Quote from: SettembriniBut when talking about gaming history, it's cooler and hip for some people to claim ancestry to Champions instead of D&D.
I keep encountering people online, who keep bragging how their formative game was something different from D&D.
It's a subversive thing to claim that RC and D&D 3.5 are outcrops of something else than D&D. It's retrofitting their success and quality to be just a ripoff of the historical "kool kids game". And the textual artifacts do not support this in any way.
RC is compilated BD&D, which is compilated OD&D, 3.x is RC turned to twelve. There is no RQ or Champions or Fantasy Trip in there.

Fuck all those idiots. I started playing with AD&D, my first GM'ing was with AD&D. I moved on to different games when I hit university, because there were new games out (and I had a FLGS to buy them from!), and new people playing different things. But I was still roleplaying the way AD&D started me.

You and pundit are being far too defensive here. You're so worried about these Swine and their bullshit you end up seeing their shadows everywhere. Chill out.

Quote from: SettembriniChallenge: I cited from the RC to show, how much 3.x stuff was already there in BD&D.
Show me the RC passage that is supposed to be an outcrop of RQ, Champions or whathevu.

I don't have the RC, so I can't take this up. But I did comment on the possible RQ/Champions sources of several things you said you liked about the RC, and you flat out ignored that.

Quote from: SettembriniYou too, went overboard here.

RQ and Champions were hugely influential, and rightly so. But not for D&D. Period. Everything else is revisionist history. Champions for example leads directly to GURPS and WoD. But those games are character centered superhero extravaganzas.

Dude, Gurps 4e can do supers, but until 4e Gurps was notoriously bad for superheroics or high powered gaming.  I ran Gurps for about eight years, it excels at gritty fantasy and low powered historical gaming, or did prior to the current edition anyway.

Gurps is not a character centred superhero extravaganza.  It's no more or less character centred than say the Rules Cyclopedia, and it is far less suited to superheroics given that there is no real equivalent to the Immortals status you can get to in RC.

Quote from: SettembriniMy basic point is:

The RC is way more defined and tactical than AD&D 2nd.
When AD&D is older than the RC, why are the wargame elements weaker?

The Rules Cyclopedia is a far better ruleset, it's not more wargamey it's just better integrated and makes a lot more sense.

Plus I think you're reading selectively, to be blunt.

I used to own 3e, I sold it as it was clunky and for me unintuitive.  There are some similarities with RC, it would be odd if there were not really, but I don't see a strong similarity in approach and I don't see any real evolutionary influence.  RC was sidelined for ADnD, and many of the things you cite are common design elements of the time.

This feels to me like an emotional argument, you want DnD to be unsullied by outside influences.  Realistically though I don't see how that would really be possible or why it would be desirable.  The guys working on DnD weren't monks cloistered from all other games, influences went back and forth and always will.

But personally I see little similarity between RC and 3e.  There are some, but I could find similarities between RC and Rolemaster and that doesn't mean one is a product of the other, just that both are products of similar schools of thought in rpg design.

QuoteWhere do you think the stat modifier rules came from?

From the RC:

QuoteThis feels to me like an emotional argument, you want DnD to be unsullied by outside influences.  

I understand how one could think like this, but the opposite is true. I am new to the RC (three days of reading, one day of playing) and have only played D&D 3.5 for two years. I have no childhood attachement to D&D. It is through actual reading of the text, compared to actual reading  of the text in my AD&D 2nd Ed. PHB that I come to those conclusions.

There are wild speculations from you guys, and I present citations. Do so as well.

Quote from: SettembriniFrom the RC:

Nope.  Lots of games had them, but in this case the lead designer on 3e was the designer for Ars Magica.  It was the same person.

I mean, I guess it's possible they used chemicals to wash that knowledge from his brain, but it was pretty noticeable at the time that the AM guy got on board and the next edition had AM style stats.

The RC was a cul de sac, that's sad as I think it's a great game but I have never once heard anyone involved with 3e state it as a signficant influence and other than you I have never heard anyone think the two games particularly similar, and by and large the only people who post on RC are those who own it and like it so I suspect others would have noticed.  A few rules similarities prove nothing, by the same logic I could show that Runequest influenced 3e or Rolemaster or Palladium or a dozen things.

QuoteNope. Lots of games had them, but in this case the lead designer on 3e was the designer for Ars Magica. It was the same person.

Where did Ars magica take them from? From OD&D. case settled.

Quote from: SettembriniI understand how one could think like this, but the opposite is true. I am new to the RC (three days of reading, one day of playing) and have only played D&D 3.5 for two years. I have no childhood attachement to D&D. It is through actual reading of the text, compared to actual reading  of the text in my AD&D 2nd Ed. PHB that I come to those conclusions.

There are wild speculations from you guys, and I present citations. Do so as well.

Not until you respond to post 18 I don't think.

Anyway, this is a bizarre argument, the same people crossed over game to game, one game influences the next, and seriously you are the only person I have ever known think these were similar rpgs.  I have no history with RC either and I assure you to me it looks nothing much like 3e, if it did I wouldn't have bought a hardcopy on ebay to go with my rpg.now pdf copy.

Quote from: SettembriniWhere did Ars magica take them from? From OD&D. case settled.

As I said, games influence each other back and forth.

For christ's sake, the whole hobby dates back to OD&D, that's a meaningless argument.

OD&D created our hobby, games span off sometimes in reaction.  Traveller would not exist but for OD&D but has little in common with it other than the stats.  Ars Magica would not exist but for OD&D, as the hobby would not, but bears little resemblance to it.

The stats in 3e are a direct descendant of the stats in AM, put in place by the same designer in each case.  Yes, AM would not exist had OD&D not existed, nothing would, but that does not change the fact that those rules in 3e come directly from AM and not from the RC (which is different to OD&D anyway).

You just jumped argument, we were discussing the RC which is a product that, as I thought until now was pretty universally known, had no children to speak of.  OD&D predates the RC and when AD&D was introduced they looked back to OD&D, not to the RC.

By OD&D to be clear, I mean here the ur-D&D, the Chainmail derived white books, from which RC evolved as did everything else.

Quote from: SettembriniWhere did Ars magica take them from? From OD&D. case settled.

Actually, fuck it, fine.  All games derive from DnD.  Nothing else has any influence.  Each time a designer moves project he purges from his mind all influences other than D&D.

Nothing shall mar its pristine purity.  Now, if you don't mind, I need to think about my next Pendragon game, a game which of course takes no influences from Runequest but is rather a product of OD&D.

QuoteI have no history with RC either and I assure you to me it looks nothing much like 3e,

Then look again. i'm not talking about how "advanced" or "sophisticated" RC is. I'm not in a pissing match whose game is cooler. I'm talking about actual rules that are supposed to be original 3.5, not general concepts:

Five Foot Steps: Check!
Battlemat & Miniatures: Check!
AOO: Check! (in a prot form with the retreat action)
Defined Combat Actions: Check!
Defined combat maneuvres: Check!
Magic Item pricing: Check!
Balancing in classes: Check!
Balancing in Encounters: Check!
Reach Weapons: Check!
General Attribute Modifiers: Check!
Attribute Modifiers to Saving throws: Check!
Selectable feats that give you special maneuvres/actions or bonuses aka feats: Check!

Again: I'm talking specific rules, not concepts like: "has skills"
The +2 concept of D20 is already in the RC.

I don't give a fuck about you favorite version of the history of RPGs. I'm talking about the history of D&D. Either be knowladgable grognard, and cite and teach, or shut the fuck up with wild speculations nobody can prove.

@Balbinus: If OD&D has an attribute table, that is only one category apart from the recent one, how can you say it's from AM? That's totally ridiculous. And truly, all games derive from D&D, whether I like it or not. It's fucking reality.

QuoteLook at the things you like in RC:

• skills- well RQ did actually do this first IIRC, in 1978
  
• combat manoeuvres- I'm pretty damn sure Champions pioneered this in 1981
  
• 5-foot step- early Champions had this too, although it was 1m IIRC
  
• proto-AOO- the 'held action' in Champions maybe?
  
• 10-second turn- well Champions' turn is 12, but RQ had a short combat turn too

So the only thing that can solve those questions:

When did those things appear in OD&D?

I don't know and appreciate any insight.

From the horses mouth:

Quote from: Jonathan TweetRuneQuest debuted way back in 1978. It had:
• prestige classes (rune lords, rune priests, and initiates),
• unified skill-combat-saving-throw system,
• ability scores for monsters,
• 1 in 20 hits are crits,
• extra damage for lucky hits with spears and arrows,
• ability scores that scaled up linearly without artificial caps,
• a skill system that let anyone try just about anything,
• "nonabilities" for incorporeal or unliving creatures,
• armor penalties for skill checks and spellcasting (but not outright prohibitions),
• templates for creatures,
• affiliation groups (the model for Ars Magica's Houses and Vampire's Clans),
• hardness for objects,
• chance to be hit modified by Dex and size,
• example characters used in examples throughout the rulebook,
• rules for PCs making magic items.

In other words, RuneQuest was the RPG that taught me how to design RPGs. Even so the RuneQuest mechanics weren't perfect.