Presentation: A brief history of game time

Here’s the follow-up to Conversation: Introducing role-playing, in which Ken Oswald presents an intensive and interactive summary of the hobby as activity. It’s hefty, at just under three hours, but full of titles (not summarized here in tags yet) and open doors for further discussion.

I’d like to see some comments going through those doors!

It’s also a great portrait of general concepts and assumptions throughout the members of the audience, since they have clearly arrived with a good attitude and strong desire to learn. Ken is very, very good at managing as well as enjoying the role of instructor, and I suggest taking notes on how he does it.


2 responses to “Presentation: A brief history of game time”

  1. ย Thank you Ron for linking

     Thank you Ron for linking this video. Some weeks ago I listened to your conversation with Ken Oswald and thought how wonderful it would have been to be able to listen to his planned "Introduktion" itself. Wishes sometimes come true. Three hours worth spending in front of a monitor. Probably I will have to watch it again, so many names and tracks to follow. I actually stopped a number of times to search the web for additional information on some people and topics.

    I only started role playing last autumn and this for me was a much wanted history lesson. It is a treasure trove of knowledge presented in a most entertaining way. I think its worth your while even if you are an experienced role playing enthusiast.

    Is there anything more to wish for? Not much I would say. Maybe that somebody equally enthusiastic and knowledgeable would attempt to cover what is to be found outside the US, a more in depth review of the Indie scene, a homepage that explains and compares different systems and a dictionary with terms and abbreviations and everything in a way that the beginning role player can comprehend. I guess half or all of that is probably already out there on the internet and it is me missing the right sites so I will stop here.

    • Thanks much for the feedback,

      Thanks much for the feedback, Helma! And welcome to the hobby!

      There was much material to attempt to cover in this talk, but I'm as passionate about it as you are so I had a great time doing it. 

      Love your list of "more to wish for." And it's an interesting rabbit hole – there's kind of a "standardized" and "non-standardized" culture of rpgs, so talking about its history and development (especially outside the U.S.) as well as terms comes with some caveats. But this is certainly a great aspiration. Who knows, maybe I'll put something like this together for another talk. Some of these kinds of things I discuss on my youtube channel Briefings for the Descent.

      Good gaming, Helma!

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