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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DDNFan" data-source="post: 6311899" data-attributes="member: 6776483">Good point about Dave Arneson, but Gygax earned his name in the annals of history, and the only influence he acquired was as a direct result of the popularity of the game he created, which, if he wasn't a "very good game designer" would not have happened. Unless you think the art on the cover what was sold the original D&D and not the concept or the rules that supported the concept's execution in such a compelling way. Compelling enough, that people are still playing that version of D&D many years later, possibly even more than people are playing 4th edition according to rumours about dndclassics sales.You cannot belittle the man's game design skills when without them, we wouldn't even be here, talking about this. The main adjustment that 5th edition did was to bring the game back much closer to the original vision of the game, for which Gygax and Arneson are most definitely responsible, and therefore deserve the credit more than many other "very good game designers", whose innovations have not stood the test of time and have been largely reverted by later designers who realized that many of those "old ideas" are better. Rolling a d20 and then damage is a winning formula. Until you can find any TTRPG that doesn't use that which reaches or surpasses the popularity levels of D&D, there is no point in arguing about it. Even the star wars games are derivatives, as is Pathfinder.So, new game designers should come up with a compelling new fundamental game or concept instead of sitting on the shoulders of giants and claiming only they can reach those heights. If anyone came up with a better RPG concept or system that people will use, and have it achieve the levels of success D&D has, then maybe we could talk about there being better game designers. Until then, we're all just playing around in his pool.And that's only discussing combat mechanics. Just wait until you throw in all the classic monsters and spells which are also equally part of what makes the game unique. If those aren't clear signs of game design genius, that grab people and they use and reuse those monsters and concepts over and over for decades, then I don't know what to say. It's a billion dollar franchise. This thread is starting to sound like people claiming Lucas wasn't ever a great filmmaker, on a Star Wars forum. The level of absurdity of that assertion is staggering.So Again, / thread.</blockquote>

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