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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9656404" data-attributes="member: 907">My understanding is that the ideas that lead to D&D were circulating a lot in various wargaming circles at the time. Gygax was the one who turned those ideas into the concrete product "Dungeons & Dragons". If he hadn't done that, it's quite possible someone else would have done it, but that product probably wouldn't be D&D as we know it.And that's basically how I see Great Man Theory in general. Various conditions set the stage for the world to change in ways great and small. Individuals in the right circumstances can determine in which direction those changes go. Basically, the tree is going to fall, but you have a chance to decide in which direction it falls and at what time.The problem there is that D&D isn't really all that great. But it has the weight of tradition behind it as well as name recognition, which made it the market leader at the time, and by now those advantages have compounded along with advantages in production values.You can read some of TSR's claims at <a href="https://darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/copyright/cases/tsr_vs_gdw2.txt" target="_blank">https://darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/copyright/cases/tsr_vs_gdw2.txt</a>. For example, you have:[CODE](8) In MYTHUS (page 67), the concept of and the method by whichthe game characters' attributes are defined by randomly-generatednumbers, and the players' choices of vocations precede and alter suchattribute generation, are derived from a similar concept and method inthe AD&D 1st ed. DMG (pages 11-12) and the AD&D UA (page 74).[/CODE]So TSR claimed to hold a copyright on rolling for stats.</blockquote>

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