Last year, on December 19th, Channel 4 aired a special hosted by Jonathan Ross discussing what he, a panel of experts, and popular vote thought were the 100 Greatest Toys. The show featured the 100 most popular toys and games in England, and my beloved D&D ranked 3rd on the list.
Looking at the list of toys and games, it quickly became apparent that D&D was being used as shorthand for Role Playing Games. RPGs were also the only category of game/toy that featured only one entry on the list. This just strikes me as off somehow. There are an abundance of wonderful RPGs that I think deserve notice, and it is debatable that D&D is even the best RPG available. It isn't really debatable that D&D created the role playing marketplace and its place as the first role playing game deserves quite a bit of recognition (pedantic discussions by patricidal game developers regarding pre-D&D role playing games aside), but should it have been the only game on the list?
What about DC Heroes, James Bond 007, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu to name just a few games that I think deserve mainstream recognition.
I can understand leaving a couple of great rpgs, like Pathfinder and Lamentations of the Flame Princess off the list as they are "pastiche versions" of games that precede their existence.
What are some games that you think deserve to be in the Top 100 games and toys of all time? How about just a list of the top 100 RPGs? I'll submit my list of the Top 30 RPGs, all of which will be games I have played, with some discussion of my criteria on Thursday.
No comments:
Post a Comment