Hmmm, maybe?

Ok so this is likely just something that has popped into my twisted brain and has no historical accuracy or value. Play with the idea if you like or just brush it off as the author of this blog having gone slightly nuts.

I think that whether intentionally or not, that TSR back in the day actually mapped out their vision of the history and future of the Earth in their RPG properties… yeah crazy but let me play this out for you a bit so you can see where I am going and then make your own conclusions.

So the old TSR company had a serious collection of roleplaying games with various engines and licenses. But going over the list a while ago I noticed something. I checked a few things and… well… try this on for size.

Boot Hill is a classic mid to late 1800’s setting where it is the old school Cowboys vs Indians and train robbers and so on.

Gangbusters is a 1920s-1930s cops and crooks setting where you get to play around in the prohibition and can take either side.

Indiana Jones is a licensed product that takes place in the 1930s to 1950s. Good pulp style adventures.

Top Secret was created to be the classic spy thriller from the 1950s-1980s. Top Secret SI gets you more into the 80s+ and even adds elements of low level supers with cybernetics and even mutations in the right supplements.

Marvel Super Heroes, another licensed product took a look at the super hero culture of the 1940s (Cap and the Invaders) all the way up into the 2020s (Days of Future Past).

Star Frontiers takes us into the future. No dates are really set but by the technology and the alien races we can see that the superhumans did not last forever.

Gamma World happens after some sort of apocalypse. Now I had to put this here in my version of the time line since the genetic diversity seen on Earth in Gamma World is not present in any way in Star Frontiers. Partly I think the superhumans who were not represented in Star Frontiers and super robots from Star Frontiers rose up and duked it out with the pure humans and the fall out from it lead to this.

Now this is where you are going to have to hold on to your hats and think it out a little bit. I will admit I may be crazy and I know I am sleep deprived but hey… roll with me here and see what you think.

Basic/BXCMI D&D. Now then in the basic setting there are traces of sci-fi elements. The Shadow Elves supposedly have a leaky reactor or something in the underworld. And the Red Steel setting has mutations that occur from the rust/steel/cinnabar that may not be of this world. There are a few other hints, and in the immortals series there is actually a sci-fi city that can be visited. And speaking of Immortals, all the immortals are basically elevated mortal characters. There are no gods. The genetics seem stable in this world overall, but there are a TON of races. PC and otherwise. Classes and character types are pretty limited.

AD&D 1st edition. Characters are a bit more diverse, monster races are pretty much the same. More dragons. And actual Gods. Now then add to that there is still one module in the 1st edition that has you exploring a crashed ancient space ship. And if we drag it into 2nd edition you also get the Tale of the Comet setting where you not only deal with a crashed space ship but can go from it to space where there are still humans out there and they actually have markers that say the world you are from is a place not to go to. So crashing there was a big nono.

Now then I know it is sort of hard to take it seriously and say that D&D is taking place on Earth, and we grew our own pantheons but hey, its a fun theory.

For those of you who want more proof. I got none. The publication dates do not match up in any ordered fashion. The settings never officially tie into each other. And no one from TSR has ever publicly suggested that there is any kind of connection in the game settings that I have been able to find. And I have looked.

Is it possible that this was on purpose? Sure. Is it possible that I am just putting things together and saying hay isnt this cool? Oh for bloody certain.

Now then you will note that there are certain settings, games and licenses that I have left out of this list. And that was because I was having a really hard time fitting anything else in and keeping it making any kind of sense. And I admit that fully. Could I have fit them in? Sure could have. Buck Rodgers in the 25th century. Conan. Gammarauders. And more. Its all possible to make it fit. Timeline gets further and further out though. And frankly adding Conan and Lankhamar end up coming after the main AD&D point where we see magic decline as the world heads back to being mundane. So it sort of cycles if you want to go that far.

Mostly when this popped into my head I thought it would be cool to either set up players who are immortal and survive this whole timeline. Or maybe create families that can trace their lineage all the way back to something called a cowboy.

I know that other publishers have created games and settings where you can do all of this on purpose. But bringing this together like this was just too much fun and I had to share.

Thats it for now. Play hard, play safe and remember to make up your own mind about stuff.

Now gimme the dice. I need to see how many cowboy families can survive to become wizards.