D&D General Tracy Hickman: The third founder of (modern) D&D?

[guachi]

Ravenloft AND DragonLance? I think you could give it to him (and Laura Hickman for the modules and Margaret Weis for the books) as the biggest influence after the creators of D&D itself, chronologically. Hickman influenced two tracks of early to mid-'80s D&D - adventure design and best-selling books that ushered in dozens of other books.

Then I think you have to go to Ed Greenwood because of Forgotten Realms and the D&D focus in the late '80s and '90s - settings.

 

[GuyBoy]

You make an excellent argument.
Like you, I really didn’t like the scripted nature of DL, whereas I did love Jaquays’ work in particular. For me, the latter summed up the magic of early D&D.

 

[Yora]

I definitely do like Jaquay's work. Caverns of Thracia is an amazing execution of the dungeoncrawl concept. And The Savage Frontier is my favorite D&D setting book by a wide margin.

Ravenloft AND DragonLance?

While I have not read Pharaoh myself, I've often seen it mentioned as groundbreaking, and it later got re-released as Desert of Desolation.

While Rahasia is not that amazing, it really stands out from the other modules in the B series. Very different feel and approach to story. It was the first thing he had submitted to TSR as part of his job application in 1980.

 

[jasper]

I think Dragonlance was the first adventure path as we know them today. There were linked adventures before that, but the concept really formed with the DL series.

BARF! BARF! The DL modules were so bad as adventures I gave most of mine away for free. I forget which ones did not allow for character death.

 

[Morrus]

BARF! BARF! The DL modules were so bad as adventures I gave most of mine away for free. I forget which ones did not allow for character death.

shrug

I liked them.

 

[overgeeked]

I think Dragonlance was the first adventure path as we know them today. There were linked adventures before that, but the concept really formed with the DL series.

Really? I would give that to Against the Giants/Decent into the Depths/Vault of the Drow/Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

The Slavelords sequence looks pretty much like a modern adventure path when bundled together too.

I think those are proto-adventure paths.

For D&D perhaps. Call of Cthulhu had Shadows of Yog-Sothoth in 1982 and Masks of Nyarlathotep in 1984. Both are clearly adventure paths as we'd recognize them today.

 

[Yora]

I think even though I very much dislike the modern type of adventures that evolved from it, I think the original idea to have the players be participants of a story rather than sieving through what's left after a story had basically ended was actually quite briliant.
The big problem is when specific scenes are scripted in a way that requires that previous scenes have to happen in specific ways, and that the GM has to manipulate the actions taken by the players to ensure that the outcome of each scene follows the script.
At this point, you're no longer playing a game. You're performing a stage play. In which the main actors do not know the script and what they are requited to do. Players can still chose how they want to fight the battle, but their choices do not affect the outcome of the battle. The script dictates which battles will be won or lost. And players understand that, so there is little real pressure or incentive to do something smart.
Players enjoy listening to the story they are being told while rolling the (largely irrelevant) dice. But when you already have everyone at the table with characters and dice, it's just such a shame that the time is not being spend creating a new unknown story in a way that no other narrative medium can.
That this has been the defauly for published adventures and how GMs are taught to create their own content for the last three decades is the great tragedy of RPGs.

 

[TerraDave]

Ravenloft, obviously. Tie in novels, sure. Every TSR employee going from a would be war game designer to would be novelist, maybe.

But the DL series is not today's adventure path. It also wasn't just Hickman's creation--by a long shot. And 3e was a big pushback against a lot of what happened in late 1e and 2e.

That combination of players following a plot, and DMs following a meta-plot, not just for a particular adventure but for their world, has largely come and mostly gone.

 

[Stormonu]

Dragonlance kept me from abandoning D&D in the 80's. I was getting tired of the mindless dungeon-crawling, and the story-based approach made me realize there was a whole aspect of D&D I was previously unaware of. (Though I have to agree, attempting to run the actual DL module series is unappetizing - as would attempting to recreate a campaign doing the same exact Lord of the Rings as the books. But the ideas and general storyline are great!)

And hands down, Ravenloft is my favorite adventure of all time.

I wouldn't put Hickman as a founder, but definately an architect and an influencer.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Interesting theory. Per the book Arts and Arcana: A Visual History, Hickman “immediately saw more to [Dragonlance] than just packaged adventures: it would include books, calendars, wargames, miniatures, and even a novelization of the series, augmented by short stories in Dragon magazine.” TSR bought in and it revolutionized the industry. They'd never done anything like this before. Introduce "Project Overlord."

TSR and Hickman also recognized that it'd be a pipeline for bringing in new players. If readers liked the books, maybe they'd like the idea of playing the adventures of their favorite characters. If players liked the modules, maybe they'd read the books. Say what you will about scripted and railroad, it made a ton of money. It was a new way of doing business. Followed by calendars, art books, 8 video games, and hundreds of millions from the books alone, it worked.

So, can't argue against it.