I’d like to start some group effort toward institutional memory of the historical role-playing activity.
Here’s the D&D diagram I’ve been using for years, which I absolutely insist must be used rigorously by anyone who wants to use those syllables in a conversation. It helps to keep the title from bearing every imaginable generalization, along with the deep-seated cultural belief that there is only one which does only one thing. The first horizontal black bar is the Blume purchase and the second one is the Williams purchase; the diagram doesn’t go past the mid-1990s.
A while ago on the Patreon, I provided a similar thing for the versions of Vampire. It helped me a lot because, until a couple of years ago, I have only really ever known one version: the original Vampire: the Masquerade, 1991. Not even 2nd or revised, so it’s not surprising that I have often found that conversational references to specific Vampire rules baffle both me and whomever I’m talking to. (credit to Greg for helping me with it)
You can see the similarities to D&D in the changing and sometimes shadowy owners, which are explicit in this diagram, and here’s a slightly more detailed chronology which you can use to annotate the graphic.
- 1991: White Wolf Publishing
- Vampire: the Masquerade (1991) – Rein-Hagen
- Vampire: the Masquerade 2nd edition (1992) – Rein-Hagen
- [MRH leaves WW 1996]
- Vampire: the Masquerade revised (1998) – Achilli
- Vampire: the Requiem (2004) – Achilli & Hindmarch
- 2006: CCP [merged with White Wolf]
- Storyteller Adventure System (2007) – Webb
- Vampire: the Masquerade Anniversary edition (2011) – Thomas, Achilli, Bailey
- Danse Macabre (2011) – Bailey, Baugh
- [Onyx Path Publishing licensee for World of Darkness (2012)]
- Blood Sorcery (2012), Blood and Smoke (2013, Onyx Path) – Bailey, Hill, Baugh
- Vampire: the Requiem 2nd edition (2014) – Bailey & Hill
- [distinction between World and Chronicles (2015)]
- 2015: Paradox Interactive [purchases all White Wolf from CCP; in-house WW development unit]
- Vampire: the Masquerade 5th edition (2018) – Hite, MRH involvement
- [Modiphius distribution] [Anarch scandal; dissolution of in-house WW unit]
- 2020: Renegade Game Studios [in-house “in partnership” with Paradox Interactive; Achilli]
- Vampire: the Masquerade 5th edition (reprint, 2020)
Let’s not forget the many associated media and products, as the role-playing publishing was from the start an inroad into franchise-building.
- Associated gaming products, e.g. collectible card games, LARPing, dice
- Video/digital games: so many, by various companies
- The brief TV show, Kindred, in 1996; also, the successful suit regarding the movie Underworld (2003)
I’d like to focus for a moment on Vampire: the Requiem 2nd edition, whose publication is now culturally shuttered away from the retroactive sequence of 1st, 2nd, revised (“3rd”), anniversary (“4th”), and 5th. The 1st and 2nd editions of Requiem have nothing to do with one another: different publishers, different authors, a decade in between. It’s not like Masquerade 1st and 2nd, which represents some necessary legal and procedural revisions to the first release. Which is to say, Masquerade 2nd is a revised version of Masquerade 1st.
Whereas for Requiem, Onyx Path’s Requiem 2nd edition is the text of Blood and Smoke with a slightly-revised Requiem 1st edition cover, with the main difference being the owl-entities in the background. So these aren’t 1st+2nd editions at all, but instead transferring the IP title and (mostly) cover image to an entirely different text.
Another moment and another focus: the confusions and controversy about Vampire: the Masquerade 25th Anniversary edition in 2018, brought out as the showpiece of the Paradox Interactive ownership. You can do whatever internet research you want about the details, which were quite fraught. What matters to me is that whatever that was, apparently it all blew over because the 5th edition (2020) is the same book.
I didn’t present it as a diagram, but the relevant information is quite complete, if I say so myself, in Why Glorantha and its games, and I’d welcome anyone’s effort to present it graphically.
In fact, let’s keep adding to this post – send me your diagrams via Discord. Greg has worked up a good one for Harnmaster .
What other titles would be usefully diagrammed out in their dates, publishers, and authors? Shadowrun has always baffled me, for example. At the original Patreon discussion, people mentioned GURPS and Traveller. But whatever you’d like. Let’s do some work.
5 responses to “Historical technique”
An absence from the D&D diagram: Chainmail.
Now the main reason why it wasn’t frequently used is that there were no useful instructions in how to use it, but a more interesting reason, I think, lies in the change from “D&D as a wargame” to “D&D as a new kind of game, eventually labelled roleplaying”.
Of course that’s a whole other kettle of fish, related to how the texts were used in practice, and the details of that are both mostly obscure and varied wildly from group to group. But that change was eventually reflected in the texts, even if it was unevenly, and wasn’t complete in practice.
I don’t have time to make an intellectually robust argument about that change at the moment, but at least I’ve made a concrete suggestion for a change to the diagram!
It’s a good suggestion although maybe not exactly for this diagram. Its purpose is less about origins and more about how the name “D&D” has been squashed among so many applications.
But if we are thinking about systems and rules texts, then Chainmail (asterisk asterisk; damn it is complicated all by itself) belongs there – and at the sideboard, then, should be included Nomad Gods and White Bear Red Moon, as contemporaries.
In this case, too, then we should break out Blackmoor as its own thing prior to getting folded into the D&D sphere; someone should investigate whatever Zeb Cook was doing prior to AD&D 2nd edition, because that is definitely something else, more like Fantasy Hero, not a modified version of AD&D; and obviously, for later titles, Talislanta 3rd edition as the direct precursor to D&D 3rd edition, which would have no systemic connection to D&D anything prior.
For all the nitty-gritty of various printings of D&D-stuff, https://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/rulebooks.html is a great resource. I find the wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_tabletop_role-playing_games can also be useful. I’d point out that “Bunnies & Burrows” was quite early (1977), and (speaking personally) made it clear this was NOT just a hobby of sword-play & spell-slinging or sci-fi.
For me, Vampire is entirely enmeshed with Werewolf, and maybe the “World of Darkness” as a whole, but that diagram seems daunting and I’m not clear what value it’d have. But I really ought to figure out some diagram to contribute – maybe the Harn-stuff prior to Greg’s diagram?
I’m good with the D&D diagram as is. I included it as an example, not for critique or suggestions.
The full White Wolf publication diagram is too scary and dense for me, but it’s definitely a pop culture phenomenon and maybe even an exemplar of the 1990s. So if you want to try, please do … maybe at a coarser scale per title?
No critique intended – I can’t imagine how the specific printing data would even matter for your diagram, but I can imagine other diagrams where it might.
The White Wolf I played some in the 90’s was Werewolf, so maybe I’ll start with diagramming that and see if I can stomach expanding to the full publication-set.