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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 6557824" data-attributes="member: 6786839">I question the simplicity of that chain of causality.There are several other TRPGs. Do they have the Big Six? That is, do players gravitate towards similar go-to items?I argued, earlier, that CRPG such as Nethack (as an early example) or Elder Scrolls (more widespread) had significant influence on TRPGs. The degree of that influence is debatable, as is the degree of interplay (eg a 1983 CRPG influencing a 1985 TRPG module which then influences a 1987 CRPG). I'm confident that it's nonzero.People who play lots of Nethack tend to work towards the standard "Ascension Kit", which is a lot like the Big Six: a strong weapon (usually a named sword), dragon scale mail armor (usually grey or silver), a Bag of Holding, a unicorn horn, a blessed luckstone, a cloak or robe, speed boots or jumping boots, and amulet of life saving or reflection. (Fellow nethackers, we both know this is a hand-waved summary, okay?)The names and parameters of those items were of course influenced by D&D. The efforts players will go to, to collect at least the basics of an Ascension Kit before they attack the Wizard of Yendor, are determined more by variation and selection; that is, those who gather an Ascension Kit are MUCH more likely to survive all the way to the altars on the Astral Plane.There is guaranteed to be at least one shop, and it's guaranteed to sell nonmagical candles. Other than that... you MIGHT find other stores and they MIGHT sell enchanted items, but maybe not. You can (if you do the necessary tasks) wish at least one of those items into existence (and, more likely, many of them). And yet, ascenders tend to converge on something fairly close to a "standard" ascension kit.Not because of 3E or 3.5E or 4E or Pathfinder. But because, well, that's what tends to work, within a game which hasn't changed much since 1989, and not at all (bar graphics options) since 2003.Sometimes what players find most effective isn't necessarily what the game designers intended or expected.</blockquote>

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