Wesley and the Braunsteins

An interesting, if typically myopic, article on David Wesley and his "Braunstein" game. I'm glad to see Wesley's contributions to the hobby recognized. Much like Arneson -- but even more so -- Dave Wesley's ideas and innovations are poorly known, even by people with an interest in such things. I myself didn't know a great deal about the man until late last year, when I began my researches into the history and development of the hobby. I'm of the opinion that this hobby of ours has no future if it doesn't understand its past and Wesley and the Braunstein game are a past few know, let alone care about. That needs to be corrected.

(That said, I also hold the opinion that Wesley's contributions, while real and foundational, are often overstated, both by himself and his partisans. There's a certain amount of revisionism going on here, I think, in an effort to downplay the role Gary Gygax had in creating and developing the modern RPG. Such revisionism is reasonable; I don't think anyone can deny that Gary was a master of feathering his own nest, especially when doing so helped promote TSR and/or D&D. At the same time, I think it's disingenuous to claim Wesley as the "father" of roleplaying games, when, in my opinion, it might be better to call him the "grandfather" or something similar -- to denote the real but distant descent RPGs have from the Braunsteins -- but that's a contentious topic for another day.)