Shingen wrote:How about the Empire of the Petal Throne?
Empire of the Petal Throne, though it had a system loosely based on that of D&D (and I use the term "loosely" quite loosely), was never billed as "Empire of the Petal Throne, a Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Setting." So it is neither Officially a D&D setting nor even, really, unofficially.
The original
EPT is more of a cousin to D&D than a brother; the genetic drift is significant. For example, ability scores include Strength, Intelligence, Constitution, Psychic Ability, Dexterity, and Comeliness (the first appearance of that term, I might add, in a TSR product
IIRC). Abilities were rolled for with a d100, not 3d6, and characters had a chance to add 5 or 10 every level to one of their ability scores on a roll of 81-99 or 00. All characters had "Original Skills" and "Professional Skills," "Original Skills" being a mix of Plebian, Skilled, and Noble skills (kinda like Secondary Skills in
1E AD&D), and "Professional Skills" being skills for the three familiar base classes from D&D fo the day, for Warriors, Priests, and Magic Users. "Skills" for Priests and Magic Users included their spells, and spells function rather differently in
EPT than in D&D; for one, a spellcaster had a chance of failure (60% chance of failure at 1st level!), and spells were gained differently and haphazardly, and there were only three levels of spells.
So if there is an order of relation between D&D and other games from the early days of TSR, I'd say there is the following spectrum:
OD&D = OD&D only, including supplements
OD&D Brothers = The OD&D game as played by most folks outside Lake Geneva in the day, includes early Judges Guild products (which were essentialy Bob Bledsaw's home campaign), Warlock from Balboa, and Arduin from David Hargraves. Also includes AD&D and games derived from that line, plus Atlantis and Talislanta from Bard Games (which had a strong influence back into
3E D&D), Thieves' World from Gamelords, Role Aids from Mayfair Games, and early Harn products.
OD&D Cousins = Empire of the Petal Throne, Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Boot Hill, Top Secret, other games from TSR that loosely used elements from OD&D, but had significant differences in how they were designed.
OD&D Inspired = Other publisher products like Runequest, Tunnels & Trolls, The Fantasy Trip, or even Traveller, and other non-OD&D systems that still have a haunting similarity to OD&D and/or dissimilarity that was inspired specifically by "things that were wrong" with OD&D.
Unrelated to OD&D = Later developments after that first iteration of game design, in which games broke completely from the OD&D mold, usually a conscious choice on the part of designers to be "different". All the CRT games from TSR in the mid-80's, such as Marvel Super Heroes, Gamma World Third Edition, and Conan (a system response to the Pacesetter Revolution of the time), Star Frontiers, Twilight 2000, Star Wars (d6), Star Trek, Powers & Perils, Ars Magica, etc.
