What if Dungeons & Dragons Had Never Become a Commercial Success?

[Weregrognard]

But still a cultural one! We all know games that, while not strictly commercial, are still well-known and played currently. Games like: Tag, Hide and Seek, Dodgeball, drinking games such as Beer Pong, or party games like Charades. What do you think the RPG hobby would look like today if such games were not available in a commercially-published format?

Discuss

 

[MichaelSomething]

It would be like the OSR more or less....

 

[Mercurius]

Well let's not forget that D&D and RPGs in general ARE playable without any sort of commercial format--in some sense that's the big illusion that we all perpetuate to continue the RPG industry. Nothing wrong with that--it is just that we fall for a kind of con of our own making, that we "need" the published stuff when we don't.

 

[BriarMonkey]

Hmmm...

If it was never commericially viable, the conventions, I'd think, would be very different - or not at all. Imagine that there was no Gen Con... After all, there are no conventions for "tag" or "hide and seek".

 

[Umbran]

Well let's not forget that D&D and RPGs in general ARE playable without any sort of commercial format--in some sense that's the big illusion that we all perpetuate to continue the RPG industry. Nothing wrong with that--it is just that we fall for a kind of con of our own making, that we "need" the published stuff when we don't.

Commercial viability is necessary to get the richness and polish we now enjoy in our RPGs. It isn't a con, so much as a realization that folks who design games and adventures for money can generally afford to put more time and effort and expertise into it than we can ourselves.

There's also a strong argument that having an industry with a vested interest in hooking gamers also does a lot to maintain the gaming community as a whole.

 

[scourger]

Perhaps it would be like chess or bridge. There are clubs for each in my city, which is not large. Ironically, there are no D&D (or even gaming) clubs.

 

[Mercurius]

Commercial viability is necessary to get the richness and polish we now enjoy in our RPGs. It isn't a con, so much as a realization that folks who design games and adventures for money can generally afford to put more time and effort and expertise into it than we can ourselves.

There's also a strong argument that having an industry with a vested interest in hooking gamers also does a lot to maintain the gaming community as a whole.

No doubt. I'm just pointing out that RPGs are an interesting activity in that many participants own literally hundreds of pounds of stuff that aren't actually necessary to engage in the activity itself. We don't actually need any of our gaming books or accessories, they're secondary to the experience itself.

To put it another way, the commercial (and even physical) element is a luxury, not a necessity. This points to the unique joy of RPGs--most hobbies have a physical or sensory thing as primary, whereas in RPGs the things are secondary; the primary "stuff" is the imagination itself. That's where the action is.

(One could argue that, depending on the game, one "needs" dice or character sheets or charts, etc; but again, most of this stuff isn't actually necessary for game play; one could, say, memorize their character sheet or required charts. This may be why some folks get upset with games like Warhammer 3e or D&D 4E--because there is at least the implication that Stuff is necessary, whether we're talking about specialized dice or DDI or miniatures...if I were an RPG purist I would suggest that a "true" RPG is one that requires no actual things or stuff beyond dice, paper and pencil--and then all of that mainly for convenience; the more stuff one needs, the more the game moves away from a pure RPG experience...not saying I'm an RPG purist, though ).

 

[Umbran]

Ironically, there are no D&D (or even gaming) clubs.

Ironic? Why ironic? I would not be surprised to learn that there's more money spent each year on Chess sets in the US than on RPG materials.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Honestly, I don't think your situation is possible.

D&D is a very different game than all the ones that you mention. Sure you could play a game of "pretend" but D&D is far more structured, even in its early days. If its culturally successful, there will be enough people willing to buy it to make it commercially successful. Maybe in the internet age, we could have massive piracy, but even that seems unlikely.

Chess and bridge were both mentioned. Though the original designers of these games are long dead, I consider them both commercially successful, because plenty of companies make money sell chess boards, bidding boxes, and the like.

 

[Janx]

Some other non-parallels:

the complete rules of Chess can be explained by word of mouth and remembered.

You only need 1 chess set to play. I have a chess-playing friend who at this point gets annoyed at getting chess sets for x-mas because he's seen them all and has more that enough for one person.

Chess is a very standardized game. For the most part, there are not new rules, extensions and competing "chess" products to choose from.* When somebody invites you to a game of Chess, you know exactly what the rules are.
*I am aware that people have made variants, and stuff like Steve Jackson Games' NightMare Chess.

Chess was never accused of being devil worship.


Conversely, RPGs and D&D suffer from non-standardization of rules. There's not 1 set of RPG rules. There's thousands of them. Its actually a wonder the hobby has survived, given how much fractioning goes on.