Chainmail was a miniatures wargame created by enthusiasts in the late 1960s at the University of Minnesota. These friends, led by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren, codified a set of rules that they had been using for miniatures battles; their rules were similar to the ones that would later be used in Warhammer. Gary co-published these rules with Don Kaye , eventually co-founding the company Tactical Studies Rules.
Dave Arneson created a Chainmail scenario involving individual heroes, instead of groups in formation, moving through an underground "dungeon". This became so popular, that the group developed a set of rules for these characters that allowed them to evolve from session to session. This led Gary and Dave to develop what was to become Dungeons & Dragons and is credited with the creation of role-playing games.
Early versions of Dungeons & Dragons referred the players back to Chainmail for rules and advice on miniatures. This was particularly useful, as most players used the same figurines to help keep track of their characters in the imaginary environment they had created. This blend of board game and collective storytelling, called a tabletop role-playing game lent itself extremely well to computing. From this eventually came computer role-playing games, which were some of the first popular successes in the software industry.
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Last updated: 05-24-2005 04:08:39
