alternatehistory.com

IOTL, modern RPGs (think Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller, GURPS, etc.) have only been around since the mid-70s, having evolved from various more-or-less similar kinds of game and wargames. However, I can't see any technical reason why they couldn't have been developed much earlier (that is, a reason tied to some particular technical feature shared by all or most RPGs); dice, for instance, have been around for centuries. Socially, I can see why they were unlikely to arise prior to the 20th century or at least the late 19th (insufficient user base), but it seems possible, at least, to imagine some kind of recognizable RPG being created in, say, the 1920s and becoming popular. So, why didn't this happen? Why weren't RPGs invented 10, 20, 50 years earlier?
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