rogueattorney said:
I've heard this a lot. And I've always wondered... Who? What game? Other than D&D, what classic RPG's were produced in the 70's? Which one was going to be published right on the heels of D&D independant of D&D's creation?
Let's see, we've got:
Empire of the Petal Throne (1975): came after D&D, was mechanically based on D&D, and was produced by G.G.'s company, TSR.
Chivalry & Sorcery (1977): came out a full 4 years after D&D was first published. Is there any chance that the impetus for its publication might have had a little something to do with D&D's popularity?
Runequest (1978): now a full 5 years after D&D's first publication, with BRP rules with a few similarities to D&D (attributes, some with the same name, ranging from 3-18, for example).
[snip]
With all due respect to the creators of the above games, they would not have have been published when they were published if D&D hadn't already happened.
That's beside the point. The question isn't if they would've been published when they were, or even if those particular games would've been published at all. The question is would an RPG of some sort have been published even if D&D had never existed? I think the answer is quite clearly "yes", and, furthermore, think it probably would've happened not much later than it did. I was unable to find a source right now to document it, but i also have vague recollection of reading about a fourth group (someone other than those involved with Stafford or Barker or Arneson/Wesely/etc.) commenting that they'd basically come up with the RPG right about the same time as D&D was invented, but before D&D had actually made it to their neck of the woods. Furthermore, if Arneson hadn't known Gygax, it's very possible that he would've published his RPG rules on his own, or with a different collaborator.
I think it's telling that Avalon Hill, the dominant gaming company of the time, refused to publish D&D (as did everyone else it was offered to), and was subsequently unable to ever develope their own RPG, eventually buying Runequest from Chaosium. And #2, SPI, wasn't able to come up with their own RPG, Dragonquest, until seven years after D&D came out. This doesn't indicate that G.G. and D.A. were a couple guys following the crest of a trend. This indicates to me, some pretty radical thought. I think it's apparent from reading the initial D&D rules, the subsequent Supplements, and the early issues of S&T and TD, that G.G., et al. were still coming to grips with their creation and realizing exactly what they had through 1976 or so.
Agreed. In fact, one of the quotes i have below basically says that even D&D wasn't "really" an RPG at first.
Also, don't forget that part of why no one came out with their own RPGs right away was that they were too busy playing and writing for
D&D. They had no need of their own RPGs, in a certain sense.
And even if I'm wrong... There's a reason we celebrate Columbus day and not John Cabot day. There's a reason why we give the gold medal to the guy that finishes first. There's a reason we know who Henry Ford is, but not the second guy to build an assembly line, etc. I'm sure someone else would have eventually invented the light bulb; I'm just glad that Edison did it when he did it. Ditto Gygax and Arneson creating the RPG.
Yes, we celebrate Columbus Day because we have conveniently forgotten about the prior discoverers. History is full of examples of the guy who made it popular or well-known getting the credit over the guy who created/discovered it. And of people simultaneously inventing the same thing, but only one getting credit (Bell, frex). The fact that Gygax is generally thought of as the [co-]author of the first RPG doesn't mean that (1) it's true and (2) no one else would've done it if he hadn't.
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I was probably unclear. Let's take the two i know the most about: Glorantha and Tekumel. Greg Stafford was well on the way towards coming up with the concept of an RPG. He had been developing his world of Glorantha in ways that probably would've evolved into an RPG even without the example of D&D. Similarly, M.A.R. Barker was engaging in proto-RPing with Tekumel before he heard of D&D. He, too, would probably have invented RPGs on his own, even if D&D had never existed. (Though, in his case, i suspect it would've become an academic curiosity, rather than a commercial game.) Of course, we'll never know, because D&D came along, and they knew about it and used it as their example. But those are just two groups that were as close to an RPG by the time they heard about D&D as Gygax, Arneson, et al, were to an RPG when Chainmail was published. So, take D&D out of the timeline and allow them to develop un-influenced, and i think we'd get to the RPG, too.
Some citations, from people who are more knowledgeable than i:
"Where We've Been, Where We're Going", Greg Porter,
Inter*Action, issue 1, 1994:
Generation 0 Freeform, rule-less role-playing....The latter end of this generation includes such proto-rpg campaigns that were going on in the late 60s in Britain and the U.S. (for example, Tony Bath's Hyborean Campaign, as chronicled in the various issues of Slingshot from that time).
"Role-Playing Games", Andrew Rilstone,
Inter*Action, issue 1, 1994:
There is evidence of a shadowy, pre-D&D history of role-playing games. Prof. M.A.R. Barker was using gameplay (albeit of a more traditional wargaming type) to develop his Tekumel world before he encountered D&D. Greg Stafford, having despaired of seeing his fantasy fiction published, conceived of a board wargame, White Bear and Red Moon as a means of exploring his personal world, Glorantha.
If one wishes to look further back then such diverse elemest as...some of the more deranged pieces of experimental literature in the 50s and 60s and some types of charades and parlour games have all been seen as precursors to role-playing games. The writers of role-playing products, are, for some reason, particularly keen to claim that their games are a direct descendant of the imaginative 'lets pretend' games that virtually all children play.
It is debatable whether Gygax and Arneson intended D&D to be a role-playing game in any modern sense. Gary Gygax is markedly hostile to modern developments in interactive narrative, although he has also, incredibly, claimed that he does not perceive much difference between D&D and current products. Certainly, early D&D did not encourage the development of character and plot that are now so central to role-playing games. My own feeling is that Gygax designed D&D to be a personalized, tactical-level miniatures wargame, using the now-familiar setting of teh 'dungeon' as its battlefield. As players began to take an interest in their characters as more than painted playing pieces, something resembling 'role-playing' as we would understand it came into being.
Heroic Worlds, Lawrence Schick, 1991:
By 1970, Dave Wesely and his compatriots had achieved the following innovations:
- If the players have varying goals, or are going to act together rather than against one another, a game needs a referee to manage their opponents, describe their environment, and make rules decisions.
- If each player has one character figure, that figure can represent the player.
- Characters can be used over and over again, and individual game sessions can be linked together into a continuing campaign that tells a story over time.
- If the setting isn't tied down to one specific place, then the characters can go anywhere and do anything, which implies that they can do a lot more than just fight other figures. With this final innovation, true role-playing was born.
The Origin of Dungeons & Dragons: Over the long term, Dave Arneson was the most dedicated of the Twin Cities referees. He had run a number of historical campaigns, including games set in the Wild West and Napoleonic Europe. By 1971 he was ready for something new, and his thoughts turned to heroic fantasy. He devised the mythical medieval barony of Blackmoor and informed his players that they had been hurled into the distant past where monsters roamed and magic worked.
...
These characters were not just static collections of statistics--they developed their combat and magic skills by battling and defeating their fantastic enemies. The more foes they defeated, the greater their abilities became--and thus Arneson introduced the concept of
character improvement.
The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, 2nd Edition, Sean Patrick Fannon, 1999:
In 1967, Wesely created a battle scenario centered arou]d a town called Braunstein....However, Wesely had some very interesting ideas that he was trying out taht particular night, ideas based on his studies and research. Rather than assign the usual forces..., he conceived a sort of "pre-game" scenario in which each of teh players would assume the role of various people involved in the situation.
...
Technically, it was still a miniatures wargame,...They were not supposed to be able to actually do anything unless their figure had been properly moved to a given location.
However, two things worked against this principle....
Second, Wesely had not counted on the imagination and enthusiasm of his players. They were almost immediately enchanted with the idea of assuming a single role with special and secret goals. Within minutes of the game's start (in fact, even before it got officially underway, i am given to understand), players were off in various corners of teh house conspiring and discussing with one another.
When Wesely got wind of what was happening, he tried to reign it in. People would come and ask him things out of turn; when he asked how it was the University student was in communication with th advance french scout (since his miniature was still in town), the player shrugged and said "let's pretend that i swam the rever and got out there, OK?" Wesely, trying to ensure everyone was having a good time, endeavored to acquiesce as much as possible.
...
Thus ended what was probably the world's first actual roleplaying game.
The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, 2nd Edition, Sean Patrick Fannon, 1999:
In 1970, Arneson developed a game idea based on him and his friends disappearing in the mountains and reappearing in a fantasy realm called Blackmoor. Though the idea fascinated his friends, there wer some stumbling blocks that hindered them.
For one thing, there weren't many good rules for medieval combat....Arneson Pretty much made everything up as he went, and it seemed that his rulings lacked a great deal in consistency. This eventually drove his players nuts, who insisted on playing by more concrete and sinsible rules. Not really being a hard-core rules designer, arneson decided to look into other possibilities....
This is where Gygax re-enters the picture. As stated, he had been working with Perren on the Chainmail rules, and he had shared those rules with Arneson. Arneson then adopted various mechanics and matrices from the Chainmail system to improve his game.
...
"So where did this dungeon business come from?"
Interesting question, and one with an interesting answer. On what was apparently a lark, Arneson decided to set one game around the idea of the heroes being asked by the Elf King to rescue his daughter. She was being held beneath the abandoned Blackmoor castle in what would legitimately be called a dungeon....
Yet another "Dave" in thegroup, this one named Dave Meggary, was utterly enchanted with the concept....
Why mas Meggary so enchanted? Because the structure of the adventure had introduced a whole new dimension to their miniatures battles....
Right after this, the three "Daves" (Arneson, Meggary, and Wesely) sat down to look at what they had done. Meggary's revelation had opened their collective eyes--and they knew then that they had something beyond a mere extrapolation from the age-old wargame.
They had a whole new type of game on their hands...
The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, 2nd Edition, Sean Patrick Fannon, 1999:
It is vital to note at this point that Gary Gygax was doing a lot in his own neighborhood to reinforce where the "Daves" were going,...
Over the next couple of years, Gary wrote, playtested, and re-wrote a complete set of rules (transcribing Arneson's various notes and verbal ideas).
So, there are two issues here to consider. First, who deserves the credit for "inventing" RPGs: the person who came up with the conceptual elements, or the person who came up with the mechanical elements? IMHO, the conceptual elements are the far more important--it's debatable whether the
Chainmail fantasy rules would've ever gone beyond wargaming into what we consider RPing if not for the conceptual framework already being there. So, while Gygax is the first person to publish and codify an RPG, the parts that
I consider defining of RPGs (one-to-one character identification, open-endedness, etc.) were already there. It sounds to me like what Arneson was doing before he got a hold of
Chainmail was a bona fide RPG, just a poorly-run one (as opposed to being a well-run "something else"). In that light, i think it's reasonable to say that RPGs as we think of them had already been invented, by Arneson, or even Wesely before him, by the time D&D came along. Now, it is true that, without Gygax's entrepreneurial spirit, and Kaye's money, the RPG industry might not have been born, or only born much later. But that's not the same as saying RPGs wouln't have happened.
The second issue is whether the developments and discoveries that Wesely, Arneson, Meggary, Gygax, et al, made were innovative leaps or merely obvious progressions. I tend to see them as the latter--there is plenty of evidence of people at a similar conceptual place to Wesely at a similar or later time, so i expect that one or more of them would've stumbled upon the idea of the RPG without the example of
D&D, given time. Heck, several of Wesely's innovations were simply taking ideas from a couple of existing books on wargames and simualtions, and applying them to his wargames/simulations. Most of these ideas were already out there, just waiting for someone to put them all together.