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Post by tdenmark on Jun 4, 2020 14:53:33 GMT -6
Knowing what you know now you are suddenly sent back to 1970 with a single mission: invent role playing games.
You get to take 1 RPG book with you.
What system do you use to build the foundation of the role playing game hobby?
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Post by stevemitchell on Jun 4, 2020 15:17:32 GMT -6
Lots of good options to consider, but for general completeness in one volume, I might pick Labyrinth Lord (but add in an ascending armor class option). And my first supplement would be Realms of Crawling Chaos!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2020 15:25:33 GMT -6
Honestly, the Tom Moldvay beginner rules for D&D. The whole reason the Holmes rules, then the Moldvay and Mentzer rules were put out was to clarify D&D for the very many people who simply could not decipher the white box rules. It just so happens what while Mentzer represents a portion of my childhood, and Holmes is closer to OD&D, I think B/X is the best overall presentation of the basic idea of D&D to a mass audience. (If you'll notice, the vast majority of the OSR material being put out today lies within those rough parameters of style and complexity). So if I can't hypothetically mash Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert into one book, it's gonna be the Basic rules from 1981.
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Post by tdenmark on Jun 4, 2020 15:30:28 GMT -6
You know as much as I love OD&D, surprisingly I'd consider bringing d6 Star Wars, revised 2nd edition.
I believe this game system would have made RPG's much more widely appealing. It is so elegant and user friendly, and really captures an adventuresome spirit.
I'd add classes and levels to it and swap out the d6 for a full set of polyhedral because dice are cool, and that is an important factor. Make it a different theme: straight up Tolkienesque fantasy with a darker swords & sorcery edge to it.
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Post by jeffb on Jun 4, 2020 15:49:43 GMT -6
Dungeon World
(not necc exactly by the book moves for everything, but the general gist and mechanics-absolutely)
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Post by tdenmark on Jun 4, 2020 16:05:27 GMT -6
Dungeon World (not necc exactly by the book moves for everything, but the general gist and mechanics-absolutely) I have to agree. Dungeon World would be a good base to build the RPG industry on. I'm rethinking my choice now. btw. I don't think all-in-one or completeness is a criteria for this hypothetical (unless you want it to be). |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2020 16:26:14 GMT -6
You know as much as I love OD&D, surprisingly I'd consider bringing d6 Star Wars, revised 2nd edition. I believe this game system would have made RPG's much more widely appealing. It is so elegant and user friendly, and really captures an adventuresome spirit. I'd add classes and levels to it and swap out the d6 for a full set of polyhedral because dice are cool, and that is an important factor. Make it a different theme: straight up Tolkienesque fantasy with a darker swords & sorcery edge to it. On the other side of the coin, I could see the game doing well if it keeps the d6's, too, because most 70's kids had several of those around the house already. No need to special order funny dice or rely on chits, spinners or early computers to generate a number. No sir. Just open up the Monopoly box and use those dice we already have. In this variation of your scenario, RPGs would have had one fewer entry barrier, and IMO the fewer barriers between RPGs and the common person, the more widely they would have proliferated. (For better or worse.) |
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Post by tdenmark on Jun 4, 2020 19:01:34 GMT -6
4th edition D&D PHB.
(ducks and runs)
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Post by tetramorph on Jun 4, 2020 19:49:26 GMT -6
I don’t want to invent role playing games.
I want some ample guidelines for setting up medieval fantasy wargames campaigns.
If I could influence that, I would have made them write out D&D more like Tony Bath’s Setting Up a Wargames Campaign but adding the skirmish level combat, the emphasis on exploration and the brilliant move to experience points and level as a replacement for troop point buy systems, given the one-to-one correspondence of player to character of skirmish play.
That would have been awesome!
Fight on!
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Post by jeffb on Jun 4, 2020 21:08:28 GMT -6
4th edition D&D PHB. (ducks and runs) I'd be absolutely fine with that. No more trying to balance classes or deal with the headache of Vancian magic (which has always been an issue for many, myself included) Simple skill system that reinforces the character class but allows some dabbling. Easier to teach newcomers because everything operates the same way. Resources per Encounter focus instead of a daily resource focus. Scalable monster design to PC level like T&T. Just would need trimming back of the weirder classes/races and design around an TOTM abstract combat system (ala 13th Age), instead of the tight grid mechanics. |
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 4, 2020 22:05:47 GMT -6
That would have been awesome! It still can be  |
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Post by Vile Traveller on Jun 4, 2020 22:39:00 GMT -6
I would grab Basic Roleplaying (the Big Gold Book edition). There is no kind of gaming that can't be pried out of that tome.
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Post by tdenmark on Jun 5, 2020 0:10:57 GMT -6
d6 Star Wars, revised 2nd edition. On the other side of the coin, I could see the game doing well if it keeps the d6's, too While true, we'd miss out on that glorious wall of polyhedral dice in all it's sparkling variety, since I don't know without D&D and it's requirement for dice if we'd have ever gotten that. |
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Post by tdenmark on Jun 5, 2020 0:14:03 GMT -6
4th edition D&D PHB. (ducks and runs) I'd be absolutely fine with that. I wonder what my reaction to 4th edition would have been if it was my first encounter with an RPG. It left such a bad taste in my mouth the first time I played it. Even reading through the books was painful. Probably because it subverted my expectations Rian Johnson style. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 5, 2020 4:59:57 GMT -6
Knowing what you know now you are suddenly sent back to 1970 with a single mission: invent role playing games. You get to take 1 RPG book with you. What system do you use to build the foundation of the role playing game hobby? Hero System 5th edition Revised and use it as a reference to create a more straight forward and focus fantasy RPG. or print out and take the D20 SRD and do the same. Either one works as a toolkit to create a arbitrary simple or complex RPG. I would be really torn between the two. THe D20 SRD incorporates the time tested elements that allowed D&D to succeeds. The Hero System 5e Revised is more usable as toolkit to create RPG targeting genres other than fantasy. But it only uses d6s and I used that there is an outside chance that the use of the other types of dice never takes off. One thing I would emphasize above all is that the point of running an RPG campaign is to pretend to be a character having adventures in a setting. Not playing a game to beat some type of victory conditions, not as some type of collabrative storytelling exercise. That the referee job is in part a tour guide who job is to bring the world to life around the players. That the rules are a tool to make this all happen not the point of why we play. Still would focus on the dungeon as the adventuring locale to start out with. |
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Post by tdenmark on Jun 5, 2020 5:27:31 GMT -6
Hero System 5th edition Revised and use it as a reference to create a more straight forward and focus fantasy RPG. Still would focus on the dungeon as the adventuring locale to start out with. I have a bias against Hero System because I worked at a video game company and played it with a group of engineers. They drooled over every little fiddly number adjusting and maths. I was in hell. Still, I do appreciate its brilliance. Dungeon crawls for sure! That, I believe, was the #1 reason D&D succeeded. It is the ideal way of narrowing the players options without railroading. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Jun 5, 2020 6:23:06 GMT -6
For me, it would probably be the Rules Cyclopedia. It is a great resource that has a little bit of everything in a not-too-thick rulebook. If there was a RC version that stopped around level 14 (essentially, B/X only) I might consider that instead. Or if there was a solid 5E version that did levels 1-10 only, that would be awesome. I have to say, however, that if I could wave a wand and make something always be that way … I'd stick to the LBB layout and small boxed sets. I think that RPG rules are supposed to be guidelines and keeping everything in a small booklet size would make RPG writers be a little more careful and not just fill the book with krappe. I love Warriors of the Red Planet, for example, which weighs in at around 120 pages, but would like it even more if it had been 3 little booklets in a box.  |
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Post by Piper on Jun 5, 2020 6:43:31 GMT -6
Traveller ... the classic '77 TLBB (three little black books) non-3rd Imperium setting toolkit-in-a-box. I've always loved sci-fi more than fantasy. I bought the original '77 edition when it came out but I couldn't interest anyone in playing in [small town in Texas].
If I had my druthers, I would have Traveller come out before OD&D just to give it a chance to get a bigger toehold on the market.
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Post by jeffb on Jun 5, 2020 7:37:14 GMT -6
Traveller ... the classic '77 TLBB (three little black books) non-3rd Imperium setting toolkit-in-a-box. I've always loved sci-fi more than fantasy. I bought the original '77 edition when it came out but I couldn't interest anyone in playing in [small town in Texas].
If I had my druthers, I would have Traveller come out before OD&D just to give it a chance to get a bigger toehold on the market.
I never understood, with the massive success of Star Wars (1977), why Traveller never got bigger than it did. I'm guessing because RPGs were still not in the boom phase yet, and Traveller perhaps leaned too far away from Sci-Fantasy. If at the time Lucasfilm had understood just how big the licensing aspect would become, they could have put D&D in the grave with a Star Wars RPG. EDIT- One of our group purchased Traveller around 1979. He never ran it. Not sure why not. I ended up buying copy in 1980 or 1981. I never ran it either. I think I didn't have the desire to generate entire star systems/adventures (homebrew) it seemed burdensome. I can't recall but I bought a couple JG Traveller adventures and they left me cold. I gave it all to the guy who bought the first set because he was moving away. It wasn't until I purchased Starter Traveller I'd actually run a game. |
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Post by thegreyelf on Jun 5, 2020 7:37:30 GMT -6
Honestly? Probably exactly what Gygax and Arneson did with D&D. We can play the "if I knew what I know now" game all day, but in truth, it was the letter perfect basis upon which to build an entire hobby. If it hadn't been done exactly as it was, we might not have built the wealth of approaches to tabletop gaming we now have. I wouldn't do anything differently given the gaming scene at the time.
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Post by thegreyelf on Jun 5, 2020 7:39:23 GMT -6
Traveller ... the classic '77 TLBB (three little black books) non-3rd Imperium setting toolkit-in-a-box. I've always loved sci-fi more than fantasy. I bought the original '77 edition when it came out but I couldn't interest anyone in playing in [small town in Texas].
If I had my druthers, I would have Traveller come out before OD&D just to give it a chance to get a bigger toehold on the market.
I never understood, with the massive success of Star Wars (1977), why Traveller never got bigger than it did. I'm guessing because RPGs were still not in the boom phase yet, and Traveller perhaps leaned too far away from Sci-Fantasy. If at the time Lucasfilm had understood just how big the licensing aspect would become, they could have put D&D in the grave with a Star Wars RPG. Honestly, and keeping in mind that I never saw the ORIGINAL Traveller, so this might not apply, but what always turned me off about it was that it was too rules-heavy, and the lifepath character generation where you could DIE while making a character, I always just found stupid. I suspect those two factors, combined with the more "hard sci fi" approach, turned a lot of gamers off. |
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Post by jeffb on Jun 5, 2020 7:45:08 GMT -6
I never understood, with the massive success of Star Wars (1977), why Traveller never got bigger than it did. I'm guessing because RPGs were still not in the boom phase yet, and Traveller perhaps leaned too far away from Sci-Fantasy. If at the time Lucasfilm had understood just how big the licensing aspect would become, they could have put D&D in the grave with a Star Wars RPG. Honestly, and keeping in mind that I never saw the ORIGINAL Traveller, so this might not apply, but what always turned me off about it was that it was too rules-heavy, and the lifepath character generation where you could DIE while making a character, I always just found stupid. I suspect those two factors, combined with the more "hard sci fi" approach, turned a lot of gamers off. I elaborated some in my edit why I found it hard to get jazzed for. As for character creation- For myself, that was the most fun part of the game. As I'm a military buff, watching characters go through the Marines/Navy and eventually mustering out had a certain appeal. Of course Books 4& 5 were my favorites |
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Post by Piper on Jun 5, 2020 7:54:18 GMT -6
Honestly, and keeping in mind that I never saw the ORIGINAL Traveller, so this might not apply, but what always turned me off about it was that it was too rules-heavy, and the lifepath character generation where you could DIE while making a character, I always just found stupid. I suspect those two factors, combined with the more "hard sci fi" approach, turned a lot of gamers off. I must confess the "hard" setting is what drew me in. It just goes to show you there's a lid for every pot. Perhaps it's a good thing OD&D and its fantasy setting came out first, but my first love was always sci-fi. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 5, 2020 8:00:42 GMT -6
I have a bias against Hero System because I worked at a video game company and played it with a group of engineers. They drooled over every little fiddly number adjusting and maths. I was in hell. Still, I do appreciate its brilliance. Oh yeah I am quite familiar with that aspect of Hero System. In fact I am dealing with it right now as I prepping a superhero campaign. Two of my player are all about builds and such when they play Pathfinder and D&D 5e. With Hero at first they kind of rolled their eyes because 5e does have a high page count. But one of them dug into it and convinced the other to read it. Now they are both addicted. The thing is with toolkit RPGs like GURPS and Hero System is that because it is a toolkit you could always just build out the campaign option and then present them as their own thing thus distilling the toolkit into a much simpler RPG. For a trival example. Supposed you have a fire bolt spells that does 10d6 damage costing a base 50 points and after you apply all the limitation that spells have (incants, gestures, etc) it worth 30 points. So omit the math and say that it is a 30 point spell. Or better yet, behind the scene you design the mage template so all spells can be taken in a 10 point increment. You decide that each 10 point is a "level". Thus making the 10d6 fire bolt a "3rd" level spell. You can do this so that to the player (or referee if you are selling this) it looks like a class and level system. Now one can ask "Rob why not just write this from scratch?" Well I only get to take one book. And the hardest or tedious part of writing a system are the lists: equipment, spells, monsters, treasure, etc. Short of having something like the d20 SRD in its entirely, the next best thing to have a toolkit to rebuild these list in a way that is consistent. Of course sometimes consistency is not required but since those are the exception rather than the rule. I rather start with a baseline first and then make the exceptions second. A toolkit like Hero makes this easier even if I hid the math later when I write the book that I am going to sell or use. Dungeon crawls for sure! That, I believe, was the #1 reason D&D succeeded. It is the ideal way of narrowing the players options without railroading. Yup and one of the few types of locale/situation that can be described tersely to a novice. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 5, 2020 8:06:48 GMT -6
I never understood, with the massive success of Star Wars (1977), why Traveller never got bigger than it did. Because it doesn't any type of adventure with the simplicity of the dungeon. I sure here we could make a thread spit-balling ideas about sci-fi adventures but it would be a hodgepodge that a total novice would have a hard time figuring it out for themselves. The closet Traveller had to the dungeon was going from planet to planet buying and selling with a tramp starship with the crew being hired to do various adventurous jobs. If Marc Miller added to that the ideas of the Wild West like Firefly did, I bet the popularity of Traveller would have been bumped up a notch. Why? Because a lot of Wild West adventurous situation were well understood by the hobby at the time. So while the Wild West wasn't particularly popular, marrying it to a sci-fi setting like being tramp merchants would have helped out a lot. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 5, 2020 8:29:59 GMT -6
Oh and I would realize the mechanics of anything I release as open content. Since I am from the future, I would also write up every major rules mechanics I remember, like dice pools, and release that as open content as well.
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Post by sirjaguar on Jun 5, 2020 9:16:52 GMT -6
I'd take FATE, or maybe BESM. They are easily adaptable to any genre. Neither is simulationist, so they don't necessarily appeal to the wargamer, but that also means they eliminate "rabbit holing" where people focus on one narrow aspect of the rules of a game, trying to perfect it.
Of course, one drawback to FATE is the funny dice . . .
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 5, 2020 9:58:09 GMT -6
Of course, one drawback to FATE is the funny dice . . . A d6-d6 works just as well perhaps better as a +1 or +2 bonus/shift has a lesser effect than it does with 4dF. |
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Post by Punkrabbitt on Jun 5, 2020 10:35:08 GMT -6
I think if I were to bring ONE book back with me to jumpstart the RPG hobby, it would be The Traveller Book. Not to publish and thrust upon the world, but to use as a resource in creating character-driven games of all genres. If you re-write character generation tables, the engine works well for fantasy, WWII, '60s spy thrillers, sci-fantasy, hard sci-fi, really anything. It's all in there. It just needs to be distilled in the direction of game setting/genre.
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Post by asaki on Jun 5, 2020 10:40:29 GMT -6
Honestly, I think I would just sit back and let Dave and Gary do all the hard work ...maybe take a little field trip to Lake Geneva and run around Castle Greyhawk for a month or two... |
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