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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 1372237" data-attributes="member: 1106">Something you may have failed to consider, but is suggested by your mention of the chicken and egg thing (and by the way, evolutionary theory suggests that the chicken definitely came first)...if the genre of D&D wasn't fantasy, maybe roleplaying might never have taken off.  It was the cool factor of the fantasy elements in the back of Chainmail that "became the tail that wagged the dog", and took over Chainmail's historical play, to quote either Arneson or Gygax (can't remember which).  So I put to you this - the genre of real world historical warfare did not provide enough creative momentum to cause the creation of roleplaying games, and I doubt that just any genre would have resulted in it.Around the same time that D&D was being formed, I've heard that there was some concurrent invention of RPGish ideas in the UK based on sci fi.  Who knows if it would have delivered on RPGs if the US had never come up with it - but I do think that the existence of RPGs in general has a lot to do with the exciting ideas of swords & sorcery...although it is conceivable that sci fi, another exciting genre, might have done the same.  Not just any old genre would have, though - few are as compelling, and some (such as, I think, horror* or romance) just plain don't fit the format.*: Actually, I take it back.  It's a long shot, but a miniatures game involving killing zombies could provide a stepping stone towards a horror RPG.  It seems to be a bit of a stretch from that to the idea of several people sitting around a table with a narrator trying to give them the creeps, though...that might be demanding a bit too much sophistication from the first RPG.</blockquote>

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