They incorporated a lot of elements from generic fantasy like dungeon-crawling and plain magic swords, but M&M still comes with a special spin that makes it feel fresh and different enough from D&D without violating the blueprint too much.
My favourite are the random tables for mysterious islands à Odysseus, and the bazillion variants of the Minotaur like the Psychotaur, the Twinotaur or the Rhinotaur as replacement and spoof of the bazillion kinds of dragon of D&D.
They incorporated a lot of elements from generic fantasy like dungeon-crawling and plain magic swords, but M&M still comes with a special spin that makes it feel fresh and different enough from D&D without violating the blueprint too much.
My favourite are the random tables for mysterious islands à Odysseus, and the bazillion variants of the Minotaur like the Psychotaur, the Twinotaur or the Rhinotaur as replacement and spoof of the bazillion kinds of dragon of D&D.
It would have ultimately turned out the same as it is now.