D&D is the most known rpg there is. Is there any reason why TSR never cloned its gameplay for other genres?
Buck Rogers XXVc does, but it was tightly connected to its setting. It was not a game for a DM to sketch out a few parsecs and go.
Seems to me TSR should have made a version of D&D in each main rpg genre, space, supers, western, cyberpunk, urban horror, etc. Include races, classes, and equipment from said genre with the same bent toward including everything under the sun as D&D.
I think they would have sold well.
I wonder if they secretly agreed with all the D&D haters or if the idea of unified systems just came later.
I don't think the idea of using the same system for different games was really a thing until the mid 80s. Up until that point, games were designed with genre, setting and mechanics all wrapped into one. Instead, TSR releases separate RPGs covering genres in the way that D&D did fantasy, such as Star Frontiers, Boot Hill etc.
At the time, early 80's, I too wondered why TSR never put out "D&D in space" or "D&D modern spies". Instead they went with completely different rules and mechanics for Star Frontiers and Top Secret. I imagine the heads of the company must have discussed the idea and just decided that each genre required different stats and systems. In one of the early Dragon Magazines, and later reprinted in Best of Dragon, there was an article about having D&D characters fight Nazis don't recall how it worked though. This gave me an idea though and I tried to unify AD&D, Star Frontiers and Gamma World under one set of rules so the characters could fight each other tournament style. Didn't get off the ground however.
Then Hero and GURPS were published which seemed like a breath of fresh air. Finally, one system, any genre of character imaginable. You could have anything interact with and fight anything. It was, or seemed, revolutionary at the time.
They did a lot of mechanical experimenting - maybe with the idea that anything that worked would eventually go back into D&D? e.g. Nesmith GW had ascending AC, and there were skill-based universal systems in Alternity and Amazing Engine.
Coloured tables were so popular for awhile after MSH we can maybe be thankful there was never a table-based D&D, well unless you count Conan.
The first "generic" universal game to come out was Basic Roleplaying by Chaosium. However aside from the short basic roleplaying booklet, Chaosium tweaked it for the different product lines and presented each as their own distinct game.
It was Hero Games and Champions that popularized the concept. Hero System showed how a few core design principles could be extended to cover just about anything a RPGs could handle.
From there we got GURPS and the rest. While going generic, either GURPS style or Chaosium style has its advantage they are not overwhelming. Sometimes the better way is to have a set of rules heavily customized to the setting or genre that the game targets.
As for TSR, this came about in the mid 80s just after their first peak. By then they had a vested interest in a bunch of established games like Gamma World, Star Frontiers, etc. TSR just wasn't in a position to revamp their non-fantasy lines.
... and being somewhat anti-TSR back in the day I mistakenly assumed that all those other games WERE variants of D&D and so never gave them a look until much later on when I played in a game of Star Frontiers.
Empire of the Petal Throne, Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World were all quite a lot like D&D; and Gangbusters bore a lesser resemblance.
I think the main thing is that the folks at TSR felt that variety in game systems was part of the fun of the hobby, and a reason to buy the latest book rather than making up one's own D&D-in-space or D&D-gangsters rules.
Remember that rules sets back then were the main thing we were buying; we mostly made up our own worlds and adventures. When Judges Guild asked for a license to publish the latter, Gygax & Co. didn't see in it a market worth pursuing, but JG ended up proving that there was significant demand.
Some notably D&D-ish games from other publishers included:
The whole Palladium Books line, starting with the Mechanoid Invasion trilogy
Villains & Vigilantes
Starships & Spacemen
Now, these were not exactly D&D, but they were in the same neighborhood as Gamma World.
The Arduin Grimoire books were essentially supplements to OD&D, and treated various subjects - but not in a genre-segregated way, or comprehensively and systematically a la Hero System or GURPS.
This is what Gary told me and hes also stated in some interviews too.
He liked to create new systems and he encouraged that in others too. Also he believed strongly that the system should be created to match the setting or needs.
Early on TSR tried the unified route. Metamorphosis alpha, Gamma World, and Boot Hill were all more or less compatible with some tweaks. But after that each game had more or less its own system. Star Frontiers and Conan share a base. But thats about it. Everything else was its own beast.
Later though in the Loraine era that changed and TSR tried a few approaches to a unified system.
Buck Rogers and 4th ed GW and I think 3e Boot Hill all shared the same system overall. Then there was Amazing Engine. Not sure if Alternity counts or not as that was more the WOTC era?
Quote from: Omega;805525Buck Rogers and 4th ed GW and I think 3e Boot Hill all shared the same system overall. Then there was Amazing Engine. Not sure if Alternity counts or not as that was more the WOTC era?
I cheated and just used Wikipedia but Amazing Engine was 1993-4,
TSR purchase was April 1997, Alternity release 1998.
So Alternity was after the 'heyday' and in the WOTC era, although I don't know if it might have been planned from before then. (Bill Slavicsek was probably the main driving force, being Star Wars obsessed and listed as an Alternity author; I believe he had a high-up position both before and after the WOTC takeover though).
Quote from: Phillip;805520I think the main thing is that the folks at TSR felt that variety in game systems was part of the fun of the hobby, and a reason to buy the latest book rather than making up one's own D&D-in-space or D&D-gangsters rules.
I think that this is it, exactly! While TSR certainly wanted to make money, the early games were a product of love and as such each was designed by itself to be its own thing.
Looking at the games of the day:
Chainmail -- middle ages and fantasy miniatures
D&D -- fantasy role playing
Don't Give Up the Ship -- sailing ship era miniatures
TRACTICS -- WW2 miniatures
Fight in the Skies -- WW1 air combat miniatures
Tricolor -- Napolionic miniatures
Warriors of Mars -- miniatures (and some role play) on Barsoom
Empire of the Petal Throne -- science fantasy role play on Tekumel
Boot Hill -- miniatures (and some role play) in the wild west
Metamorphosis Alpha -- science fiction (science fantasy?) role play
Valley Forge -- American Revolution miniatures
Gangbusters -- 20's and 30's gangster role play
Top Secret -- spy/modern role play
Star Frontiers -- science fiction role play
Indiana Jones -- 30's and 40's pulp role play
I'm sure I missed a couple off the top of my head. While some were designed as "miniatures only" it looks to me like they covered most of the obvious genres and each was its own rules set.
Quote from: Omega;805525This is what Gary told me and hes also stated in some interviews too.
He liked to create new systems and he encouraged that in others too. Also he believed strongly that the system should be created to match the setting or needs.
I find this highly likely. Even as a teenager in the 80s designing games, I quickly realized that the mechanics should compliment the setting, and not all mechanics work that well when used in a different genre.
An interesting subject and thread! I love, love, love the small boxed set games put out by TSR and FGU in the late 70's and early 80's — D&D (various permutations, all equal in my eyes), Boothill, Gamma World, Bushido, Flashing Blades. You could add to the list but these were my favorites. The philosophy behind this whole genre was definitely that you whipped up a system from scratch every time you sat down to write a game. There are things to be said against this (why does this hobby demand that you remember more than 100 different ways of rolling to-hit?). But you can't argue with the results, at least in that first few year period, when it was all fresh and a lot of ideas were being explored for the first time.
Quote from: Omega;805525This is what Gary told me and hes also stated in some interviews too.
He liked to create new systems and he encouraged that in others too. Also he believed strongly that the system should be created to match the setting or needs.
This. I've tried playing games in multiple genres with unified systems, and it just doesn't work for me. I play a game where I'm using a crossbow, and I resolve by rolling a d20 and doing d6 damage in a hit, sure. Then I play a game where I'm using a handgun, which I resolve by rolling a d20, and doing d6 damage in a hit. Then I play another game where I'm using a lazer pistol...roll a d20, do d6 damage.
The end result, it's harder for me to "get into" game if it plays exactly like a completely different game in a different setting.
I *want* my laser pistol to be noticeably different than a crossbow, even if I acknowledge there are plenty of similarities.
Now that said, Columbia's block-style games cover everything from fantasy battles to roman warfare to civil war and WW2 battles using the same basic system...there are plenty of curlicues, map quirks, and general rules, however, that make the games play very differently, even if ultimately I'm rolling a bunch of d6s and rotating blocks when I hit. And it works, for the most part.
But for tactical games, I want tactical rules different from one game to the next.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;805563I find this highly likely. Even as a teenager in the 80s designing games, I quickly realized that the mechanics should compliment the setting, and not all mechanics work that well when used in a different genre.
He said much the same in a rather long interview as well when someone asked him why he did not use D&D as a unified engine for all the games. He also mentioned that the 2nd ed D&D that he had been working on with another designer would have been quite different from the published version if TSR had not ousted him.
Well, I think TSR missed the boat in this regard. I would have loved to be able to play a 5th level Klingorn Pilot, excited to find a gause rifle in some labyrinthine starbase.
Hrrrmmm????
I ran a D&D/Traveller mashup in the late 70's. Just took all the Traveller stats and damage rolls and multiplied by 1.5 to get D&D stats and damage rolls and ran the game using D&D.
Worked pretty good, and we had a lot of fun with a bunch of Medeival characters that were kidnapped by "Starmen" and edumucated in the wiles of futuretech. Then of course, they were dropped off back in their Medeival Magic world with some of their new toys.
Lots of fun, that game. Specially liked the Amazons that attacked the Dragons lair using .357 magnums.
Quote from: Old One Eye;805615Well, I think TSR missed the boat in this regard. I would have loved to be able to play a 5th level Klingorn Pilot, excited to find a gause rifle in some labyrinthine starbase.
That is pretty much Metamorphosis Alpha. And Star Frontiers to a lesser degree.
I'm happy they didn't. I prefer a game system to be designed based on the genre or setting it's meant for. All the "universal systems" I have tried have shown me it's a fool's errand. Plus D&D kinda sucks anyway as a game: you can't play Sinbad, Conan, or Gandalf with the rules as written.
Quote from: Matt;805723I'm happy they didn't. I prefer a game system to be designed based on the genre or setting it's meant for. All the "universal systems" I have tried have shown me it's a fool's errand. Plus D&D kinda sucks anyway as a game: you can't play Sinbad, Conan, or Gandalf with the rules as written.
You are s very very wrong.
Quote from: Omega;805737You are s very very wrong.
If it's opposite day where you live, okay.
Quote from: Matt;805723I'm happy they didn't. I prefer a game system to be designed based on the genre or setting it's meant for. All the "universal systems" I have tried have shown me it's a fool's errand. Plus D&D kinda sucks anyway as a game: you can't play Sinbad, Conan, or Gandalf with the rules as written.
What are you talking about? When I finally ready Robert E. Howard's Conan I was *shocked* by how --- entire segments of text were lifted --- to create the D&D barbarian class. Are you talking about some kind of miraculous hair-splitting like "Galdalf would have had more spells per day at that level"? Because if so, I roll to disbelieve how persnickety your argument is.
//Panjumanju
Quote from: Matt;805723Plus D&D kinda sucks anyway as a game: you can't play Sinbad, Conan, or Gandalf with the rules as written.
I always love hearing about how you "can't" do a thing that I've been doing for decades. :)
I'm not sure which edition is so limiting, but I've found that running characters like those typically require minimal rules tweaks.
Quote from: Matt;805723Plus D&D kinda sucks anyway as a game: you can't play Sinbad, Conan, or Gandalf with the rules as written.
Well, these two aren't necessarily the same thing. The latter depends on your tolerances for bending details, making exceptions, etc. in both game rules and character modeling.
As for the former, D&D is by all accounts a very good game ... at being D&D. If you want to do something that isn't the bizarre, psychedelic/psychotronic melange that came out of the 70s, or a linear descendant of that feel, you're almost certainly better off with a different system.
Note that I'm speaking as someone who feels alienated by nearly every major stream of D&D product and fandom outside some of the post-Gygax/pre-WotC 2E and BECMI stuff, and 4E. :)
Quote from: Matt;805740If it's opposite day where you live, okay.
Says the village idiot. Try again junior troll scout.
Quote from: Matt;805723I'm happy they didn't. I prefer a game system to be designed based on the genre or setting it's meant for. All the "universal systems" I have tried have shown me it's a fool's errand. Plus D&D kinda sucks anyway as a game: you can't play Sinbad, Conan, or Gandalf with the rules as written.
Meh, I am not that interested in simulating some specific media. I just wanna roll my six stats, pick a race blatantly stolen from the genre, pick a class rooted in the genre, and go explore some genre appropriate dungeons, grabbing genre appropriate loot, and gain some XP.
I agree that D&D is not the game for playing Sinbad, Conan, or Gandalf as portrayed in their respective media. It is, however, excellent for making one's own character with Sinbad/Conan/Gandalf inspiration, and then go adventuring for some sweet loot and grow in personal power.
I suspect that the belief was, and it became a default 'company culture' for too long, that gamers would be more likely to buy a game if it had a brand new system. I can see that way of thinking, based on lack of experience as what was happening was brand new, where the thought was "but if we make the rules exactly like or even too much like D&D's, we might lose customers!".
Not from anyone I've talked to in the industry.
TSR was for a while the odd man out amongst companies. More went a unified route to one degree or another right out the gate.
It seems to more be a chance thing too. Some companies take on new RPGs by submission rather than in house. So youd get either something simmilar, or something very different. Usually different.
Others though saw the strength of a unified system and worked with that.
Just differing design philosophies.
Quote from: GameDaddy;805622Hrrrmmm????
I ran a D&D/Traveller mashup in the late 70's. Just took all the Traveller stats and damage rolls and multiplied by 1.5 to get D&D stats and damage rolls and ran the game using D&D.
Worked pretty good, and we had a lot of fun with a bunch of Medeival characters that were kidnapped by "Starmen" and edumucated in the wiles of futuretech. Then of course, they were dropped off back in their Medeival Magic world with some of their new toys.
Lots of fun, that game. Specially liked the Amazons that attacked the Dragons lair using .357 magnums.
My main D&D game in the early '80s was a mashup of
everything, although magic and high tech didn't work in every neighborhood. I also ran a primarily RuneQuest session with a D&D character and Traveller character (whose smg in the hands of a reckless native very quickly caused far-reaching trouble).
Quote from: Old One Eye;805488D&D is the most known rpg there is. Is there any reason why TSR never cloned its gameplay for other genres?
Buck Rogers XXVc does, but it was tightly connected to its setting. It was not a game for a DM to sketch out a few parsecs and go.
Seems to me TSR should have made a version of D&D in each main rpg genre, space, supers, western, cyberpunk, urban horror, etc. Include races, classes, and equipment from said genre with the same bent toward including everything under the sun as D&D.
I think they would have sold well.
D&D is not a setting in my eyes. While Buck Rogers is too much of a setting. Both may have used a similar game mechanic (I don't remember). Star Frontiers may have been too much of a setting also. TSR should have made an S&S RPG that had an SM running games for players. But fantasy will always be more popular than sci-fi, so TSR focused on fantasy.
Buck Rogers, XXVc (so called because TSR felt putting the name Buck Rogers on the box would kill sales) was a D&D variant. A very nice one even.
Star Frontiers was more akin to Dragon Quest with ranked broad skills and percentile rolls and hit points tied to Stamina.
Quote from: finarvyn;805791I always love hearing about how you "can't" do a thing that I've been doing for decades. :)
I'm not sure which edition is so limiting, but I've found that running characters like those typically require minimal rules tweaks.
I guess that phrase "rules as written" is overly complicated for the defenders of D&D.
Quote from: Panjumanju;805756What are you talking about? When I finally ready Robert E. Howard's Conan I was *shocked* by how --- entire segments of text were lifted --- to create the D&D barbarian class. Are you talking about some kind of miraculous hair-splitting like "Galdalf would have had more spells per day at that level"? Because if so, I roll to disbelieve how persnickety your argument is.
//Panjumanju
I like how you choose to overlook Gandalf wielding a sword, Conan's thief skills, and Sinbad in his entirety in your attempt to pretend D&D accommodates all things when in fact it is a straitjacket of a game due to its insistence on classes.
Quote from: Matt;807593I like how you choose to overlook Gandalf wielding a sword, Conan's thief skills, and Sinbad in his entirety in your attempt to pretend D&D accommodates all things when in fact it is a straitjacket of a game due to its insistence on classes.
And I guess you choose to overlook how in many editions of d&D wizards can use swords, fighters/barbarians can use thief skills (and even since day 1 in OD&D every class could attempt those types of skills), and something like the buccaneer class has existed since at least the early 80s.
Try again. You can pretty much play a PC based on any literary character in D&D. Especially in the most recent version where classes and backgrounds are divorced from each other.
Quote from: Matt;807593I like how you choose to overlook Gandalf wielding a sword, Conan's thief skills, and Sinbad in his entirety in your attempt to pretend D&D accommodates all things when in fact it is a straitjacket of a game due to its insistence on classes.
1. Here, Galdalf character, have a magic +1 sword that can only be wielded by wizards. Done.
2. There is no reason why Conan cannot attempt to steal. Just because there's a Thief class it doesn't mean everyone else cannot steal - because there's a Fighter class it doesn't mean everyone else cannot fight. Conan has just about never sneaked in and out of a place without getting into a fight while in there.
3. What's wrong with Sinbad the Thief?
I'm not suggesting that D&D should be all things to all people - it is a narrow game, but your examples are exactly what D&D sets out to do, and does them just fine.
//Panjumanju
Gandalf also uses Druid spells. He is also an entertainer. Does that make him a Bard too? He fits no D&D pattern short of a multi-classed character.
But. Gandalf is not human. Hes akin to a demi-god or servitor celestial thingy person.
Yeah, Gandalf was some sort of angel, so I just don't see him fitting into any version of D&D very neatly.
Conan, in AD&D terms, was a double-classed (not multi-classed) character. Humans can't be multi-classed, but they can be one class, stop, then be another class. Once the second class exceeds the level of the first, they can use either class' abilities interchangeably.
Conan started his career as a thief, not a fighter. After around level 5 or so, he switched over to fighter.
But, bottom line, D&D is it's own game, there's no reason to expect it to be all things for all people in all ways.
No. Conan is your standard adventuring fighter looting places. Fighters in D&D steal stuff fairly regularly. Doesnt make them a Thief/Rogue. Vikings stole everything that wasnt nailed down and then pried loose floor stones... damn thieves all of them I guess and that whole warrior culture was a thieves guild cover. :rolleyes:
Quote from: Matt;807592I guess that phrase "rules as written" is overly complicated for the defenders of D&D.
It is complicated by the fact that one of the rules as written is that we are free (nay encouraged) to make up our own stuff.
It's sort of like claiming that one is not allowed to add string or wooden block or Erector Set components to a Tinker Toy construct, or some other arbitrary stipulation that rejects a freedom that is commonly regarded as the very essence of a given undertaking - seeming so to mistake it for something else entirely. D&D is not Contract Bridge or FIDE Chess.
Quote from: Omega;807724No. Conan is your standard adventuring fighter looting places. Fighters in D&D steal stuff fairly regularly. Doesnt make them a Thief/Rogue. Vikings stole everything that wasnt nailed down and then pried loose floor stones... damn thieves all of them I guess and that whole warrior culture was a thieves guild cover. :rolleyes:
Conan iirc acquired the sort of expertise at scaling walls (and perhaps other things) that would make a thief-class level comparison an appropriate modeling tool in TSR-era D&D (post Supp. I).
Quote from: Phillip;807852Conan iirc acquired the sort of expertise at scaling walls (and perhaps other things) that would make a thief-class level comparison an appropriate modeling tool in TSR-era D&D (post Supp. I).
It wouldn't surprise me if Conan was the inspiration for the "character with two classes" option in the AD&D rules. He very clearly took the profession of thief before he served as a mercenary.
Goblinoid Games' Mutant Future meshes very well with its BX retro-clone Labyrinth Lord, as I recall.