So while discussing with some friends why D&D never had a real challenger until a series of WOTC own goals led to pathfinder...

It became clear, that whether by accident or design, D&D just got certain things right pretty much straight out of the gate. That in addition to being first, (Which is a big deal) led to them being virtually unchallenged for over 30 years:

The 5 points that secured D&D's early dominance:

1: Easy PC creation: You could make a character and begin play in a matter of minutes. A selling point for new players.

2: Graspable Rules complexity: The first levels are not rules heavy. The mechanics were understandable. New players gradually got introduced to any additional complexity, easing the gateway for new players.

3: Easily grasped Default play mode: The Dungeon, an easy to understand and grasp mode of play. New players knew what they were gonna do right away. Explore a forgotten crypt, kill things and take their stuff.

4: Easily understood setting: Common fantasy tropes of 'Tolkienesque" Elves Dwarves, Halflings/Hobbits, Fighting evil Orcs, Trolls, monsters, etc...  And Dragons! New players could easily imagine the kind of medieval fantasy land their PC's were adventuring in.

5: Straight-forward reward mechanism: The leveling mechanic is a great 'gratification' reward for killing things and taking their stuff. New players unambiguously knew how many XP they needed for the next level, and what to do to get it.


Yes you can point to the rules bloat of 2e and 3e, and legitimately argue that some of those points got stretched more than a bit. But at the time it didn't really matter as D&D had already cemented its market position.

What is particularly interesting is that when you really think about things, virtually all of D&D's early competitors failed miserably on more than one of these points.

In almost every case, D&D was delivering a more newbie accessible, better overall game, than any of its early competitors.

Agree. Re #5, Gygax's genius was in multiple interlocking reward mechanisms - xp, gp, levels, and magic items, all acquired at different rates. It is an addictive combination.

D&D was never rule lite as we understand it now. A rules system has to be far more detailed for rule complexity to be a factor especially back in the day. We talking Chivalry & Sorcery levels of complexity and presentation.

The key to D&D was that it was good enough. Levels, hit points, to hit roll indexed against AC, just worked.

But D&D's killer app was the dungeon. Easy to describe, and easy to make. And it was straightforward to make a level extensive enough to make the  players feel like they had a real choice.

Take a piece of graph paper, draw a maze with rooms. Place monsters and treasure in a 1/3 to 1/2 of the rules. Sprinkle some traps in and you have an adventure.

And yet if you have a more expansive idea involving an entire setting D&D can accommodate the idea.

My opinion to why D&D was good enough was due to the way it was developed. Gygax started with an  initial set of rules then played a campaign with those rules for month with lots of players. Tweaking and adding things as the campaign developed. Because it became a regional fad during this time, he got a lot of feedback and a lot of people trying different things.

None of this made D&D the perfect design, but it certainly made it good enough. When combined with the simplicity of the dungeon adventure, and the first mover advantage led to a lasting dominance.

This was reinforced by the later supplements and editions up to and including AD&D 2e expanding D&D rather than changing things on a fundamental level. There were some rule subsystems like Blackmoor's initiative system, AD&D combat system that were very different or more complex but they for the most part were ignored.

By 1980 there were plenty of other RPG system that were as well or better designed as D&D but the good enough factor coupled with first mover coupled with the dungeon meant there was no foothold for them to knock D&D off of its perch.

Quote from: S'mon;1083598Agree. Re #5, Gygax's genius was in multiple interlocking reward mechanisms - xp, gp, levels, and magic items, all acquired at different rates. It is an addictive combination.

I will have to disagree as it varied so much between referees. What more important that was easy to see how to do what you wanted to do in a campaign. If you wanted to be stingy you could go that route, if you wanted to be monty haul you could do that as well. D&D worked equally well in both situation.

I think it's really because it was first. It defined so many things that became tropes, from things like ability scores, hit points, and even monsters. Like a friend of mine was talking about a mobile phone RPG he was playing from Japan. And like 90% of the monsters in it were from D&D.

Most of its early competitors actually kept many of those things. Only until you had completely new things, like say dice pool games, did you see RPGs break away from D&D standards. (And even then, D&D standards were kept alive in computer and video games)

XP is a great mechanic for bribing players to stay in your poorly contrived game. Especially when you have Bingo players at your table.

OD&D is so excellent it's my go-to D&D!!

Quote from: estar;1083602D&D was never rule lite as we understand it now. A rules system has to be far more detailed for rule complexity to be a factor especially back in the day. We talking Chivalry & Sorcery levels of complexity and presentation.

True today our rules-light spectrum is a bit wider with games like fudge. But OD&D and BCEMI etc... when compared to the likes of Chivalry & Sorcery - it is not even a contest!

Quote from: estar;1083602The key to D&D was that it was good enough. Levels, hit points, to hit roll indexed against AC, just worked.
...
None of this made D&D the perfect design, but it certainly made it good enough. When combined with the simplicity of the dungeon adventure, and the first mover advantage led to a lasting dominance. ...

Quote from: JeremyR;1083625I think it's really because it was first. It defined so many things that became tropes, from things like ability scores, hit points, and even monsters. ...

Being first and good enough was very powerful.

But I highlight my 5 points to show that there were other factors in play.

Because as we see:

Quote from: estar;1083602By 1980 there were plenty of other RPG system that were as well or better designed as D&D but the good enough factor coupled with first mover coupled with the dungeon meant there was no foothold for them to knock D&D off of its perch.

"Better" System design is not enough. You have to deliver what many will perceive as an overall better product.

All their early competitors utterly failed to address all of 5 points in some way.

Good enough and first can be overcome, but none of D&D's early challengers really even tried.

No game was even close to the being the Tabletop version of World of Warcraft to D&D's Everquest.

For example lets see how D&D's longest lived 'alternative' RuneQuest measures up:

1- PC Creation: RQ.. Distributing hundreds of points, figuring out % crit of current skill levels, and adding all kinds of different modifiers before you even step out of the gate. This is not even a contest. D&D +1

2- Rules: In fairness the roll under d100 % mechanic is pretty straightforward once all is said and done. But all the stuff you go through in PC creation to get you there... Yikes. And the combat and spell system is more complex than D&D. But lets be generous...Draw.

3- Default Play:  2nd ed RQ boxed set came with an adventure. But apple lane is tied to Gorlantha cultural setting conciets, so  not as straight forward as "Oh there are caves with monsters and treasures there in the borderlands? Lets go journey yonder to kill them and take their stuff!" D&D +1

4- Approachable Setting: Gorlantha? Please. D&D +1

5- Reward Mechanism: RQ experience by skill use is not as straightforward for a newbie. And doesn't provide the new shiny the way that XP+Leveling does. You may not even succeed on your skill check, and it is one of several advancement mechanisms in the game that all have to be learned. All too easy, D&D +1

D&D is up 4 of 5. No matter how much its fans love it Runequest was actually never going to challenge D&D in any meaningful way from day one.

Lets give RQ point #2 just for arguments sake. Having a technically better system literally doesn't matter, when you are giving up so much ground in all the other aspects of the game.

And no other game in the early days of D&D came close.

D&D's relationship with its users is similar to hot peppers.

Lots of people like a little bit of Tabasco or jalapeno in their foot to give it some kick.  Then there are the scoville freaks who take identify from their enjoyment in consuming the hottest peppers they can find.  You can make a niche product with a steady clientele by catering to the scoville crowd, but if you think that the general public is going to start slurping down ghost peppers because some people very loudly insist its the best, then you're a bad businessman.

All of the 2nd/3rd generation D&D knockoffs were trying to capture what the "scoville crowd" said wasn't strong/spicy enough in D&D.  They wanted to swing the purchases of the invested and dissatisfied.

But here's the problem - there aren't enough scoville enthusiasts nearby to other like-minded, for them to all consistently eat their ghost pepper-infused feasts.  They end up having to use some mild jalapenos if they want to have a social gathering.


If your interest is making as much money as possible, you should never listen to your loudest customers.  They're almost always not representative of the silent casuals.

Quote from: Jaeger;1083865And no other game in the early days of D&D came close.

The Fantasy Trip and before that Tunnels and Trolls.

Tunnels and Trolls faltered against D&D because of the good enough factor that D&D had.
The Fantasy Trip had the straight forward design of adventures, a better relationship between simplicity and complexity than D&D. But faltered in the early 80s because of first mover advantage.

There was Traveller but it was science fiction not fantasy and the post Star Wars popularity of science fiction couldn't overcome the love hobbyists had for D&D style fantasy.

The vast majority had issues like you pointed out for Runequest (although I think it much more straightforward than your five points). There was some damn good designs out there but none of them were that much better than D&D's good enough design. Especially when TSR wasn't entirely stupid and kept up in their own way. So what one had to do to "beat" D&D was a moving target.

By the early 1980 the amount of support D&D was incredible compared to the competition. Nobody could beat the library of supplements D&D/AD&D had until much later.

I think those 5 points are very solid. Although for #1 it sometimes makes me scratch my head that 3.*ed was as popular as it was when it was such a pain to dole out all of those skill points etc. at chargen.

Of them I think that #3 is probably the most important. If you look at other games with a lot of longevity, even if they don't have a lot of those other points they almost all have #3. For example CoC, Shadowrun, Paranoia, Vampire, Traveller, etc. all have a quite clear #3 even if they don't hit the mark on other areas.

I also think Vancian magic is a point in D&D's favor since so many other aspects fo D&D have been ripped off by a thousand games but nobody ever rips off Vancian magic, but it's really straightforward and rewards good resource management and cleverness (although I like it much better if you don't let people memorize multiple copies of the same spell).

Like Vancian magic a lot of the things about D&D that people like to complain about sound weird on paper but work great in an actual game.

But on the other side of the fence is D&D good enough to establish itself as a dominant game if other games came first. In Germany D&D's release got held up and TDE established itself. So being first and getting network effects in its favor certainly helped D&D. But on the other hand D&D collapsed and had other games become more popular briefly twice and was able to bounce back both times, so it has some enduring things going for it.

Quote from: Daztur;1083893I think those 5 points are very solid. Although for #1 it sometimes makes me scratch my head that 3.*ed was as popular as it was when it was such a pain to dole out all of those skill points etc. at chargen.

I can't speak universally - but for my group at the time, we were all used to it.  3.0 brought us back to D&D after years of playing other games.  And just about every game we played had some kind of skill point system:  White Wolf, Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk etc.  (In fact our first impression of the system was pretty much "Why would you start as anything other than Rogue?" - we were so used to playing games where the meat was in the skill system.)

It's only now that fashions have changed so much that it seems so clunky.

Plus it did ship with the CD, so you could let the computer keep track of all the addition.

If I could suggest a 6th point, it would be that D&D was briefly a legit mainstream fad in the early 80's. (I guess it was a party game? I was twelve in 1980, so I don't know the entire context.) Everyone had heard of it, and you could find it in regular stores. The boxed sets made it easy to get started. We even played it in school because someone convinced the teachers it was educational, and it was not the nerds doing the convincing.

No other tabletop RPG ever had anything close to the name recognition that D&D did at its height.

It became well enough known that televangelists campaigned against it on the national stage, and it was talked about on the evening news.

I mean, the Vampire the Gathering crowd tried to court that kind of controversy in the 1990s and, really, failed.

Actual Reasons

1. Pretty art/books

2. Simple enough rules that can function without really knowing all of them.

3. Critical Role and other live streaming services.

4. Levels 1-3 are where the game is most solid.

5. Classes are fun to read. DM bits are also fun to read.

Quote from: Daztur;1083893I think those 5 points are very solid. Although for #1 it sometimes makes me scratch my head that 3.*ed was as popular as it was when it was such a pain to dole out all of those skill points etc. at chargen.....

By the time 3e had come around the player base had gone through 2e rules bloat and was innoculated to the additional complexity.

And of course by the D&D had solidified its brand recognition to such a large degree that it could get away with it.

But as we found out with 4e, there is only so much they can push on the player base all at once.

Quote from: Lurkndog;1084060If I could suggest a 6th point, it would be that D&D was briefly a legit mainstream fad in the early 80's. (I guess it was a party game? I was twelve in 1980, so I don't know the entire context.) Everyone had heard of it, and you could find it in regular stores. The boxed sets made it easy to get started. We even played it in school because someone convinced the teachers it was educational, and it was not the nerds doing the convincing.

No other tabletop RPG ever had anything close to the name recognition that D&D did at its height. ....

I would say that even then, the die was already cast. It became the fad due to its already existing market leader status.

The 80's fad, the current "Resurgence" due to mention in popular shows/livestreams, etc..  Are now serving to cement its market leader status.

Quote from: estar;1083888The Fantasy Trip and before that Tunnels and Trolls.

Tunnels and Trolls faltered against D&D because of the good enough factor that D&D had.
The Fantasy Trip had the straight forward design of adventures, a better relationship between simplicity and complexity than D&D. But faltered in the early 80s because of first mover advantage.

T&T was a never been. It failed because it's combat system just wasn't as good. No real individual heroics in a group fight. It's innovative killer combat app only severed to kill itself into niche obscurity.

TFT, was just too disjointed. it wasn't until 1980 with into the labyrinth that it became an actual RPG that could compete with D&D. And its publisher closed in 83. It never really got the push needed to be a viable alternative.

Quote from: estar;1083888There was Traveller but it was science fiction not fantasy and the post Star Wars popularity of science fiction couldn't overcome the love hobbyists had for D&D style fantasy.

Traveller being not Star Wars sealed the deal for them.

Quote from: estar;1083888By the early 1980 the amount of support D&D was incredible compared to the competition. Nobody could beat the library of supplements D&D/AD&D had until much later.

This would be a worthy 6th point. Product support! Even now you see people on forums not wanting to play a 'dead game'. D&D had it's supplement treadmill going early on.