D&D General If D&D were created today, what would it look like?

[pemerton]

it was one of the first RPGs to use skill-based character creation, rather than class-based character creation.

RQ and Traveller are both earlier than DQ. Which early games besides D&D were class-based? T&T, though not in quite the same fashion as D&D. C&S, I think. Which others?

 

[JEB]

RQ and Traveller are both earlier than DQ. Which early games besides D&D were class-based? T&T, though not in quite the same fashion as D&D. C&S, I think. Which others?

I'm sure there are others, but your point is made. Was just going off the Wikipedia page. (Perhaps they meant one of the first fantasy RPGs to use skill-based character creation?)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm sure there are others, but your point is made. Was just going off the Wikipedia page. (Perhaps they meant one of the first fantasy RPGs to use skill-based character creation?)

Runequest was a fantasy RPG that use a classless skill based system.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Traveller has prior history (Scout, Merchant etc.) and Runequest has occupations (Hunter, Rune Priest etc.). Even though both are technically classless, they both provide mechanisms which govern the kind of skills available to a character, and paint a picture which describes them in broad terms.

 

[JEB]

Runequest was a fantasy RPG that use a classless skill based system.

Wikipedia said DragonQuest was "one of" the first. I don't imagine there were that many such systems between 1978 and 1980.

waits for someone to correct that, too

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Wikipedia said DragonQuest was "one of" the first. I don't imagine there were that many such systems between 1978 and 1980.

waits for someone to correct that, too

All I know is I played Traveller and Runequest round about 1982 (and they weren't new). I don't know anything about DragonQuest.

 

[pemerton]

I'm sure there are others, but your point is made. Was just going off the Wikipedia page. (Perhaps they meant one of the first fantasy RPGs to use skill-based character creation?)

Wikipedia said DragonQuest was "one of" the first. I don't imagine there were that many such systems between 1978 and 1980.

waits for someone to correct that, too

Not trying to one-up you! Just curious. I only know some of the main systems of that period - RQ, C&S, T&T, DQ, Traveller - but what about Metamorphis Alpha, Gamma World and Boot Hill? And other systems that I don't know about?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not trying to one-up you! Just curious. I only know some of the main systems of that period - RQ, C&S, T&T, DQ, Traveller - but what about Metamorphis Alpha, Gamma World and Boot Hill? And other systems that I don't know about?

By the time I started playing in the early 80s Metamorphosis Alpha had been and gone. Gamma World and and Boot Hill I initially knew about because of mentioned in the 1st edition DMG. From what I remember GW had races of a sort - Pure Strain Humans, Mutants and something in between, but it didn't have classes, instead you gained powers from random mutant abilities. Boot Hill didn't have hp, so was highly lethal. Can't remember if it had anything resembling classes.

Call of Cthulhu came in quite early, along with Mutants and Masterminds and Champions (both superheroes). On the trail of those Games Workshop released Golden Heroes, which was kind of a "5e" version of Champions - much simpler and more playable. Oh, Star Frontiers (space opera, lighter than Traveller) was out around then too.

 

[Wicked Woodpecker]

I hardly disagree with idea that there would be no halflings. Without D&D - Tolkien still would be huge.
Even assuming some forms of Warhammer and Warcraft would happen without D&D - therefore maybe maybe changing orcs into more conventional barbarians from degenerated victioms of Darkmaster bio-experiments - I doubt they would take prevalence over Tolkien (and some race of small people would be generally needed).

Mind you, dwarf might be renamed, should D&D have been made today, perhaps using actual mythical names.

But... dwarf is actual mythical name for beings from Germanic mythology/folklor that gave birth to Tolkienian dwarves later.
English is Germanic language - dwarf is modern pronounciation of being called dwergh in Middle English, dweorg in Old English, dwerg in recontructed proto-West-Germanic. Nordic dialects even if more popular in mythology perspective hold no real claim over this folklore.

Archaisation of term is not really making it more correct.
What's next - calling elves - "albiz" as in ProtoGermanic?

 

[JEB]

By the time I started playing in the early 80s Metamorphosis Alpha had been and gone. Gamma World and and Boot Hill I initially knew about because of mentioned in the 1st edition DMG. From what I remember GW had races of a sort - Pure Strain Humans, Mutants and something in between, but it didn't have classes, instead you gained powers from random mutant abilities. Boot Hill didn't have hp, so was highly lethal. Can't remember if it had anything resembling classes.

Call of Cthulhu came in quite early, along with Mutants and Masterminds and Champions (both superheroes). On the trail of those Games Workshop released Golden Heroes, which was kind of a "5e" version of Champions - much simpler and more playable. Oh, Star Frontiers (space opera, lighter than Traveller) was out around then too.

From what I can gather, Boot Hill doesn't appear to have classes, but it also expects you to play a gunslinger, so it could be argued it's more like a single-class game.

Call of Cthulhu and Champions came out in 1981, so they postdate DragonQuest, though the former built on the aforementioned RuneQuest. Star Frontiers and Golden Heroes were even later, 1982 and 1984 respectively.

(BTW, you meant 1979's Villains and Vigilantes, right? Mutants and Masterminds was in the 2000s.)