The S&S influence is in my opinion just loosely associated, perhaps symptomatic but not causal. It's one of those "You might be an X if ..." kind of things. A deeper and clearer influence, I think, is historical wargaming. The roleplaying game was a big enough leap in the 1970s. What has developed in 2E, 3E and 4E has come largely from people to whom D&D was already an established game culture quite distinct from the one from which it emerged.
I see a parallel of sorts in the vogue for card-driven games (CDGs) on historical subjects. The World War One game Paths of Glory is less historically accurate than The Guns of August -- and that's a good thing if one prefers a game that is not a senseless, dull grind of mostly static positions and offensives that produce little but casualties. More generally, though, CDGs tend not to scratch the grognard's itch and old-style designs tend not to be so well received by more casual wargamers with less military-historical interest.
I see a parallel of sorts in the vogue for card-driven games (CDGs) on historical subjects. The World War One game Paths of Glory is less historically accurate than The Guns of August -- and that's a good thing if one prefers a game that is not a senseless, dull grind of mostly static positions and offensives that produce little but casualties. More generally, though, CDGs tend not to scratch the grognard's itch and old-style designs tend not to be so well received by more casual wargamers with less military-historical interest.
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