Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Online gaming. Did it spring from nothingness, or was there something before? Well, obviously there was something that came first, and that something is pnp games. What is pnp, you ask? Put simply, pnp means pen-and-paper (even though it should be pencil-and-paper as that nobody used pens to make their maps on graph paper or to write on their official character sheets!) which are role-playing games in which a number of people sat around a table, each with their own distinct character and one person (a DM or GM) running the entire game. The most famous of these RPGs is Dungeons and Dragons, but there are (or were) many more: Champions, Villains and Vigilantes, Paranoia, Chill, Call of Cthulhu, Boot Hill,  Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, Rolemaster, Stormbringer, Tunnels and Trolls, Traveller, and many, many more. These games had an impact upon the creation of MMOGs and still have an impact today. Without them, there would be no Champions Online or World of Warcraft.

First, the influence of pnp games upon the creation of MMOGs. With the rise of rpgs in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a new form of gaming was created. The most famous, and by far the largest, was Dungeons and Dragons created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (blessed be their names!). Before D&D, gaming at home primarily consisted of either bad board games (such as Parcheesi) or historical miniatures. With the advent of D&D, players actually took on a role of a brave adventurer, whether they be a sneaky thief, powerful wizard, or a holier-than-thou paladin. The players formed a party with their characters, with defined roles. Clerics would fight and heal, wizards would throw powerful magic from a distance (low hit points), thieves would attempt to flank the enemy, whilst fighters would stand in the first line to dish out and take punishment. Hmmm…wonder where I’ve seen that configuration before? The healer, tank, ranged dps, and melee dps is the standard group configuration in any MMOG today and it started decades ago around a million dining room tables. As the characters survived their adventures, they would gain levels. This level gain would grant their characters useful benefits such as increased hit points, new spells, more skills, and so on. To be fair, some pnp games did not use levels (Chaosium’s games come to mind), but they did feature gaining increases in skills over time. This attitude towards level advancement is seen in practically in every MMOG on the market. When your character dings, he gets more hit points and increases such as new abilities or higher skills.

Let us not forget that the developers of MMOGs come from a pnp background. They all know the thrill of slinging dice late at night around a kitchen table and getting that needed crit upon a hated foe! When Gygax and Arneson passed away, many MMOG company sites had a column devoted to the loss of those gaming pioneers. In addition, look at what comprise the worlds of online games. There are dragons, elves, dwarves, halflings, vampires, demons, orcs, goblins, and a myriad of other creatures all taken from the world of pnp games. Today, we’re used to fantasy creatures such as elves and dragons, but they were a new thing back when Dungeons and Dragons came out, unless you were a reader of fantasy such as Tolkien or Howard. (I know that pnp games took their inspiration from a great many fantasy authors, with Tolkien being the most influential, but that is not the purpose of this article. The purpose of the article is to chart the influence of pnp rpgs have on online games.) Games like Tunnels and Trolls and D&D vastly expanded the number of people exposed to those fantasy creatures. Later on, the same pimply faced kids who played D&D during lunch break were the same ones to create the worlds of Warcraft, Everquest, and Ultima. I won’t even bother mentioning the MMOGs that are based upon pnp games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer Online, and Champions Online. (Okay, I did mention them, so sue me.) Heck, Cryptic loved the Champions universe so much, they modeled a lot of what they did for CoH and CoV on it. Eventually, Cryptic bought the IP of Champions outright. Thus, Champions Online was born.

Besides the foundation for the games themselves, the main pnp influence upon MMOGs is the shared experience. What do I mean by that? Well, when pnp games were young, the main supplements for the games were modules, which were pre-packaged adventures. These modules really helped foster a sense of community of the game across the nation. You could always walk into a friendly game shop and swap tales with other gamers. The best was to compare notes over adventures that you both had participated in, but with different people. When you talked about the Tomb of Horrors, fighting Against the Giants, Ravenloft, or an Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, every other gamer worth his salt knew exactly what you were talking about. Conversations of, “How did you get past this death-trap in Tomb of Horrors” or “Man, I hated that count in Ravenloft” were commonplace. Everybody had played those adventures, so you had a common ground to discuss the game. Later on, modules become scarce as supplements became the mainstay, but the sense of community stayed on. Instead of talking about the weird layout of the spaceship in Barrier Peaks, you would talk about the insane utter cheese of an elvish knight. With the decline of pnp games, MMOGs are now the standard bearer of this shared experience. Everybody who has played World of Warcraft will talk forever about the horrors of walking up and down Stranglethorn Vale, how Death Knights are cheese on a stick, how rogues suck nowadays even though they used to be cool and feared, and there is talk about the various lairs that everybody goes through. “Man, I hate doing that damn dance in Naxx! My group wiped a dozen times before we figured it out.” “Going through Dr. Destroyer’s factory is hard! Especially that crazy fight at the end with the giant robot!” Like the pnp gamers twenty years ago, the online gamers today will still get together (mostly on forums) to chew the fat about their favorite game.

Now, the wheel has turned. Many MMOGs have been turned into pnp games, such as Everquest. Plus, the designs of MMOGs have influenced the latest offerings in the pnp market. Most noticeably, the 4th (and probably last) edition of Dungeons and Dragons incorporates a lot of MMOG style of level advancement and abilities. Now, fighters can taunt their enemies, trying to force them to stay on them, while everybody gets useful abilities that can be used once per encounter or day. Truly, the student has become the master.

Online gaming owes its very life blood to pnp games. Without games such as Dungeons and Dragons or Rolemaster, there would be no online gaming as we know it today. The races, monsters, class concepts, and leveling all came from those pnp games of yesterday. The children of those games are the MMOGs of today, sharing many of the same attributes, but perhaps less imagination, but a higher resolution. Whatever your preference, game on!