Most influential RPG

[dragoner]

I am surprised no Vampire, a very big deal in it's day.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I am surprised no Vampire, a very big deal in it's day.

It's sixth in the initial list.

 

[Theory of Games]

I am surprised no Vampire, a very big deal in it's day.

The OP lists Vampire. Why, I'm not sure.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think we all know it is Og and Land of Og

 

[dragoner]

The OP lists Vampire. Why, I'm not sure.

It's sixth in the initial list.

Yes, though without much discussion, maybe people here didn't play it. I had a girlfriend in college liked it, played it some.

 

[Clint_L]

This thread has me struggling to think of another genre that has been so dominated by a single product as TTRPGs have been dominated, from their inception to today, by D&D.

There have been thousands of other games in the genre, many of the best cited in this thread, yet none have approached D&D. Even collectively, I doubt they approach it. It’s really singular.

 

[Maggan]

I am struggling to think of a non Free League game inspired by or a descendent of YZE.

There are a few, but not near matching e.g. Mork Borg.

Tales of the Old West was released recently and Temples & Tombs a few years ago.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yes, though without much discussion, maybe people here didn't play it. I had a girlfriend in college liked it, played it some.

It's without discussion because I don't think there's any question that it's right for it to be there. It was huge and extremely influential and reshaped the entire hobby. Personally I think if WoD hadn't happened I might have drifted away from RPGs in the early-mid-1990s, because before them a lot of the "big" RPGs which had splatbooks and so on (which absolutely was a big draw to an RPG when I was a teenager) seemed kind of dated and like they were aimed at a different generation to me, and that they didn't have a lot to say, whereas videogames were trending in the opposite direction (i.e. increasingly relevant). WoD completely changed that, and the whole industry changed because of it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not as versed on indie ttrpg development, but my understanding is that that game has been iterated off of about as much as PbtA (system) has (Cairn being a recognized one. Collectively they're just known or referred to as Odd-likes). :3

Looking into it, I don't think it's accurate to say "about as much". Definitely Odd-likes exist and are cool and there are a number of them (Electric Bastionland, Cairn and Mausritter probably being the "big names"), but the total numbers appear to be pretty small next to PtbA or FitD, even if you're looking at hacks rather than published works. And they seem to be on the less-popular side. So I don't know if it would fit on to any shorter list of influential RPGs in the way something like PtbA easily would.

Of course maybe ask again in 5 years or w/e! Things might look different.

 

[dbolack]

That was my single toughest decision in terms of naming a single product. Various forms of rules-lite games have existed since the beginning; I chose L&F as the rules lite game that kicked off the indie revolution in rules lite games that started in 2013 and continues. The idea of "one page" or "rules lite" as a specific type of game can arguably be traced back to that- where the idea is not just that it is a less complex game, but that (to borrow a phrase) the entire rule set should be so small that you can fit it on a single piece of paper.

This is a reminder that being first isn't always the influential. Steffan O Sullivan had a game that fit on a business card for playing while hiking.