what might have the formative history of RPGs be without D&D? or would it have even happened?

[aramis erak]

If we want to consider what might have been the formative history, we don't need to just identify the rules root. We also have to identify the route to popularity.

D&D had a ready-made early market in the community around the wargames that were at its conceptual root, and the network of communication among them.

So, what other space had a route to popularity - some obvious path to work as marketing?

From Weseley, we get the GM who says, "Alright, here are the odds, go ahead an roll for it" to out of the box actions.

From Arneson, we get character as persona, and one-man, one character... but also lots of hirelings.

From Gygax, we get pseudo-tolkienian.

Arneson and Wesely are standard archetypes (no offense to them) in wargaming. The permissive ref willing to extend the rules, and the player always wanting to go beyond them. The best "No «bleep», there we were..." stories come from the two meeting. Similarly so in RPGs. And those types also tend to be overly common in

So, that component is literally just a matter of time.

I don't think Tolkien is the magic sauce, but fantasy probably is. It would need to be replaced with a different franchise, and given the popularity, Moorecock, Clark Aston Smith, HP Lovecraft, or even the Homeric and homeric inspired fiction might have worked.

Or maybe Earthsea... no non-humans of note in society, but "a rainbow of brown tones" was the authorial intent (Ursula LeGuin in a complaint about the SyFy mangling of the first novel as a miniseries)... and the non-human intellects we see are a dragon and several transformed wizards. (well, until Sparrowhawk hits the land of the dead)...

Sword and Sandals (bronze age, not restricted to Homeric; both the actual lit and the stop-motion films based upon them) might very well have been the chosen genre... while not the second, RuneQuest was 1978 and was aimed at bronze age...

Of course, the list in Appendix N of AD&D is many different subgenres of fantasy.

 

[SJB]

I think I’ve posted this statistical analysis before, if not, here it is.

Was D&D responsible for the explosion in popularity of RPGs in the 1970s?

When I was researching the scenarios timeline I soon noticed that the number of scenarios was growing rapidly year on year. Because I found ...

explorebeneathandbeyond.blogspot.com

Nuttall argues that RPG scenarios were being published before D&D was released. The rate of increase in publication merely followed the existing trend line for the rest of the 1970s.

 

[MGibster]

I don't think Tolkien is the magic sauce, but fantasy probably is. It would need to be replaced with a different franchise, and given the popularity, Moorecock, Clark Aston Smith, HP Lovecraft, or even the Homeric and homeric inspired fiction might have worked.

In the early 80s, Mattel's Masters of the Universe line blended fantasy and science fiction elments into the mythos of their very successful toy line. He-Man was an axe wielding barbarian living in a world with bionic foes, wheeled/tracked/flying vehicles, and even the Castle Greyskull playset had a laser canon on its ramparts. In a way, it kind of reminds me of Gamma World with the weird creatures and technology.

 

[overgeeked]

In the early 80s, Mattel's Masters of the Universe line blended fantasy and science fiction elments into the mythos of their very successful toy line. He-Man was an axe wielding barbarian living in a world with bionic foes, wheeled/tracked/flying vehicles, and even the Castle Greyskull playset had a laser canon on its ramparts. In a way, it kind of reminds me of Gamma World with the weird creatures and technology.

Science fantasy is the best.

 

[aramis erak]

When we look at the largest surges in TSR D&D, it's the points where false accusations created controversy that boosted sales. Eggbert's suicide, Pat Pulling's delusional campaign... The Tolkein Enterprises Lawsuit before that.

MOTU, while very playable (that was the point of the toys), was very controversial - it doubled down on the violence that reformers were ranting, sometimes to the point of literal frothing at the mouth, about before the US Congress. And its main story was often tangential to the morality play subplot that was tacked on to justify the explicit Prince Adam lesson at the end. Further, it was very clearly aimed at Elementary school kids (even tho' many of us were in jr high/middle school, high school or college when we watched it.)

Putting it as a baseline for a game during or right after its run? WAY too likely to hit excessive controversy, and it's not like Congress would have been unwilling to regulate and/or ban them. (According to Sen. Ted Stevens, (R-AK), in a personal conversation over drinks, it was only that Pat Pulling was caught using majorly erroneous information that RPGs weren't age restricted like Booze.)

Plus, I doubt that RPGs wouldn't have emerged at some point in the 70's...

Time to look in strategic review... let's see what's advertised...
SR1.1 Chainmail, Tractics, Don't Give Up The Ship (TSR, all "acquired from Guidon Games"), Warriors of Mars (TSR), Conan minis (MiniFigs), Solar Probe (TSR)
SR 1.2 Cavaliers and Roundheads, Panzer Warfare, Tricolor, Classic Warfare (all TSR - English Civil War, WWII, Napoleonic, and Ancients in four flavors, respectively)
SR 1.3 Boot Hill (TSR - minis game only in the reference), WW I air-to-air minis (reference to a magazine for them), 90mm cardboard flats counters for the US CW,

Interesting side note: the song in SR 1.3 is a filk by an SCA Member, published in SR under his SCA name with his "mundane name" given as an alias.

Those minis games only have heroic figures in Ancients... any of Guidon/TSR's games except Don't Give Up the SHip would be passable baselines, however, for heroic characters being added... and then kicking off a non-dungeon focused RPG.

 

[Committed Hero]

I don't think Tolkien is the magic sauce, but fantasy probably is. It would need to be replaced with a different franchise, and given the popularity, Moorecock, Clark Aston Smith, HP Lovecraft, or even the Homeric and homeric inspired fiction might have worked.

If RE Howard had written Conan with a band of regular companions, he would even have been included in your list He is the Creedence Clearwater Revival* of rpg wellsprings.

* the band with the most number of hits reaching number 2 without any number 1s.

 

[aramis erak]

If RE Howard had written Conan with a band of regular companions, he would even have been included in your list He is the Creedence Clearwater Revival* of rpg wellsprings.

* the band with the most number of hits reaching number 2 without any number 1s.

Howard's excluded not because of solo (read Howard's Conan, he seldom acts alone), but simply because Conan's adventures don't translate well to minis games.

And, unlike Cthulhu, Howard's own heroes don't have the level of investigative interest to sustain improv radioplay mysteries.

Howard's great as a "second inspiration" - but not as a first inspiration. Same for Borroughs' Tarzan.
Borroughs' John Carter has lots of battles.

 

[Aldarc]

In the early 80s, Mattel's Masters of the Universe line blended fantasy and science fiction elments into the mythos of their very successful toy line. He-Man was an axe wielding barbarian living in a world with bionic foes, wheeled/tracked/flying vehicles, and even the Castle Greyskull playset had a laser canon on its ramparts. In a way, it kind of reminds me of Gamma World with the weird creatures and technology.

Science fantasy is the best.

I love the sort of post-apocalyptic science-fantasy found in a lot of '80s cartoons: e.g., Masters of the Universe, Thundarr the Barbarian, Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, Thundercats, etc. Sadly this sort of science fantasy is woefully underrepresented in TTRPGs.

Off the top of my head, I can only think of Numenera (Cypher System), Titansgrave (Fantasy AGE), and Barbarians of the Ruined Earth (Black Hack).

 

[RealAlHazred]

If you read the short pieces the Sacred Founders of the Hobby wrote in The Dragon back in the day, their favorite fantasy property might have been the John Carter of Mars books. That's another good property to have formed an alternate basis of D&D; instead of elves and dwarves, we might have had red Martians and green Martians.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

If you read the short pieces the Sacred Founders of the Hobby wrote in The Dragon back in the day, their favorite fantasy property might have been the John Carter of Mars books. That's another good property to have formed an alternate basis of D&D; instead of elves and dwarves, we might have had red Martians and green Martians.

Two fun facts-

First, the LBBs (aka, OD&D) contain multiple reference to the Barsoom books. For example, under wandering monsters in the desert, there is a Mars entry that includes Red, Yellow, White and Black Martians and Tharks. There are others as well.

Second, TSR released Warriors of Mars shortly after OD&D. The reason most people don't know about it is because it only had a single print run. Someone's estate was not happy, so TSR wisely did not print it again.