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

[prosfilaes]

Look at things like the SCA and Ren Fairs, which have been around since before WWW was a popular thing. Probably not a very good example of something spreading to the collective conscience, but it is proof that fairly new pasttimes can grow to a national scale without having to be backed by commercial organizations - and without without the internet (though I'm sure it's been quite a boost to both organizations).

Neither of which require books and specialized dice, and both of which are supported by small businesses that sell period-appropriate equipment and clothing. I can believe in a world without a huge TSR, but if D&D could not make the minimal numbers for commercial print-runs, RPGs as we know them* would not exist. Furthermore, RPGs need a critical mass to exist. Chess plays with two in under an hour. RPGs usually take four and at least four hours. If there weren't the numbers to keep a rulebook in print, I think the very existence of roleplaying groups would be in question.

* I played Primetime Adventures regularly for about a year never seeing the rulebook, so I'll concede that some form of roleplaying could be passed by word of mouth. It would bear the relation that the games mentioned in the introduction have to more professional games; it would be loose, casual and hairy.

 

[Umbran]

Look at things like the SCA and Ren Fairs, which have been around since before WWW was a popular thing. Probably not a very good example of something spreading to the collective conscience, but it is proof that fairly new pasttimes can grow to a national scale without having to be backed by commercial organizations

Ren Fairs are *entirely* commercial ventures. The major point is to sell tickets, overpriced turkey legs, and expensive kitch. If there were not money to be had at it, they would not exist.

The SCA does have a central organization (not really "commercial", but it is a driving organization, complete with at Board of Directors and 30,000+ paying members) and a structure that exists in large part to spread and perpetuate the society's practice. And published materials (like, A Handbook for the Current Middle Ages) were a large part of its early success.

Edit: for jasper - yes, they haven't broken 40,000. Note how I said 30,000. Paid memberships were about 32,000 in 2008, with an estimated 60,000 total participants in that year.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

What is interesting is that both the personal computer start up and D&D were going on in the 70s and was mostly limited to college campus, the nerds. If this group of people did not interact, gaming on the personal computer could have been year from happening. A lot of people and companies never thought the personal computer had a chance. The commercial success of d&D ties back to programers wanting to place the game on the PC, without that you just end up with pong.

The way I understand it, PCs came about because of RPGs, or at least games in general. Pretty much everything I've read on the early days of computers leading up to the PC indicate that the real incentive to get more and more computing power in smaller and smaller machines was driven by students who wanted to play better and better games (often D&D types), but who didn't want to get caught tying up the Uni's mainframe.

 

[Stormonu]

PAC Man was not a personal computer game but an arcade game, I am talking about adventure games like Colossal Cave Adventure. Text based, with some graphics, where you roamed around wacking monsters, getting gold and solving some puzzles.

Which came first, I am not really sure.

What is interesting is that both the personal computer start up and D&D were going on in the 70s and was mostly limited to college campus, the nerds. If this group of people did not interact, gaming on the personal computer could have been year from happening. A lot of people and companies never thought the personal computer had a chance. The commercial success of d&D ties back to programers wanting to place the game on the PC, without that you just end up with pong.

Yes, PAC-Man started as an arcade game, but what I was trying to get as was that it and many other games were ported to the computer. If not by the game makers, then by amateur programmers who either wanted to show they could do it or wanted to play it at home. If D&D had not come along, we'd still have plenty of computer games that came from the arcade. Arcade games still have to be programmed.

And if you want to discuss just text-based games, I'm looking at my shelf right now at three books filled with 1980's BASIC text-based type-them-yourself games with no D&D elements (one of them containing a Star Trek game battling Klingons and exploring planets. Don't know how that one slipped past Paramount's copyright holders).

 

[Hand of Evil]

Yes, PAC-Man started as an arcade game, but what I was trying to get as was that it and many other games were ported to the computer. If not by the game makers, then by amateur programmers who either wanted to show they could do it or wanted to play it at home. If D&D had not come along, we'd still have plenty of computer games that came from the arcade. Arcade games still have to be programmed.

And if you want to discuss just text-based games, I'm looking at my shelf right now at three books filled with 1980's BASIC text-based type-them-yourself games with no D&D elements (one of them containing a Star Trek game battling Klingons and exploring planets. Don't know how that one slipped past Paramount's copyright holders).

While a valid point, the time line is what has to be looked at. This thread is about the impact of a "What IF", you are taking a point in time and then looking at the effect. I am saying that the success of D&D would have impacted the PC because they are tied together from they get go. If D&D is not a sucess, no Diablo, no EverQuest, no Neverwinter Knights, no Doom or Castle Wolfinstien. Oh, I am sure their would have been something but you never know, IBM could have been right and the PC could have remained in the work place.

The other area that could have seen an impact would be books.

 

[Stormonu]

The other area that could have seen an impact would be books.

Its hard to say on that front; D&D drew from books that were already in print - Lord of the Rings, Conan, Call of Cthuhlu; basically there was a lot out already that's listed in one of the appendixes (N?) in the 1E DMG.

However, starting with the Dragonlance books, there seemed to be an explosion in the popularity of fantasy. Whether that was already in the making and a coincidence, or that D&D had a profound influence on the popularity, I don't know.

 

[WheresMyD20]

I think if D&D had never enjoyed the mainstream success it had in the early 80's, then the RPG business would probably look a lot like the hex-and-counter wargame business. RPGs would be a niche game genre supported by a few small companies. There wouldn't be a lot of releases every year, but the quality and polish would still be quite good. RPGs would still be present at game conventions, but they wouldn't be the stars of the show.