what might have been

[Johan Larson]

What might the RPG hobby look like if things had taken a slightly different turn somewhere along the line?

Let me start things off. The hobby would be a very different place if the first role playing game that caught on had been created by people who were not fans of epic fantasy and medieval/renaissance warfare. Pick most any other genre or period (Napoleonic, Bronze Age, Superheroes, Science Fiction, Horror, Cops & PIs, whatever ...) and things would look very different.

[ak_aramis]

I think only Fantasy is sufficiently argument-proof to get the hobby off the ground.

The Pseudo-tolkien of D&D was not itself essential, tho' it was TSR grabbing a sudden explosion of a particular fantasy series, and pushing the boundaries with integrating those into Minis battles that lead to character scale stuff, and then, coupled with Dave Wesley's narrative game mode via Dave Arneson, created the ruleset...

And don't forget: D&D was syncretic at launch. Tolkien's races and monsters, Vance's magic, Moorcock's moral compasses and intelligent swords....

... it was just tolkienian enough to ride the coattails of the tolkien popularity (which was still rising at the time).

So, I think it would look pretty much the same, or would be pretty much absent.

[Gorkamorka]

Actually Napoleonic war came firs. Before Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson made Chainmail and then DnD the played in a game called Braunstein run by David Wesely. There is a great interview with David HERE.

So based on that what would the roleplaying world look like is David Weselys math teacher had not introduced him to the perfect mathematical shapes as defined by the greeks. (The d20, d12, d8, d6 and d4).

[William]

If you need randomizers with a range other than 1-6, the Platonic solids would have made sensible shapes for dice regardless of whether a game creator had encountered them earlier or not.

[Gorkamorka]

Here is another one. What would the roleplaying scene be like if World of Darkness had never been?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Gorkamorka

Here is another one. What would the roleplaying scene be like if World of Darkness had never been?

Not quite a roleplaying, but . . . no Twilight and no True Blood?

[Gorkamorka]

Originally Posted by Gorkamorka

Here is another one. What would the roleplaying scene be like if World of Darkness had never been?

I was thinking that that roleplaying would be even more dominated by mathematically inclined socially awkward males.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Gorkamorka

Here is another one. What would the roleplaying scene be like if World of Darkness had never been?

Smaller. World of Darkness prompted an RPG Renaissance; it's possible that many companies that are in existence today (even if barely) would be closed. A marginal market might be a disappearing one.

If the RPG market dwindles far enough without a fresh generation, it's even possible that SJG probably never makes the investment in Munchkin -- why satire a dead phenomenon? -- or that if they do, it comes later and resembles WoW more than it does D&D. You know, kind of like D&D itself does these days. :)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

Let me start things off. The hobby would be a very different place if the first role playing game that caught on had been created by people who were not fans of epic fantasy and medieval/renaissance warfare. Pick most any other genre or period (Napoleonic, Bronze Age, Superheroes, Science Fiction, Horror, Cops & PIs, whatever ...) and things would look very different.

Of these I believe that only Science Fiction, specifically in the form of Star Trek a few years earlier than D&D or Star Wars a year or two later would have had any real potential to break into the mass bookstore market..

Superheroes could have started in a time of much greater monthly circulation which might have been enough. There were no other mass media versions to help spread this beyond the war game ghetto. The first Christopher Reeve Superman movie was about as close as you came. Peak circulation for comic books was well before the creation of the comic book shop as we know it.

There was a sort of horror craze starting with Rosemary's Baby leading into The Exorcist and eventually the low grade slasher movie as we know it. Don't know how you'd make a game out of them though.

Finally, you could try and ride the coattails of The Godfather with a sort of hack and slash build your own Mafia game but the moms of america probably would flip out over that one. Though I suppose that if you created a "Gangstas & Rappers" game about 20 years later it'd be too late. Not sure they'd sell that in record stores though.

This is what you need though. Some sort of popular mass media phenomenon that will get your stuff into some sort of mainstream retail store. Napoleonic roleplaying that tapped the market of Napoleonic wargaming wouldn't have come to much.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

What might the RPG hobby look like if things had taken a slightly different turn somewhere along the line?

Let me start things off. The hobby would be a very different place if the first role playing game that caught on had been created by people who were not fans of epic fantasy and medieval/renaissance warfare. Pick most any other genre or period (Napoleonic, Bronze Age, Superheroes, Science Fiction, Horror, Cops & PIs, whatever ...) and things would look very different.

Somewhere on another thread someone suggested that RPGs might perhaps have spun out from H.G. Well's Little Wars in a similar fashion ... either in their 'contemporary' rules or in some hypothetical expansion based on one or more of his sci-fi novels...