Quote from: RPGPunditThe point everyone is missing who is desperately trying to show off their D&D-hate by participating in this thread, is that any of those other games (Star Wars, LotR, etc) only came to exist because of the popularity of D&D.

There could have been no other "game that started it all" besides D&D, no matter how much some people might wish it so.

RPGPundit

Damn dude, not everthing is an attack on D&D.

I think you are taking this silly hypothetical thread way too seriously.

Relax, your enjoyment of playing D&D will not be diminished by the existence of this thread.

And please read my origional post - I was talking about what type of RPG could have been put out in 79' that could have given AD&D a run for it's money. (given a comparable level of promotion)


.

Quote from: Age of FableActually, I just realised your hypothetical situation isn't hypothetical, it did happen in some non-English speaking countries: in Germany, das Schwarze Auge (a bit like a combination of Basic D&D and Tunnels and Trolls), and in Sweden Draker och Demoner (RuneQuest with a fair bit of D&D).

Yeah, examples of D&D getting kicked to the curb. But I wonder if that wasn't language barriers that actually gave them the chance over D&D?

As to the OP, I bet if 3e D&D came out from a different company it would have beat up AD&D/BD&D and stole their lunch money.  ((EDIT: Assuming that TSR couldn't get their crap together and answer, to keep the edge their early entry gave.)) But that's the thing. Part of it is learning through widespread use parts of what was royally f*cked in the original that helped (although still not reaching perfection of course). The list is probably really long, and quite possibly games that have a very different focus could have floated to the top (like WoD nearly did). :shrug:

Quote from: RPGPunditWhat most people have been doing in this thread is talking about games that came out YEARS LATER as if they would ever have been able to come out before AD&D 1e.  Only there is no way that there would have been a LoTR or Star Wars RPG before the runaway success of AD&D.

Sorry, but no matter how you cut it, no matter how much some of you wish it weren't so, the truth remains: Every other RPG in existence was a derivation of D&D and could not have existed without it.

You do realize my origional question is purely hypothetical, right??

Quote from: JaegerDamn dude, not everthing is an attack on D&D.

I think you are taking this silly hypothetical thread way too seriously.

Relax, your enjoyment of playing D&D will not be diminished by the existence of this thread.

And please read my origional post - I was talking about what type of RPG could have been put out in 79' that could have given AD&D a run for it's money. (given a comparable level of promotion)


.

Right. And the answer to your original question is "none".

But the thread quickly turned into a game of "let's pretend that RPGs didn't depend on D&D".

RPGPundit

not for those of us that were actually reading the posts.

Quote from: James J SkachSee, now this always cracks me up. No offense, j, but you're essentially saying "If this game came out at a different time and wasn't the actual game that came out..."

Seems at best it belongs in your category of Ridiculous Hypothetical Theatre.

I thought that was the game we were playing here, dude!  Seriously, I'm trying to answer the question in the OP and that's the best answer I can come up with.

Quote from: Elliot WilenOne can speculate. Why not jump in with both feet? Okay...

Let's not worry about Trav being a few years after D&D.

Why not Traveller?

1. Traveller isn't Star Wars. It isn't spiritual. It's capitalistic.
2. Traveller doesn't have nearly the unique snowflake potential of D&D. You are some dude. Your best years are behind you. You will not improve via increase in your personal ability, but by making money and buying stuff.
3. Ultimately Traveller is for grinds who enjoy procedural flowcharts and operations research.

El: sure, sure. It was a rhetorical question: How can one not see the utter superiority of 1 through 3 over Star Wars and D&D? :haw:

That said, re. 1 the dualism doesn't cut to the heart of Traveller, which is that it's the ultimate exploratory game. That sidelines the capital/spiritual thing. The flowcharts etc. can be embraced aesthetically. I have never once designed a Traveller vehicle. I understand they have lots of cathodes inside. But I love those DGP manuals, and I (or anybody) could do a passable techbabble imitation.

Quote from: JaegerI was 3 at the time, but...
 
 D&D is the 800lb Gorilla - but what if something got in there before it really hit?

What game System+Setting do you think would have given AD&D a run for its money back in the day?

 Given an equal level of promotion could another system have claimed the crown?

  Or did the D&D brand have enough traction back then to take on all customers?

 To clarify: What System + a Fantasy setting could have done the deed.

Please, no mentions of d20 or any such derived games.


.

NONE


There really wasn't a lot of "promotion".
The game had only been around for close to 5 years.

You were 3 yrs old then?  I was 14(15) around the year you suggest. I remember what teenagers were playing and talking about.


- Ed C.

Marvel Super Heroes or DC Heroes could have been a contender. Gamers like comics, right?

Regards,
David R

If your PoD (there goes one of those wacky alt-history abbreviations) .. Point of Departure is post 1974 I feel there are no plausible alternative to D&D being the market leader. This is because D&D was the first to market and the first to develop a network. So in terms of Pop Culture the RPG game will be D&D.

Now what could have been plausible is that TSR did not survive the initial dustup between Gygax and the Blumes. That AD&D doesn't get developed or subsequent products do get developed. If D&D had gotten tied up in a early split between the Blumes and Gygax then bad things could have resulted when the Pop Culture phase faded out.

However my impression the whole D&D craze was just money laying on the table. Even in the event of a protracted fight between Gygax and the Blume the whole thing of an outsider coming in like Williams would just happened earlier and D&D would have resumed it's marketing and development while the fight over the money continued.

A interesting whatif would be if Don Kaye didn't die or died later. Without the Blumes being in control what direction TSR would have gone.

Again any post 1974 PoD would have resulted in changes in TSR not D&D as a market leader.

Quote from: estarA interesting whatif would be if Don Kaye didn't die or died later.

Yeah, would the money or something else driven a wedge between him and Gary too? Or would they have avoided internal top-end squabbles and mismanagement that so plagued TSR. That would indeed be an interesting thing.

Although ultimately I suspect it was probably a good thing for D&D itself for the batton of handling the flagship rules to pass on from Gary.

I apologize there is a semi-plausible PoD that could have setup a rival to D&D.

In the early 80's Gygax traveled west to try to get a D&D movie. The PoD is that the arguments that lead to Gygax heading west were much worse and resulted in acrimonious split between him and the Blumes. He still heads west but hooks up with Lucas and is able to get a license for a Star Wars RPG in 82 or 83. The combination of his name and the Star War brand allows him to form a serious rival to TSR by the late 80's. TSR, under the mismanagement of the Blumes, is driven to bankruptcy and is bought out by Gygax who now controls the two most popular RPGs. In 1989, Gygax releases AD&D, 2nd Edition to critical exclaim.

Seriously now: I think the "Star Wars / Middle Earth RPG could have beat D&D argument" underestimates that part of D&D's strength consisted in being original rather than derivative.

Derivativeness (aka licensed RPGs) only set in with the second wave. Gygax, Miller, Stafford: they all dared to be hodgepodge. Rather than copying Lucas, they emulated him.

Because intuitively they knew that not only is being somebody else's imaginative beetch slightly lame, but also that a game is a game, a book is a book, and a movie is a movie.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityBecause intuitively they knew that not only is being somebody else's imaginative beetch slightly lame, but also that a game is a game, a book is a book, and a movie is a movie.

Yep. D&D was amphetamines for the imagination because it was D&D, and it wasn't Star Wars/ Lord of the Rings/ Conan, etc. It was both its own setting, and one that we owned ourselves. And even by the time we were 13, we would have been somewhat embarassed playing Star Wars. Not that D&D wasn't embarassing, but it felt a lot cooler when we played sword-armed marauders looting dungeons that we created (or were at least new to us), than playing out Han and Luke rescuring Princess Leia. Even when we played with Star Wars figures in elementary school, we quickly ditched the Star Wars characters and universe to make our own stuff.

Quote from: mhensleyI think that if Avalon Hill or SPI would have produced an rpg quickly after D&D came out, they would have been able to take the market away from TSR.  I know I resisted trying D&D simply due to my loyalty to AH games.  Because of that I bought AH's Magic Realm before I thought to buy D&D.  If that would have been a real rpg, AH would not have lost so many of their customers to TSR.

Personally I think this is the most interesting "what if...?"

It took AH until when, 1983 before they got an RPG out?  SPI was a bit faster (1980?), but even then they were slow off the mark -- the big names (and TSR, the biggest of them all) were already firmly entrenched by that point.