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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JEB" data-source="post: 8194197" data-attributes="member: 10148">Just to note, the following potential influences for a modern D&D that have been mentioned upthread would be highly unlikely to exist in an alternate world without D&D in 1974:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Any RPG video or computer game that in any way resembles D&D mechanically from the 1970s or 1980s (and quite possibly beyond that)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Krull (its working title was "The Dragons of Krull" and frankly it has a very D&D sort of setup)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Warhammer (Games Workshop never gets big without D&D)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Magic: The Gathering (design strongly influenced by D&D)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Warcraft (influenced by Warhammer and D&D)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Pokémon (draws on earlier video games with RPG elements)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Adventure Time (very heavily influenced by D&D)</li> </ul>Ones that would probably still exist:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Conan and LOTR/Hobbit films</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Clash of the Titans</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">He-Man (almost certainly a Conan knock-off)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">She-Ra (He-Man spin-off, though the modern iteration would be different without D&D's influence, per comments from showrunners)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Anime, generally (excepting many anime with fantasy/RPG influences, since those draw on RPG video games that likely don't exist here)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Harry Potter (taps into non-RPG fantasy traditions)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Avatar: The Last Airbender (unless the creators aren't admitting to some D&D or D&D-derived influences, it's mostly Miyazaki, martial arts films, and assorted non-fantasy anime)</li> </ul>I'm also skeptical that the Forgotten Realms would develop independently of D&D. Greenwood had over a decade to do something with the setting outside of D&D, but had been content to just use it as materials for Dragon Magazine articles, until finally working with TSR to make it a campaign world in the late 1980s. The novels came after that. At most, I could maybe see it being the focus for a few fantasy novels, but without D&D's backing I'm not sure it's compelling enough to become a pop-culture force.Game of Thrones is one I'm not sure about, though. GRRM doesn't cite anything D&D-derived as an influence, but it's also hard to ignore the fact that he was a known RPGer and was almost certainly reacting to trends in fantasy fiction at the time, trends almost certainly influenced by D&D's popularity. I wonder if GRRM would be more likely to stick to SF and horror without D&D. (Also, a D&D analogue influenced by GOT is going to be radically different from one influenced by Avatar, and the latter seems a lot more marketable...)As for the game developing from acting or SCA, those existed as possible influences for some time before D&D popped up, and no successful related game appeared during that era, so I dunno. I'm also skeptical that any such activity that came from those would have the influence D&D did.An additional interest point raised above is the number of creatives who were inspired at some point in their youth by D&D; how many of them never get the confidence to press on without D&D? Some I'm sure, but surely not all.</blockquote>

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