What if you brought 4E back to 1970?

[darjr]

Ah.. maybe a couple thousand theaters at least in 1977.

So It could be that the first couple of weeks were a 'slow burn'.

Making movies

 

[Thunderfoot]

Your early adopters, being the highly educated college crowd and more than likely immersed in science-fiction and fantasy literature of the time ... would find that perfectly natural and normal, in tune with the predictions and writings of visionaries of the time.

Sorry, I still know English professors to this day bristle at the "wrongness"
of mixed gender in example speech.

As for the "Star Wars" comment, I stand by it. Yes, I WAS there, yes it broke records and a lot of that was "repeat offenders". Without hijacking, it was revolutionary compared to the "space operas" that proceeded it (and many that followed). But it didn't have the largest opening for a movie, even though it was the top grossing film of that week, it ranks very low on the all time opening weekend ranks (somewhere arouns 1400, IIRC, so it took time to build that head of steam. Of course finding great figures is pretty hard now that many analysts lump the all time gross in the figures. (which make it one of the top grossing films of all time.)

By comparison - Jaws, released 2 years earlier, did 7 times the business on opening weekend, but grossed only about 1/2 as much total during it's year of release (US figures - worldwide it did slightly better).

 

[jmucchiello]

Ah.. maybe a couple thousand theaters at least in 1977.

So It could be that the first couple of weeks were a 'slow burn'.

Making movies

As I said, Star Wars had big word of mouth. But only a few of my friends had seen it opening weekend and we lived a mile from the theater in Menlo Park Mall Edison, NJ. In fact, now that I think about it, there was snow on the ground when I saw it. So it must have been during Christmas break when I saw it. Yeah, there were many theaters back then but there were no (or extremely few) multiplexes. Each theater could show only one or two films each week. So a movie would release to the expensive theaters in the first month then travel to the less expensive theaters for several months thereafter. Maybe a year later the film might be aired on TV. Now, a movie could release one week and be gone the next week. It was a very different system.

 

[haakon1]

The historical grognards would turn their noses up at its lack of authenticity and its lack of concern for modelling the world of the 11th century. The Pantheon of dieties is utterly foreign and nothing like the familiar legends of mythology. The fantasy nerds would find the game completely unsuitable for playing Conan or The Lord of the Rings. The Ranger of 2009 is nothing like Aragorn, it's source material, and neither are the halflings or the elves. These are derivitives of derivitives of derivitives which run by game logic laid down over 40 years. They are nothing like you'd create if you were trying to be Conan or Aragorn, and are even in the eyes of modern players which don't find the concepts so alien still utterly unsuited for such a task. You have to recall that for the first 20 or so years of the game, the main thrust of RPG players was trying to achieve greater and greater realism. Realism was practically the Holy Grail of RPG design for the first two decades of its existance. Introducing 4e wouldn't change that, and I think early players would utterly reject 4e's complete rejection of realism (even more so than the most avid haters of 4e today) because they have no real basis for understanding why it would do so precisely because they haven't seen the results of striving for more 'realistic' play.

Well said. Thanks for reminding me of what I loved about AD&D back in the day, and why 4e doesn't sit right with me.

 

[haakon1]

Elves didnt age... so the dwindling might be overcome by ongoing corruption (capture and tortuous transformation = forced form of corruption) ... If orcs were corrupted elves the best evidence we have... (Elves/Humans did not make a separate race but rather one or the other - theoretically neither would orcs).. it is kind of an iffy thing but the cannot create "real" life could also mean what it influences and consumes loses its "grace" why would it be able create life and reproduce either?

Could be. I just assumed there were orc female and younglings. Makes sense to me that there would be, and my personal fantasy universe is likely 60% Gygax, 30% Tolkien, 10% random other things such as my own ideas.

Without the Gygaxian bits, I have no idea what I would think.

 

[haakon1]

Heh Im not sure teachers adopting it for gifted students was that quick? or that big of part of its success... I didnt here about that till early 80's.. I might have been out of that loop. They really didnt have much gifted support .. in my area most of the time they might have pushed you up a grade

The guy who got me into D&D had been introduced to it in a gifted program in Illinois, then moved to small town NY in the summer of 1982, and introduced me and his little brother to it. I've introduced 6 players to the game (4 still active years later) and brought back another 6 lapsed AD&D players to the game during the 3e period, 2 of whom became DM's, one of who started up a regional gaming group . . . anyhow, without that gifted program reaching that one guy, might easily have been a dozen fewer players over the years, possibly much more.

 

[Kzach]

(yeah, I realize that sounds stupid but just follow me for a second.)

I choose the blue pill.

 

[Hairfoot]

Could be. I just assumed there were orc female and younglings. Makes sense to me that there would be, and my personal fantasy universe is likely 60% Gygax, 30% Tolkien, 10% random other things such as my own ideas.

Without the Gygaxian bits, I have no idea what I would think.

LotR makes many references to "half-orcs", but that can reasonably be interpreted as "half-corrupted elf", rather than a true-breeding species.

D&D's bestiary doesn't come straight from the pen of Gygax, though. Most traditional D&D monsters are derivatives of the many fey beasties that inhabit folklore.

Additionally, aboriginal races, such as the Picts, are often recorded as monsters by their conquerors, thus adding to the mythos.

I've always found "half-orc" overly prescriptive. IMC, a "half-orc" might be half an orc, half a hobgoblin, a descendant of ogres and humans, a civilised, full-blooded humanoid, or a human from a wild and brutal tribe.

Hobbits, however, are real.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Sorry, I still know English professors to this day bristle at the "wrongness"
of mixed gender in example speech.

As for the "Star Wars" comment, I stand by it. Yes, I WAS there, yes it broke records and a lot of that was "repeat offenders". Without hijacking, it was revolutionary compared to the "space operas" that proceeded it (and many that followed). But it didn't have the largest opening for a movie, even though it was the top grossing film of that week, it ranks very low on the all time opening weekend ranks (somewhere arouns 1400, IIRC, so it took time to build that head of steam. Of course finding great figures is pretty hard now that many analysts lump the all time gross in the figures. (which make it one of the top grossing films of all time.)

By comparison - Jaws, released 2 years earlier, did 7 times the business on opening weekend, but grossed only about 1/2 as much total during it's year of release (US figures - worldwide it did slightly better).

So exactly how many years did it take for Star Wars to break all those box office records? 3? 4? Or was it more like a few weeks? Really you made a completely wrong statement and now you are just floundering. Admit it and move on.

 

[avin]

Hobbits, however, are real.

Only in size, and thank God they're all gone