In the fall of 1974, Scott entered the graduate program in Zoology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and joined the same animal behavior laboratory where Dennis already was working on his doctorate. In addition to learning a lot about ethology (the biological study of animal behavior), Scott also was introduced to three new things that exerted a profound and lasting influence.
The first two were thanks to Dennis: (1) playing the original Dungeons & Dragons, not long after its initial publication, and involving players with personal connections to Gary Gygax and other creators and gametesters of D&D, and (2) reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, as a way of understanding the fantasy world and creatures encountered in D&D. The third coincidence was the publication of Watership Down by Richard Adams. In the spring of 1975, Scott and his wife Karen embarked in the first season of his field research on the behavior of ground squirrels in southeastern Oregon. The focus of the research was the squirrel’s ability to recognize and respond adaptively to various predators that were common in the area, including coyotes, badgers, weasels, hawks, eagles, owls, and snakes.
Days were filled with long hours sitting in a stifling, bug-filled blind, peering through binoculars at squirrels quietly engaged in mundane activities, punctuated by moments of stark terror (for the squirrels). Evenings, however, were relaxed, and involved sitting around a campfire collating notes and eating spam and Dinty Moore stew. It was in this contemplative setting that Scott began to think about the rabbits of Watership Down and D&D, and sketched out the basic rules for a new game that featured rabbits, herbs, predators, and their interactions with humans.
Upon returning to Madison in the fall, Scott and Dennis gathered a few more skeptical gameplayers and began playing and adjusting the rules of the new game system. We began referring to the game as Bunnies & Burrows (B&B) as a light-hearted reference to D&D. And we were surprised, along with our other gametesters, how much fun it was to role play as a relatively weak rabbit, armed only with wits and a few herbs, as opposed to the heavily armored warriors and staff-wielding wizards of other RPGs.
As Scott finished the initial draft of B&B, we began heavy play-testing, primarily in one-player campaigns that each of us ran for the other. As we learned what worked and what didn’t, we kept modifying and expanding the rules, adjusting tables, and clarifying sections. We particularly worked on the combat system, which was based on ten distinct patterns used in fighting, such as Claw, Bite & Hold, Bite & Release, Kick, etc. The chance to hit depending on a combination of Strength Level vs Defense Class and the matrix comparing the combat patterns being used by each combatant. Damage delivered during combat depended on fighting mode and possible critical hits. Some of the rabbit professions had specific advantages in fighting. Other professions had different specialities; Herbalists with the preparation and use of herbs, Scouts with recognition and disarming of traps, Empaths with healing, and so forth. We developed and tested rules for each of these specialties.
B&B encouraged players to stay in character much more than other fantasy games, where players often had the tendency to make optimal decisions, rather than reacting as their character might. The result was a cooperative storytelling experience within the strictures of the B&B game system. In fact, it was fun and rewarding enough that Dennis took point (after finishing his dissertation) in organizing the loose stacks of rules, tables, lists and other notes that had accumulated over the year and producing an cohesive rule book for publication by a small game company, Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU).
At the same time, an old friend, Charlie Loving, provided illustrations for the rulebook. Some were sketched during actual gameplay. His pictures are charming, but he did not completely appreciate the naturalistic approach we were using. So the rabbits he drew were depicted as walking on their hind legs and using weapons, for example. We submitted the game to Scott Bizar, at Fantasy Games Unlimited, as he was an early publisher of a great diversity of RPGs. It was accepted and published in 1976, becoming a fairly early member of FGU’s extensive product line.
Although never a major seller for FGU, the first edition inventory was eventually exhausted, and a second edition was produced with a new cover and improved typesetting. Since the original edition, and the publication of an adaptation for the GURPS system by Steve Jackson Games, Dennis and I have revisited the world of Bunnies & Burrows in a completely new edition published by Frog God Games, complete with maps, tokens for tabletop play, and scenarios for adventures. Now you can have the opportunity to obtain a totally recreated version of this classic game to discover the joys of being a rabbit character yourself.
Scott R. Robinson 