Dungeons & Dragons: Is anything essential?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There is only one essential thing.

PLAYERS

Without them, the game ceases.

So if 4E was GURPS, you wouldn't bat an eye? I find that hard to believe.

I'd say the D20, levels, classes, multiple races, inhuman foes, the notion that there are subterranean areas full of stuff to fight.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

So long as the next edition desn't look anything near like True20 or Star Wars Saga and retains some elements that have been the concept of dnd since the beginning of dnd, I'll be a happy camper.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

So if 4E was GURPS, you wouldn't bat an eye? I find that hard to believe.

I'd say the D20, levels, classes, multiple races, inhuman foes, the notion that there are subterranean areas full of stuff to fight.

QFT.

 

[SavageRobby]

Classes, IMO. D&D has to remain a class-based system, AFAIC. (Maybe even levels, too.)

I would have said the same thing once upon a time, but the way the class system in 3x is used is ridiculous. Once upon a time the idea of a character's class was that it reflected their vocation - something they spent years (if not most of their youth) learning. Multiclassing was (typically, but not always) left to races with longer lifespans, and dual classing wasn't an easy proposition, game-wise. Now classes are just templates to heap on abilities with a slight nod to the vocation in question, and you see characters with five, six or more classes, quite often with completely nonsensical combinations.

If that is the way of the game, where choosing classes is simply a salad bar, then they might as well be dumped. They provide no real game benefit, and the same net effect can be done more elegantly in other ways.

 

[kenobi65]

Rolling different kinds of dice.

Killing critters and taking their stuff. (Not that you can't play D&D while not doing that, but that, to me, is part of the core of the game idea.)

 

[Delta]

character classes, ability scores, levels, HP and armor class.

Yep. I'd add polyhedral dice.

 

[Lorgrom]

good friends to play with, and having fun

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So long as the next edition desn't look anything near like True20 or Star Wars Saga and retains some elements that have been the concept of dnd since the beginning of dnd, I'll be a happy camper.

What in True20 or Saga doesn't feel like D&D to you, beyond the setting-specific stuff?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

good friends to play with, and having fun

Trivial Pursuit is D&D?

 

[kibbitz]

character classes, ability scores, levels, HP and armor class.

Yep. I'd add polyhedral dice.

All that, and I'd add the magic system, spell list and magic item lists. I can't say I like them, but I know that I wouldn't consider the system D&D without them.