What if you brought 4E back to 1970?

[CleverNickName]

An interesting question. Because really, would 4E be the same without DDI? or even the Internet?

 

[Dausuul]

Also, it would take about thirty seconds for some geek to figure out you were from the future, since your full-color book would look unlike anything in physical existence at the time.

Plus, y'know, the copyright date says 2008.

Anyway, let's get to the heart of the matter, and assume the books are "translated" into 1970 production values - something on the order of the old red book/blue book sets - and have nothing that identifies them as being from the future.

What I think would happen: People would pick up the books, play them, have fun with them. I do think it would catch on initially. However, the lack of support (no supplements, no adventures) would be an initial hindrance. Much will depend on the legal details of how you set up your "distributor." Who owns the copyright? Is it legal for people to make their own copies and publish them?

Let's assume you set it up as public domain. At that point, everyone will want to know who the hell you are, but you've already vanished in your time machine, so your identity will remain a great unsolved mystery.

A bunch of people will grab the game and start printing it once the initial supply runs out. The initial competition will be on the strength of the supplements and adventures they print to go with the core rules. Eventually one company will emerge as the market leader and that company will take ownership of the core game, publishing new editions; probably with some drastic rewrites in order to have something copyrightable.

As to how the mechanics themselves would evolve... the game would move in a simulationist direction; healing surges would get the axe for certain, encounter and daily powers would be reworked in a way that makes more intuitive sense, et cetera. 1970s-era wargamers were nothing if not simulationist.

In the end I don't think it would look terribly different. The theory of RPG design would still have to be discovered and developed; though 4E might provide some key insights earlier than they would otherwise have come.

 

[Jack99]

Also, it would take about thirty seconds for some geek to figure out you were from the future, since your full-color book would look unlike anything in physical existence at the time.

Yes, because faced with something you do not understand or haven't seen before, your first reaction is always: "This must be from the future!!!??!!"

 

[thedungeondelver]

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the OP meant "1974" and "a manuscript of" not boxes and boxes of 4E books and the year 1970.

Because if the latter is the case I think you'd have people writing you off like a nutcase: nobody would be "in to" RPGs and the 2008 copyright (plus the mostly incorrect anyway history of D&D in the books would just come off as weird)...

anyway.

Firstly, if it were 1974 and it was a manuscript, there's two things you could do with it:

One: give it go Gary, Dave et al at TSR. I'm speculating here but "combat squares" and "push backs" and things like that probably wouldn't fly. The terminology wouldn't. Some (a lot?) of the mechanics might. Again, I'm just speculating.

Two: completely rename everything, strip out parts that make it like D&D and market it as a D&D competitor. It'd probably wind up like TRAVELLER (in a good way!) in that it would have sticking power and be that "other" fantasy RPG. You wouldn't have to do much pruning; rename the stats and a couple of mechanics and you're all set, really.

 

[Raloc]

I think the more interesting experiment would be to do the same thing, but instead offload a bunch of Burning Wheel books into 1970.

 

[Herschel]

Yes, because faced with something you do not understand or haven't seen before, your first reaction is always: "This must be from the future!!!??!!"

I have often contemplated women were from another time....

 

[OchreJelly]

4E in 1970? There would be a lot more long-haired, and bearded gamers playing it. Wait... maybe not

 

[Umbran]

An interesting question. Because really, would 4E be the same without DDI? or even the Internet?

I suspect there's loads of folks who play 4e without the DDI. While the DDI is popular, I don't think we have the suggestion that it's popular to the point of hundreds of thousands or millions of subscribers, do we?

And, again, lots of people probably play 4e without the internet - EN World has 80,000+ registered users, many of them are likely inactive, and not all of the active ones are 4e players. A couple other sites may have numbers of the same order of magnitude. But the suggestion is that there are something like one to three million people playing the game - so the internet-site-users are likely in the minority.

Unrelatedly...

Many people have noted 4e has strong wargaming aspects - for some this is a positive feature, to some it is an asset. In terms of marketing it to the 1970s wargaming crowd, though, the map-based skirmish combat aspects are probably an asset.

 

[Bullgrit]

Suppose the AD&D1 PHB/DMG/MM had been the first introduction of D&D and RPGs. Would D&D and RPGs have become as popular as fast as they did through starting with the OD&D booklets and BD&D introduction? I think D&D/RPGs would have been seen as too complicated, complex, and vague (with the AD&D1 books) to really catch on as easily as the OD&D booklets did.

Most people getting into D&D in the 80s came through other people teaching them how to play moreso than by picking up the AD&D1 books and reading to learn. And those early teachers came up through OD&D and BD&D before "stepping up" to AD&D1.

I think even the AD&D1 rule books were just too much (info, concept, price, etc.) to start the hobby and industry. The genre *needed* to start with something very small and easy to grasp -- simple dungeon crawls with simple characters.

So I think trying to introduce the world to D&D and RPGs with the current edition would ultimately fail, as it is far too complicated and complex for a world with no experience with such a concept.

For instance, take an F-22 back to 1900. Such a machine could not start the Age of Air like the Wright Flyer did.

Bullgrit

 

[haakon1]

Dragonborn would be wildly popular

I'd like to give the 1970s the benefit of the doubt and say that even bell-bottomed lounge dwellers would think Dragonborn were lame.