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

[TwoSix]

Tough to say. If we think of the creation of D&D as the moment when the RPG concept itself was created, when the creation of a game with a personal avatar that advances and grows over the course of play was popularized, and that idea doesn't occur until 2021, then you're looking at a massive change within the video game industry. And that industry has a ton of cross-pollination with the growth of the fantasy and sci-fi genres over the years.

I imagine without D&D's influence, you'd see a downtick in medieval themed "swords and magic" fantasy, and probably an uptick in science-fantasy; Star Wars, which was roughly concurrent, would take up a greater mind share of the geek community.

Realistically, I think RPG elements would have evolved in video games sometime in the 1980s, as side scrolling platformers would have been a natural place for the concept of gradual progression within a single character to evolve. As such, a medieval game using an RPG concept introduced in 2021, a new D&D, would certainly use the tropes that would have evolved from whatever seminal game introduced RPG concepts in this alt history.[/i]

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Let’s say D&D wasn’t invented yet, and let’s assume RPGs didn’t get created yet either for the sake of argument. If the game were to be created today, what would it look like and how would it be different from the white box?

I think the obvious one would be presentation. With modern computers, publishing software, and access to freelancers, I think the game would be presented fairly professionally.

I also think it would be a full game, rather than have add on references as the white box was in reference to Chainmail.

Concept wise, the classes and races would be pretty similar. It’s easy to call them primitive from today’s standards, but if it were a new concept that came out today, I don’t see that changing. After all, the concepts and ideas are based off of imagination, not technology, and thus would be close to the same.

Then I also think it would be presented a bit more inclusive, as our views as a society now are much different than 1974.

Less 80’s Conan, more reboot She-Ra.

Then again, if it was made by a reactionary type, it might be more Game of Thrones with only white dudes in the art.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Nothing of the sort. Tolkien had a resurgence in the 60s, which is notably before D&D came out. And Tolkien has major influence in fantasy with the likes of Sword of Shannara which also was before D&D (Brooks started writing it in 1967). So saying "what if D&D was never created", you don't have to strip out Tolkien's influence at all in fantasy. Tolkien had a lot of relevance to fantasy before D&D, and can be assumed to still have had major influence even if D&D never was invented.

On a related note, we also had the entire sword and sorcery genre before D&D came out, and we know D&D was heavily influenced by that. So IMO, if it game out today, it would be heavily influenced by current pop culture fantasy/sci-fi, so I think it would be much more influenced by dystopian and post-apocalyptic settings rather than medieval Europe.

I think the current sci-fi/fantasy scene would actually be very Tolkien influenced, but also much more cartoon influenced than D&D has ever been.

I think the worlds people want to pretend to be in are places like the worlds of She-Ra and Adventure Time, as much as if not more than Game of Thrones.

But it really depends on what kind of nerds were to make the game.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Oh, also, it would be vastly less exclusively European than D&D. Like...almost certainly.

 

[ninjayeti]

It would launch through Kickstarter of course. Per the current Kickstarter boardgame trends there would be a zillion dodads (figures, dungeon tiles, dice) as add ons and stretch goals. As a consequence of this gameplay would be centered around using figures on a gird, similar to the 3E and 4E. Theater of the Mind play wouldn't be a thing until many later.

or

It would be a native digital ruleset - either an app or an online resource like the more automated VTTs. Because it wouldn't need physical dice it would use things like a d17 or d61 or whatever made sense for a particular check. It would be very crunchy - think of 1E's having a different chart to roll on for every possible situation, or 3E's arithmetic-heavy combat - but this would all run in the background without needing active player management, so it would still feel fluid.

 

[Lylandra]

Of course, this gets at why this question is almost impossible to answer. If D&D were invented today, we probably wouldn’t be in a post Warcraft world, because Warcraft was heavily influenced by D&D.

Yeah, it is hard because of course the WC devs were huge fans of both D&D and Warhammer, but several influences point to a specific influence of the Forgotten Realms. And we can be sure that Greenwood would have published his works and therefore his world in one way or another.

 

[Aldarc]

While I understand the intent of wanting to leave out things that D&D influenced out of the equation (e.g., post-D&D fantasy literature, video games, and other media, etc.) it also seems a bit silly and nigh impossible to answer simply because our conception of today's fantasy is rooted in a fantasy in which D&D has exerted its influence. I think that conceding that D&D undoubtedly shaped fantasy's shape and contours for the past 45 years while nevertheless imagining what the design of a D&D not bound by the yoke of its own legacy or particular brand of fantasy would look today would yield a more interesting discussion.

Yeah, it is hard because of course the WC devs were huge fans of both D&D and Warhammer, but several influences point to a specific influence of the Forgotten Realms. And we can be sure that Greenwood would have published his works and therefore his world in one way or another.

I would honestly say that Dragonlance probably had a greater influence than Forgotten Realms on WC, particularly since Richard Knaak contributed to writing some of the key novels of WC lore.

 

[Tonguez]

I never said D&D created the fantasy genre and I did acknowledge the fantasy genre existed before D&D. What I said was that my opinion is that without D&D a lot of the fantasy genre that came along in the 80s probably wouldn't have happened. The timing of that stuff coming out closely on the heels of D&D isn't coincidence.

I cited Conan the Barbarian, Krull and Clash of the Titans because despite coming out in the early 80’s, I don’t think they were influenced by D&D.
They seem much more influenced by the success of Star Wars and the earlier pulp stories. I’d contend that Masters of the Universe, Beastmaster and the various ‘Barbarian’ movies were created as Conan clones and that they would have a bigger influence on the modern roleplaying game.

The Conan movies can be linked back to the Italian Sword & Sandals genre of the 50s/60s (Hercules Unchained, Samson etc) just as the later fantasy movies like Dragonheart and Willow can draw direct lineage to earlier movies like The Magic Sword, and the various Robin Hood and King Arthur movies (see Excalibur 1981).

 

[Laurefindel]

Let’s say D&D wasn’t invented yet, and let’s assume RPGs didn’t get created yet either for the sake of argument. If the game were to be created today, what would it look like and how would it be different from the white box?

I think the obvious one would be presentation. With modern computers, publishing software, and access to freelancers, I think the game would be presented fairly professionally.

I also think it would be a full game, rather than have add on references as the white box was in reference to Chainmail.

Concept wise, the classes and races would be pretty similar. It’s easy to call them primitive from today’s standards, but if it were a new concept that came out today, I don’t see that changing. After all, the concepts and ideas are based off of imagination, not technology, and thus would be close to the same.

Then I also think it would be presented a bit more inclusive, as our views as a society now are much different than 1974.

This is very hard to speculate on given the prevalent back-and-forth dialogue between literature, rpg, pop-culture, and other media.

The only thing I can think of is that if D&D was never invented, that's because the (classic) fantasy genre never caught as something of interest. So no dwarves and elves and wizards. Influential sci-fi stuff such as Star Wars, Star Trek, or Aliens have existed since the eary days of D&D, so these would not have caught either... And though it wouldn't have emerged out of chainmail, it would need to evolve from something. Something actual and relevant to the 2000s (that isn't already rpg material). My guess would be computer games or something digital, although it's exceedingly difficult to differentiate what would and wouldn't exist if D&D and rpg didn't exist in the first place. Something that offers or proposes different roles and a group dynamics. A few things come to mind...

D&D as an extension of Minecraft and other survival games. Villager trades as classes unlock different crafting trees, biomes as races grant environmental advantages. Adventure as a group trough overworld, Nether, and the End.

D&D as Alien-fighting forces in the lines of X-COM, Halo, or Destiny. Classes as combat roles. Early version would be little more than war-games with a bit of roleplay involved along a set campaign timeline. Would then evolve into its own thing, with alien species and free-form rp.

D&D as The Matrix. Another genre I can think of that never was that popular since the movie that has potential for rp, group dynamics, potential specializations, and can eventually evolve into something much bigger.

 

[embee]

Arcade games and the first generation of computer games probably would also go by relatively unaffected.

I strongly disagree.

The main video games that would disappear are, for starters, Zork. No D&D, no Zork.
No Zork, no text-based games. No Infocom. No HGTTG, Leather Goddesses of Phobos. Fantasy video games in general. No Gauntlet. No Golden Axe. No Sierra Games because no Quest For Glory or King's Quest. No Zelda (which was a dungeon delver at its heart)

And then the impact on FPS games in general. The earliest FPS was an AD&D game for the Intellivision. That's right... there were FPS games in 1982. Those games were the spiritual ancestor of The Elder Scrolls.

The impact on video games in general would be immeasurable. For as long as there has been D&D, there have been D&D video games. This isn't hyperbole. D&D was released in 1974. In 1975, there was already a video game based on it called dnd, one of the first games to have boss monsters. 2 years later was DND (now in BASIC). From there, you have Rogue/Hack/NetHack.