You have been drawn into a bizarre alternate universe where everything is mostly the same, except RPGs don't really exist. Neither do the books that inspired Gygax and Arneson. Everything in Appendix A no longer exists. No Lord of the Rings books, no Conan the Barbarian stories, and nothing that drew from the landscape that sprung up around D&D.
It's your job to cobble together a new proto-D&D to jump-start the RPG movement, but you have to base it on books that have actually been printed. Except for the lack of RPGs and RPG-derived stories, everything else is the same.
What stories do you use as inspiration? What kind of character classes do you end up with?
Without those books influence on modern fantasy? The mind boggles. Do D&D novels count as modern fantasy? Warhammer novels? Are old myths and legends in or out? Are we talking about Charles De Lint or Tad Williams or George RR Martin?
Are we defining fantasy as generic medieval orcs and dwarves as found in countless videogames?
So, let's try to stay away from specific Tolkienisms anyhow.
Does the D&D have to be recognizably D&D? A table top rpg? Any form of game that involves fantasy elements. Is the title Dungeons and Dragons? We could make this a bondage reality show about rich business men buying submissives. Oh wait, that was called The Apprentice.
Anyhow, I find your parameters really vague.
The origins of RPGs are so intermeshed with tabletop wargaming it's hard to imagine them arising outside of that context. I suppose they'd most likely be inspired by video games, rather than literature.
Quote from: abcd_z;924671No Lord of the Rings books, no Conan
Sso no modern fantasy literature as we know it, basically. So what are you asking we base this on? Because really this just sounds like the concept behind Mazes & Minotaurs
I honestly hadn't thought it through as much as you guys are. I just wanted a universe where everything directly related to D&D doesn't exist, but everything else inexplicably still exists (improbable as that would be).
To answer my own question, I'd go one of two routes:
The first would be sort-of emulating D&D's pseudo-medieval setting. I'd draw from The Wizard of Earthsea, Name of the Wind, Mistborn, and Game of Thrones.
The second would be to create a game based on fantasy literature that takes place in modern times. For this I'd use American Gods, The Night Watch, Nightside, and China Miéville's works. More surreal fantasy than medieval fantasy. Also, possibly Dresden Files if I could make it fit.
Really, I think you'd be looking at a superhero game. Right now that would be the hot thing with the zeitgeist. And I'd expect the game would run with a cell phone app, not rule books and dice.
Actually, I could argue that this has already been done: Mouse Guard. Nothing about the source material or the RPG is recognizably derived from D&D, and the simplified Burning Wheel design is very accessible.
Quote from: abcd_z;924671What stories do you use as inspiration? What kind of character classes do you end up with?
Consider that a profoundly important design decision -- the inclusion of the Cleric -- wasn't inspired by Appendix N material but was yanked straight out of
Horror of Dracula. Right from the start DMs were pushing against the boundaries of the default setting assumptions, and soon enough were throwing pretty much whatever the hell they wanted into their games. Sometimes it even worked. Hell, I ran a mini-campaign in the Smurfs universe that was a blast. I know more than a few people did Earthsea campaigns.
D&D has always been malleable. Look at the OSR, just about every major genre is represented by an tweaked OD&D clone.
I guess what you're pondering is what a blend of GoT, Mistborn and China Miéville would look like. I don't know, brew it up and find out.
I would start by introducing the books that inspired Gygax and Arneson. I'd have the market cornered.
Quote from: Cave Bear;924701I would start by introducing the books that inspired Gygax and Arneson. I'd have the market cornered.
Lol. Cheater. :P
Quote from: abcd_z;924671You have been drawn into a bizarre alternate universe where everything is mostly the same, except RPGs don't really exist. Neither do the books that inspired Gygax and Arneson. Everything in Appendix A no longer exists. No Lord of the Rings books, no Conan the Barbarian stories, and nothing that drew from the landscape that sprung up around D&D.
What stories do you use as inspiration? What kind of character classes do you end up with?
The funny thing is, today's D&D IS based on modern fantasy.
Consider LotR, Conan, Elric, Dying Earth, and quite a few others from this period. In all these, magic/spellcasting is dangerous, risky, unreliable, unpredictable, limited, and something only a limited few can even perform, and even then at great personal risk. A guy with a sword could seriously fight the wizards and sorcerers of these worlds, far more often than not.
Now consider Harry Potter, with magic scientifically predictable enough that a worldwide school system can be built around it, and a few other more recent magic-inclined books also make magic powerful and reliable, with few risks (Dresden is about the only recent series where the magic isn't perfectly predictable).
In the interim, we had Wheel of Time--risky and limited, but not nearly so great as we were led to believe in the first few hundred pages of the books, with plenty of ridiculously powerful wizards that no barbarian with a sword could ever hope to match.
Today's D&D, as someone basically said, is a superheroes game compared to the game inspired by the fantasy novels of 30+ years ago. Today's spellcasters, inspired by Harry Potter and the like, get whatever they want, the only question is when and how rapidly they get it.
Quote from: Doom;924703The funny thing is, today's D&D IS based on modern fantasy.
Consider LotR, Conan, Elric, Dying Earth, and quite a few others from this period. In all these, magic/spellcasting is dangerous, risky, unreliable, unpredictable, limited, and something only a limited few can even perform, and even then at great personal risk. A guy with a sword could seriously fight the wizards and sorcerers of these worlds, far more often than not.
Now consider Harry Potter, with magic scientifically predictable enough that a worldwide school system can be built around it, and a few other more recent magic-inclined books also make magic powerful and reliable, with few risks (Dresden is about the only recent series where the magic isn't perfectly predictable).
In the interim, we had Wheel of Time--risky and limited, but not nearly so great as we were led to believe in the first few hundred pages of the books, with plenty of ridiculously powerful wizards that no barbarian with a sword could ever hope to match.
Today's D&D, as someone basically said, is a superheroes game compared to the game inspired by the fantasy novels of 30+ years ago. Today's spellcasters, inspired by Harry Potter and the like, get whatever they want, the only question is when and how rapidly they get it.
But no Lord of the Rings means no fantasy boom of the 60s and 70s, meaning no fantasy schlock film boom of the early 80s, meaning no Troll, meaning no Harry Potter.
Other questions are raised here though, like, does this mean no Braunsteins? Or did Arneson's game simply never get picked up by Gygax and popularized as a new hobby? In which case, Braunsteins still may have developed in a different direction among Wargamers, largely devoid of pseudo-medieval fantasy elements, maybe instead (as Mazes & Minotaurs suggests) based on Greco-Roman myth or even Napoleonic science fiction.
Actually, a Napoleonic Fantasy game sounds incredibly awesome. Imagine an Appendix N composed of Baron Munchausen, The fantasy writings of The Sisters Bronte, The Sharpe series, The Charterhouse of Parma, Voyages et Aventures de Jacques Massé , Gulliver's Travels, Niels Klim's Underground Travels, The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon, and The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World
What you might end up with is an D&D looking more like Ravenloft. One based on movie monsters and legends, add in Japanese fantasy movies which seems to have inspired a few elements in D&D too. So removing the book influence would leave just the movie and legend influence unless you also remove all the mythology that D&D draws heavily on too.
So yeah. Something like Ravenloft.
Keep in mind that some modern fantasy literature started out as D&D fantasy inspirations or even campaigns. Others are directly inspired by the very books you removed so those wouldnt exist too. No Thongor, No Severn Valley, and so on.
Quote from: TristramEvans;924681Because really this just sounds like the concept behind Mazes & Minotaurs
Exactly.
Historical wargaming would incorporate myth elements of Greeks & Norse due to Hollywood and a proto RPG is born from Clash of the Titans / 300 movies instead of LotR and Conan.
Quote from: Spinachcat;924722Exactly.
Historical wargaming would incorporate myth elements of Greeks & Norse due to Hollywood and a proto RPG is born from Clash of the Titans / 300 movies instead of LotR and Conan.
I don't know. Beowulf and the Niebelungelind (SP?) were around long before modern fantasy.
Quote from: jeff37923;924725I don't know. Beowulf and the Niebelungelind (SP?) were around long before modern fantasy.
But neither big in popular culture nor the wargaming community. In a way, Tolkien "saved" Norse-Germanic style myths from complete Godwin.
Quote from: TristramEvans;924706Actually, a Napoleonic Fantasy game sounds incredibly awesome. Imagine an Appendix N composed of Baron Munchausen, The fantasy writings of The Sisters Bronte, The Sharpe series, The Charterhouse of Parma, Voyages et Aventures de Jacques Massé , Gulliver's Travels, Niels Klim's Underground Travels, The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon, and The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World
Thanks!
Also by Simon Tyssot de Patot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Tyssot_de_Patot), the first Hollow Earth scifi. Sounds pretty cool. From Wikipedia...
QuoteLa Vie, les Aventures et le Voyage de Groenland du Révérend Père Cordelier Pierre de Mésange [The Life, Adventures & Trip To Greenland Of The Rev. Father Pierre de Mesange], Tyssot de Patot introduced the concept of a Hollow Earth. This was the first time that the notion of a journey to the center of the Earth was depicted in a realistic, pseudo-scientific fashion, as opposed to the various mythological journeys to Hell, such as Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. Tyssot de Patot's book predates that of Danish writer Ludvig Holberg Niels Klim's Underground Travels (1741) and Jules Verne's classic Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864).
Quote from: abcd_z;924671You have been drawn into a bizarre alternate universe where everything is mostly the same, except RPGs don't really exist. Neither do the books that inspired Gygax and Arneson. Everything in Appendix A no longer exists. No Lord of the Rings books, no Conan the Barbarian stories, and nothing that drew from the landscape that sprung up around D&D.
It's your job to cobble together a new proto-D&D to jump-start the RPG movement, but you have to base it on books that have actually been printed. Except for the lack of RPGs and RPG-derived stories, everything else is the same.
What stories do you use as inspiration? What kind of character classes do you end up with?
I'd base them on the Mancer series by Don Callander, the Drenai cycle by David Gemmell, Zelazni's Amber, and some anime, then;).
Don Callander's Mancers aren't using precise lists of spells, and it's far from typical fantasy. Gemmell seemed to be writing from his faith, his experience as a bouncer and his historical knowledge. And Zelazni only learned what RPGs are later in his life:).
So, basically, I'd have no classes. What I would have is a system that allows for purchasing spell effects on the fly.
Importantly, the wizards and non-wizards having different roles and power levels, and mostly not opposing each other directly, but each player would control one of each "category", including a stable of mook-level characters.
So, troupe style and freeform magic? I'd probably end up with Ars Magica or the latest Sorcerers of Ur-Turuk:D!
Well there's still previous literature and fairy tales.
all of the oral tradition (folk tales, fairy tales, etc)
1001 Arabian Nights
The mythological stories of every culture of the world
The histories of every culture of the world
Other creative authors you didn't blacklist - Poe, earlier gothic literature, renaissance literature...
The sources that were heavily mirrored in all the sources you listed are still there. They're just in less modern/gamey forms, which are often even more interesting than the modern/pulp forms.
Maybe Scientific Romance, cf Marcus Rowland's Forgotten Futures.
Germano-Nordic mythology is at least as rich a possible source as Greco-Roman. Instead of Mazes&Minotaurs, Fate of the Norns.
Or we might very well get Mouse Guard, which is almost completely free of D&Disms
I'm thinking we'd get a pulp-like game very reminiscent of Flashman's adventures at the height of the British empire mixed with the splendor of Jules Verne's fantastic tales set in la Belle Epoque. Or something like that.
Quote from: abcd_z;924671You have been drawn into a bizarre alternate universe where everything is mostly the same, except RPGs don't really exist. Neither do the books that inspired Gygax and Arneson. Everything in Appendix A no longer exists. No Lord of the Rings books, no Conan the Barbarian stories, and nothing that drew from the landscape that sprung up around D&D.
It's your job to cobble together a new proto-D&D to jump-start the RPG movement, but you have to base it on books that have actually been printed. Except for the lack of RPGs and RPG-derived stories, everything else is the same.
What stories do you use as inspiration? What kind of character classes do you end up with?
The overwhelming majority of current fantasy stories are shallow imitations of Tolkien. He invented the genre.
The only genres that aren't related that I can remember off the top of my head are Pulp Fiction (Conan, John Carter, etc), Call of Cthulhu, Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Fairy Tales, New Weird, Mythology, Shakespeare, Faerie Queene, Afrofantasy and Asian fantasy.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;924941The overwhelming majority of current fantasy stories are shallow imitations of Tolkien. He invented the genre.
Well, not quite, but he popularised it.
QuoteThe only genres that aren't related that I can remember off the top of my head are... Call of Cthulhu, Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland...Shakespeare, Faerie Queene
Those...aren't genres.
Quote from: TristramEvans;924945Well, not quite, but he popularised it.
And in various essays he credited a number of precursors and sources of inspiration.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;924941The overwhelming majority of current fantasy stories are shallow imitations of Tolkien. He invented the genre.
Ehhhhhhhh.......yeah, that's not quite right.
There is a profound difference in fantasy literature pre-1980 or so and after that watershed. The 80's and 90's were the era of "bloody fantasy trilogies" and oh yes, they were sad Tolkien derivatives, but there was no small amount of influence from D&D creeping in there. Personally, I don't think it's possible to overestimate the impact D&D had on fantasy lit in terms of homogenizing it.
I strongly disagree that "the overwhelmingly majority of current fantasy stories are shallow imitations of Tolkien". The largest subgenre of fantasy fiction
by orders of magnitude right now is paranormal romance. Even if you want to stick with "trad" fantasy, it's Martin that's the
ur-inspiration: historical settings with the serial numbers filed off and a bit of magic thrown in far outnumber the Tolkien clones. It's true that authors like Sanderson, Erikson and Feist are producing stuff that looks Tolkien-y in places, but that's because their works are based on their college D&D campaigns. So the Tolkien is secondhand at best.
Quote from: daniel_ream;924984Ehhhhhhhh.......yeah, that's not quite right.
There is a profound difference in fantasy literature pre-1980 or so and after that watershed. The 80's and 90's were the era of "bloody fantasy trilogies" and oh yes, they were sad Tolkien derivatives, but there was no small amount of influence from D&D creeping in there. Personally, I don't think it's possible to overestimate the impact D&D had on fantasy lit in terms of homogenizing it.
I strongly disagree that "the overwhelmingly majority of current fantasy stories are shallow imitations of Tolkien". The largest subgenre of fantasy fiction by orders of magnitude right now is paranormal romance. Even if you want to stick with "trad" fantasy, it's Martin that's the ur-inspiration: historical settings with the serial numbers filed off and a bit of magic thrown in far outnumber the Tolkien clones. It's true that authors like Sanderson, Erikson and Feist are producing stuff that looks Tolkien-y in places, but that's because their works are based on their college D&D campaigns. So the Tolkien is secondhand at best.
Even Sanderson feels very little like Tolkein in things like Way of Kings. Way of Kings felt more like Earthsea meets WWI with a bunch of weird world building thrown in to me (and not WWI in the sense you had in Lord of the Rings, but more in a Paths of Glory type way).
Quote from: daniel_ream;924984Even if you want to stick with "trad" fantasy, it's Martin that's the ur-inspiration: historical settings with the serial numbers filed off and a bit of magic thrown in far outnumber the Tolkien clones.
Martin is the most popular writer in this style, not the ur-iginator.
The problem is that the OP and subsequent doesn't spell out a sensible point of departure to extrapolate from.
Especially when there is an obvious one.
QuoteOctober 29th 1916
We regret to announce the death of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien in the attack on Regina Trench during the Battle of Somme. He is survived by his wife Edith and his family including ......
Some context
While published in the 1950s, the Lord of the Rings took off in popularity in the United States in 1965.
RE Howards' Conan Stores were published in the 1950 by Gnome Press and edited by Sprauge deCamp. By the early 60s they had a falling out and de Camp was looking for another publisher to publish Conan stories. This led to Lancer books publishing their heavily edited series of Conan stories starting in 1966. The Lancer series was instrumental in making science fiction fans aware of RE Howard and Conan.
One thing to consider is if the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings were never published what would be the fate of the Lancer series? The Gnome Press books in the 1950s were probably a forgone conclusion and would likely not been butterflied away by Tolkien's early demise. And same for de Camp falling out with Gnome Press and trying to shop Conan around. But I think it obvious that the success of LoTR had to have some impact in Lancer's decision to make a multi-volume Conan series under de Camp direction. Perhaps Lancer would have still published Conan in the late 60s but in the modest form that Gnome Press did.
And as for the other fantasy novels in the 1960s you will have to go through each one and see when the decision was made to write and publish. I doubt that any fantasy author was overly influenced by Tolkien until after the release of Brooks' Swords of Shannara in 1977. Pretty much before then everybody was doing their own thing, and if there was any influence it was from the pulp era of the 1930s.
However in terms of what Publishers were willing to buy and market, Tolkien had a huge impact in the United States after 1965. And Tolkien had an impact on publishing because LoTR caught on with the cultural moment of the time. And I don't think Conan would have had the same appeal. I think Conan worked in part it was an effective alternative for people seeking out more fantasy after finishing Lord of the Rings. Without Tolkien, Howard's writing (even under all of de Camp's edits) still would have shown just not as brightly.
Which leads to the OP. This would shift the culture stew that Gygax and Arneson was drawing from. There was already a bit of a bias AGAINST fantasy in the wargaming community. But it was sustained because Tolkien was just that popular. Without Tolkien, fantasy and perhaps medieval wargaming would have been relegated into an obscure corner.
In my opinion the likely possibilities are
1) Hammer/Universal Horror monsters
2) espionage in the spirit of James Bond, the Saint, Man from U.N.C.L.E., etc.
3) Western
4) Science Fiction military adventures
This would be bias heavily towards what miniatures and props they had access too.
Quote from: Bren;924993Martin is the most popular writer in this style, not the ur-iginator.
Tolkien wasn't the first writer to do secondary world subcreation, either, but he sure as hell defined that writing style and was followed by hordes of imitators. The analogy is just fine as it stands.
Quote from: daniel_ream;925009Tolkien wasn't the first writer to do secondary world subcreation, either, but he sure as hell defined that writing style and was followed by hordes of imitators. The analogy is just fine as it stands.
Secondary world subcreation isn't done better before Tolkien. And is mostly done worse after (see anything by Terry Brooks). Martin isn't better than his predecessors nor did he define the style of gritty combat, characters who die, and stuff based on and echoing history. Martin is more popular than the people who did. If you'd said popularizer you'd have been fine. Describing an unsuperior imitator as the "ur" makes a lame analogy.
I found a reddit thread that discusses pre-Tolkien fantasy. Should be a good basis for imagining a parallel universe where hobbits, dwarves, elves, ents, dark lords, orcs, etc never existed. https://reddit.com/r/literature/comments/1x3t07/what_was_pretolkien_fantasy_like/
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;925020I found a reddit thread that discusses pre-Tolkien fantasy. Should be a good basis for imagining a parallel universe where hobbits, dwarves, elves, ents, dark lords, orcs, etc never existed.
But Tolkien didn't invent...oh the hell with it. Never mind. I give up.
Quote from: Bren;925023But Tolkien didn't invent...oh the hell with it. Never mind. I give up.
He invented the specific versions everyone is familiar with. Before Tolkien we only had pygmies, maggot men, christmas elves, dryads, thulsa doom, and gremlins.
Quote from: Bren;925023Never mind. I give up.
Promise?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;925031He invented the specific versions everyone is familiar with. Before Tolkien we only had pygmies, maggot men, christmas elves, dryads, thulsa doom, and gremlins.
And hobs, alfar, dwerrow, goblins, and green men...
Tolkien invented a nomenclature. Calling large goblins "orcs" (based on a creature named in Beowulf). Calling Brownies/Hobgoblins/Hobthrusts, Boggans "hobbits", calling tree men "Ents", but no, he didn't invent any of those creatures or specific forms, he was just better read up on myths/folklore at the time than the general populace.
What Tolkien can be credited for is dragging fairy tales back out the the nursery that the Victorians had confined them to. Mainly because, like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings managed to get caught up in the cultural zeitgeist. But even during the Victorian age we had WB Yeats, Lady Wilde, Lord Dunsany, George MacDonald, William Morris. Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung gave us the prototype of the Ring of Power and the Gandalf wizard archetype. And as far as an epic fantasy in an invented world with a Dark Lord, featuring epic battles between dwarves, elves, and other fantasy races based on Norse myths, ER Eddison predates Tolkien by 32 years and was acknowledged by the professor as a primary inspiration.
Where exactly are we drawing the line at what is or is not current fantasy?
Quote from: jeff37923;925072Where exactly are we drawing the line at what is or is not current fantasy?
Weird Tales (1923) seems like a good place. Lovecraft, Howard, Leiber, C.A.S. all had their starts there. It gets a bit trickier if one starts to distinguish between "High Fantasy" and "Low Fantasy", not to mention "Boy's Own Adventure Stories" (the genre to which Harry Potter belongs and Narnia takes a lot of cues from), and even then there seems to me like there should be something to distinguish stories like Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, Little, Big, and Lud in the Mist from Epic fantasy such as Eddison, Tolkien, and Alexander.
What throws even more kinks into the gears is that many fantasy authors such as Tolkien and Eddison, draw upon archaic storytelling techniques, so that in many respects they can't even be considered to have written "modern novels" by the academic definition (one of the reason ill-informed literary critics have attacked Tolkien).
Quote from: TristramEvans;925082Weird Tales (1923) seems like a good place. Lovecraft, Howard, Leiber, C.A.S. all had their starts there. It gets a bit trickier if one starts to distinguish between "High Fantasy" and "Low Fantasy", not to mention "Boy's Own Adventure Stories" (the genre to which Harry Potter belongs and Narnia takes a lot of cues from), and even then there seems to me like there should be something to distinguish stories like Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, Little, Big, and Lud in the Mist from Epic fantasy such as Eddison, Tolkien, and Alexander.
What throws even more kinks into the gears is that many fantasy authors such as Tolkien and Eddison, draw upon archaic storytelling techniques, so that in many respects they can't even be considered to have written "modern novels" by the academic definition (one of the reason ill-informed literary critics have attacked Tolkien).
I agree about the kinks. It is like what happens when people start trying to define what "Space Opera" is in science fiction. There is the original space opera with the likes of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials with some E.E. "Doc" Smith thrown in for good measure. Then there is the science heavy "as they understood it" space opera as defined by the early writings of Heinlein, Clarke, Anderson, Piper, Saberhagen, and Asimov. Then there is the science and engineering space opera of Niven, Pournelle, Benford, and Forward which happened at the same time as the wildly speculative fiction of Ellison, Gerrold, and Robinson. Followed by a resurgence of the original space opera thanks to the success of Star Wars. And that just covers us into the 70s and early 80s......
Read Eddison's The Worm Orobouros then come talk to me about how original LotR is, especially if you have read Kalavela and Nibelung.
Quote from: daniel_ream;924698Actually, I could argue that this has already been done: Mouse Guard. Nothing about the source material or the RPG is recognizably derived from D&D, and the simplified Burning Wheel design is very accessible.
This. Also: Videogames and Animations like Adventure Time and Elder Scrolls and GTA would be big contenders, I think.
Quote from: Itachi;925096This. Also: Videogames and Animations like Adventure Time and Elder Scrolls and GTA would be big contenders, I think.
Adventure Time is another something that wouldn't exist without D&D.
Quote from: DavetheLost;925089Read Eddison's The Worm Orobouros then come talk to me about how original LotR is, especially if you have read Kalavela and Nibelung.
I especially like the different but related invented languages that Eddison made up for the Witches, Demons, Imps, and Goblins, all those maps in the front of the Kalevala, and the way that the author of the Nibelungenlied wove together various folk tales and myths in creating a new setting and story of his own.
Also the originality of Shakespeare's plots is amazing. How he came up with so many places that don't at all resemble anything previously written astonishes me.
Well, Dark Albion is both much more 'current fantasy' and much more 'old fantasy' than anything in Appendix N. Its main inspirations are Shakespeare, regional English supernatural folklore, and Game of Thrones.
Quote from: abcd_z;924671It's your job to cobble together a new proto-D&D to jump-start the RPG movement, but you have to base it on books that have actually been printed. Except for the lack of RPGs and RPG-derived stories, everything else is the same.
Smugglers & Stormtroopers: the Star Wars
Roleplaying Game.
Quote from: abcd_z;924671You have been drawn into a bizarre alternate universe where everything is mostly the same, except RPGs don't really exist. Neither do the books that inspired Gygax and Arneson. Everything in Appendix A no longer exists. No Lord of the Rings books, no Conan the Barbarian stories, and nothing that drew from the landscape that sprung up around D&D.
It's your job to cobble together a new proto-D&D to jump-start the RPG movement, but you have to base it on books that have actually been printed. Except for the lack of RPGs and RPG-derived stories, everything else is the same.
Hmm.. The works of A. Machen, Poe, Verne, Lytton-Bulwer (the Coming Race), J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Camilla, Green Tea), William Hope Hodgson (The Night Land, House on the Borderlands) should lend sufficient inspiration. They are more grim, more Gothic than Appendix N, but still as fantastic.
A lot of those stories deal with consequences of moral failings, and the power of True Love to give you the strength to perservere against the horrors in the night. So I imagine there would be some sort of Conviction stat that allowed you to keep going when things were against you. I can see fighter, magic-user, thief pretty straightforwardly. A lot of priests get eaten by relying on their false faith. It's arguable whether it is the faith or what they believe in is false. There are some circumstances when Father O'Malley hobbles forward and nobly holds off the fae monstrosity with the power of Christ. Well, just long enough for the young couple to escape and collapse the cave entrance, anyway. There would undoubtedly be some sort of corruption stat for the magic-users.
English-language pop culture, and the fantasy genre in particular, would look so different in an ATL where D&D didn't come out in 1974 that I don't even know where I'd start.
Quote from: The Butcher;926944English-language pop culture, and the fantasy genre in particular, would look so different in an ATL where D&D didn't come out in 1974 that I don't even know where I'd start.
Agreed. All the people who base their social identity on the hatred of D&D...what the hell else would they have chosen to waste their lives on? It boggles the mind.
Plus, Vin Diesel would have been nowhere near as cool.
Quote from: CRKrueger;926945Agreed. All the people who base their social identity on the hatred of D&D...what the hell else would they have chosen to waste their lives on? It boggles the mind.
Hating something else, probably rock music.
A world without D&D is easily conceivable. But for none of the original inspirations to exist would require the entirety of North American popular culture to be almost unguessably different. As frame in the original post, I don't think this question can be meaningfully answered.
Well I'm Late to the party mostly do to spending so much time probing the depths of this idea.
As such I think there are a few things that didn't get brought up that are rather likely.
Now if someone wanted to make a dnd alike in A world as purposed it seems to me that Disney would end up being a major influence. If we look at Disney meany of the pieces that make up A dnd like game are there though not in A familiar form in meany cases. From Disney we can get the fighter type (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmM-XX8atlQ) as seen in the likes of Sleeping Beauty and the sword in the stone. We can also gain magic both by birth and by study as seen in frozen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afnhCvicqdI) and The Sword in The Stone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_VpkXd1TKA) which would not be hard to turn in to a magic user of one from or other. From Aladdin and Tangled we can get the thief. Now here's where things get A little tricky. While the idea of healing magic does exist in Disney it is both #1 much rarer and #2 not the sort of thing that's usable during a fight as evidenced in Tangled (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUHRvOERDyE).
There are a number of things that could be lifted from the Disney faeries line as well.
Now we do have most of the major pieces all that's left is to fill in with some bits and bobs from older tails.
Such as goblins and most of the monster list.
So what do the rest of you think?
I agree: I think that we'd have more of a focus on Fairy Tales and world myths and legends. Plenty of sword-, bow- and spear-wielding heroes and heroines to emulate. Perhaps we'd have ended up with more diverse interpretations of "elves" than the usual tall, thin, beautiful immortals that dominate the universal perception.
Quote from: Necrozius;928199Perhaps we'd have ended up with more diverse interpretations of "elves" than the usual tall, thin, beautiful immortals that dominate the universal perception.
TSR D&D Elves weren't tall, on average they were shorter than humans. Did WotC change that?
Quote from: Bren;928214TSR D&D Elves weren't tall, on average they were shorter than humans. Did WotC change that?
Oops, no, you're right, actually. They're shorter.
Quote from: Necrozius;928221Oops, no, you're right, actually. They're shorter.
Yeah, no idea why Gary (I assume it was Gary) decided to minimize his elves. Personally I like the taller elves of Tolkien as that allows elves to literally look down on most of humanity. See also Moorcock's Melniboneans.
Quote from: Bren;928239Yeah, no idea why Gary (I assume it was Gary) decided to minimize his elves. Personally I like the taller elves of Tolkien as that allows elves to literally look down on most of humanity. See also Moorcock's Melniboneans.
Yeah my idea of elves was especially molded from Moorcock and Games Workshop, actually. Other than the main protagonists' tribe in Elfquest, I pictured elves to be taller.
I was under the impression the main inspiration for D&D elves (besides Tolkien) was Poul Anderson.
Quote from: TristramEvans;928253I was under the impression the main inspiration for D&D elves (besides Tolkien) was Poul Anderson.
Probably Three Hearts and Three Lions and the Broken Sword. I don't think those elves/faerie folk were any shorter than humans, but I honestly can't recall whether Anderson described their height in detail.
Judging from the Halloween costume parade at my son's elementary school, there would be no 'fantasy' roleplaying at all - the first rpg would be about superheroes or Star Wars.
There was one girl dressed as a Viking from How to Train Your Dragon and one honest-to-goodness pointy-hatted, long-bearded wizard, but other than that, tons of Captain Americas, Wonder Women, Batgirls and Supergirls, plus a number of Reys and a bunch of Kylo Rens, Vaders, and stormtroopers - my son said he only saw one X-wing pilot, all the other boys were Imperials.
Surprisingly there were no Finns, Jakes, or PeeBees this year.
Probably is going to be called "Marvels & Monsters" with Captain America in the cover. Its all about the modern mythology AKA Comic Books, sadly DC Comics dropped the ball hard.
(http://i.imgur.com/XS5LK.gif?noredirect)
Quote from: Necrozius;928245Yeah my idea of elves was especially molded from Moorcock and Games Workshop, actually. Other than the main protagonists' tribe in Elfquest, I pictured elves to be taller.
I actually got into AD&D before I read anything Tolkien. In fact I'm sure I read the first six Elric books before I touched the Hobbit. I never saw Melnibonéans as a type of elf, as I considered them a proto human species. I think there's even some direct comparison of the Melnibonéans being the same species as the Mabden from the Corum books, and Mabden is definitely a reference to a type of humanity.
Mind you after reading the Cloakmaster Cycle I always ended up running Elves in a way similar to the Imperial Elven Armada. They were not pleasant.
Quote from: Krimson;928615I think there's even some direct comparison of the Melnibonéans being the same species as the Mabden from the Corum books, and Mabden is definitely a reference to a type of humanity.
The Vadhagh (Corum's race) are not human. They are kin and enemies of the Nhadragh. Both races are annihilated by the Mabden. Here's a description of Corum and his family.
QuoteAll had characteristic Vadhagh features: narrow, long skulls; ears that were almost without lobes, and tapered flat alongside the head; fine hair that a breeze would make rise like flimsy clouds about their faces; large almond eyes that had yellow centers and purple surrounds; wide, full lipped mouths; and skin that was a strange gold-flecked rose-pink. Their bodies were slim and tall and well proportioned and they moved with a leisurely grace that made human gait seem like the shambling of a crippled ape.
It is said of Elric that "Physically he somewhat resembled the Vadhagh, for he had the same unhuman face." Though obviously the white-skinned, red-eyed albino is not the same color as the Vadhagh.
Quote from: Bren;928634The Vadhagh (Corum's race) are not human. They are kin and enemies of the Nhadragh. Both races are annihilated by the Mabden. Here's a description of Corum and his family.
It is said of Elric that "Physically he somewhat resembled the Vadhagh, for he had the same unhuman face." Though obviously the white-skinned, red-eyed albino is not the same color as the Vadhagh.
Yes in the first part you are correct. I totally mixed up Vadagh and Mabden. Curse my bad memory. In the latter part though, Elric is a Silverskin and his coloration is not typical of other Melnibonéans. That said, okay maybe Melnibonéans and Vadagh are Moorcockian elves. Of course I had a big ass Rodney Matthews art book as a kid, so my image of Elric is based on his concept.
Quote from: Krimson;928635Elric is a Silverskin and his coloration is not typical of other Melnibonéans.
Well he's an albino so he is lacking coloration. But he's not made of connective tissue so why do you call him a Silverskin?
Quote from: Bren;928637Well he's an albino so he is lacking coloration. But he's not made of connective tissue so why do you call him a Silverskin?
It was a term Moorcock used in the most recent Elric trilogy (The Dreamthief's Daughter, The Skrayling Tree, White Wolf's Son) and is a reference to Elric and his bloodline on Earth which includes Oona and Ulrich von Bek. The Ulrich in this Trilogy is also a silverskin unlike in the von Bek books.
Quote from: Krimson;928645It was a term Moorcock used in the most recent Elric trilogy (The Dreamthief's Daughter, The Skrayling Tree, White Wolf's Son) and is a reference to Elric and his bloodline on Earth which includes Oona and Ulrich von Bek. The Ulrich in this Trilogy is also a silverskin unlike in the von Bek books.
Oh. Thanks. I haven't read the later books so I haven't seen that odd term used.
Quote from: Bren;928647Oh. Thanks. I haven't read the later books so I haven't seen that odd term used.
It's a neat trilogy, though it should probably be read in conjunction with the Second Ether Trilogy (Blood, Fabulous Harbours, The War Amongst the Angels) as well as the graphic novels by Moorock/Walt Simonson The Multiverse of Michael Moorock and Making of a Sorceror. The most recent Elric trilogy focuses on Elric on Earth, since that is where he spent his 1000 year dream. He does make forays to other places, like when he goes to Granbretan and he no sells the magic wielders there.
Quote from: DarcyDettmann;928602Probably is going to be called "Marvels & Monsters" with Captain America in the cover. Its all about the modern mythology AKA Comic Books, sadly DC Comics dropped the ball hard.
(http://i.imgur.com/XS5LK.gif?noredirect)
I think you may be talking about marvel comics. :P
Quote from: Bren;925307the way that the author of the Nibelungenlied wove together various folk tales and myths in creating a new setting and story of his own
Nibelungslied is not the whole story.
Go to the Volsunga saga to get the full retelling.
Quote from: Krimson;928615I actually got into AD&D before I read anything Tolkien. In fact I'm sure I read the first six Elric books before I touched the Hobbit. I never saw Melnibonéans as a type of elf, as I considered them a proto human species. I think there's even some direct comparison of the Melnibonéans being the same species as the Mabden from the Corum books, and Mabden is definitely a reference to a type of humanity.
Mind you after reading the Cloakmaster Cycle I always ended up running Elves in a way similar to the Imperial Elven Armada. They were not pleasant.
My Old School Warhammer elf army is largely composed of 1980s Citadel Melniboneans.
(http://solegends.com/citec/bc5eternalchampion/ecbox-02.jpg)
(http://solegends.com/citec/bc5eternalchampion/cj86a53ec1-02.jpg)
Quote from: Black Vulmea;928600Judging from the Halloween costume parade at my son's elementary school, there would be no 'fantasy' roleplaying at all - the first rpg would be about superheroes or Star Wars.
There was one girl dressed as a Viking from How to Train Your Dragon and one honest-to-goodness pointy-hatted, long-bearded wizard, but other than that, tons of Captain Americas, Wonder Women, Batgirls and Supergirls, plus a number of Reys and a bunch of Kylo Rens, Vaders, and stormtroopers - my son said he only saw one X-wing pilot, all the other boys were Imperials.
Surprisingly there were no Finns, Jakes, or PeeBees this year.
The costumes appear to be driven mostly by movies. From an article at fivethirtyeight.com (http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/doctor-strange-magic-superhero-movies/), complete with trend lines for magic and superheroes in movies:
QuoteStill, films about magic come with a fascinating liability. China limits the number of non-Chinese films that it allows into its theaters each year — the current cap is 34. China is the second-largest movie market on the globe. And Chinese censors hate magic.
The article's speculation, that that has driven a decrease in fantasy, at least for movies that aren't Harry Potter or Tolkien, seems plausible.
TV seems to be making up for it, at least to a certain extent.
Quote from: TristramEvans;928672My Old School Warhammer elf army is largely composed of 1980s Citadel Melniboneans.
Those are really nice.