Troy Goodfellow

Episode 186: Playing at the World

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This week, Troy and Bruce talk to Jon Peterson, author of the epic gaming history tome, Playing at the World. They talk about the turning points in the evolution of wargames, when a wargame becomes a role playing game and the important task of collecting and compiling gaming's long and often small scale history.

Listen here.

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Thanks for this podcast Troy, Bruce and especially Jon. Loved it so much and it inspired me to order the book straight away.

And I will say that the discussion about the end point did make me wish that there was a second volume that went off into the history of electronic war and roleplaying games. Video game history work that isn't Nintendo is pretty thin on the ground.

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You haven't got 186 up on the "front page" either here or at 3MA... I want to know more about Bill Giddes (sp?) - sounds like an interesting character - not in the book's index? What games was he best known for influencing? It wasn't clear. Don't forget to put in a link to http://www.amazon.com/Playing-World-Simulating-Adventures-Role-Playing/dp/0615642047/

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After I'd listened to the cast, I immediately went and bought the book on Kindle, with the anticipation of reading it sometime soon. I'm fascinated by the historic link between wargaming and roleplaying games. Plus I have a keen curiosity towards early wargaming, mainly to see how the hobby developed and to try and glimpse the joy of the Golden Age of wargaming, that I missed out upon, and that so MANY wargamers nowadays refer back to almost constantly. I seemed to have missed out on all the wargaming foundation years, in a similar manner as the Nintendo Mario years on consoles. I sort of jumped from Vic-20/C64 to PC gaming in the early 90's. My first console was an original Playstation (PSX)!

Anyway, a year or two ago I read a book called Achtung Schweinehund which is sort of a look back at a wargaming hobby through Harry Pearsons life, and it was an interesting journey through miniature wargaming and a boys fascination with war.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Achtung-Schweinehund-Story-Imaginary-Combat/dp/0349115680

I'm looking forward to being educated by an extensively researched tome on the history behind TWO of my favourite hobbies, wargaming and fantasy roleplaying. Troy and 3MA, thanks for introducing me to Jon Peterson's work!

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It would have been so great if the bot had amalgumated from articles about the history of wargamming. Hey bot, keep your shit relevant to the thread! or no one will ever care if you are sentient or not.

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