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<blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2255990" data-attributes="member: 27012">Metamorphosis Alpha was published in 1976, two years after D&amp;D.&nbsp; And it was shortly after it was published that Bill Armintrout ran the college game that he wrote about in 1981 in The Space Gamer.&nbsp; That's about two years after the original D&amp;D was released.&nbsp; My point is that I think those other styles of role-playing appeared at the very beginning of the hobby because no two DMs ran exactly the same sort of D&amp;D game.&nbsp; In many ways, the relatively sparse D&amp;D rules demanded that early DMs fill in the blanks and they did in a variety of ways, including some very &quot;modern&quot; ones.&nbsp; In fact, it continues to stun me when people praise a game because it gave them &quot;permission&quot; to tinker with the rules, ignore the rules, etc.&nbsp; I think plenty of people can figure that out on their own and did.And while the development of specialty niches and different approaches may be the signs of a maturing hobby, they can also lead a hobby down the road from having broad appeal to having very narrow appeal and thus a much smaller though more fanatical fan base.&nbsp; Yes, you can now buy scale model today with more accuracy detail than every before but is that helping to expand the appeal of the hobby or does it simply squeeze more money out of a shrinking niche of fanatics?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Morrow, post: 2255990, member: 27012"] Metamorphosis Alpha was published in 1976, two years after D&D. And it was shortly after it was published that Bill Armintrout ran the college game that he wrote about in 1981 in The Space Gamer. That's about two years after the original D&D was released. My point is that I think those other styles of role-playing appeared at the very beginning of the hobby because no two DMs ran exactly the same sort of D&D game. In many ways, the relatively sparse D&D rules demanded that early DMs fill in the blanks and they did in a variety of ways, including some very "modern" ones. In fact, it continues to stun me when people praise a game because it gave them "permission" to tinker with the rules, ignore the rules, etc. I think plenty of people can figure that out on their own and did. And while the development of specialty niches and different approaches may be the signs of a maturing hobby, they can also lead a hobby down the road from having broad appeal to having very narrow appeal and thus a much smaller though more fanatical fan base. Yes, you can now buy scale model today with more accuracy detail than every before but is that helping to expand the appeal of the hobby or does it simply squeeze more money out of a shrinking niche of fanatics? [/QUOTE]

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