White Box Family Tree

Growing Like a Metaphor
With roots firmly set in the hobby of wargaming where skirmish level games pit single figures against each other in man-to-man conflict requiring tactical decisions to be made based on "what would this man do?" and therefore encouraging identification with the individual playing piece, the White Box moved the wargame slightly in a new direction by borrowing the imagined setting not from a period in history, but rather from the setting of some fantastic story. The movement didn't stop there and what started as a new wargame using paper and pencil and miniature figures in a fantastic medieval setting would broaden to include much more.
So the trunk of our family tree is the Little Brown Books, the White Box, rooted in wargames and nourished by fantastic literature of all kinds. The first branches would be the tabletop RPGs that quickly followed the LBBs, often little more than houserules and variants on the original edition, sometimes taking the setting in a new direction, however, such as into space, or the old west. The idea of roleplaying a single character was catching on.
Boardgames have been a popular pastime for generations and wargames based on a map board and counters were popular at the time. The fantasy hobby tree sprouted a new branch as boardgames embraced the new concept of roleplaying with chits representing heroes who moved around a map board. Card games would quickly follow. Video games, still mostly of the arcade variety, grafted onto the new hobby and supplied its own branch. When the personal computer (PC of another kind!) became affordable, RPGs quickly made that jump. As the game components and platforms were changing also the genre and settings were changing. Supers, espionage,  and horror games joined other RPG subject matter to cover just about any genre possible. Our tree now has a canopy.
New mega companies developed around especially popular products, such as Wizards of the Coast's Magic the Gathering collectable card game and White Wolf's World of Darkness brand of role-playing that often included live action games. The rise of the internet added yet another layer of branches to our tree as online communities discussed gaming and then massive multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft gained enormous popularity. Online communities have given rise to the Old School Renaissance (a resurgence of interest in older editions) and the story telling (narrativist in Forge terms) and Indie Press RPGs. Today virtual tabletops are allowing gamers from around the world to experience online much of the original feel that sitting around the dinner table rolling dice and playing White Box gave the grognards. Choices are everywhere. Desktop publishing, print-on-demand and crowdfunding are making it easier than ever for designers with good ideas to get their work into the hands of consumers and consumer feedback is helping designers improve their products.
That's our hobby's family tree and there seems no end in sight. The little branches and leaves are more numerous than ever, while the major limbs are supporting a variety of role-play gaming of various types, all coming together at the trunk that at it's core is the old White Box that started it all. When I stand back and look at it, it's pretty impressive where we have come as a hobby.