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<blockquote data-quote="Guest 6801328" data-source="post: 7264764">As I said in the other thread, I believe that Tolkien's wild popularity created a fertile/receptive market for the idea of an RPG as long as it felt somewhat like Tolkien.&nbsp; I'm venturing into &quot;what if the Nazis won WWII&quot; territory* here, but there are two ways to ask What If:a) What if Tolkien never wrote his books?&nbsp; In this case it's possibly...and I think likely...that there is a reduced probability that EGG &amp; Co. would have thought of creating a fantasy RPG out of miniature wargaming, and a greatly reduced probability that such a game would have found mass market appeal.&nbsp; Would we still have RPGs today?&nbsp; I dunno...probably.&nbsp; But they would look a lot different because a different game would have set the standard.b) What if EGG &amp; Co. were somehow either totally oblivious to Tolkien, or hated Tolkien so much that they intentionally avoided anything that might have smelled like him?&nbsp; In this case there would have been a receptive market, but perhaps that market would have found the product less satisfying (&quot;What if I don't want to play a human?&quot;).&nbsp; In which case, again, D&amp;D might have failed to reach critical mass and become the dominant RPG and today some elements of D&amp;D (HP, Vancian casting, etc.) might not be so prevalent.So I won't go quite so far as to claim that D&amp;D specifically and RPGs more generally wouldn't exist today (although it's possible), but they would likely look much different because D&amp;D wouldn't have been as popular and therefore its ideas wouldn't be so dominant.&nbsp; As somebody said in the other thread, maybe Traveler would have become the dominant game.&nbsp; Just think how our RPGs would look today. *We do know for certain that if the Nazis won WWII then there would be literary essays examining whether Mordor is a metaphor for the USSR and/or the United States....</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Guest 6801328, post: 7264764"] As I said in the other thread, I believe that Tolkien's wild popularity created a fertile/receptive market for the idea of an RPG as long as it felt somewhat like Tolkien. I'm venturing into "what if the Nazis won WWII" territory* here, but there are two ways to ask What If: a) What if Tolkien never wrote his books? In this case it's possibly...and I think likely...that there is a reduced probability that EGG & Co. would have thought of creating a fantasy RPG out of miniature wargaming, and a greatly reduced probability that such a game would have found mass market appeal. Would we still have RPGs today? I dunno...probably. But they would look a lot different because a different game would have set the standard. b) What if EGG & Co. were somehow either totally oblivious to Tolkien, or hated Tolkien so much that they intentionally avoided anything that might have smelled like him? In this case there would have been a receptive market, but perhaps that market would have found the product less satisfying ("What if I don't want to play a human?"). In which case, again, D&D might have failed to reach critical mass and become the dominant RPG and today some elements of D&D (HP, Vancian casting, etc.) might not be so prevalent. So I won't go quite so far as to claim that D&D specifically and RPGs more generally wouldn't exist today (although it's possible), but they would likely look much different because D&D wouldn't have been as popular and therefore its ideas wouldn't be so dominant. As somebody said in the other thread, maybe Traveler would have become the dominant game. Just think how our RPGs would look today. *We do know for certain that if the Nazis won WWII then there would be literary essays examining whether Mordor is a metaphor for the USSR and/or the United States.... [/QUOTE]

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