This post is from one of several previous incarnations of this site and probably doesn’t quite fit the current format. In a former life this was a group blog and a tumblelog before it became a static jekyll site. If anything looks broken or is worded oddly that could be why. Pardon the dust.
The original proto-RPG was an off-battlefield, negotiation & intrigue based spin-off from historical wargaming. Created in 1967 by David Wesley (later to become a major in the US Army), and played by Dave Arneson (later to become co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons).