[Churchofgaming] [Fwd: MAR Barker]

[karl at rpgreview.net]

For those who don't know about MAR Barker I found this on the net:

A Better Game

Fond Rememberance for the Professor
One thing that I was glad got some attention amidst last week's  
kerfuffle is the respectful acknowledgment of Professor Barker's  
passing. I received this exceptional letter that I just had to share -
It is a sad day indeed. Most people know of the contributions of Dave  
and Gary, but few know about Barker.
When D&D first emerged, there was virtually no plot and no need  
for complex roleplay. Morality was rigidly defined in terms of good  
and evil, and the group of adventurers were always on the side of  
righteousness. On the rare occasions when players interacted with  
non-player characters, their nature could be quickly determined by  
names such as "King Trueheart, the Wise" and "Scytharax, the  
Bloodthirsty". These campaigns followed what is now called the "hack  
'n slash" method because the characters relied almost exclusively on  
that tactic to resolve negotiate their environment. The characters had  
purely adversarial relationships with almost every being they  
encountered, and the only strategies required were how to avoid the  
traps and slay anything in their path. The shift away from this old  
format and into the modern methods of play is one of the most vital  
changes to increasing both enjoyment and engrossment for players, and  
it originated with M.A. Barker's Empire of the Petal
Throne. His was the first system to treat the world as a navigable,  
interactive space that was as important to the characters as the  
dungeons. This concept became so popular that games no longer revolve  
around linear plots and menacing dungeons. Now, each world is truly a  
rich creation that incorporates as many types of reality as the  
narrator and players can imagine. It is now common, for example, for  
players to invent entire histories of the lives of their characters,  
chronicling their childhoods, their relationships with their parents  
or other key figures, and important events that shaped them into the  
"person" they are now. Many narrators will incorporate difficult moral  
choices into their campaigns that are intended to test the characters,  
and the players themselves have infinite freedom to respond to these  
situations by choosing to be good or evil, chaotic or lawful, or any  
shade in between.
Before Barker gaming was just gaming, Barker brought the roleplaying  
into Fantasy Roleplaying. His ideas were the greatest contribution to  
modern roleplaying as we know it.
I agree with you. We have truly lost a giant, and most gamers today  
don't even know his name or what he did for us.
So... M.A. Barker....We salute you.
V/r
Christopher
-
Christopher S. Brace
Social Scientist
Human Terrain System
Department of the Army
Thank you, Christopher, and thank you Professor for your wonderful  
contributions.
~ SPF (03-29-2012)
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Quoting karl at rpgreview.net:

> Wow and mine is practically new except the box.
>
> Quoting lev at rpgreview.net:
>
>>> Yes I have the original and someone gave it to me (they got it for
>>> 20cents at a garage sale!). Lets see what I can do in the next couple
>>> of months. Likely to be a five encounter one session game with pregen
>>> characters like I did for FC a while back.
>>
>> Well this is considered to be fair market value these days.
>>
>> http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/TSR-Empire-Petal-Throne-Empire-Petal-Throne-Fair-/140715762481
>>
>> Looking forward to this as a game - say late April instead of the regular
>> Diaspora?
>>
>> All the best, Lev
>>
>>
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