I was wondering if TSR hadn't died like it did and still owned TSR where do you think it would be today.
Gary Gygax was still part of the business in one form or another until he ultimately died (perhaps in charge of creative) and Lorraine Williams never happened and the backstabbing never happened.
Would it be as popular as it is today? As big as it is today?
Curious to hear your thoughts.
Things would be worse, IMO.
There would be no OGL and no major 3rd party D&D products - no Kobold Press for example. Anybody making a clone or something "too close" to D&D would get sued. He was extremely jealous and protective of his IP. You wouldn't be able to play D&D unless you were playing *his* D&D. And because he loved the money, that would mean whatever D&D "official" version TSR was currently selling. Anything else you'd have to buy used on the secondary market, and he'd make that as hard to get as he could.
This would be a boon to alternate non-D&D systems. The late 80s and 90s were a hey day for GURPS, WoD, Hero, Iron Crown et al.
TSR bowed to extremists on the right just as WotC is bowing to extremists on the left today, stripping out anything that wasn't PG-13 or offended its critics. - demons, devils, anything adult. We didn't use the term "canceled" back then, but the concept was the same.
In spite of their recent attempt to take it back, WotC's decision to go "open source" (not just the OGL, but also the abandonment of litigation as a business strategy) 20 years ago was a huge boon to *D&D* - every edition, every 3rd party publisher.
Gygax and Arneson created a whole new hobby. But they weren't great stewards of that hobby. Gygax losing TSR and then TSR going bankrupt were probably a good thing for the hobby overall.
I did finish reading "slaying the dragon" recently. The book covers D&D from the beginning up to the point where WoTC purchases the game and wraps things up by signing deals with Gygax and others to secure the rights without question.
I guess one thing Loraine Williams did was separate the sales figures of RPG products from the people making them, so the market signals weren't getting back to the people making stuff in order to adjust to the market demands. They also treated authors/creatives as interchangeable cogs with the brand being the important thing rather than the people behind them making stuff. Also many products they made would lose money for each copy that was sold because they cost more to make than what they sold them for. Also the deal Gygax had originally made for getting distribution in book stores meant that TSR was paid via a loan for delivering product, and then had to pay back the book store for unsold products, so Lorain was using that for a revenue stream to try and keep the company going.
I don't know if there is a way to tell how TSR would have gone if Gygax had stayed in control. I think even Gygax and the Blooms expanded the growth of the company too far while they were in charge.
The biggest shame, I think, is that WoTC didn't hire Gary to be in charge of D&D when they purchased everything.
Probably not the 700 pound gorilla it is now, the OGL was a huge boon for D&D it gave them market dominance, it gave them brand recognition because even games that aren't retroclones of them use their license which has it's name on it.
I disagree that this would have been bad for the hobby, because D&D isn't the hobby, it's just a brand serving it.
It would mean a healthier market (probably?) with more competition near the top, maybe with different publishers rising and falling from it.
It would also mean you'd have a much harder time breaking into the market as a small unknown fish, so maybe IT WOULD BE bad for the hobby after all.
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on April 12, 2023, 03:50:31 PM
I don't know if there is a way to tell how TSR would have gone if Gygax had stayed in control. I think even Gygax and the Blooms expanded the growth of the company too far while they were in charge.
The biggest shame, I think, is that WoTC didn't hire Gary to be in charge of D&D when they purchased everything.
Presumably if Gygax was hired in the 1990s to take over D&D again, the game would look more like his works of the 1990s - namely Dangerous Journeys (1992) and Lejendary Adventure (1999).
It sounds like Gygax would have made things worse for D&D but better for other games.
Interesting.
Quote from: jhkim on April 12, 2023, 04:17:12 PM
Presumably if Gygax was hired in the 1990s to take over D&D again, the game would look more like his works of the 1990s - namely Dangerous Journeys (1992) and Lejendary Adventure (1999).
Oh god, does that mean that Cyborg Commandos would have been a TSR product?
It's an interesting question. Remember that Gygax lost "control" of TSR not long after it was founded. First his friend Kaye died, then Brian brought in his brother Kevin. Two Blumes (financed by daddy's money) versus one Gygax. Gary remained the face and spokesperson for the company, but "control" was not a thing he had. He was ousted to California while TSR was busy mishandling money. When he got back he engineered a financial recovery. Then the backstab and he was out, and the company tanked.
So what if he had actually been in control, and remained there? There were plenty of competitors as the RPG industry boomed. TSR wouldn't have Hasbro's ability to market the hell out of an IP, so I'd say that D&D wouldn't be the juggernaut it is today. I expect it'd still be the leader in the gaming hobby.
Would there have been an OGL or whatever? I don't even know whose idea it was, so maybe, maybe not. All of TSR's competitors in the 20th century would still be there publishing games, so I don't know that lack of an OGL would mean fewer non-TSR gaming products out there. Maybe not such a cottage industry as we have today.
OTOH, what would we have gained with Gygax in charge of TSR up until his death in 2008? Certainly more Greyhawk, which would make me damned happy. No Realms. PC games set in Greyhawk. A Greyhawk movie. The same creatives working at TSR for all those years, the ones that Gygax valued. Who can say what might have been produced?
Quote from: jhkim on April 12, 2023, 04:17:12 PM
Presumably if Gygax was hired in the 1990s to take over D&D again, the game would look more like his works of the 1990s - namely Dangerous Journeys (1992) and Lejendary Adventure (1999).
Gygax' "works of the 1990s" were his attempts to launch a new line that didn't get him in legal trouble with TSR. If he was still at TSR I doubt he would've been wracking his brains to try and come up with something new.
Quote from: Baron on April 12, 2023, 04:29:34 PM
Gygax' "works of the 1990s" were his attempts to launch a new line that didn't get him in legal trouble with TSR. If he was still at TSR I doubt he would've been wracking his brains to try and come up with something new.
That's true. His creative energy would be focused towards making Dungeons and Dragons better so who knows what would have happened if he had still been there.
The OSR probably wouldn't exist as TSR was extremely litigious...I remember the Usenet days and how they went after people over netbooks. You make a website with alternative AD&D classes? Here is a letter from our lawyer. Also, they would probably be cranking out dumbass novels and card games, much like WotC is doing now. I also think the hobby itself would be way way less popular, which is funny because before the Satanic Panic D&D was almost a phenomenon then got crushed, never did fully recover. WotC buying TSR sort of removed the stain of the brand for the most part which allowed it to be renewed. I don't think that would have been possible with TSR simply because of all the bad publicity.
Mmm, in 2009 Hasbro/WOTC pulled access to all legitimate PDFs. They didn't backpedal on that until 2013. Anyone can get proprietary about their intellectual property. Chaosium was known for going after online writers too, they still do today. And don't get me started about the Tekumel Foundation. Dave Morris, who'd released the Tirikelu rules set years back for free online, updated his downloads with a re-formatted version for printing. He was immediately threatened and had to pull it. So would TSR have calmed down? Hard to say. The online world grew and attitudes changed, who's to say how TSR might've evolved?
The sweet spot timeline is one where Gygax is retained as Creative Lead, with full control over game decisions; while someone who is financially savvy but actually cares about the hobby (this is essential to avoid the post-70's short term profit version of corporate Capitalism) steering the ship.
TBH, the only good things I can think of if TSR was still around today is that classic D&D settings would still get proper support, more original settings might have been developed than what they have now, and there would still be regular releases of novels (and perhaps other media) based on D&D worlds. But there would have been no OGL or major 3rd party products, as some have already pointed out, but contrary to what some have said I don't think that this would have been a good thing for the hobby or the rest of the industry.
The OGL allowed for a massive explosion of 3rd party content from small publishers and even competitors from other game companies that published OGL products as well, which helped revitalize the industry and allow people to share content and ideas using a recognizable game engine familiar to everyone without needlessly having reinvent the wheel to avoid litigation. This allowed hundreds of people share content compatible with existing rules, as well as experiment and take those rules to new directions, create alternative materials like new classes and such, create new games based on different genres and game worlds using a familiar ruleset, or even revisit old games to have a new take on them.
Some might complain and say that this stifled creativity and forced people to shoehorn D&D mechanics into settings those mechanics don't emulate well, and to an extent that might be true. But the unfortunate reality is that most regular people don't care about the game rules or genre emulation, they just want to play in the worlds they love or genres they like without having to learn a new system. And normies are more likely to pick up a game based on a ruleset that they know than get something with wonky new mechanics that are just different for the sake of being different, which is what you often get when people have to reinvent the wheel to not get sued by a sue happy company like TSR.
But the OGL not just allowed for people to share or publish content based on recognizable rules, but also created a mindset of open content that spread to other rules systems as well, creating a slew of open source rulesets that facilitated the sharing of content based on other game engines as well. Without the OGL, I wonder if everyone would still be making artificially different game rules instead of just picking an existing system that already worked the way they wanted to and making any necessary changes.
As bad as WotKKK might be, the demise of TSR was probably a good thing.
You need to go back to the full product offering, for 1st Edition AD&D; and brainstorm what Gary would have done, or what he would have allowed trusted writers to do with that. Forget about everything that came after his departure from TSR. None of what followed counts, for this discussion. 1E AD&D was Gary's big splash. Although, I'm curious what he would have done with B/X D&D?
We would've seen Castle Greyhawk and the dungeons beneath. Got the actual Gygax version of City of Greyhawk. Oriental Adventures would've remained set on Greyhawk, not the Realms. Tournaments would've continued as a convention thing.
I don't know if there would've been a need for Basic as a separate thing once Arneson was all settled. Maybe. Basic as a rules-lite game, compared to Advanced.
I would've liked to see more board games and war games. Since that was what the old guard played, it could've been a thing. Connecting it to D&D and Greyhawk, as GDW's board games were often tied in to Traveller, could've helped make them popular.
Oh, likely we would've seen a slew of Rob Kuntz' adventures, since he was Gygax' DM and co-DM.
Quote from: Baron on April 12, 2023, 05:22:03 PM
Mmm, in 2009 Hasbro/WOTC pulled access to all legitimate PDFs. They didn't backpedal on that until 2013. Anyone can get proprietary about their intellectual property. Chaosium was known for going after online writers too, they still do today. And don't get me started about the Tekumel Foundation. Dave Morris, who'd released the Tirikelu rules set years back for free online, updated his downloads with a re-formatted version for printing. He was immediately threatened and had to pull it. So would TSR have calmed down? Hard to say. The online world grew and attitudes changed, who's to say how TSR might've evolved?
Did Davie Morris post the rules verbatim or were they alternate rules? I am curious.
I hate Over litigious companies. The fans are putting out things to enhance their game, let them as long as they aren't giving the entire game away for free.
Quote from: Grognard GM on April 12, 2023, 06:50:54 PM
The sweet spot timeline is one where Gygax is retained as Creative Lead, with full control over game decisions; while someone who is financially savvy but actually cares about the hobby (this is essential to avoid the post-70's short term profit version of corporate Capitalism) steering the ship.
See this would have been perfect. They would also have to not sue anyone who puts out something that enhances the game. Then that would be the perfect TSR.
Quote from: Baron on April 13, 2023, 12:38:13 AM
We would've seen Castle Greyhawk and the dungeons beneath. Got the actual Gygax version of City of Greyhawk. Oriental Adventures would've remained set on Greyhawk, not the Realms. Tournaments would've continued as a convention thing.
I don't know if there would've been a need for Basic as a separate thing once Arneson was all settled. Maybe. Basic as a rules-lite game, compared to Advanced.
I would've liked to see more board games and war games. Since that was what the old guard played, it could've been a thing. Connecting it to D&D and Greyhawk, as GDW's board games were often tied in to Traveller, could've helped make them popular.
If you read the Gord the Rogue books, Gygax fleshed out the City of Greyhawk quite a bit in them.
Quote from: GhostNinja on April 13, 2023, 09:20:11 AM
Quote from: Baron on April 12, 2023, 05:22:03 PM
Mmm, in 2009 Hasbro/WOTC pulled access to all legitimate PDFs. They didn't backpedal on that until 2013. Anyone can get proprietary about their intellectual property. Chaosium was known for going after online writers too, they still do today. And don't get me started about the Tekumel Foundation. Dave Morris, who'd released the Tirikelu rules set years back for free online, updated his downloads with a re-formatted version for printing. He was immediately threatened and had to pull it. So would TSR have calmed down? Hard to say. The online world grew and attitudes changed, who's to say how TSR might've evolved?
Did Davie Morris post the rules verbatim or were they alternate rules? I am curious.
I hate Over litigious companies. The fans are putting out things to enhance their game, let them as long as they aren't giving the entire game away for free.
Dave is the author of Tirikelu. He's a fan of Tekumel. Tirikelu is a free rules set for Tekumel that he wrote many years ago. The updated file was just a reformat.
Quote from: Baron on April 13, 2023, 11:34:58 AM
Dave is the author of Tirikelu. He's a fan of Tekumel. Tirikelu is a free rules set for Tekumel that he wrote many years ago. The updated file was just a reformat.
Ok, I have heard of Tekumel but I have never looked at it or tirikelu so I had no idea.
Quote from: Baron on April 12, 2023, 05:22:03 PM
Mmm, in 2009 Hasbro/WOTC pulled access to all legitimate PDFs. They didn't backpedal on that until 2013. Anyone can get proprietary about their intellectual property. Chaosium was known for going after online writers too, they still do today. And don't get me started about the Tekumel Foundation. Dave Morris, who'd released the Tirikelu rules set years back for free online, updated his downloads with a re-formatted version for printing. He was immediately threatened and had to pull it. So would TSR have calmed down? Hard to say. The online world grew and attitudes changed, who's to say how TSR might've evolved?
Pulling PDFs is not the same as WotC threatening people with blogs. It'd be like if they told Pundit to stop posting about how to do world development in D&D or something. Although, the PDF pulling was...problematic. Exposed the whole DRM/electronic stuff as nothing more than pure trash.
RE: Tirkelu, you can still get the PDF, so it doesn't look like he had to pull it, just couldn't make a print copy available. That's not even close to proto-WWW TSR-level shenanigans.
Quote from: Brad on April 13, 2023, 01:55:09 PM
Quote from: Baron on April 12, 2023, 05:22:03 PM
Mmm, in 2009 Hasbro/WOTC pulled access to all legitimate PDFs. They didn't backpedal on that until 2013. Anyone can get proprietary about their intellectual property. Chaosium was known for going after online writers too, they still do today. And don't get me started about the Tekumel Foundation. Dave Morris, who'd released the Tirikelu rules set years back for free online, updated his downloads with a re-formatted version for printing. He was immediately threatened and had to pull it. So would TSR have calmed down? Hard to say. The online world grew and attitudes changed, who's to say how TSR might've evolved?
Pulling PDFs is not the same as WotC threatening people with blogs. It'd be like if they told Pundit to stop posting about how to do world development in D&D or something. Although, the PDF pulling was...problematic. Exposed the whole DRM/electronic stuff as nothing more than pure trash.
RE: Tirkelu, you can still get the PDF, so it doesn't look like he had to pull it, just couldn't make a print copy available. That's not even close to proto-WWW TSR-level shenanigans.
Yep. Didn't matter if it was Gygax-Blume TSR or Williams TSR - they were no friend to anyone but TSR, and an active enemy of anything D&D related that wasn't TSR. When it comes to 3PP's and fan created D&D content, I think the RPG world is much better off without TSR.
I really comes down to an open source philosophy vs. a strict IP enforcement philosophy. If you favor the former, then TSR's demise was a good thing. If you favor the latter, only then does "what would Gygax have done with D&D?" become a relevant question.
I'd be happy to stand corrected if someone has examples, but to my knowledge there were no companies that were "open source" during TSR's lifespan. So how can you fault a company for not doing something that no one else was doing?
Quote from: Baron on April 13, 2023, 02:29:47 PM
I'd be happy to stand corrected if someone has examples, but to my knowledge there were no companies that were "open source" during TSR's lifespan. So how can you fault a company for not doing something that no one else was doing?
There's not being open source, and then there's being litigious to the point of suing people for absurd crap absolutely NO ONE would consider IP infringement. And TSR falls into the second camp. IIRC, TSR sued Gary Gygax himself over Dangerous Journeys, which looks absolutely NOTHING like D&D. Though, I did hear similarly ridiculous stuff about White Wolf as well, but don't recall any other TTRPG companies that were as litigious from that era.
Quote from: Baron on April 13, 2023, 02:29:47 PM
I'd be happy to stand corrected if someone has examples, but to my knowledge there were no companies that were "open source" during TSR's lifespan. So how can you fault a company for not doing something that no one else was doing?
There's not having an open license, and then there's being extremely litigious and aggressive when protecting your IP.
No one was open source at the time, but also no one was anywhere close to being as litigious and bullying as TSR.
The OP's question is where would D&D be if TSR still existed. So the comparison is between TSR and WotC after it acquired D&D. The latter went open source, which literally changed the RPG hobby landscape forever.
Quote from: Baron on April 13, 2023, 02:29:47 PM
I'd be happy to stand corrected if someone has examples, but to my knowledge there were no companies that were "open source" during TSR's lifespan. So how can you fault a company for not doing something that no one else was doing?
There wasn't an open-source license, but there were a number of third-party producers. How things worked at that time was that some companies would have cordial relations with third-party producers, while other companies would sue them.
Later TSR and Palladium were known for suing third-party producers. As far as I know, most other companies were happy to have third-party producers.
Some notable third-party producers/products were Judges Guild modules (1976-1982), Chaosium's Thieves World (1981), Mayfair Games' Role Aids (1982-1995), and Wizards of the Coasts' Primal Order/Capsystem (1992-1995).
Sorry, but this strikes me as disingenuous. If someone wanted to publish for an IP they acquired a license or approval. Without that, the IP owner needed to assert their rights or lose ownership.
Those approvals could be rescinded or expire. JG's license was not renewed. Mayfair got sued. Chaosium got special permission from the owners of each game system published in Thieves World.
Quote from: Baron on April 13, 2023, 03:13:48 PM
Sorry, but this strikes me as disingenuous. If someone wanted to publish for an IP they acquired a license or approval. Without that, the IP owner needed to assert their rights or lose ownership.
Those approvals could be rescinded or expire. JG's license was not renewed. Mayfair got sued. Chaosium got special permission from the owners of each game system published in Thieves World.
Third party publishing is not inherently a violation of either copyright or trademark. It's a courtesy to try work out an arrangement, but it's not legally required. In many fields, it's the norm. I have some case history here:
https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/copyright/supplements.html
Quote from: jhkim on April 13, 2023, 03:07:13 PMLater TSR and Palladium were known for suing third-party producers. As far as I know, most other companies were happy to have third-party producers.
Oh yeah, I forgot about Palladium. They were overly litigious as well. So three companies from that era that I've suing people for questionable stuff: TSR, White Wolf and Palladium.
White Wolf IIRC would sue anyone, even outside of TTRPGs, who made anything even remotely resembling Vampire: The Masquerade (stuff dealing with vampire societies and such).
I think we're drifting off the topic, so I'll be brief. Look at it from a 1980s POV. TSR acted aggressively, and in some individual cases probably overreacted. Understandable if you invented a genre of games, watched tons of competitors launch product, and (eventually) developed financial problems. But asserting your ownership of an IP was a given. Anyway, would a TSR of today allow for the OSR? I'd say so, if there was enough of that going on in the industry. But again, I don't know who came up with the idea at WOTC or approved it. Maybe that same person would be at TSR. Who can say? I thought this thread was going to talk about product lines and so on.
One thing I think would change, OGL aside, is that 3e, and especially 4e and 5e might be much closer to 2e. I still use some 2e monsters for my B/X games; most TSR stuff is vaguely compatible. Same happens for CoC (and Runequest, Pendragon, etc.), Savage Worlds, and even GURPS 4e is closer to 3e than D&D 4e is to 3e.
D&D is the only RPG that changed so radically over editions (Kult is the only other one that comes to mind; Shadowrun might be another example but I've stopped playing a while ago).
I'm not saying that this is good or bad, there I things I enjoy about modern editions - especially the OGL, of course.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 13, 2023, 03:59:18 PM
One thing I think would change, OGL aside, is that 3e, and especially 4e and 5e might be much closer to 2e. I still use some 2e monsters for my B/X games; most TSR stuff is vaguely compatible. Same happens for CoC (and Runequest, Pendragon, etc.), Savage Worlds, and even GURPS 4e is closer to 3e than D&D 4e is to 3e.
D&D is the only RPG that changed so radically over editions (Kult is the only other one that comes to mind; Shadowrun might be another example but I've stopped playing a while ago).
I'd point out that most games simply haven't been around as long as D&D has. Call of Cthulhu is the rare exception. Most RPGs have an effective lifespan of much shorter active development, after which they become a legacy system which is just getting reprints. I'd also disagree about some of these.
- RuneQuest 2E to 3E was a pretty huge change, by making it generic instead of Glorantha specific, with a lot of mechanical differences as well.
- Champions 3E to HERO System 4E was similarly a big change from superheroes to a generic system. It replaced a lot of the skill system.
- While it might be less radical than D&D 4E, GURPS 3E to 4E is still a very big change, especially the changes to core attributes.
- Paranoia has completely replaced its core system multiple times. Gamma World, Blue Rose, and others have also changed their core system.
Quote from: Baron on April 13, 2023, 03:25:06 PM
I think we're drifting off the topic, so I'll be brief. Look at it from a 1980s POV. TSR acted aggressively, and in some individual cases probably overreacted. Understandable if you invented a genre of games, watched tons of competitors launch product, and (eventually) developed financial problems. But asserting your ownership of an IP was a given. Anyway, would a TSR of today allow for the OSR? I'd say so, if there was enough of that going on in the industry. But again, I don't know who came up with the idea at WOTC or approved it. Maybe that same person would be at TSR. Who can say? I thought this thread was going to talk about product lines and so on.
We're not talking about TSR suing 3rd party publishers over stuff that they were trying to sell in stores, we're talking about literally suing people who put things on the internet like "The Netbook of Spells," which was nothing more than a compilation of houserules. Just spells and stuff for D&D-like games. Hence, if THAT TSR existed still, the OSR would NOT exist in any way, shape, or form. So, we are talking about product lines, of sorts. Almost a minuscule amount of 3rd party support, if any. Contrast that with the heyday of d20...the sheer glut of crap was out of control.
EDIT: Lemme add this...when I say TSR went after stuff we'd consider ridiculous, I mean it. They would send C&D letters to people running rudimentary websites with a variant Paladin class. Crap like that. It was pretty fucking insane, so stuff that was put on the internet was sort of "underground". I remember having to dig for a long time to find those netbooks...today, we'd think that was ludicrous.
Quote from: Festus on April 12, 2023, 03:49:15 PMAnybody making a clone or something "too close" to D&D would get sued. He was extremely jealous and protective of his IP. You wouldn't be able to play D&D unless you were playing *his* D&D. And because he loved the money, that would mean whatever D&D "official" version TSR was currently selling. Anything else you'd have to buy used on the secondary market, and he'd make that as hard to get as he could.
The recurring lie.
Quote from: Brad on April 13, 2023, 05:52:09 PM
EDIT: Lemme add this...when I say TSR went after stuff we'd consider ridiculous, I mean it. They would send C&D letters to people running rudimentary websites with a variant Paladin class. Crap like that. It was pretty fucking insane, so stuff that was put on the internet was sort of "underground". I remember having to dig for a long time to find those netbooks...today, we'd think that was ludicrous.
Here's some blog posts detailing events:
https://dmdavid.com/tag/1994-tsr-declares-war-on-the-internets-dd-fans/
Quote from: Jam The MF on April 13, 2023, 12:31:47 AM
You need to go back to the full product offering, for 1st Edition AD&D; and brainstorm what Gary would have done, or what he would have allowed trusted writers to do with that. Forget about everything that came after his departure from TSR. None of what followed counts, for this discussion. 1E AD&D was Gary's big splash. Although, I'm curious what he would have done with B/X D&D?
Man I don't wanna pull a Troy and try to sound all authoritative...so let me say that this is pure speculation but based on what I talked with Gary about was that he was trying hard to market D&D. Remember, he had a movie in the works, he had the cartoon going on. Gary wanted to market D&D hard. As to Basic D&D? He thought it was grand - it was double-dipping, it made the company more profit and was therefore good. His future revisions to AD&D which would have seen the elimination of the assassin (yes - turned into an NPC only class), the creation of the Jester and Hunter as well as the Mountebank, and probably folded the monsters into the Dungeon Masters Guide, so there'd just be two books - DMG and PHB.
People for whatever reason don't like to admit it but Gary was a very good guide for TSR when he did have some modicum of control. He came back from California to a company in financial ruins and turned it 180' around. His problem was he trusted the wrong people (the Blumes, then Lorraine). Had he not made those two critical errors, TSR would have done fine.
No there likely wouldn't have been an OGL, but (A)D&D would still have been tall in the saddle.
As to TSR cucking to the Christian Right, again, not Gary's decision. Totally on Lorraine, Brian, & Kevin. Gary's attitude was "They have to buy the books if they want to burn them." (although it did bother him that people saw D&D as evil)
A lot of people think AD&D would have become a "softer" game because of what we got in Unearthed Arcana but my own personal opinion is that UA was a cash-patch to try and stop the hemorrhaging of money (which it did) but if Gary had had more time to craft and develop we likely wouldn't have gotten much of the sillyness that book brought to the table.
If if if...
Quote from: Omega on April 13, 2023, 07:37:05 PM
Quote from: Festus on April 12, 2023, 03:49:15 PMAnybody making a clone or something "too close" to D&D would get sued. He was extremely jealous and protective of his IP. You wouldn't be able to play D&D unless you were playing *his* D&D. And because he loved the money, that would mean whatever D&D "official" version TSR was currently selling. Anything else you'd have to buy used on the secondary market, and he'd make that as hard to get as he could.
The recurring lie.
I was going to address this but you did much more succinctly, thank you.
Quote from: jhkim on April 13, 2023, 04:39:31 PM
Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 13, 2023, 03:59:18 PM
One thing I think would change, OGL aside, is that 3e, and especially 4e and 5e might be much closer to 2e. I still use some 2e monsters for my B/X games; most TSR stuff is vaguely compatible. Same happens for CoC (and Runequest, Pendragon, etc.), Savage Worlds, and even GURPS 4e is closer to 3e than D&D 4e is to 3e.
D&D is the only RPG that changed so radically over editions (Kult is the only other one that comes to mind; Shadowrun might be another example but I've stopped playing a while ago).
I'd point out that most games simply haven't been around as long as D&D has. Call of Cthulhu is the rare exception. Most RPGs have an effective lifespan of much shorter active development, after which they become a legacy system which is just getting reprints. I'd also disagree about some of these.
- RuneQuest 2E to 3E was a pretty huge change, by making it generic instead of Glorantha specific, with a lot of mechanical differences as well.
- Champions 3E to HERO System 4E was similarly a big change from superheroes to a generic system. It replaced a lot of the skill system.
- While it might be less radical than D&D 4E, GURPS 3E to 4E is still a very big change, especially the changes to core attributes.
- Paranoia has completely replaced its core system multiple times. Gamma World, Blue Rose, and others have also changed their core system.
Fair enough, especially about Gamma World, Blue Rose and Paranoia.... although you could say these are more "setting" than "system".
But I still maintain that GURPS, probably Runequest, and maybe Talislanta haven't had radical change like 3e to 4e, and Champion/Hero apparently are called different names (not "editions" of the same game - although you mention 3e to 4e? I wouldn't know).
Quote from: jhkim on April 12, 2023, 04:17:12 PM
Presumably if Gygax was hired in the 1990s to take over D&D again, the game would look more like his works of the 1990s - namely Dangerous Journeys (1992) and Lejendary Adventure (1999).
D&D today under TSR and Gary would be terrible.
1st edition was already terrible*. UA made it even worse. 2nd edition was way too safe and TSR waffled by making it a collection of optional rules, rather than a cohesively designed system.
Interestingly, while B/X and BECMI have their problems, they are far better designed games than 1e/2e because for whatever reason the designers were allowed to do their job.
This often happens with innovators, they make the initial breakthrough, but others "get" it better.
* yeah, like you I still love it, but rereading it objectively the books are a mess.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 14, 2023, 09:08:17 AM
Quote from: jhkim on April 13, 2023, 04:39:31 PM
Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 13, 2023, 03:59:18 PM
One thing I think would change, OGL aside, is that 3e, and especially 4e and 5e might be much closer to 2e. I still use some 2e monsters for my B/X games; most TSR stuff is vaguely compatible. Same happens for CoC (and Runequest, Pendragon, etc.), Savage Worlds, and even GURPS 4e is closer to 3e than D&D 4e is to 3e.
D&D is the only RPG that changed so radically over editions (Kult is the only other one that comes to mind; Shadowrun might be another example but I've stopped playing a while ago).
I'd point out that most games simply haven't been around as long as D&D has. Call of Cthulhu is the rare exception. Most RPGs have an effective lifespan of much shorter active development, after which they become a legacy system which is just getting reprints. I'd also disagree about some of these.
- RuneQuest 2E to 3E was a pretty huge change, by making it generic instead of Glorantha specific, with a lot of mechanical differences as well.
- Champions 3E to HERO System 4E was similarly a big change from superheroes to a generic system. It replaced a lot of the skill system.
- While it might be less radical than D&D 4E, GURPS 3E to 4E is still a very big change, especially the changes to core attributes.
- Paranoia has completely replaced its core system multiple times. Gamma World, Blue Rose, and others have also changed their core system.
Fair enough, especially about Gamma World, Blue Rose and Paranoia.... although you could say these are more "setting" than "system".
But I still maintain that GURPS, probably Runequest, and maybe Talislanta haven't had radical change like 3e to 4e, and Champion/Hero apparently are called different names (not "editions" of the same game - although you mention 3e to 4e? I wouldn't know).
The universal HERO System released in 1989 is still identified as "4th edition". They released it as both a "Hero System" universal rulebook and a longer all-in-one "Champions" book that has identical rules plus additional sections for superhero genre and background.
I'm not entirely disagreeing. Yes, the change from D&D 3.5E to 4E was a big change, bigger than GURPS or RQ -- but it wasn't unprecedented. Besides the other examples, I think the change from OD&D to either the Basic Set or AD&D was at least as big a change. One could call them different games, but they were the replacement under the same brand from the same company.
My other point is that most RPG editions happen quickly, because most systems have a much shorter time of growth, after which they become legacy systems with not much active support. Champions had four editions over eight years (1981 to 1989). RuneQuest had three editions over six years (1978 to 1984). By the time D&D 4E came out, the game had been around for 35 years.
Fair points!
My dream scenario is like the current history except Gary stops worrying about game mechanics and continues to churn out high quality modules for Wizards or as part of his own company.
Quote from: jhkim on April 15, 2023, 12:57:27 PM
By the time D&D 4E came out, the game had been around for 35 years.
They may have called it 4e, but there were way more than 3 iterations of D&D prior to it.
Quote from: Ruprecht on April 16, 2023, 09:21:50 PM
My dream scenario is like the current history except Gary stops worrying about game mechanics and continues to churn out high quality modules for Wizards or as part of his own company.
You are right. That is where he excelled.