Post by hengest on Aug 7, 2021 9:04:19 GMT -5
"The Days of Perky Pat" is a 1963 science fiction story by Philip K. Dick (Amazing, Dec, 1963). Summary here. I do not know of a legal and free copy online. There is a collection with the same title from Gollancz (1990) and the same stories are available as Volume IV The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. (This volume is not quite as heady as Volume 5 but is kind of on the way there.)
In the story, adult survivors of a nuclear war sit around in California and dedicate themselves to a kind of fantasy game that involves moving a Barbie-like doll ("Perky Pat") around in a "layout" and having her do trivial things that people did before the war, like put a dime in a parking meter. They are obsessed with this "role-playing" nostalgia for what real people in the 20th century would consider the useless nonsense of everyday life. Their children are more interested in the real world and show no desire to play with Perky Pat.
This passage demonstrates the children's disdain and the minutiae of the adults' "Perky Pat" game:
How many times today they have to play that dumb game? Timothy asked himself. Forever, I guess. He could see nothing in it, but his parents played on anyhow. And they weren't the only ones; he knew from what other kids said, even from other fluke-pits, that their parents, too, played Perky Pat most of the day, and sometimes even on into the night.
His mother said loudly, "Perky Pat's going to the grocery store and it's got one of those electric eyes that opens the door. Look." A pause. "See, it opened for her, and now she's inside."
"She pushes a cart," Timothy's dad added, in support.
"No, she doesn't," Mrs. Morrison contradicted. "That's wrong. She gives her list to the grocer and he fills it."
"That's only in little neighborhood stores," his mother explained. "And this is a supermarket, you can tell because of the electric eye door." "I'm sure all grocery stores had electric eye doors," Mrs. Morrison said stubbornly, and her husband chimed in with his agreement. Now the voices rose in anger; another squabble had broken out. As usual.
The story predates Blackmoor by nearly a decade and D&D by a decade+. But it certainly reminds me of the arguments Dave Arneson talks about here, bold type mine:
Overall, the Perky Pat game (a kind of collaborative, one-or-two character, backwards-looking, trivial simulationist miniatures setup) is presented as backwards, useless. But there is a surprise towards the end of the story that points to innovation and growth, almost an Arnesonian leap for these people.
I think the initial germ of this story was "Barbie dolls for adults." But it's interesting to think about how suggestive it is of the roots of RPGs: first simulationist replays of historical battles (Perky Pat's replaying of pre-war life), then innovative shoots that grow from there and presage a revolution in thinking.
In the story, adult survivors of a nuclear war sit around in California and dedicate themselves to a kind of fantasy game that involves moving a Barbie-like doll ("Perky Pat") around in a "layout" and having her do trivial things that people did before the war, like put a dime in a parking meter. They are obsessed with this "role-playing" nostalgia for what real people in the 20th century would consider the useless nonsense of everyday life. Their children are more interested in the real world and show no desire to play with Perky Pat.
This passage demonstrates the children's disdain and the minutiae of the adults' "Perky Pat" game:
How many times today they have to play that dumb game? Timothy asked himself. Forever, I guess. He could see nothing in it, but his parents played on anyhow. And they weren't the only ones; he knew from what other kids said, even from other fluke-pits, that their parents, too, played Perky Pat most of the day, and sometimes even on into the night.
His mother said loudly, "Perky Pat's going to the grocery store and it's got one of those electric eyes that opens the door. Look." A pause. "See, it opened for her, and now she's inside."
"She pushes a cart," Timothy's dad added, in support.
"No, she doesn't," Mrs. Morrison contradicted. "That's wrong. She gives her list to the grocer and he fills it."
"That's only in little neighborhood stores," his mother explained. "And this is a supermarket, you can tell because of the electric eye door." "I'm sure all grocery stores had electric eye doors," Mrs. Morrison said stubbornly, and her husband chimed in with his agreement. Now the voices rose in anger; another squabble had broken out. As usual.
The story predates Blackmoor by nearly a decade and D&D by a decade+. But it certainly reminds me of the arguments Dave Arneson talks about here, bold type mine:
GameSpy: Why fantasy, though? You had started out playing with real-world armies.
Arneson: Some other people in my group set up rules for modern games, or even back in the age of Napoleon. We would get in these arguments, though, about historical accuracy, the latest translation of the latest book, and what was "real." Going into a fantasy world was actually again kind of a copout from my point of view. I didn't want people always coming up with some new book saying we just had to use because it was right and the old one was wrong. This was a fantasy world, so who could come up with anything to prove that he was lying or that a monster wasn't accurately represented? [Laughs]. Now, of course, there's book on everything. It's trickier than it was in the beginning when there weren't as many (fantasy) books.
GameSpy: So basically at the time you could say, "Listen, white is whatever I say it is."
Arneson: Yeah. You know, nobody ever said, "Here's my translation of some such book," and said I was wrong. It was easier for me to referee.
Arneson: Some other people in my group set up rules for modern games, or even back in the age of Napoleon. We would get in these arguments, though, about historical accuracy, the latest translation of the latest book, and what was "real." Going into a fantasy world was actually again kind of a copout from my point of view. I didn't want people always coming up with some new book saying we just had to use because it was right and the old one was wrong. This was a fantasy world, so who could come up with anything to prove that he was lying or that a monster wasn't accurately represented? [Laughs]. Now, of course, there's book on everything. It's trickier than it was in the beginning when there weren't as many (fantasy) books.
GameSpy: So basically at the time you could say, "Listen, white is whatever I say it is."
Arneson: Yeah. You know, nobody ever said, "Here's my translation of some such book," and said I was wrong. It was easier for me to referee.
Overall, the Perky Pat game (a kind of collaborative, one-or-two character, backwards-looking, trivial simulationist miniatures setup) is presented as backwards, useless. But there is a surprise towards the end of the story that points to innovation and growth, almost an Arnesonian leap for these people.
I think the initial germ of this story was "Barbie dolls for adults." But it's interesting to think about how suggestive it is of the roots of RPGs: first simulationist replays of historical battles (Perky Pat's replaying of pre-war life), then innovative shoots that grow from there and presage a revolution in thinking.
