Damn Pundit, who pissed in your Wheaties?

And what's wrong with the idea of maybe having the first successful setting not be Greyhawk? What if it had been Greek Myths, which the Scarred Lands closely follows? I just thought it was a fun idea to kick around.

If you read the novels being published at the time, it's actually kinda strange that such a generic world was the main setting.

Quote from: danbuter;442984Damn Pundit, who pissed in your Wheaties?

Apparently Mark Rein-Hagen pissed in them and then Ron Edwards shat in them, and he's been crying ever since.

Quote from: Soylent Green;442982I don't think Tolkienesque fantasy was "bog-standard" at the time. Sure Lord of the Rings was a popular book, but so was The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, Pirates, Conan, the Greek and Arthurian Legends and the Arabian Nights. There were a lot more films with Sinbad or Aladin than with elves and dwarves.

No, 'bog-standard' was what came after the surge of Tolkien interest in the 70's... crap like 'Sword of Shannara'... and pushed all the more interesting stuff off the shelves. That became the mainstream of fantasy so I figure RPGs would have gravitated towards it no matter what their original setting was... maybe with a residual exotic taint... a different set of trademark monsters.

Quote from: danbuter;442984If you read the novels being published at the time, it's actually kinda strange that such a generic world was the main setting.

I think the D&D implied setting feels "generic" today because (a) it's a mash-up of just about everything the writers thought would be cool, and (b) it's been the template for what much of pop culture thinks of as "fantasy" for the better part of 30 years now.

Quote from: two_fishes;442987Apparently Mark Rein-Hagen pissed in them and then Ron Edwards shat in them, and he's been crying ever since.

:rotfl:

All I know is this: Scarred Lands is still teh awesome.

A more interesting question perhaps is why Fantasy became the base setting for RPGS and why traveller though incredibly sucessful and influential never stole the pre-eminece from Fantasy even though Star Wars was, by far, the largest pop-cultureal influence in the late 70s when RPGs were becoming mainstream.

We know RPGs emerged from wargames and specifically medieval wargames, but why the medieval came to dominate the napoleonic or the Ancient is harder to fathom. In many ways a wargamer looking for the obvious route from massed armies to heroic heroes setting out on their own quests is drawn to Greece and Rome rather than elves and dwarves.

The leap from I'll be Sparta and you can be Persia,  to how about I try to defend this narrow pass with just 300 spartans against your army but my Spartans are all kind of heroic individuals,  then to how about we do the Seige of Troy and we set up rules for Achillies versus Hector and how about we do a bit where Odyseus and Ajax have to sneak into the temple of Apollo at night and kidnap the priestess.... well that to me seems a much more logical and obvious route for RPGS.

So my questions would be

i) Where did the Fantasy trope come from?
ii) Why was the ancient world, which has very well known heroes, quests, mythology, monsters, and was a very popular wargaming setting largely ignored?
iii) Why did Traveller not inspire a slew of other games? Why didn't Star Wars inspire a much greater burst of Sci Fi RPGs and if it did(maybe there were some but I just don't know about them) why didn't they come to dominate D&D when Star Wars, BSG etc etc came to dominate cinema?

Great post, jibba.

Quote from: jibbajibba;443049A more interesting question perhaps is why Fantasy became the base setting for RPGS and why traveller though incredibly sucessful and influential never stole the pre-eminece from Fantasy even though Star Wars was, by far, the largest pop-cultureal influence in the late 70s when RPGs were becoming mainstream.

I'd guess it's Traveller is built around classic hard SF, as opposed to a space opera game, making it a poor Star Wars emulator. See: D&D and LotR.

Quote from: jibbajibba;443049We know RPGs emerged from wargames and specifically medieval wargames, but why the medieval came to dominate the napoleonic or the Ancient is harder to fathom. In many ways a wargamer looking for the obvious route from massed armies to heroic heroes setting out on their own quests is drawn to Greece and Rome rather than elves and dwarves.

This "alternate history" is pretty much what Mazes & Minotaurs sets out to emulate.

Quote from: jibbajibba;443049i) Where did the Fantasy trope come from?

From the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement?

IIRC, "fantasy wargaming" -- wargames with fantastic elements -- were something of a novelty in their own right, and kind of Gygax's/TSR's thing.

Quote from: jibbajibba;443049ii) Why was the ancient world, which has very well known heroes, quests, mythology, monsters, and was a very popular wargaming setting largely ignored?

It wasn't. Plenty of monsters from ancient myth made it to the bestiary, even in OD&D. And in a few years we'd have Runequest pushing myths and heroes and quests (and Heroquests) front and center.

Quote from: jibbajibba;443049iii) Why did Traveller not inspire a slew of other games? Why didn't Star Wars inspire a much greater burst of Sci Fi RPGs and if it did(maybe there were some but I just don't know about them) why didn't they come to dominate D&D when Star Wars, BSG etc etc came to dominate cinema?

Because RPGs, being originally centered on fantasy elements, recruited preferentially from fantasy fans, as opposed to SF fans? Not that there isn't a huge overlap (back in the day, maybe even more so than today).

Also fantasy may demand less buy-in than SF, as a rule. Traveller has rules for speculative trade, jump navigation, starship combat, etc. which may intimidate new gamers. The same newbies quickly grasp the notion of exploring ancient ruins, killing things and taking their stuff.

Quote from: The Butcher;443055Great post, jibba.

Thanks

QuoteI'd guess it's Traveller is built around classic hard SF, as opposed to a space opera game, making it a poor Star Wars emulator. See: D&D and LotR.

I can see that my question is more like 'why didn't someone step in with a space opera game in '78 or issue a space opera version of Traveller?'

QuoteThis "alternate history" is pretty much what Mazes & Minotaurs sets out to emulate.

Agreed but when its so ripe for RPGing that I am just suprised that it lost out to European medieval fantasy that has a far lower cutural presence prior to the 70s and that whole college boom in LotR.

QuoteFrom the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement?

IIRC, "fantasy wargaming" -- wargames with fantastic elements -- were something of a novelty in their own right, and kind of Gygax's/TSR's thing.

Fair enough and I can see that as a root but where in turn did that come from? Is it really down to just LotR?

QuoteIt wasn't. Plenty of monsters from ancient myth made it to the bestiary, even in OD&D. And in a few years we'd have Runequest pushing myths and heroes and quests (and Heroquests) front and center.

Again agreed but I guess I am still asking why the whole greco-roman thing was less popular.

QuoteBecause RPGs, being originally centered on fantasy elements, recruited preferentially from fantasy fans, as opposed to SF fans? Not that there isn't a huge overlap (back in the day, maybe even more so than today).

Also fantasy may demand less buy-in than SF, as a rule. Traveller has rules for speculative trade, jump navigation, starship combat, etc. which may intimidate new gamers. The same newbies quickly grasp the notion of exploring ancient ruins, killing things and taking their stuff.

Maybe Traveller is hard sci-fi but I don't think that excludes a sci-fi game from being popular. Star Wars doesn't need that stuff and surely the cultural impact of Star Wars on geekdom is hard to overstate.

And what's with the dungeon crawl? Aside from the bit in Moria in LotR where does that come from?  Surely "cowboys and indians" syle adventure yarns are a far more of a recognisable format or the Greco-Roman quest where a bunch or heroes have to travel from A to B, tackling monsters and deadling with mutliple adversities, is a far more solid Meme (the Oddessy, Aneiad, Argonauts etc)

Quote from: jibbajibba;443049A more interesting question perhaps is why Fantasy became the base setting for RPGS and why traveller though incredibly sucessful and influential never stole the pre-eminece from Fantasy even though Star Wars was, by far, the largest pop-cultureal influence in the late 70s when RPGs were becoming mainstream.


iii) Why did Traveller not inspire a slew of other games? Why didn't Star Wars inspire a much greater burst of Sci Fi RPGs and if it did(maybe there were some but I just don't know about them) why didn't they come to dominate D&D when Star Wars, BSG etc etc came to dominate cinema?

I think Traveller didn't become huge because it's setting (which didn't come out for a few years, just like Greyhawk), is kinda crappy. Humans are hemmed in on all sides with nothing left to explore or expand into, there is no major space war between the existing empires, and there are no bugs, which kills three of the most popular sf genres.

Quote from: danbuter;443114I think Traveller didn't become huge because it's setting (which didn't come out for a few years, just like Greyhawk), is kinda crappy. Humans are hemmed in on all sides with nothing left to explore or expand into, there is no major space war between the existing empires, and there are no bugs, which kills three of the most popular sf genres.

I don;t think the settings are actually important (sorry if that bursts your OP ) . I think the implied setting is the thing and the implied settign in Traveller is just space wide open..... I think Traveller woudl have benefited from an alien race generation tabel and the ability to play alien races but come on we all did that waaaaayyy back. I was using Traveller to run an Ace Garp riff-off game in 82 -83 with hosts of random alien generation tables.

But the question is with Traveller as a strong player in the RPG market thus establishing Scifi rpgs work, why weren't there a slew of Space opera RPGs in 78, 79 after Star Wars came out.

Quote from: danbuter;442832What if the first truly successful setting by TSR had been something else?

Maybe Ravenloft as presented in 2e? ... Maybe the Scarred Lands? ... Maybe Forgotten Realms? ... Imagine if something like Eberron had been the baseline. ... I think another cool setting would have been like Mythic Russia. Russian folklore is pretty damn cool.

I don't think most of these could be the first. They are second and third-generation game settings, reacting to game settings before them. Ravenloft as it is is a gothic spin on AD&Dland. The Scarred Lands is an attempt to place D&Disms into a different context (and pretty successful at that). Eberron is something filtered through dozens of layers of geek chic - like steampunk, it is a product of a culture D&D and its like had to create for this new stuff to actually be possible. Mythic Russia, well, too niche (although D&D was pretty niche in its day).

The big one I left out is the Forgotten Realms. Yeah, FR could have been an original setting. It actually predates D&D, and has antecedents in Ed Greenwood's early attempts at writing and world-building in the 1960s. But I think it would have been a somewhat different FR if it was the game-defining setting and not a product developed into its published form in the mid 80s, influenced by more than a decade of D&D -- liberal vs. libertarian, civilisation vs. frontier-oriented, low-mortality vs. high-mortality, moral (and occasionally moralistic) vs. slightly (occasionally irresponsively) amoral. A different ethos that would have created a different game. Not one I would like better, mind you. I like and respect D&D for a lot of the strange stuff, its own style, incorporating other media but not being truly beholden to it.

Quote from: jibbajibba;443059And what's with the dungeon crawl? Aside from the bit in Moria in LotR where does that come from?

D&D's dungeons have more to do with the ruined structures of the various Conan stories (which were themselves influenced by Talbot Mundy's King -- of the Khyber Rifles and others), Burroughs Mars stories and comic books than Moria, which is a place the heroes only go because they really-really must. And historically, they come from one of Dave Arneson's strange game experiments, which means they might have been a lucky accident.

Some might argue for Red Nails, but imo, The Scarlet Citadel  has the most D&D like dungeon.  All that aside, the best of the Conan stories, objectively speaking, is  The People of the Black Circle which also has a little dungeon style action.

Fantasy is king because you can do it cold (no preparation) and stupid (no prior knowledge).  This is not true with Science Fiction.  Dungeons are king because dungeons limit action in the exact same way that a board does.  This is not so with other environments.  Medieval Europe is king because all of the visual language of Fantasy finds its most successful expressions in that era and the fiction it spawned: Arthur, Robin Hood, Charlemange, Ivanhoe, William Tell- all leading, in time, to Howard, Lewis and Tolkien.

That's it, in a nutshell.  We can point to the post-Alexander world, to Rome, to American Westerns and so on for influences and ideas that contributed to that unique creation that is the post-D&D fantasy paradigm but none of them hold a commanding presence in our collective mind than those aforementioned.  Those are the three pillars that make D&D (and any RPG that wishes to follow its trail to success, either in concurrence or reaction) the success that it is in fact.

Judges Guild's Wilderlands were a successful commercial concern before TSR published the World of Greyhawk folio.

Greyhawk, though -- the 'real' campaign world, which at first was not identical with the published one -- permeated Gygax's D&D (and especially AD&D) works. He built his assumptions into countless nooks and crannies of the game.

That includes a lot of bits that people increasingly didn't even bother to read, but also very basic things.

Even Empire of the Petal Throne showed some influence, perhaps, by way of the influence of D&D.