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

[Mark CMG]

Failed her Diplomacy check, I see.

It might have been an Intimidate Check. She also had something to say about wardrobe and culinary choices. She would see a political poster that espoused "Change" and suggest it was a personal message to me.

 

[Rogue Agent]

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?

I'm not sure that's actually possible before the worldwide web. Games like Cowboys & Indians and other games of "let's pretend" go back for centuries. What primarily distinguishes RPGs from those games are rules for action resolution.

Once you've got the worldwide web, those resolution mechanics could be freely shared and this becomes plausible. In the '70s, however, it would have been necessary to physically disseminate copies of the rules. And once you've got any sort of demand for them which would qualify as the "cultural success" you're talking about, then you would have a market which would get tapped commercially.

Theoretically, I suppose, some ultra-simplistic resolution mechanic could have become popular that could be passed on verbally as easily as the rules for tag or hide and seek, but it would look almost nothing like D&D.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Without the commercial sucess of D&D, it is possible you would not have had the commerical success of the personal computer, as the some of first programs were based on D&D. Hit points, EXP, leveling, etc. all carried over, the PC could have just been for business without them.

 

[DragonLancer]

if D&D never became popular my life would be meaningless.

Ditto. D&D (and hobby gaming in general) is such a huge part of my life these days that I can't comprehend my life without it.

 

[Stormonu]

Without the commercial sucess of D&D, it is possible you would not have had the commerical success of the personal computer, as the some of first programs were based on D&D. Hit points, EXP, leveling, etc. all carried over, the PC could have just been for business without them.

I don't remember Pac-man having hit points. Though the game obviously had levels.

 

[Stormonu]

I'm not sure that's actually possible before the worldwide web. Games like Cowboys & Indians and other games of "let's pretend" go back for centuries. What primarily distinguishes RPGs from those games are rules for action resolution.

I think you overestimate this technological terror you have created.

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).

<Edit> Would model railroading be a better example? Eh, probably not, Lionel is a commercial company after all...

Likewise, unless I'm terribly mistaken, the cowboys we tend to think of have only been around since the late 1800's. And I believe playing "cowboys and indians" has only been around since the 50's when western TV shows were popular.

 

[.5 Elf]

Do Meetups count as clubs? I would say so - the NYC D&D meetup has over 1400 members listed and is actually rapidly approaching 1500.

As far as clubs goes I would say that's fairly successful.

Of course speaking as a proud NYer - NYC is always a special case in most of the things we do due to a lot of special NYC only factors.

I
<3
NY
​

Back to the topic tho, while the quality might suffer without the money angle I think that the mass availability of ideas and games would also suffer. While this question seeks to separate the idea of commercial and cultural success I think they are pretty inextricably linked in this case, D&D's commercial success allows for a lot of people to gain exposure thus broadening the market for other games and publishers of material.

Would there be an EN World without someone seeing it as a viable way to make money? (Advertising in this case I suppose.) Although I do recognize the community supporters help out in that regard. Without the commercial success of D&D places like this wouldn't exist I don't think - or at least not on the scale it currently enjoys.

By the way I would support if I could make one time payment with throwaway pre-paid debit cards (my preferred form of internet currency) but apparently EN World doesn't like that. At least last time I tried it they didn't.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I don't remember Pac-man having hit points. Though the game obviously had levels.

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.

 

[Rogue Agent]

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).

I'm not really clear what you think this has to do with what I said.

Likewise, unless I'm terribly mistaken, the cowboys we tend to think of have only been around since the late 1800's. And I believe playing "cowboys and indians" has only been around since the 50's when western TV shows were popular.

Hmm... You use the word "likewise" but claim to have no idea what the word "like" means?

Curiouser and curiouser.

 

[.5 Elf]

Some of us like pong.


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