Mytholder ([info]mytholder) wrote,
@ 2008-03-07 10:38:00
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Out of curiosity - what's the first co-operative boardgame or wargame? Does it predate D&D?

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[info]nesf
2008-03-07 11:14 am UTC (link)
I'd wager large sums of money that people were playing co-operative board/war-games long before the 70s.

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[info]bruceb
2008-03-07 11:24 am UTC (link)
I'm blanking on names right now, but I recall being told often that some of the pbm games of the early to mid '70s were evolving roleplaying elements just as Gygax and Arneson were out of their wargaming.

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[info]my_name_is_fiki
2008-03-07 11:26 am UTC (link)
Well Role playing predates D and D so I can only assume Baordgames and stuff do. Wargaming def does. Wells wrote Little Wars in the 30's I think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_role-playing_games is an intersesting read.

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[info]samvail
2008-03-07 12:22 pm UTC (link)
Risk has (unofficial) co-operative rules for making alliances between players and that dates from 1957.

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[info]mytholder
2008-03-07 12:44 pm UTC (link)
You're still playing against other players there, though, right?

I'm just vaguely wondering what the first 'players vs game' game is.

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[info]my_name_is_fiki
2008-03-07 01:31 pm UTC (link)
Well The Amazing Dunninger Mind Reading Game came out in 1967...

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[info]bluegargantua
2008-03-07 12:34 pm UTC (link)

As always, Boardgamegeek can help you out.

later
Tom

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[info]mistertarget
2008-03-07 12:59 pm UTC (link)
In 1913 HG Welles released the rules for the first modern tabletop wargame, "Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wars

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[info]evilrobotshane
2008-03-07 01:46 pm UTC (link)
Can't help with that one for I am both young and foolish, but I've been reading a gamey Web-forum where naturally they're arguing about similar things recently, despite the fact that what is or isn't a good definition of role-playing game matters not a jot. Anyway I did note that rather than cooperation being the key element of D&D that made it pioneering these folks have decided the clever bit is that it was trying to tell a story. Team sports are both cooperative and provide roles, but role-playing as we understand it is hardly a natural evolution out of that. I'm inclined to agree that it's the story-telling aspect that made getting in character seem like the thing to do - so unless your question is the right one and I'm reading too much into your motives, maybe it isn't.

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[info]older_than_time
2008-03-07 08:26 pm UTC (link)
von Reisswitz's Kriegsspiel predates HG Wells' Little Wars by a hundred years or so, and has definite cooperative elements.
Tekumel and Glorantha predate D&D, though they were more cooperative skirmish games (like ChainMail) than RPGs

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[info]alaimacerc
2008-03-10 03:13 pm UTC (link)
Glorantha as a [i]world[/i] predates D&D by a long way (summer of '66, apparently), and in the form of a boardgame by a couple of years. But [i]White Bear, Red Moon[/i] was a long way from skirmish-level (the scale is roughly a hex is a clan tula, and a counter is a regiment). Aside from the diplomacy rules and the (somewhat insane) three-player scenario, is essentially a conventional two-player wargame.

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AH's Wizards?
[info]alaimacerc
2008-03-10 04:18 pm UTC (link)
Earliest I can think of is AH's _Wizards_, which is "post-D&D". It's also a semi-cooperative, not the pure co-op of the Knizia LotR sort, but rather more in the style of _Republic of Rome_. Only one can win, but we can all lose in a grandiose fashion, that's conceptually worse than 'losing by not winning'. (I have a copy of Wizards, btw... OTOH, my copy of RoR was last seen sailing in the direction of Belgium, and I'm not at all sure what continent it's on currently.)

Of course, you have to be careful about what your criteria are for "co-operative". Otherwise you might end up including games that essentially team games, or puzzles/solitaires, or indeed excluding the "semis".

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