhat tedious to anyone who has ever actually played in a role-playing game and I suspect that anyone who would actually read Heroic Worlds would be precisely a person who has actually played a role-playing game. In spite of thinking this approach was somewhat hackneyed, I really appreciated the more academic definition of role-playing as quoted from Darwin Bromley (founder of Mayfair Games, but not held at the pinnacle of respect by many designers and publishers in the industry). His definition of an RPG (role-playing game) was spot on, however. He called it quantifiable interactive storytelling. They are quantifiable because, of course, characters and combat use numbers. They are interactive because the game changes based on what the players do. They are storytelling because the adventures unfold as a story, indeed.
The chapter on the history of role-playing was worth its weight in gold for me because it corrected a couple of errors in my timeline and enriched my understanding of the “pre-history” of role-playing with some concrete examples. I hadn’t realized the importance of the roster of characters in the pre-TSR Fight in the Skies (a WWI aerial combat game) or the inspiration that Strategos (a 19th century simulation for U.S. military officers and no relationship to the later Stratego) had provided for the early Braunstein simulations.
As if that much plus Schick’s catalog of systems and modules through the early ‘80s wasn’t enough to commend the book, he offers guest essays or reprints of essays by some of the top designers themselves: the late Dave Arneson, the late E. Gary Gygax, Steve Jackson (of The Fantasy Trip and GURPS not Games Workshop), Ken Rolston (later known for The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and its sequels), Michael A. Stackpole (NYT best-selling author and creator of Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes, and Ken St. Andre (sharing his version of how Tunnels & Trolls (originally Tunnels & Troglodytes it seems) came into being and why Starfaring didn’t compete well with Traveller). These essays make the book so invaluable that, if it were still in print—even in eBook edition—I would make it a required textbook for my class.
Finally, I loved Schick’s descriptions of systems and modules. I think he underestimates the contributions of obscure efforts like Superhero 2044) with its encounter matrix based on character "scheduling" decisions, I find myself agreeing with such criticisms as Traveller needing an experience point and leveling system. Even though it would take a new edition more than twice the size of Heroic Worlds to bring the effort up to date, the critical notes and summaries present in this volume are delightful and useful reading. I wonder if Lawrence has the copyright back. I’d love to use this as an eBook textbook in my “History of Games” class.
Heroic Worlds is a reference work about pen and paper role-playing games. It is written by a veteran of pen and paper game design, as well as a veteran of PC-game design and online game management. Very few people will read it through from cover to cover as I did (occasionally skimming the notes on systems in which I’m not as interested), but everyone remotely interested in the history of the role-playing genre or collecting old rule sets and modules can benefit from this jewel of a reference book. I teach a university course on the “History of Games,” so the entire book is relevant to me. I heartily recommend it.
Although the introductory chapter on defining a role-playing game and describing it uses the age-old conceit we’ve seen dozens of times in new rulebooks, writing out a dialogue as though it was a conversation between the players and the Dungeon Master or Game Master. I suppose that if it were not effective, it wouldn’t be seen so much. Still, it’s somewhat tedious to anyone who has ever actually played in a role-playing game and I suspect that anyone who would actually read Heroic Worlds would be precisely a person who has actually played a role-playing game. In spite of thinking this approach was somewhat hackneyed, I really appreciated the more academic definition of role-playing as quoted from Darwin Bromley (founder of Mayfair Games, but not held at the pinnacle of respect by many designers and publishers in the industry). His definition of an RPG (role-playing game) was spot on, however. He called it quantifiable interactive storytelling. They are quantifiable because, of course, characters and combat use numbers. They are interactive because the game changes based on what the players do. They are storytelling because the adventures unfold as a story, indeed.
The chapter on the history of role-playing was worth its weight in gold for me because it corrected a couple of errors in my timeline and enriched my understanding of the “pre-history” of role-playing with some concrete examples. I hadn’t realized the importance of the roster of characters in the pre-TSR Fight in the Skies (a WWI aerial combat game) or the inspiration that Strategos (a 19th century simulation for U.S. military officers and no relationship to the later Stratego) had provided for the early Braunstein simulations.
As if that much plus Schick’s catalog of systems and modules through the early ‘80s wasn’t enough to commend the book, he offers guest essays or reprints of essays by some of the top designers themselves: the late Dave Arneson, the late E. Gary Gygax, Steve Jackson (of The Fantasy Trip and GURPS not Games Workshop), Ken Rolston (later known for The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and its sequels), Michael A. Stackpole (NYT best-selling author and creator of Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes, and Ken St. Andre (sharing his version of how Tunnels & Trolls (originally Tunnels & Troglodytes it seems) came into being and why Starfaring didn’t compete well with Traveller). These essays make the book so invaluable that, if it were still in print—even in eBook edition—I would make it a required textbook for my class.
Finally, I loved Schick’s descriptions of systems and modules. I think he underestimates the contributions of obscure efforts like Superhero 2044) with its encounter matrix based on character "scheduling" decisions, I find myself agreeing with such criticisms as Traveller needing an experience point and leveling system. Even though it would take a new edition more than twice the size of Heroic Worlds to bring the effort up to date, the critical notes and summaries present in this volume are delightful and useful reading. I wonder if Lawrence has the copyright back. I’d love to use this as an eBook textbook in my “History of Games” class.
August 4, 2024
Impressive attempt to fully catalogue the RPG industry's output, perhaps primarily interesting because it puts its cut-off point for inclusion just before the release of Vampire: the Masquerade, so it ends up being a snapshot of the status quo as it stood just before everything changed. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
January 16, 2022
Fascinating history.
Features essays by Dave Arneson, Gary Gygax, Steve Jackson, etc.
Features essays by Dave Arneson, Gary Gygax, Steve Jackson, etc.
January 31, 2008
If you ever needed an encyclopedia on the early days of gaming, this is it. A complete catalog of every role-playing game from 1974 through 1990/1991. I'd love to see another edition that fills in the last 17 years as well, but I suspect Mr. Schick has moved on to bigger and better things....
January 26, 2012
The chapter on the history of role-playing games is undoubtably the best work of it's kind. Unfortunately, the remainder of the book is a hopelessly obsolete listing of games and supplements. Still of some interest for people who like to collect and reminisce about these games.
March 17, 2010
An excellent guide to early role playing games. Though now dated (published in 1991), it provides valuable information on many hard to find games.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews