Re: What was the first RPG?

[fletcher@u.washington.edu (Brent Michael Krupp)]

In article <4b66hd$a28@rock101.genie.net>,
Harold Hislop <harold.h@genie.com> wrote:
>If Adventure is looked at =in it's original temporal context= one can
>not claim that it was anything other than an RPG. Infact in it's day
>it was the only contender.

The meaning of the term "RPG" hasn't changed since the time that Adventure
came out. It is not an RPG. The context has nothing to do with it.

>It involved a considerable amount of strategy, battles with "denizens",
>treasures, multiple weapons, majik (Plugh, Y2, XYZZY, etc) plus many
>other features that set the stage for later RPGs. To top this off it
>was based on / surounded by a well thought out and described
>enviroment (both above and below ground)

You have just described an adventure (lower-case a) game. Not an RPG.
None of what you list is in any way unique to RPGs. 

>Games such as Adventure laid the very foundation for what evolved into
>what we today refer to as "Role Playing Games".

Untrue. Actual pencil and paper role playing games like D&D laid the
foundation for computer role playing games.

Without any ability to personalize your "character" whatsoever and
virtually no random element (the knife throwing dwarves and the pirate 
hardly count at all) and essentially no combat system (alternately 
banging out 'thro axe' and 'get axe' ain't a combat system), Adventure
was, I repeat, not in any way whatsoever a role playing game.

Brent Krupp (fletcher@u.washington.edu)
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~fletcher/
"In the faculty of writing nonsense, stupidity is no match for genius."
        -- Walter Bagehot