If you could have created D&D before Gygax..

[rogueattorney]

Any D&D historians out there: did Anderson or Gygax develop the idea of alignment?

... That's a great question. I'd assume Arneson because he wrote about some of his early proto-D&D war games in FFC that described the Lawful and Chaotic forces, elves were on the side of Law, orcs on the side of Chaos, etc. (Alignment was originally what side you were on - with whom you were aligned.) Gary certainly developed it pretty extensively with his essays in the early Dragons and its continuation in AD&D.

and while we're at it, what vance novels actually have 'vancian' magic? i want to read and see where it came from.

Dying Earth and Eyes of the Overworld were the two that preceded D&D, and the amount of influence it had on D&D (including G.G.'s writing style) is obvious. Cugel's Saga and Rhialto the Marvelous came after D&D. I've read all but Rhialto - absolutely fabulous!

R.A.

 

[mmadsen]

the question i have is if a modern person went back and remade D&D in their image, would it even have taken off as it did? Gygax's vision blew up massively because it was the right spark for the wargaming tinder they had sitting around. It carried enough of the gamer legacy of the time with splashes of fiction they were familiar with, and pushed it to a new level. All these modern ideas that sprung from that core may not have taken root in the soil that gygax had to work with.

Some "modern" ideas only appeal to people already steeped in the RPG tradition -- and usually only to a small fraction thereof (e.g., those at RPG.net). Other modern ideas are pretty clearly better implementations of older ideas; they meet the same design goals, but with cleaner rules.

 

[T. Foster]

... That's a great question. I'd assume Arneson because he wrote about some of his early proto-D&D war games in FFC that described the Lawful and Chaotic forces, elves were on the side of Law, orcs on the side of Chaos, etc. (Alignment was originally what side you were on - with whom you were aligned.) Gary certainly developed it pretty extensively with his essays in the early Dragons and its continuation in AD&D.

The Fantasy Supplement of Chainmail includes a chart listing creatures by alignment (law, chaos, and neutral -- with a suggestion that the latter group be diced for at the beginning of the battle to see on which side they will fight ) which would suggest this was a Gygax contribution, but OTOH my copy of Chainmail is the 3rd edition (1975) which actually post-dates D&D, so I can't say with 100% certainty whether such a chart was in the earlier (pre-D&D, pre-Arneson) editions.

 

[Aethelstan]

Thanks T, good to know.

 

[mmadsen]

Dying Earth and Eyes of the Overworld were the two that preceded D&D, and the amount of influence it had on D&D (including G.G.'s writing style) is obvious. Cugel's Saga and Rhialto the Marvelous came after D&D. I've read all but Rhialto - absolutely fabulous!

Interestingly, the later stories involve a very different magic system: archwizards bargain with supremely powerful beings who effectively cast spells for them.

 

[mmadsen]

Some "modern" ideas only appeal to people already steeped in the RPG tradition -- and usually only to a small fraction thereof (e.g., those at RPG.net). Other modern ideas are pretty clearly better implementations of older ideas; they meet the same design goals, but with cleaner rules.

A follow-up question: Which elements of 3.5E are simply better implementations of the same design goals, and which are new ideas that might not appeal to an OD&D audience?

I think that the simplified attributes (all using the same bonus progression), the unified experience-level chart, BAB, and the three saves are all strict improvements.

Most of the feats and the shift to square-by-square movement with Attacks of Opportunity are new, different ideas.

 

[Ravellion]

Hey Turanil.

I noticed you mentioned Grim Tales. Where did you buy it? I can't find it in the Netherlands, and I'd prefer to buy in Europe.

Et je parle un peu Francais, so you can direct me to a web site if you bought it online.

If you could be of any help at all, that would be great.

Rav

 

[Committed Hero]

Knowing what I know now, what would [a lawyer] go back in time and change to make the D&D of 2005 better?

I took the same line as RA upon reading the question, but I suspect that's not the answer people were looking for.

I would eliminate demi-human playable races. Make dwarves and elves (no halflings either for me!) more mysterious by keeping them NPCs. I don't see any way this could ever last for 30 years, but it's the way I would go.

Eliminate religious-based magic. That was asking for trouble.

Make magic accessible to any character, but at prices that hinder advancement in other arenas.

Allow characters to buy kewl powers as they acquire enough experience to pay for them. Keep levels, but only as an afterthought to scale encounters.

 

[Whimsical]

In one of his Line of Sight articles, Monte Cook explains why certain D&Disms (levels, classes, hit points, dungeons) are not only good but genius game design elements that he believes were crucial to D&D's success back in the day.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

We actually have national press coverage to thank for that, in the form of James Egbert. I think I remember Gygax mentioning in one of the tremendous spike in sales that came out of that; something like a 1000% increase. If not for that, I have to wonder what would have happened.

In that case, I would have made it as overtly Satanic and offensive as humanly possible and watch the cash flood in! After all, if there's one thing kids love it's driving Mom and Dad nuts, right? CE as the only alignment. Extra XPs for kobold baby-slaying. Stat up Ozzy Osborne as a greater deity. Pentagrams everywhere. "Can we put a naked Succubus picture on every page?" Encourage gamers to "charm" their dads into buying them more D&D books. Maybe throw in some bomb-making rules that actually work in real life.

I call it the Marilyn Manson Effect.