Alternate Gaming History - What If?

[Baron Opal]

Wow, I've never even heard of it before this thread.

 

[DonTadow]

I’ve played the game once. The “pimp-tonite” card is the only one I can remember off hand that I actually laughed when it was played.

Again, fun game, but the wife and i learned way more than we ever wanted to know about sexual terminology. Everytime we played a card we'd run to the computer and look it up. Things such as turkey pot pie are pretty creepy.

 

[Vargo]

My own gaming "what if" is "what would have happened in the RPG world if Steve Jackson Games hadn't been raided by the Secret Service?" I think that's a HUGE what-if - SJG went through years of legal trouble, near bankruptcy, and had to lay off a huge part of their staff for the longest time. On the other hand, I don't think anybody would disagree that they gained a huge amount of publicity from the event, and possibly gained some of their customer base due to those issues.

 

[moritheil]

My own gaming "what if" is "what would have happened in the RPG world if Steve Jackson Games hadn't been raided by the Secret Service?" I think that's a HUGE what-if - SJG went through years of legal trouble, near bankruptcy, and had to lay off a huge part of their staff for the longest time. On the other hand, I don't think anybody would disagree that they gained a huge amount of publicity from the event, and possibly gained some of their customer base due to those issues.

That's easy: In Nomine would have become a much bigger title, leading to much more controversy about gaming at an earlier date. Since the furor erupts over tabletop games and not video games, Jack Thompson never attains global notoriety by attacking video games, and Penny Arcade does not get the subsequent readership boost by taking him down.

 

[Greylock]

Wow, I've never even heard of it before this thread.

I learned about the My Little Pony RPG the same way.

 

[Pelwrath]

Alternate History

This is a very interesting topic, that is the what if? of adventures. i am using the old TSR varient, The Glory of Rome for an adventure. I also believe that they came out with another set in the renisance/30 or 100 years War time frame. This allows me or any one deciding on an Aletrnate Time setting tremendous freedom.
Have the Spanish Conquistadores but replace guns with magic. Aztec Knigts(Eagle,Jaguar) having the ability to polymorph/shapechange into their respective animal.

 

[moritheil]

That's a bizarre turn of phrase. Are you suggesting that if WotC had released it, people would have bought it regardless of their feelings on it, just because they produced it?

Let me also ask you this: do you own the Star Wars RPG (all three versions), d20 Modern, d20 Call of Cthulhu and the Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game in addition to D&D?

Do you own Alternity? How about The Primal Order? Do you play Magic: the Gathering? Do you play Pokemon?

I'm doing so in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, though that can be hard to tell through text. I do wonder if flagship status confers some sort of immunity on WotC in the minds of some, though.

 

[moritheil]

Uh, all the people playing them....Various people in the industry have said that all that noteriety helped drive sales. And while WotC likes to come and say every so often "sales are better then ever", its hard to deny that D&D was a popular phenomanon then in a way then that it just hasn't been since.

So you're saying that sales are better now than before, but games are less popular?

Can you reconcile those two assertions?

 

[Wik]

This is a very interesting topic, that is the what if? of adventures. i am using the old TSR varient, The Glory of Rome for an adventure. I also believe that they came out with another set in the renisance/30 or 100 years War time frame. This allows me or any one deciding on an Aletrnate Time setting tremendous freedom.
Have the Spanish Conquistadores but replace guns with magic. Aztec Knigts(Eagle,Jaguar) having the ability to polymorph/shapechange into their respective animal.

Ha, I think you misread the point of the thread.

That being said, the book you're referring to, "A Mighty Fortress" is really, REALLY dry. As in, it's not really all that useful for actual GAMING in. It is one of the few D&D books I've given away - I donated to the local book drive last month.

The Glory of Rome is AWESOME, though - as are the rest of the "green books". I wish wotc would release something similar.

 

[Ripzerai]

That being said, the book you're referring to, "A Mighty Fortress" is really, REALLY dry.

I loved the fencing rules in it, which were something I adopted outside that setting.