What are the historical equivalents of cooperative storytelling like modern role-playing games?
Upvote:1
In the study of historical games there is a strong evidentiary bias towards those that used physical artifacts. A board for ur or a drawing of senet probably predate evidence of a collaborative talking game. Those games have narrative structure, but the state of the game is represented by the placement of physical tokens instead of the use of language.
A major antecedent of role-playing games is divination, fortune telling. The activity can be more or less structured depending on context, but usually involves some kind of spiritual authority and ritual, and possibly introduces new information. All through the history of speech people have been asking each other's advice, and it wasn't far from there to the emergence of trusted elders, shamans, and gurus. Divination rituals include visiting an oracle, throwing knucklebones, consuming entheogens, tarot, and ouija. Some of these are more randomized (i.e. cleromancy) and some are more guided (e.g. séance).
Role-playing games combine the rituals of spiritual authority with the fantasy of board games and the chance of cleromancy. Perhaps the most analogous historical practice --- a guided, collaborative thematic adventure --- is an entheogenic drug trip led by a shaman. Fantasy, suggestibility, and struggle are all present. Archaeological evidence for prehistoric shamanistic trips may be thin, but ethnographic evidence suggests that many peoples brought spiritual drug rituals into the modern age.
Upvote:11
This is only a partial answer (by challenging the frame) but way too long for a comment ...
- I believe that there will be no clear answer because wargaming and RPGs influenced each other in ways that make it difficult to separate them. Look at the early history of Traveller, for instance, and Trillion Credit Squadron.
- When you put the focus on cooperative storytelling, how do you draw the line between a RPG with character sheet, dice, and story elements, and e.g. a game with hand puppets telling a story.
For that matter, how about children creating cooperative adventures with Playmobil figures or similar toys?
So, having said that, I nominate dolls even if I cannot confirm how the play unfolded. Make it 2000 BC, with play dolls at least from 100 AD.
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