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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7985009" data-attributes="member: 18">I'm not saying you're wrong, per se, but if he didn't do it, someone else would have, and whoever did, either that RPG would have become dominant by now (probably overtaking D&amp;D in the '80s or very early '90s), or we'd have split market on fantasy RPGs, where a bunch of people were playing a magic-heavy RPG, with full casters as PCs (and perhaps all PCs would be magic-users of some kind), and a bunch of people were playing a sword and sorcery RPG, where powerful spellcasters were just &quot;the enemy&quot;, and I'm pretty sure the second one would be fading in popularity.Also, computer games would look completely different. All the early CRPGs and JRPGs which were based on or inspired by D&amp;D (Wizardry, Ultima, Final Fantasy) would have been lower-magic on the PC side, and thus we'd see a very different array of games evolving from them, before whatever game decided to allow full casters came sweeping in. It would be interesting, to say the least.Relevant to Ed's article, I think the Forgotten Realms did a good job of making magic more &quot;magical&quot; not so much by making it rare (it felt fairly common), but by making there be a lot of it, and by making it bizarre - you constantly came across spells and magic items you'd never seen or heard of before in the FR. A spellbook from a dead wizard could be a treasure-trove. The gods granted bizarre powers to Specialty Priests, that might take you entirely by surprise.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 7985009, member: 18"] I'm not saying you're wrong, per se, but if he didn't do it, someone else would have, and whoever did, either that RPG would have become dominant by now (probably overtaking D&D in the '80s or very early '90s), or we'd have split market on fantasy RPGs, where a bunch of people were playing a magic-heavy RPG, with full casters as PCs (and perhaps all PCs would be magic-users of some kind), and a bunch of people were playing a sword and sorcery RPG, where powerful spellcasters were just "the enemy", and I'm pretty sure the second one would be fading in popularity. Also, computer games would look completely different. All the early CRPGs and JRPGs which were based on or inspired by D&D (Wizardry, Ultima, Final Fantasy) would have been lower-magic on the PC side, and thus we'd see a very different array of games evolving from them, before whatever game decided to allow full casters came sweeping in. It would be interesting, to say the least. Relevant to Ed's article, I think the Forgotten Realms did a good job of making magic more "magical" not so much by making it rare (it felt fairly common), but by making there be a lot of it, and by making it bizarre - you constantly came across spells and magic items you'd never seen or heard of before in the FR. A spellbook from a dead wizard could be a treasure-trove. The gods granted bizarre powers to Specialty Priests, that might take you entirely by surprise. [/QUOTE]

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