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nick_crenshaw
2019-04-03, 08:15 PM
What if Gary Gygax retained ownership of TSR instead of being push out of control? Would the Forgotten Realm exist (I could see it existing on Western Oerik, currently the setting for the Sundered Empire), or Kara-Tur, or Al-Qudim (both could be in Central Oerik)? Would Gygax sell Dungeons and Dragons to Wizards of the Coast?

Mechalich
2019-04-03, 09:52 PM
That's a very broad hypothetical. Gygax was forced out in 1986, which is quite early in D&D history, being before AD&D 2e and almost the entirety of the novel line (the Dragonlance Chronicles had just come out, no FR novels yet existed).

Gygax probably would have kept the company smaller and less corporatized, and likely wouldn't have agreed with some of the largely cosmetic changes made to 'sanitize' 2e when it was produced. TSR's bankruptcy in the late 1990s can be traced in large part to over-production. They made too many sourcebooks for settings that no one cared about, like Birthright, and allowed for the production of too many novels that no one ever read. A smaller company with more focus on the core product might have remained financially sound, in which case no one would have sold to WotC, Gygax or otherwise. That move was made because they were broke and White-Wolf was hoovering up market share year-over-year.

As for the Forgotten Realms, well, I think that probably would still exist, because it came into being as a TSR product due explicitly to a decision by Jeff Grubb, who was already employed by TSR under Gygax's tenure.

Pippa the Pixie
2019-04-05, 09:58 AM
Well, what if Gary stayed true to just making the RPG and did not waste years doing the Hollywood stuff? Oh, and somehow had the money and kept 100% control of the game.

The Forgotten Realms as another game world would likely happen. Along with Dragonlance.

I'm sure we would have gotten all the D&D related novels.

Gary would not have done all the politically correct stuff starting with 2E.

It's doubtful we would have seen all the 90's settings like Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Plancescape and such. Or maybe they would be way toned down to single books.

Maybe a LOT less of the non-gaming junk that never sold and wasted money.

Chances are he would have never sold it....keeping it until death. And then keeping it in the family.

khadgar567
2019-04-05, 11:10 AM
the first, benefits would be we don't have the crappy wizards martial disparity and the main magic system would be much more integrated with other systems we might have much more one race one class combos but at least it never grow to this mess of contend and we have an easier time to swear thanks to only one team making mistakes.

LordEntrails
2019-04-05, 12:34 PM
Gary was incompetent at running a large company. He was really bad at running a medium sized company, and he was pretty poor at running a small company. (Note, that does not make him a bad person or any less, it just means he did not have the skills and values to do so. He was a great creative who was bad at business.)

D&D would not be what it is today if he had somehow retained control. I think the RPG market would still be close to what it is, but their would probably be no behemoth. Instead we would have numerous top tier companies, and D&D would not be one of them.

Yes the FR would exist, but it may or may not be a D&D asset. I don't think we would have the same books, because the market would be fractured, the books, and the premise of the "rules" they use would be fractured.

Yes Gary would have never sold it, if he had the option, and it would have stayed a small gaming company. And what would have kept it small was the Hollywood crap and ancillary stuff that it seems like Gary loved.

LordEntrails
2019-04-05, 12:41 PM
the first, benefits would be we don't have the crappy wizards martial disparity and the main magic system would be much more integrated with other systems we might have much more one race one class combos but at least it never grow to this mess of contend and we have an easier time to swear thanks to only one team making mistakes.
Those martial/magic disparities were baked in hard to the basic premises of Chainmail and OD&D. They were part of the flavor and feel that Gary liked. So no, they would still be there if he had kept control. It was only others who came in and saw the disparities as bad things. Also Gary's style of DMing would generally be considered "bad" in today's games by the majority of players.

Things like single "save or die" rolls, unavoidable death traps, capricious character death and heavy handed railroading were all trademarks of his style, and the game as he saw it. That's fine for those who want to play that way (and sometime I run campaigns that way, with players being informed before the campaign starts), but those are things that would have prevented the game from acquiring the player base it has today.

Jay R
2019-04-06, 11:08 AM
I suspect the most likely result if Gygax were still in control, would be that the game would still be designed for the very small group of people who want complex mechanics with hundreds of tables, and who are fascinated by different kinds of weapons.

It would still be a niche wargame, and most people here wouldn't be playing it. We'd be playing the equivalent of Forgotten Realms and Al-Qadim released by whatever company started producing a role-playing game that appealed to millions of people instead of thousands.

"Eberron, the new Warhammer setting"

----

But the truth is that the world is complex and non-linear. Chaos theory and the butterfly effect show that we have no way to predict what would have happened.

AuraTwilight
2019-04-06, 01:15 PM
There actually is an entire Retro-Clone, called "Adventures Dark & Deep", which follows this exact premise. It's a sort of alternate-history 2e, which functionally is like a heavily houseruled 1e, based on some notes and suggestions made by Gary in various publications, including things like a Jester class and some alternate rules he introduced in very late Dragon magazines.

Chris Perkins also created an "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition" retroclone, which is essentially a mix of 1e/2e, with a smidge of Castles & Crusades to represent Gary's very early influence on that particular RPG.

Anonymouswizard
2019-04-06, 05:01 PM
They made too many sourcebooks for settings that no one cared about, like Birthright, and allowed for the production of too many novels that no one ever read.

Speaking as somebody who's favourite 2e setting is Birthright (followed closely by Dark Sun), yeah.

The latter is all very rough speculation.

As a very rough guide, if Gygax remained then I suspect that either 2e wouldn't have happened, or it would have been 1e with some more optional rules. TSR would have had a lower output, slanted more towards modules than settings or sourcebooks, but would have still ended up losing too much money to continue and get bought out at a later date. While none of D&D's early competitors such as Tunnels and Trolls manage to overtake it games such as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay briefly eclipse is 'the fantasy game' before fading away, with the early mainstays of the RP industry being GURPS and HERO, with Traveller and D&D being a close second. In the 90s World of Darkness takes the RPG world by storm with it's new ideas of a narrative system, despite still being a simulationist system, with the GURPS adaptation lasting for three books before getting cancelled. In the early 2000s Gehenna causes people to become dislussioned with White Wolf and many don't get into the new World of Darkness games, instead going back to the older games still in production or latching onto new systems which deliver better on the promise of narrative gameplay. In the 2010s TSR finally goes bankrupt, and after a long waiting period Fantasy Flight games get the rights to D&D. They release Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition, a game which while superficially similar to the previous editions require propriatry dice.


Yeah, I know it get more unrealistic as it goes along, but the point is that not a lot honestly changes if Gygax remains with TSR, except for WotC probably not getting D&D at the end of the nineties. The main knockon effect of that is that we don't see the D&D resurgance with 5e, which causes the state of the late 2000s of a somewhat more competitive RPG market to continue for longer.

Mechalich
2019-04-06, 06:41 PM
As a very rough guide, if Gygax remained then I suspect that either 2e wouldn't have happened, or it would have been 1e with some more optional rules.

AD&D 2e really isn't that different from AD&D 1e, at least in terms of the Core Books. It's more polished, certainly, with better art and writing, and certain minor systems got polished up, but the overall difference is fairly minor and none of the core mechanics were changed. Off all the edition-to edition changes in D&D's history it's by far the smallest. Most of the major mechanical changes came later, when TSR started spewing out splatbooks like the 'Complete' series and authoring endless Dragon and Dungeon articles.


TSR would have had a lower output, slanted more towards modules than settings or sourcebooks, but would have still ended up losing too much money to continue and get bought out at a later date.

Probably. Keeping the company smaller might have helped sustain profit margins for longer. History has shown that being first matters a lot in the RPG market and D&D has remained the preeminent fantasy game through the history of gaming despite colossal failures like the late 90s bankruptcy, the 4th edition disaster, and 5th editions anemic productivity. Brand recognition seemingly trumps everything else. The only company that ever managed to knock D&D off the top was White-Wolf, and that was by doing something completely different. White-Wolf's anti-D&D game, Exalted, made a brief splash but was by no means a long term success (honestly, hardly any WW game other than Vampire can be described as a real success, Werewolf, maybe and that's it).

I do think that a TSR under Gygax's management would have struggled even more than it historically did (I recall the late 90s TSR website, it was a travesty even by the standards of the day) to adapt to the internet era and that would have collapsed the company in the early 2000s even in the absence of a significant competitor for its brand. Then again, maybe not, D&D arguably achieved it's greatest popular culture penetration in the late 1990s when TSR was bankrupt via the Baldur's Gate games. I actually imagine that, if TSR hung on for a few extra years that instead of being bought out by a card gaming company they would have been bought out by a video game company. White-Wolf was bought out by video game companies both times it collapsed, and in the most recent purchase the actual tabletop game was considered functionally without value and farmed out to a bunch of European fans while the actual bid focused entirely on Bloodlines.

Actual D&D is heading toward that scenario anyway, if not already there. Commercially 5e is a giant nothingburger. It contributes zilch to the bottom line of WotC and isn't even a measurable line item for parent company Hasbro. Meanwhile Beamdog functions by remaking old D&D video games and almost certainly pulls in both more money and more players than the tabletop realm.