Kriegsspiel

In 1812, the Prussian nobleman Georg Leopold von Reisswitz showed a wooden tabletop war game to King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Pieces moved across terrain, and a referee judged the results — this referee is an ancestor of the later dungeon master, and the numbering of casualties is an ancestor of the later hit point. In 1824, a version improved by his son was formally adopted by the army, and Moltke used it to train officers for real combat. Many historians count the training this game gave to officers among the reasons Prussia won the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. A game on a table shaped the outcome of a real war — and given that this current later folds back into adventure games, it is a line that has traveled a long way.