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A World Without D&D

Started by MasterMischief, September 26, 2009, 03:33:57 PM

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MasterMischief

The question was put forth here.  I thought it worthy of its own thread.  So here it is.  If D&D had not been created, what would role playing games look like today?

Decrepitdan

     I postulate that we would have had a much longer delayed process in the evolution of the standardized role playing game. Before DnD, there were several popular mass board games, usually focusing upon battles like Waterloo and so on. Eventually those would still have turned into Axis and Allies and the like when the veterans of WWII were old enough to have wide eyed teenage children who thought the world of them.
     I'm not sure that role playing as we know it would have become nearly so popular, and doubt that a die system would have been standardized for some time without the nearly fanatic fandom of DnD players, sticking out through TSR's demise. The hobby could well have died there had it not inspired such a following.

Callie Del Noire

That's a good one.. if Gygax and his buddies hadn't adapted a minature's game into the first version of DnD..

I think Traveller would have come about as the first game (It came around about the same rough time frame I think)

MasterMischief

As much as I love role playing games, I am not sure they would have ever existed had it not been for D&D.  Pretend has been around since the spoken word.  Perhaps somewhere, someone would have tried to codify rules for it, but to include story telling as well?

There would still be improvisational theater.  There would still be written stories.  Maybe the closest thing would be some sort of co-authoring of stories.

Jeramiahh

Personally, I think the evolution of D&D was inevitable; if not them, then someone else would have said 'What if we made a wargame, but instead of us controlling armies, we each control one little guy?' I imagine the rules might've ended up vastly different than what we see today; D&D is most famous for it's d20, and other non-d6 dice, so I imagine we'd see more RPGs played out with the d6. Fantasy may also not have been the 'chosen' genre... I'd find it interesting if sci-fi/futuristic were the 'default' RPG setting, actually.
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Thufir Hawat

I think that the idea would haeve inevitably poped in another's head in several years.
Tekumel, Traveller or CoC would have probably taken the lead, with Tekumel likely to take the religious fundamentalists' hate for being "pagan" and of course, it's the same as "sorcery".
Indie games might be all about recreating TVtropes and praising the value of cliches for playing a story, and by extension, using classes and levels - or maybe hey would still look like what they are today, not sure on this one.
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A&A thread!

HairyHeretic

I agree. It might have taken a few more years, but I suspect that someone would have developed a game or two, and the whole thing would have gone from there.
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Vekseid

Quote from: Jeramiahh on September 26, 2009, 04:15:29 PM
Personally, I think the evolution of D&D was inevitable; if not them, then someone else would have said 'What if we made a wargame, but instead of us controlling armies, we each control one little guy?' I imagine the rules might've ended up vastly different than what we see today; D&D is most famous for it's d20, and other non-d6 dice, so I imagine we'd see more RPGs played out with the d6. Fantasy may also not have been the 'chosen' genre... I'd find it interesting if sci-fi/futuristic were the 'default' RPG setting, actually.

The second most popular system has always been either not-quite Earth (World of Darkness) or fantasy (Runequest, Exalted). In fact I imagine that if D&D didn't exist, Glorantha would be venerated the way Blackmoor is now. Science fiction seems to have universal issues.

Gunny1

Quote from: Jeramiahh on September 26, 2009, 04:15:29 PM
Personally, I think the evolution of D&D was inevitable...

I would have to agree with Jeramiahh - if there is one thing that 'history hath shewn', it's that ideas DO have their time, part and parcel of the historical and societal matrix that exits then-and-there. If the Wright Brothers hadn't been there, Langley would probably have been the first; Both A.G. Bell and Elisha Grey submitted patents fro the telephone on the same day, and only the fact that Bell's got 'recognized' gives us Ma Bell rather than Ma Grey, etc.