In the Beginning... A Nerd History Lesson

Hey kids! It's time for a Bored Suburban Dad Nerd History Lesson!

First, look what I got!

Oooooo...old dusty books!

Aww yeah. But perhaps you're asking yourself, in order:

1. Two copies of the same book??
2. Yay, I guess, but why is this book significant?

You're seeing the name H.G. Wells as the author. And as an avid reader of this blog, you're either: a) outdoorsy; b) gamer-nerdy; or c) both. And thus you're like "Ahhh yes. H.G. Wells. Author of such tomes in my vast Nerd Library as War of the Worlds and Dr Moreau’s Island, the movies for which are...unique. But here I see he's written a book about what's this now?"

And perhaps herein you see such truly intellectual irony that you grab your tweed jacket and your pipe,
and with a knowing nod say "well, of course, you know that Wells was an avowed pacifist, and yet here he writes a book about war." And you take a self-satisfied sip of your delicious and very peaty scotch. 

Ironically - but not - he wrote the book Little Wars in 1913. He based it on a long-played Prussian military exercise for their Officers: Kriegspiel; literally, War Game. Little Wars was, no, is, a tabletop miniature war game. It's a set of rules, from maneuver to firing and even hand to hand combat between little toy soldiers. It has maintained a cult following for years and years, and is considered not just the start, but the very progenitor of much of today’s tabletop gaming. 

So as a Prince in the Kingdom of Nerds, it’s my duty to own this book, being an Origin Story of gaming. Origin stories are important to us, you see. Fanfic and all that.

Well, I mean, it was a different time then, umm,

The green book on the left is as close as I have been able to find, in all my wanderings in dusty old used bookshops, to the first printing. It’s a second printing, dated January, 1931. An even bigger prize? Look at that hand-scribbled inscription: a John Collins of the 2nd Light Infantry! We haven’t really used that moniker in the US - perhaps in the 30s and maybe my Army friends will know - but if not, some British officer owned and played this game! The hands this book has passed through!

Hilarious side note: I love the second/alternate title of Wells’ book. “…that more intelligent sort of girls who like boys’ games and books.” 😬😳🤣🤣 Frankly, that’s most women I know? Anyway. 

Now, to the meat. Why also the 2nd, newer copy of the same book?

Diorama-meets-war

Like I said, this book is considered the beginning of tabletop gaming. You play any game, from a board game to a tabletop miniature wargame, like Warhammer 40k? Star Wars X-Wing? Risk? Twilight Imperium? Thank H.G. Wells and Little Wars. 

My loyal readers all know that my closest friends and I go to GenCon every year in Indianapolis. Why is a tabletop board/miniature gaming convention in Indy called GenCon when the only connection betwixt them all is the "Con?" Well, you see, if you didn't know, GenCon was started as a tabletop miniature wargaming convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in 1968. Little Wars was a feature, as were hundreds of other home-brewed games and professionally-produced (but little-known cult-followed) games. Pretty soon, though, the convention outgrew Lake Geneva, and fits now in 2 massive complexes in Indianapolis, taking the entirety of the Indiana Convention Center and next-door Lucas Oil Stadium.

And it is there, on the (covered) football field, the gridiron where NFL teams do battle, where is homage paid to the origins of GenCon: a massive area in which from the simplest to ultra-complex tabletop wargames are played.

That's a lot of tabletops. And....nerds.

But Noah, you claim, not quite yet bored to tears, that's all fascinating, and I kind of see the connection between modern tabletop games and Little Wars, but where is this headed vis a vis this red book?

There’s another game - maybe the most important game in gaming - that finds its origin in Little Wars, and finds its origin in the person who conceived of GenCon. The clue, my clever cyber sleuths, is at the bottom of the newer, red book: the Forward was authored by none other than Gary Gygax! 

Ohhh, right. Some of you are not nerds. 

The Forward was authored by none other than the guy who created GenCon and created and authored Dungeons & Dragons: Gary Gygax! 

self-explanatory

Gygax had a copy of Little Wars, and was an avid tabletop war gamer. It inspired Gygax to first create a game in which, instead of blocks of toy soldiers battling it out in a table, one would instead imbue some of those toy soldiers with traits, like how strong they are, how tough, how quick - and then those trait-imbued toy soldiers would duke it out. This game was called Chainmail, commensurate with Gygax’s fascination with medieval warfare. 

Idle hands...

But for a genius like Gygax, there was another natural progression: if this miniature soldier not only had traits, well then it must also have motivations, likes, dislikes...personalities.

And thus was born Dungeons and Dragons, imbuing each miniature with…humanness. 

Oh! And spells. And sometimes pointy ears. 

That’s why I’ve got 2 copies of the same book. One, because of its historical significance and its proximity to The First; one because the same book meant so much to the guy who means so much to so many of us in the gaming world, and it is cool to see his thoughts about it, in his own words. 

I often wonder what Wells would think about what his book has wrought. Again, the irony is Wells’ well-known pacifism. Why write a book about how to fight a war? He sums it up in his appendix in the old 1931 book: “If Great War is to be played at all, the better it is played the more humanely it will be done. I see no inconsistency in deploring the practice while perfecting the method.”

The game I and zillions of others love to play - I’ve played D&D for 34 years now - is one of the logical conclusions of these old tabletop games! So many of these tabketop miniature war games are played today, and I've even herein reviewed a few: my boys and I love to play Star Wars X-Wing and Star Wars Armada. I have to say, it feels oddly satisfying to own a copy of The Thing That Started it All, as in this house, not only do my boys play Armada; they also devise their own rules to wage war between little green army men or Lego guys, and we all play Dungeons and Dragons together! 

I’m happy to have now in my house the beginning, and it’s progeny. And I know it’s not the end!