Concreteness, inquiry, and rationalisation

An internal view of 15th. century Brigandine.

The question "why is this stuff in RPGs?" has been thrown around a lot lately.  In the interests of making that discussion a little more safe, let's talk about continued existence of "studded leather" armour in D&D and its successors.  I would like to think that's going to be something that can be talked about without anyone reliving past harms - and if I'm wrong about that, I sincerely apologise for my ignorance.  (There's also a reference to Rust Monsters being tied up later on, but it's not particularly explicit.)

It shouldn't come a revelation that studded leather armour is not historical, but bear in mind that the equipment owes its initial inclusion in D&D to error rather than imagination.  Gygax's sources mistakenly interpreted the rivets of brigandine armour as a form of protection, rather than as the fastening method for metal plates sandwiched between softer materials.  Whereas the protective and comfort advantages offered brigandine are fairly obvious, the explanation given in the 1e DMG for how studded leather worked is somewhat dubious to say the least:

Studded leather is leather armor to which have been fastened metal studding as additional protection, usually including an outer coat of fairly close-set studs (small plates). (p. 27)

Just how punching holes in the leather is supposed to strengthen it is not explained.  But I think it's fair to say that Gygax was following a rule of non-idiocy in history.  The reasoning might go something like, "if this sort of armour was widespread, it must have been fairly effective otherwise the people using it would have all died.  So perhaps the studs work better in practice than they do in the mind?"  Or perhaps he simply didn't care.  Gygax's statements elsewhere in the DMG on realism have a kind of "yes and no" quality (especially the claims on page 9), but he's somewhat stronger on the matter of rationale.  The advice on world-building (p. 21) suggests that the DM would find the task all but impossible without being able to turn to social and physical sciences as a reference.  Returning to the original example of studded leather armour, this notion lives on in player's handbooks up to 5th Edition with an explanation of its utility little removed from Gygax's,  It's hard to see that rationalisation beyond, "it was in the last edition" or, perhaps more broadly, "we like it that way" is being used.  Equally, brigandine has made only intermittent appearances - it's in the 2e PHB and described as very similar in appearance to studded leather (a sign of tensions at TSR?) - despite being an armour justified for inclusion due to its historical use and physical properties.

I don't mean to simply condemn later designers for carrying on with the nonsense of studded leather. There are definite tensions between running a business and designing a game.  It's all well and good for a hobbyist to tell other DMs that they ought to spend their money on medievalist literature, but for a business it's somewhat unwise to go about freely advertising another publisher's copy when one might have a competing product.  I think that's gives some explanation for why recommendations to turn to other works dried up in later editions.  (Much as I like them, the 2e Historical Reference Guides might be something of a turning point, though I'm sympathetic to those who point to Oriental Adventures and the Survival Guides.)  In addition, a studio that focuses on role-playing games isn't going to be able to go toe-to-toe on product quality with an established producer of serious or even popular scientific guides.  That suggests that the way to keep the "gamer dollar" in hand is to produce abstracted mechanical information - rules - for the subject being discussed.  With the benefits of hindsight, one can see where this leads: the concrete material might as well be jettisoned and replaced with more quickly produced fictional prose, with the rules and production values doing the work of selling the book.

And we know the next step, too.  It was often pointed out during the period of 3.x's ascendancy that D&D had become dominated by system mastery, or the notion that in order to become a superior player of the game that one needed to acquire a deep knowledge of its rules. One might contrast that to games that are open to intuitive play because their rules encourage resolution by the group's estimation of plausibility.  To trot out a weary example, 3.x informed the player that tying up prisoners was a function of the Use Rope skill and that success would be determined by the value returned by the die roll, whereas older editions would leave the matter to the consensus of the group. (Sometimes it's suggested that the older rules leave such things to "DM discretion", but I think this overlooks the difference between the players saying, "we tie a rope around the rust monster's neck" and "we'll hog tie it".)  This sort of gaming culture encourages D&D groups to focus their learning on the increasingly varied rules of D&D, and although everyone is welcome to their own pleasures, speaking from my own experience I don't think I've derived much benefit from the study.  It strikes me that a return to Gygax's advice to look to the sciences for game inspiration would be positive.  (And lest that be misunderstood, I think that the social sciences address myths both modern and historical.)

I can't help but tie this train of thought to the question of representation in RPGs. If the rationale for other game elements is "well, we like that way," then it's logical to ask, "why don't you like having these other things in your game?" - and that's not a productive way for the discussion to start.  If, on the other hand, rationalisation tends towards a basis in the sciences, one can have a much more sedate discussion and sources can be compared.  It's much easier to say, "I didn't know that was out of date!" than it is to grant that one's preferences are inappropriate.

Let me conclude by clarifying exactly what I'm proposing.  The perils of simulation in pen-and-paper gaming are well-known and it would be a mistake, if a well-worn one, to go down that road.  Equally, trying for an historically accurate game setting has its own peculiar hazards.  D&D is successful at least in part because its pulp setting doesn't get bogged down in too much realism.  I just think that it would help designers and players alike to take rationalisation more seriously and make clear to themselves why things are the way they are.