Importance of RPGs
A lot of ideas came up in RPGs before they got used in movies and tv shows.
One would argue that The Lord of the Rings, King Authur, and other books inspired the Chainmail, D&D, and AD&D RPG to be made. Then D&D and AD&D inspired a movie named "Dungeons and Dragons" to be made. Not bad for a game that geeky people play indoors a lot and don't go out much. :)
I have to say that we played Traveller not just in homes, but at gaming stores, fast food places, camp grounds, picnics, BBQs, and other locations. Over the years we found that technology that we invented and thought of as original turned up in movies and TV shows 10 years or more later. I must admit that some of our ideas took an existing idea and improved on it. Like Star Trek Tholian web became personal web armor and a gun that could encircle something and crush it to the size of a ping-pong ball. All they used it in Star Trek for was two Tholian ships trying to trap the Enterprise in an energy web. Never advanced it any farther than that. One day I assume they will take it to the level of personal web armor and the web gun. That was 1986 when we thought of the idea and the GM used it in the game. We also had Nanosuits, Planet Buster Missiles, Guided Mis-Jumps, Masers, EMP pistols, Light Blades, Psionic Daggers, Mini-Mines (can be set to blast, shrapnel, or fire), Molecule Suits, and Space/Vac-Suits so high tech that it was like wearing a excercise suit. More but I can't think of it right now.
We had all kinds of things from alien space stations to Space Casinos carved out of a large asteroid to time travel to spywork and all kinds of other stuff. Forget the game modules, we invented our own. One day we could be nuking a planet, and the next we could be rescuing a kidnapped Princess. ;)
