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Post by Morose on Mar 2, 2023 21:31:35 GMT -5
What do you think were the main factors in OD&D catching on in the early days?
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Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on Mar 3, 2023 19:45:36 GMT -5
What do you think were the main factors in OD&D catching on in the early days? I would think a major contributor would be the absolute unique play experience rather than just pushing a piece around a board, looking for certain cards, or other traditional play methods of other games. |
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Post by simrion on Mar 3, 2023 20:42:52 GMT -5
Right time and right place maybe? There were some recent new sci-fi offerings like Trek or SpaceLost. Harryhausen movies and reprints of various sci-fi and fantasy stories. No video games per se unless you were on a campus with Vax (sp?) systems that maybe allowed for text based activities? So I figure that new experience was highly desired. I have no first hand knowledge but there appears to have been a thriving cosplay community at the sci-fi/fantasy book conventions and I recall reading about a budding popularity with some kind of LARP or proto-LARP that might have been occurring nationwide associated with said cosplay? Had a name and world map. Wish I could remember what it was.
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Post by Morose on Mar 4, 2023 17:37:18 GMT -5
Right time and right place maybe? There were some recent new sci-fi offerings like Trek or SpaceLost. Harryhausen movies and reprints of various sci-fi and fantasy stories. No video games per se unless you were on a campus with Vax (sp?) systems that maybe allowed for text based activities? So I figure that new experience was highly desired. I have no first hand knowledge but there appears to have been a thriving cosplay community at the sci-fi/fantasy book conventions and I recall reading about a budding popularity with some kind of LARP or proto-LARP that might have been occurring nationwide associated with said cosplay? Had a name and world map. Wish I could remember what it was. I think right time and right place had a lot to do with it. |
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Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on Mar 4, 2023 17:46:03 GMT -5
Right time and right place maybe? There were some recent new sci-fi offerings like Trek or SpaceLost. Harryhausen movies and reprints of various sci-fi and fantasy stories. No video games per se unless you were on a campus with Vax (sp?) systems that maybe allowed for text based activities? So I figure that new experience was highly desired. I have no first hand knowledge but there appears to have been a thriving cosplay community at the sci-fi/fantasy book conventions and I recall reading about a budding popularity with some kind of LARP or proto-LARP that might have been occurring nationwide associated with said cosplay? Had a name and world map. Wish I could remember what it was. I think that was the biggest factor. Nothing exists in a vacuum all to itself. Wargaming was huge, Tolkien and fantasy were very popular, creature feature shows were on TV stations across the nation, and many other factors already mentioned above. simrion was it the SCA or something else? |
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Post by simrion on Mar 4, 2023 18:49:56 GMT -5
simrion was it the SCA or something else? No it had a specific name. I'll have to check Playing At The world I think that's where I read about it. Really from what I remember it was almost a PBM version of a LARP in the sense diverse folks would meet at a convention to interact in character and then engaged in written activities like fan-fiction and a newsletter. I remember, like the SCA, they had a map of the lands and would engage in a type of Braunstein? |
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Post by mao on Mar 5, 2023 11:57:14 GMT -5
Another thread solidified my thinking on this.
It was inevitable
as children , we play pretend, wee have plays and moviies and TV. The wargaming goes back to Avalon Hill in the early 60's, it would natuarly flow from that. D&D benfited by going first.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 5, 2023 15:31:32 GMT -5
I think the thing that made it catch on in the beginning is that it was a game without limits. Every game since has been about setting up limits and boundaries and restricting player options. All those different schools of magic and what spells are limited to this or that school is about limiting options. Everybody buys it now, because of video games and everyone grows up with limits and constraints. But back in the day, all of us that came from parents who read and told stories, fairy tales, mythology, fables, tall tales, folk tales, fantasy and science fiction and a broader range of fiction and poetry, we grew up with no limits on our imagination outside of the aforementioned where all our childhood games of make believe and here was something that was not like board games and card games, here the training wheels were removed and we could soar.
If I were 19 today and my introduction were 2E, 3E, 5E or any of the other major games around today, I don't think I would have been interested. You show me hundreds of pages of rules and I would rather go read a good book. But OD&D play in a game a couple of times and read the rules all the way through once and I was ready to roll.
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