D&D Has Never Been Suitable for Generic Fantasy

[matthulhu]

Specifically in the playtest and our discussions about it here, it comes to my mind that a lot of people seem to want to use D&D as a game of generic fantasy (or, sometimes, not even a game, but a storytelling tool, which I don't even want to start in on, God help me). This seems to drive a lot of the suggestions I see for/about the playtest: making concessions for this or that contingency to make the whole more palatable for "any conceivable" campaign.

But D&D is not generic fantasy, and never has been, and never really can be- EXCEPT if we consider that what is now considered "generic fantasy" is hugely colored by years of D&D being the starting-point of so many lives devoted to "fantasy" as a genre (which explains to me why you see things like Paladins in Diablo and WarCraft). Pop culture makes references to "+1" items, a D&D concept to the core. This stuff is ingrained.

Even from the original little books by Gygax and Arneson, right through to the 4th edition (which itself had a wildly different assumed setting but plenty of it, and in great lava gulps), this is a game that has been dripping with implied setting to various degrees. That implied setting might be a mish-mash of inspirations and rip-offs, but it is there nonetheless. Clerics? Paladins? Bards? Magic-users with spell slots and spells that start with "Bigby's"? These aren't generic fantasy, they are D&D through and through. They transcend their literary antecedents at this point. "Bards are based on rea..." yadda yadda no one cares, every bard in every video game is based on the lute-strumming D&D bard who is D&D to the core.

I don't see why anyone would want to make D&D a "generic fantasy" toolkit, game, storytelling tool or anything else for that matter, except that people seem to be drawn to the name "Dungeons & Dragons" even above the game sold under that title. The truth is there are generic fantasy gaming systems out there (many inspired by D&D in turn, naturally) but D&D is basically incapable of being one. What is generic about a cosmology that includes the alignments? What is generic about a vorpal sword or a bag of holding? ("Let's remove alignments from the system, they don't fit the world I want to play in!" Well, or, you could play a different game entirely that never had alignments to begin with. There are plenty to choose from. Why should D&D have to become one?)

D&D grew to become iconic and survive to playtest a fifth edition (which isn't even the fifth edition but more like the sixth or seventh) specifically because it was never generic. It has presented a very specific framework for adventure gaming that has been highly malleable- but NOT N O T N-O-T generic. It was never about infinite character concepts, acting out any role you could imagine- this is a game about a class of people whose lives consist of going into dangerous locations, answering violence with violence, and hauling out treasure. You shouldn't expect D&D to bend over backwards to make room for your pacifist noble with an allergy to coins and no discernible talent outside of playing the spoons. The game does not owe your character anything, especially if your character isn't made to do what D&D expects him to do- go out and earn experience points, however your preferred edition awards them, to become better at earning experience points, lather, rinse, repeat.

Going forward into the playtest and the edition it will spawn, I think it is important to remember this point. D&D is not and never has been a go-to toolkit for telling fantasy stories; it is a game of adventure in a fairly specific mode and in a fairly specific kind of world- right down to the concept of class & level, which itself says something about the setting (there are people who go out and adventure, and each one is highly proficient in a specific useful area towards the goal of acquisition of treasure and as they adventure, they become better at it, eventually beyond the ken of their erstwhile "unclassed" peers). Dungeons & Dragons is a game for exploring "D&D Worlds." D&D Worlds can look very, very different from each other on the surface and even for a few layers below that, but they are still D&D Worlds at their cores- until you stretch them so far they ~POP~ and you're left with something alien (but not intrinsically worthless). This is how some of the post-D&D fantasy rule sets were born, after all!

When we try to turn D&D into generic fantasy, something to tell our individual fantasy stories, it kind of breaks down. D&D is good at being D&D, and not much else. And that, I think, is why it is STILL the biggest fantasy adventure game on the block in terms of brand recognition. But could that recognition falter if D&D is made to be more generic, more adaptable, and extricated further from the concepts it made so iconic they are now regarded as staples of our modern notions about the fantasy genre?

 

[JamesonCourage]

Not to be rude, but I kind of hope I get my way, and you don't get yours. Because then, D&D will be inclusive enough that we can both play 5e D&D how we want to. Because, as always, play what you like

 

[Doug McCrae]

I think you're right, D&D has never been generic in the way that Hero System and GURPS are generic. There's always been an implied setting - late-medieval Europe meets Wild West meets Dying Earth. The core rules only use one or two magic systems. Only one style of game play - dungeoneering - is well supported. The most generic part of the game has always been the Monster Manual, cause it's so damn big, though again, the reason for that is to support games with a lot of combat.

There's a significant difference between editions though. Early D&D is highly specific. From late 2e onward, there is an explosion of options, probably reaching its apogee in 3e, particularly if one uses splatbooks and open gaming content. Another feature of d20 D&D is the decoupling of rules and flavour text. 4e specifically encourages the reflavouring of powers. In 1e, all, or most, classes meant something in the game world - thieves had guilds, bards had colleges. In 3e, that's not the case. A 3e rogue is a skillful person with a pragmatic fighting style, but the rules don't tell us how he became so.

This decoupling is very similar to the way Hero System separates powers (the game mechanical part) from special effects (the game-world part). In Hero a 10d6 Energy Blast can represent fire, or lightning, or Vogon poetry, or any other ability which deals that amount of ranged damage.

 

[slobster]

I think it's absolutely true that D&D books are written with an implied setting. When the system was first made, it was the only game in town. Fantasy culture from other pen-and-paper games to video games, novels, movies, and more have their roots firmly in D&D. When we talk about paladins, we aren't concerned with how paladins were historically, or even how they were portrayed fictionally before D&D. We talk about the D&D paladin, which is its own animal. D&D has grown beyond being a game to simulate fantasy archetypes into inventing and perpetuating archetypes itself.

That doesn't mean it can't continue to grow and change. I mean, your argument is that D&D started as a roleplaying homage to Appendix N literature, but grew to eclipse them and typify its own genre. It seems to me that you have to acknowledge that D&D might grow to transcend that tradition as well.

D&D is about Bigby's magic undershirt and scheming DMs intent on killing their PCs in labyrinthine dungeons. It's about meeting a group of strangers in a tavern and going on life-threatening adventures with them because an old man stumbles in with a tale of woe and a fistful of coins. That is part of its history, and some people still want that from the game. When making DDN, be sure that it can do that stuff.

But D&D also means other things to other people. It means looking over the spells in the player's handbook and figuring out how to harness their unintended consequences to power high magic societies. It means magitech and warforged. D&D can mean the dread mists of Ravenloft, or the scorching sands of postapocalyptic Dark Sun.

Saying that D&D the ruleset can't be used for anything other than D&D the vague and mostly implied setting . . . well that really doesn't match my experience. I've played all sorts of campaigns that aren't recognizably D&D in setting or tone, but use the ruleset. I don't want that setting to go away, though, because it offers a good starting point for new players, and a comfy place that I can always return to when I'm not in the mood for something more experimental.

It's nice to know that, at the end of the day, I can always prop my boots up at the Drowsy Dragon , throw back a pint of ale, and wait for adventure to cross my path. It always does. But sometimes I want to hack alien invaders apart with my psychic blade while the rest of my band of sky pirates battles the ninjas sent to assassinate the admiral of the dirigible fleet I am sworn to protect. D&D does that for me, too.

That's why I love it!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Specifically in the playtest and our discussions about it here, it comes to my mind that a lot of people seem to want to use D&D as a game of generic fantasy (or, sometimes, not even a game, but a storytelling tool, which I don't even want to start in on, God help me). This seems to drive a lot of the suggestions I see for/about the playtest: making concessions for this or that contingency to make the whole more palatable for "any conceivable" campaign.

...

Even from the original little books by Gygax and Arneson, right through to the 4th edition (which itself had a wildly different assumed setting but plenty of it, and in great lava gulps), this is a game that has been dripping with implied setting to various degrees. That implied setting might be a mish-mash of inspirations and rip-offs, but it is there nonetheless. Clerics? Paladins? Bards? Magic-users with spell slots and spells that start with "Bigby's"? These aren't generic fantasy, they are D&D through and through. They transcend their literary antecedents at this point. "Bards are based on rea..." yadda yadda no one cares, every bard in every video game is based on the lute-strumming D&D bard who is D&D to the core.

...

When we try to turn D&D into generic fantasy, something to tell our individual fantasy stories, it kind of breaks down. D&D is good at being D&D, and not much else. And that, I think, is why it is STILL the biggest fantasy adventure game on the block in terms of brand recognition. But could that recognition falter if D&D is made to be more generic, more adaptable, and extricated further from the concepts it made so iconic they are now regarded as staples of our modern notions about the fantasy genre?

I strongly disagree on the subject of 4th edition.

First IMO PoLand is much more similar to classic Greyhawk or Mystara than most settings are.

Secondly, 4e is massively driftable. With Gygaxo-Vancian magic, hard encoded limits on spells, bad puns for spell components, and the gritty fighter/high powered magic, and reliance on magical healing from clerics AD&D/3.X are as you describe.

But in 4e we're running quite a good game in Middle Earth by the simple expedient of 'Inherent bonusses, Martial PCs only, and long rests happen only in places like Rivendell, Lorien, or Minas Tirith'. (And a much better Middle Earth game than certain licensed rulesets would give - MERP, I'm looking at you). Likewise I'd have problems running either Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or Hercules/Xena in any edition of D&D (clerics being far too necessary) but in 4e it's a snap. I can't take it everywhere - I can't for instance manage WHFRP magic (with combat casting and backlashes that will eat your face) or a game as gritty as low power GURPS. But it's a solid versatile system.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

*Shrug*

D&D best replicates D&D fantasy, which is its own thing. It can certainly be used, and used well, to replicate a large number of fantasy tropes, though the greater the deviation from baseline D&D the greater the modification required, and the less satisfying the conversion may be. That does not prevent anyone from adapting D&D to fit their own fantasy play style; it just means a little tweaking may be required.

That's a feature, not a bug. Why would you want D&D to not first and foremost be D&D?

 

[Walking Dad]

Uhm, can someone explain to me what "generic fantasy" is?

And all the listed "Generic" settings use different setting rules for their converted worlds.

Conan GURPS played very unlike Diskworld GURPS (two setting books I own).

Please give me D&D core rules for D&D fantasy and modules with optinal rules for other types of fantasy.

 

[Pickles JG]

Likewise I'd have problems running either Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser ....

Ironically as these are clearly major influeces for the whole adventurer thing.

When I played as a kid we became frustrated with the failure of the game to feel like any of the literature we read. We ended up describing D&D as being a great fit for "D&D world". Turns out D&D world was Greyhawk but I only found this out later. This contrasted massively with our game of choice 30 years ago Runequest, where the mechanics of the game felt deeply embedded in the world it tried to represent & it was not at all generic (well in 2ed).

The later editions of D&D especially 2nd have broadened what makes "D&D world" - FR & Planescape were built after the fact & Eberron even more so so they fit D&D rather than the other way around.

The core tropes of classic D&D - clerical healing, vancian magic, powerful people are high level not in charge of massive resources etc are so alien to other setting that they are never better than an uneasy fit. Apart from in 4e apparently

 

[Gold Roger]

I agree and the classic implied setting of D&D is something I love and in a way grew up with long before I started playing it.

I think two things are important. One is that with hard work you could greatly deviate from the implied setting, something I hope modularity in DDN will help with. The other is that the Core of the game does the classical implied setting as close to 95% (100% will be impossible) as possible.

Not to bash the 4th edition (I quite enjoyed it at its infancy and still think it's great for certain games), but it changed big stretches of the implied setting. This upset many and I can definitely see why.

If you've played the same setting, wether homebrew or published, based on implied, for a long time and you suddenly can't anymore without hard houseruling or a massively overhauled setting book, that's bad for the game.

I homebrew as edition neutral as possible, but D&D specific, as I currently don't have a prefered edition. I can do ODD, BDD, ADD 1st&2ed, 3rd and Pathfinder in it with little trouble. I can do 4th as well, but it's more work. I hope I can do DDN without much work. And I hope it can do Planescape, every version of FR, Eberron, Nenthir Vale, Eberron, Dark Sun and many as well using the Core release.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Uhm, can someone explain to me what "generic fantasy" is?

Tolkien.

Or the clay from which specific fantasy is molded. One could extract such a clay from D&D and end up with a d20 superstructure. It may have no classes at all, or very generic classes such as 'magic guy', and 'skill guy'. Once you're at the level of druids, halberds, and fireball spells, then, I think, you've become specific.