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Totally Guy
2012-05-14, 05:17 PM
So the RPG hobby started growing out from war games but how would it have started if it'd grown from something else...?

1) Sports: The first RPG would have overarching team strategy selections, there'd be morale rolls in the dressing rooms and the referee would run games for 20+ players!

2) European style board games: The first RPG would be about crop traders trying to travel the most efficient route from one place to another and playing their misadventures with their surplus sheep. The character sheet would be made of an arrangement of wooden blocks.

3) Construction: The first RPG would have been about building a building. You'd play engineers, designers, accountants and even workforce leaders. There'd be a ton of cohort rules. And instead of collaboratively building a story you'd end up with the schematics of a castle!

Let the alternate history continue!

Eldan
2012-05-14, 06:45 PM
4) Pac-Man. We'd all be running through underground labyrinths, fleeing from ghosts while trying to collect valuable items and become powerful enough to be able to fight them.

Oh, wait... :smalltongue:

NikitaDarkstar
2012-05-15, 01:42 AM
5) Auto racing. The first games would have been about finding the right car, engine, mechanics and pit crew. Rolls would have been made to avoid bumping walls, other cars, missing your pit, and accidentally offending officials more than you could get away with. Anything that was NOT written in the rule book would have been considered legal, albeit sneaky until someone found out and put it in the rule book. The rule book would have been written in pencil with a large eraser hanging from it by a string. Character sheet would be a squiggly autograph and the unreadableness of the autograph would be the modifier for the rolls.

nedz
2012-05-17, 07:13 AM
6) Accountancy: The first RPG would not have had character sheets, instead it would be a collection of spreadsheets. You wouldn't have game sessions, you would have business meetings where you each try to stear your companies though the ups and downs of the business cycle.

Calanon
2012-05-18, 03:51 AM
7) Mystery: The first RPG would have developed from a game of clue gone horrible right. Instead of dungeon crawls we wander around mansions with our adventuring party searching for clues, solving mysteries and cruising around in our awesome van. Every time you find a clue, you make a saving throw to prevent yourself from exclaiming "Jinkies!"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9a/Scooby-gang-1969.jpg/250px-Scooby-gang-1969.jpg
An Image of your average adventuring party featuring your classic Rogue, Fighter, Wizard, and Druid w/ his awakened Animal Companion

Rorrik
2012-05-19, 08:27 PM
8. Acquire - The game focuses on economic investment with lots of economic outcome charts and statistics. Some players pursue high charisma paths, fighting their way onto boards of directors to better guide the economic path of the game, but have to worry about blackouts on stock sales. Hostile take overs are the equivalent of dungeon crawls.

Knaight
2012-05-19, 08:38 PM
7) Mystery: The first RPG would have developed from a game of clue gone horrible right. Instead of dungeon crawls we wander around mansions with our adventuring party searching for clues, solving mysteries and cruising around in our awesome van. Every time you find a clue, you make a saving throw to prevent yourself from exclaiming "Jinkies!"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9a/Scooby-gang-1969.jpg/250px-Scooby-gang-1969.jpg
An Image of your average adventuring party featuring your classic Rogue, Fighter, Wizard, and Druid w/ his awakened Animal Companion
This is pretty much how GUMSHOE actually is.

newBlazingAngel
2012-06-14, 08:51 PM
9) Comedy. The DM starts every campaign with a standup act and Monty Python references are a mandatory thing.

10) Singing. Their would be three DMs each with obvious traits that judge players on their performance abilities.

Rorrik
2012-06-14, 08:58 PM
9) Comedy. The DM starts every campaign with a standup act and Monty Python references are a mandatory thing.

Experience is gained based on the decibel levels of laughter following your character's jokes. Generally played with an audience, players focus on making characters that are not only unique, but have dialects and personalities that add humor to their jokes. Speaking in dialects or funny voices is the mark of a great player.

newBlazingAngel
2012-06-14, 09:14 PM
You know, that actually sounds amazingly fun. Homebrew anyone?

EccentricCircle
2012-06-15, 05:41 AM
11) Musical Theatre:
Rather than rolling dice each player has their own sound system, and when they have the initiative can choose what song suddenly starts being sung. Everyone else around the table has to join in as best they can.

Jay R
2012-06-15, 01:11 PM
12. Candy Land: I do not want to know what the magic items would be.

Tyndmyr
2012-06-15, 01:12 PM
Experience is gained based on the decibel levels of laughter following your character's jokes. Generally played with an audience, players focus on making characters that are not only unique, but have dialects and personalities that add humor to their jokes. Speaking in dialects or funny voices is the mark of a great player.

I'm sorry, this is different from standard D&D how?

Xefas
2012-06-15, 02:04 PM
13) Debate Club: The first RPG would have a vastly complex and varied social combat mechanism. The boring, unimportant, and uninteresting parts of the adventure (i.e. physical combat) would be handled with either a single skill check that only one or two people even bother with ("the party sword") or maybe we'd just "roleplay it out" because, I mean I can just describe a fight without needing mechanics to tell me how it goes or, perhaps I don't want to lose control of my character because some physical combat system tells me they died. Something like that. And this stigma would carry on for decades throughout mainstream RPGs.

Yukitsu
2012-06-15, 02:10 PM
2) European style board games: The first RPG would be about crop traders trying to travel the most efficient route from one place to another and playing their misadventures with their surplus sheep. The character sheet would be made of an arrangement of wooden blocks.

3) Construction: The first RPG would have been about building a building. You'd play engineers, designers, accountants and even workforce leaders. There'd be a ton of cohort rules. And instead of collaboratively building a story you'd end up with the schematics of a castle!

It's a little unsettling that this is what I spend 90% of my RP time doing.

14) Carl Jung's analytical psychology: According to video game RPGs, you'll spend the entire game running around school shooting guns at yourself to defeat strange blobby monsters with face masks.

Better than if Freud influenced it.

nedz
2012-06-15, 08:20 PM
15) Law
Each session is spent argueing over the minutia of the rules and how they should be interpreted.

16) Operational Analysis
Each player spends all of their time calculating the theoreticaly optimal way their character could resolve some problem.

TuggyNE
2012-06-16, 04:33 AM
15) Law
Each session is spent argueing over the minutia of the rules and how they should be interpreted.

16) Operational Analysis
Each player spends all of their time calculating the theoreticaly optimal way their character could resolve some problem.

Wait. Wait wait wait wait. What do you mean the first RPGs weren't played by law students and analysts?:smallconfused:

:smalltongue:

Arcanist
2012-06-19, 04:14 AM
15) Law
Each session is spent argueing over the minutia of the rules and how they should be interpreted.

16) Operational Analysis
Each player spends all of their time calculating the theoreticaly optimal way their character could resolve some problem.

I love you so much right now :smallbiggrin:

Siegel
2012-06-19, 05:31 AM
Even if original DnD grew from wargaming wasn't it more about tricking your way to treasure instead of fighting monsters (because then you would die and get no exp)?

SiuiS
2012-06-19, 07:06 AM
So the RPG hobby started growing out from war games but how would it have started if it'd grown from something else...?

1) Sports: The first RPG would have overarching team strategy selections, there'd be morale rolls in the dressing rooms and the referee would run games for 20+ players!

2) European style board games: The first RPG would be about crop traders trying to travel the most efficient route from one place to another and playing their misadventures with their surplus sheep. The character sheet would be made of an arrangement of wooden blocks.

3) Construction: The first RPG would have been about building a building. You'd play engineers, designers, accountants and even workforce leaders. There'd be a ton of cohort rules. And instead of collaboratively building a story you'd end up with the schematics of a castle!

Let the alternate history continue!

... This is actually how some of my more fun D&D games have gone.

Indon
2012-06-21, 01:48 PM
17 - Civilization:
Roleplaying is oriented around political interactions, players often have reasons to be adversarial with each other, and rules are focused around constructing units, infrastructure, and technologies.