4 ms·
Sure: D&D is the American Dream. (Lizzie Stark said it in 2012 https://nordiclarp.org/w/images/a/a0/2012-States.of.play.pdf https://nordiclarp.org/w/images/a/a0
by leoc 2y ago
Sure: D&D is the American Dream. (Lizzie Stark said it in 2012 https://nordiclarp.org/w/images/a/a0/2012-States.of.play.pdf https://nordiclarp.org/w/images/a/a0/2012-States.of.play.pdf and I'd been saying it for the best part of a decade already at that point.) That's why Paranoia, a middle finger to the mores and expectations of late-'70s, rules-lawyer-era D&D, is a role-playing game about being, basically, a work gang of gulag prisoners in a totalitarian state; while Call of Cthulhu, another RPG from people who were sick of D&D, experiments a bit half-heartedly with ideas of cosmic despair and creeping personal ruin, and bigs up Cthulhu himself as an unbeatable grudge monster.
- teachrdan 2y agoCall of Cthulhu was notable for the fact that players' combat skills were inevitably their weakest.
- hibikir 2y agoIt's interesting to look outside the US, in countries where the D&D translations didn't come in a decade early: When facing Cthulhu, Paranoia, Rolemaster, Vampire and the like on an even playing field, D&D didn't really win.
- bovermyer 2y agoI know how the RPG hobby played out in Japan, but I'm unfamiliar with other countries' experience. Has anyone written about this?
- SSLy 2y agoI don't know of any broader essay about it. You you'll get per-country folklore if you ask specific communities. Probably some will chime in here.
- geon 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakar_och_Demoner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakar_och_Demoner was pretty big in sweden.
- brendoelfrendo 2y agoAnd has now come full circle to be played at my table in the US. The new version (under the name Dragonbane for its English version) is published by Free League Publishing and is quite good.
- rmsaksida 2y agoI think at a time Vampire: The Masquerade was the most popular title in Brazil, but D&D eventually won. Tormenta and Old Dragon are pretty popular as well.
- tormeh 2y agoThe American market rules supreme. Any setting and/or ruleset popular with Americans will be able to afford much higher production values than its competitors. Those production values in turn attract non-American players.
- bovermyer 2y agoOh, so you own a Mercedes-AMG Project One, then? After all, that's the car with the highest production values.
- xandrius 2y agoCan you expand on the Japanese context?
- PaulHoule 2y agoDon't forget Toon as the radical alternative for somebody who wants to run an easy and fast game that is not set in such an unforgiving setting as CoC or Paranoia.
- mistrial9 2y ago> unbeatable grudge monster .. with you up to that point.. but listen, unspeakable dread is just a few notches over "grudge" (!)