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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 8535035" data-attributes="member: 19857">5e as is in 1974?&nbsp; It would have been a LOT less successful because holy cow those books would have cost like a hundred dollars a pop in 1974 money.&nbsp; 300 some pages each all with full color? I feel like even textbooks didn't have those kind of production values yet and those are typically the most expensive books you find since institutions buy them.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Speaking more seriously&nbsp; - I think there are a lot of directions that D&amp;D could have taken right out of the gate. I don't think anything like 5e could have been one of them because 5e is the result of a lot of iterative design over a roughly 40 year timespan. The process of building 5e is the result of many iterations of people playing the game, people feeling the game is lacking something, people adding or removing something to the game, rinse and repeat.For example - you don't get the 5e skill system out of the gate because nobody would have thought a skill system was needed until you'd played the game long enough to &quot;feel like something was lacking&quot;.&nbsp; It came fairly quickly - I think the thief was added in Greyhawk which was the first supplement to the original booklets.&nbsp; And even then it took other games to blaze the trail to lead D&amp;D to adopt a skill system for all PCs instead of just specialzed skills for certain classes. The first decade or so of D&amp;D was about it defining the parameters of what roleplaying actually was - and with other games in &quot;conversation&quot; with it to push those boundaries. And even if it could have emerged fully formed like Athena springing from the skull of Zeus, I don't think something like 5e would have been of interest to the folks who were interested in D&amp;D back when it first emerged from the wargaming scene - it looks nothing like wargaming anymore.&nbsp; Part of the appeal of D&amp;D originally was to wargaming nerds who liked fantasy.&nbsp; The wargame has been mostly stripped out of D&amp;D over the years, or if not stripped hidden away behind layers that make it harder to see as a wargame.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jer, post: 8535035, member: 19857"] 5e as is in 1974? It would have been a LOT less successful because holy cow those books would have cost like a hundred dollars a pop in 1974 money. 300 some pages each all with full color? I feel like even textbooks didn't have those kind of production values yet and those are typically the most expensive books you find since institutions buy them. :) Speaking more seriously - I think there are a lot of directions that D&D could have taken right out of the gate. I don't think anything like 5e could have been one of them because 5e is the result of a lot of iterative design over a roughly 40 year timespan. The process of building 5e is the result of many iterations of people playing the game, people feeling the game is lacking something, people adding or removing something to the game, rinse and repeat. For example - you don't get the 5e skill system out of the gate because nobody would have thought a skill system was needed until you'd played the game long enough to "feel like something was lacking". It came fairly quickly - I think the thief was added in Greyhawk which was the first supplement to the original booklets. And even then it took other games to blaze the trail to lead D&D to adopt a skill system for all PCs instead of just specialzed skills for certain classes. The first decade or so of D&D was about it defining the parameters of what roleplaying actually was - and with other games in "conversation" with it to push those boundaries. And even if it could have emerged fully formed like Athena springing from the skull of Zeus, I don't think something like 5e would have been of interest to the folks who were interested in D&D back when it first emerged from the wargaming scene - it looks nothing like wargaming anymore. Part of the appeal of D&D originally was to wargaming nerds who liked fantasy. The wargame has been mostly stripped out of D&D over the years, or if not stripped hidden away behind layers that make it harder to see as a wargame. [/QUOTE]

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