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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1591687" data-attributes="member: 10201">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.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.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.-----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:"Role-Playing Games", Andrew Rilstone, Inter*Action, issue 1, 1994:Heroic Worlds, Lawrence Schick, 1991:The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, 2nd Edition, Sean Patrick Fannon, 1999:The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, 2nd Edition, Sean Patrick Fannon, 1999:The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, 2nd Edition, Sean Patrick Fannon, 1999: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.</blockquote>

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