Hawke Essays

Various contributions to merp.com by Hawke.

An Overview History, and Therapeutic Value of Role Playing Gaming, by Hawke

This is an essay I did for one of my required courses related to the TR/RT (Therapeutic Recreation / Recreational Therapist) degree I am working on currently. I hope you find it informative. Most of it I had gleaned over the years, but in actually sitting down and researching (and confirming information), I found a few interesting extra tidbits (like the relationship of H.G. Wells and wargaming), that were a total surprise. I've submitted a copy from my site to the Merp.com folks, and they've opted to put a copy on their site. Enjoy! -Hawke An Overview History of Role Playing Gaming Role playing gaming has it's origins far back in ancient history with wargaming. Wargaming is the simulation of combat strategies and tactics represented in reduced scale with various rules, and often some sort of randomizer, such as dice or cards, to add an element of realistic unpredictability. As long as their has been organized warfare, there appears to have been some form of wargaming in every culture throughout history.... (click the READ MORE link to read the rest).

Why we'll never in our lifetimes see Tolkien's works public domain...

Due to changes in recent decades, copyright laws after creation or author's death have extended to longer and longer terms (thanks a lot Disney/Mickey-Mouse). It is very likely, congress will KEEP adding extensions to when copyrighted works become public domain, and many analysts are convinced, we have seen the end of public domain.