Apologies...couldn't resist.

Don't apologize - that was funny... and made me wanna roll up a duck character asap.

LOL.

Quote from: DKChannelBoredom;685404Don't apologize - that was funny... and made me wanna roll up a duck character asap.

They also make good wizards

Glorantha's idiosyncrasy limits its appeal to a mass market, but may ensure a smaller following in each generation of fantasy fans (as has been the case with a number of literary creations).

I think Gygax was right when he said (in a White Dwarf interview, IIRC) that D&D's early lead had given it an unbeatable advantage.

One way in which that was similar to Microsoft's position in PC operating systems, and something any RPG publisher might do well to consider, was in the volume of published scenarios. Judges Guild demonstrated the demand, and TSR moved to do its part in supplying that.

Chaosium was slow about releasing "adventures" similar to TSR's Dungeon Module line. Avalon Hill may have picked up the pace, but early offerings were pretty poor. That aspect of support for an RPG seems pretty important to growth.

Not only did TSR have more modules, but the default play mode - exploring and looting dungeons - is very, very easy to understand, and very easy for kids to create on their own. Draw a maze of rooms on graph paper. Key it with monsters and treasure. DM your friends through it the next day. Every edition of the game included a sample dungeon of just that sort to show new DMs the way. Runequest didn't offer a model of DIY play anywhere near as accessible to total newbies.

Quote from: Haffrung;685464Runequest didn't offer a model of DIY play anywhere near as accessible to total newbies.

The 2nd. ed. boxed set came with "The Rainbow Mounds" (dungeon-type caverns) and "Gringle's Pawnshop" (defense scenario) in the Apple Lane package (also describing a village home base).

Quote from: Phillip;685411One way in which that was similar to Microsoft's position in PC operating systems, and something any RPG publisher might do well to consider, was in the volume of published scenarios. Judges Guild demonstrated the demand, and TSR moved to do its part in supplying that.

Actually Microsoft is an classic example of a company overthrowing a first mover. CP/M vs DOS and WIndows vs Mac

IBM & Mainframes are a better example.

Anyway both situations occur equally so a company that is first and manages to keep it dominance is to be applauded.

Too often the first mover doesn't really get what makes there product special or decides to rest on their laurels. Gates out hustled Kildall and got DOS on the IBM/PC which lead to its dominance.

I was thinking a bit more about this, and one thing that hit me was the way Cults of Prax is presented. Runequest makes world-building an exercise in crafting religions in anthropological detail, with fully fleshed out practices and beliefs. If you wanted to run non-Gloranthan Runequest you pretty much had to do all that work from scratch yourself. Whereas if you wanted to run non-Greyhawk D&D, all you needed was a hex map with some names on it and you could ad-lib the rest.

Quote from: estar;685519Actually Microsoft is an classic example of a company overthrowing a first mover. CP/M vs DOS and WIndows vs Mac

Maybe you're missing the point. Scenarios = applications is the point, and MS-DOS (and later Windows) won on that count.

Mac was simply less screwed than other OSes tied to proprietary hardware (while MS won the war for riding on clones).

Setting aside the mass of computer trivia (which I do dig), suffice to call RuneQuest the Amiga analog. "Better technology!" cried the fans. "Microsoft Office!" said the market.

In that interview to which I referred, Gygax claimed something like a million units shipped. Bigger user base --> more support --> bigger user base, rinse & repeat. Petrol stations help sell petrol cars. Third parties offer products compatible with the already major platform.

What I use these days is Linux, but Windows is the "industry standard" in the public eye. D&D was in stores all over the place (and advertisements, and toys, and a Saturday morning cartoon!); RQ was much less visible.

Quote from: Cadriel;685600I was thinking a bit more about this, and one thing that hit me was the way Cults of Prax is presented. Runequest makes world-building an exercise in crafting religions in anthropological detail, with fully fleshed out practices and beliefs. If you wanted to run non-Gloranthan Runequest you pretty much had to do all that work from scratch yourself. Whereas if you wanted to run non-Greyhawk D&D, all you needed was a hex map with some names on it and you could ad-lib the rest.

Yes indeed. You could drop that aspect, but then it "wouldn't feel like RQ" to many fans.

The usual thing in my experience was to take a published cult and "file off the serial numbers." Mixing them up was another way to go, so that for instance the Illuminating Monks might combine elements of Lankhor Mhy and Chalana Arroy.

The AH edition included guidelines for 'generic' cults (sun god, etc.). IIRC, it also made spells more cult-exclusive, but I think you still had listed cash prices. It added the sorcery system, a more (too?) elaborate version of the one in Chaosium's Magic World (part of the Worlds of Wonder set).

Quote from: Phillip;685603What I use these days is Linux, but Windows is the "industry standard" in the public eye. D&D was in stores all over the place (and advertisements, and toys, and a Saturday morning cartoon!); RQ was much less visible.

However that was not the case in 1977. Granted there was only a four year window until TSR negotiated the Random House deal in 1981 perhaps only three years due to the lead time needed in these things.

Quote from: estar;685644However that was not the case in 1977.

YMMV, but so what? RQ had yet to be published in 1977!

Here is a thought exercise

What is the earliest point of divergence after the release of Dungeons & Dragon that could have allowed Runequest to become the market leader?

Assume at the very least that Steve Perrin puts out a RPG with the Runequest mechanics around 1977. It doesn't have to be tied to Glorantha or that the Glorantha tie-in was released as a supplement rather than part of the core rules.

Alternate history fans and writers use this technique to figure out if various points of departures are even possible. For example the consensus among many alt-history fans and writers is that there is no reasonable point of departure after the start of World War II that would allow Germany to pull off a successful Sea-Lion invasion of Britain.

You start off with a Point of Departure and extrapolate forward. Then debate whether the PoD and subsequent event are plausible. The most rigorous way of doing this is only make a single change and everything else follows as the butterflies* pile up.

It may be that the only plausible way for any alternative to D&D to become the market leader is for the development of RPGs to be completely different.

*Relates to an adage is that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil it will cause a tornado in Texas through a long chain of weather events. It is an example of Chaos Theory where tiny unmeasured initial conditions will eventually dominate thus limiting the how far you can predict the weather and other similar natural events.

In alternate histories it is used to refer how seemly minor events can plausibly spiral into major changes. Another adage is For a want of a nail a kingdom is lost. Which refers a type of PoD where the change is the absence of an event.

I wrote RPG alt-history myself in response to the question whether RPGs could have arose earlier.

Part I
Part II

The basic gist is that RPGs rose out of a writers aide for writing Science Fiction in the late 30s and 40s. The initial writers aide used random tables which made people realize that it could be used for a game.