Chaos Elements is one of the longest-running role-playing game companies in existence. The author of this article worked for the company from 1996 to 1998 and is dedicated to introducing the history of various companies in the industry. Let us take a look at his personal experience and insights .
The Birth of the Basic Role-Playing System: 1978-1982
In 1978, when the design team led by Steve Palin created Rune Quest, a role-playing game series based on Greg Stafford’s world of Groansa, two of the Chaos Elements were The core businesses — role-playing games and Groansa board games — naturally merged. Rune Quest follows the first fantasy waves of Dungeons & Dragons, Empire of the Petal Throne, Caves & Giants, Melee and Knights & Magic The work of the role-playing game design wave, in turn, influenced the work of the second wave of role-playing game design, such as Dragon Quest, Fantasy Journey, and Rolemaster. Here are its contributions to the industry:
· For the first time, a fully skill-based character system has been adopted. Voyager has previously adopted a skill system in its role-playing system, but there are two main limitations: first, the skill system is ultimately limited by the “occupation” of the character at the time of creation; second, there is no experience point system. “Rune Quest” solves both of these problems.
“Traveler”
· One of the first fantasy worlds with detailed details. This was an emerging trend in role-playing games at the time, and other early contenders included The Rosette Empire, published by Tactical Research Rules in 1975, and City-State’s Invincible Overlord, published by the Judges Guild in 1976. State of the Invincible Overlord), and Game Design Workshop’s Imperium setting for Travelers’ Aid Society, which first appeared in The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society in 1979 ).
The earliest serious look at religion in role-playing games. Prior to this, priests had appeared, but their religious background was mostly obscured. Even in Gods and Demigods, published by Tactical Research Rules in 1980, gods are seen more as monsters than important cultural forces.
Chaos Elements successfully published the second edition of “Rune Quest” in 1979, about twenty expansions in 1983, and fourteen issues of “Wyrm’s Footnotes”. Rune Quest Magazine.
Some of Chaos Elements’ early expansions were very early forms of dungeon crawler[note 1] and data books, but they published some of the best expansions in RPGs to date in 1982 and 1983, including 1982 A fantastic set of interrelated plays, Borderlands, published in 1983, and two great urban/wilderness background books, Pavis and Big Rubble, published in 1983 , and Trollpak, published the same year, which can be considered one of the earliest role-playing game source books[Note 2], written by Greg Stafford and Sandy Peterson, The latter just got a degree in biology, and has a hard-hitting show! Most of these books related to Rune Quest 2 are still published today by Moon Design Publications.
“Fake Dragon Footnotes” series of magazine covers
In 1980, Chaos Elements expanded the system of Rune Quest in a special way. They released a stripped-down version of the Rune Quest rules, called the Basic Role Playing System (BRP). By distilling core game mechanics, they created the first version of a universal role-playing system, two years ahead of Champions’ Hero System, and before the universal, boundless role-playing system of “Fantastic Voyage.” [Note 3] Six years earlier. In 1981, Chaos Elements went a step further and released two more game systems centered on the basic role-playing system.
First up is yet another fantasy role-playing game, Stormbringer. The game actually predates World of Thieves in the same year, and is Chaos Elements’ first licensed role-playing game. In order to make the “Elric” tabletop game published in 1977, Chaos Elements had already obtained the “game” adaptation rights of “Elric”. After the success of “Rune Quest”, they decided to also license based on this. Make a role-playing game with a basic role-playing system.
“Windbreaker”
The Windbreaker isn’t the first licensed RPG ever—the earliest was Dallas, which was published in 1980 by Simulation Games Publishing Company—but it may be the first licensed RPG to actually be supported game. Even though only 20 or so expansions were published, the game is still on sale today, 25 years later. And Windbreaker was just the beginning: the idea of publishing a work based on an empowered worldview became a trend in Chaos Elements’ successful history.
The Windbreaker immediately had its successor in the form of Sandy Peterson’s first horror RPG, Call of Cthulhu, based on Howard Peterson’s A story by Phillips Lovecraft, published with permission from Arkham House. “Call of Cthulhu” is better than its predecessor “Rune Quest” in terms of creating a theme, and has become a symbol of the role-playing world. Twenty-five years later, it became Chaos Elements’ entire core business, topping the horror RPG charts for over a decade until it was swept away by White Wolf’s Dark World in the 1990s. “(World of Darkness) series overshadowed the limelight.
In the modern RPG world, there are some things we all take for granted, and one of them is player assists. Tactical Research Rules gave the idea a bit of a spin with its S-Series mods, starting with the 1978 Tomb of Horrors mod, which included an atlas to show players. Chaos Elements further extended this idea to the first expansion of Call of Cthulhu, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, published in 1982, inserting 8 pages with The textual information displayed to the player are all clues that the player can use to actually solve the puzzle, which can bring the puzzle-solving elements of this first horror role-playing game to a new level. Today, textual information materials displayed to players have become more and more common, and tracing the origins is the beginning of this book.
“Shadow of Yog-Sothoth”
Development and Change of Basic Role-Playing Systems: 1982-1984
Following the success of “The Windbreaker” and “Call of Cthulhu” in 1981, Chaos Elements decided to continue the trend, extending the basic role-playing system to new genres.
Worlds of Wonder followed in 1982, presenting three worlds of adventure: fantasy, sci-fi, and superheroes. Among them, “Superhero World” (Superworld), published in 1983, became an independent work. At the same time, the Magicworld under “Wonderworld” also became an independent game “Drakar Och Demoner” (Drakar Och Demoner) in Sweden in 1982. This game is worth mentioning because over the next ten years it will become the best-selling role-playing game in Sweden, selling over 100,000 copies. However, from the third edition published in 1985, it began to deviate significantly from the basic role-playing system as its roots, even abandoning the d100 system in favor of the d20 system.
“Miracle World”
At this time, there were two more licensed works in the United States that joined the basic role-playing system camp: “Elfquest” and “Ringworld” published in 1984.
Meanwhile, Chaos Elements has made massive changes to Rune Quest. Ironically, these changes are due to changes in Chaos Elements’ tabletop game product line. The company stopped publishing new tabletop games in 1981. Stafford later pointed out that they invested double the production time and doubled the cost of printing, and only sold half as many copies. (Sadly, it’s the opposite in today’s industry.) However, Chaos Elements didn’t want to give up tabletop gaming entirely, so it struck a deal with Avalon Hills to make Elric’s tabletop game and a new version of White Bear. With the Red Moon – Renamed to Dragon Pass.
However, Avalon Hills was also preparing to launch its own role-playing game product line at that time, and was very interested in “Rune Quest”. Chaos Elements was reluctant to sell it, but agreed to authorize it. It seems like a good plan, and it could take Rune Quest to new heights: Avalon Hills is in charge of production and marketing, while Chaos Elements is in charge of acquisition, design, development, and layout. Both companies have played to their strengths.
Chaos Elements did not want to take out the copyright of Groansa, so the third edition of the new “Rune Quest”, which came out in 1984, adopted the game background of “Fantasy Earth” instead. It turned out to be a good decision for Groansa’s future, as the two sides had problems with cooperation from the beginning – Avalon Hills chose not to have the designer list printed on the box front end. Over time, the “dream” trade in Chaos elements will only get worse.
Note 1: Dungeon crawl is a type of script of fantasy role-playing games. The protagonist will explore in a labyrinth environment (ie “dungeon”), fight various monsters, and loot all treasure chests found.
Note 2: A role-playing game information book (splatbook) is a book that records specific content, character occupations or fictional camps in role-playing games, and can provide more background details and rule settings.
Note 3: The Universal Unbounded Role-Playing System (GURPS) is a tabletop role-playing game system that allows players to play in any setting.
Original address: https://www.rpg.net/columns/briefhistory/briefhistory3.phtml
Author: Shannon Appelcline
Translated by: Carlyle
Edited by: Sakurai Ruoxue
This article is reproduced from: https://www.yystv.cn/p/9875
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