proto-ttrpgs

Jon Peterson continues to be an extremely worthwhile read. currently in the section of Playing at the World 2e that describes the development of "character" as RPGs understand it. Apparently there were hacks of Diplomacy that used a map of Middle-Earth instead of Real-World-Earth, and put the players in charge of Lord of the Rings nations... and in the positions of LotR characters. We know these guys. They're in the books.

This is, if I were to describe art in terms of its component parts instead of as a social phenomenon, sufficient for a role-playing game in my mind. The game gives you a role to play, fulfilling that role is playing that game. LotR Hack Diplomacy is missing several components that are essential to the TTRPG experience for a lot of people (it's PvP, the GM handles paperwork instead of being a narrator, you're not creating your own character, there's no principle of "anything can be attempted") but I'm not a lot of people, and for me it's good enough to count.

has anyone created a dungeon crawler version of diplomacy. hold on lemme look this up