What makes Dungeons & Dragons "Dungeons & Dragons?"

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

No "I know it when I see it" answers here, please, Potter Stewart: What concrete elements make a game Dungeons & Dragons and not, say, Runequest or Tunnels & Trolls or Advanced Fighting Fantasy?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My suggestions:

1) Armor Class
2) Hit Points
3) Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma (not necessarily in that order)
4) Level-based characters
5) Class-based characters
6) Funny races available (but not mandatory)
7) Rigidly defined supernatural powers (magic, psionics, etc.)
8) A fantasy milieu
9) Random chance determined by at least the representation of funny dice

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't think any particular class, race, monster, magic power, magic item or milieu is the sole determinant, however.

Runequest set in the Forgotten Realms is still Runequest. You can have Dungeons & Dragons without the wizard/magic-user class. Heck, you can have Dungeons & Dragons in Kara-Tur with none of the standard classes, races or monsters and it's still D&D.

I consider most of the OSR games, Pathfinder and Castles & Crusades to be Dungeons & Dragons -- although not if I'm facing a WotC lawyer in a courtroom -- and due to the vicissitudes of the D20 SRD, they're missing a number of classic D&Disms, but they're still all D&D (to me) without umber hulks, mind flayers and the like.

 

[nedjer]

making stuff up

 

[Rechan]

Someone's sig said something to the effect of: D&D is rolling a crit on an orc when our cleric is at 3 HP.

Otherwise, this:

1) Armor Class
2) Hit Points
3) Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma (not necessarily in that order)
4) Level-based characters
5) Class-based characters
6) Funny races available (but not mandatory)
7) Rigidly defined supernatural powers (magic, psionics, etc.)
8) A fantasy milieu
9) Random chance determined by at least the representation of funny dice

I would argue that it would need the Fighter/Cleric/Thief/Wizard. Without those I think you'd alienate a lot.

 

[aurance]

It's Dungeons and Dragons when whoever legally owns the brand name calls it Dungeons and Dragons.

Otherwise, it's any number of combination of arbitrary things that someone may "feel" is D&D, although no one's feeling is going to jive completely with someone else's, and certainly not with gamers as a whole. Someone may come along and publish a game called Swords and Salamanders. I'd still call it Swords and Salamanders, not D&D, no matter how many elements I thought it had in common with whatever edition of D&D I played in the past.

 

[Lum The Mad]

starting as a peasant and becoming a demi-god eventually

(one of the reasons 4th Edition is not for me - you start as a hero and you become a super-hero; much less of a progress)

 

[Crazy Jerome]

My suggestions:

1) Armor Class
2) Hit Points
3) Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma (not necessarily in that order)
4) Level-based characters
5) Class-based characters
6) Funny races available (but not mandatory)
7) Rigidly defined supernatural powers (magic, psionics, etc.)
8) A fantasy milieu
9) Random chance determined by at least the representation of funny dice

That would more or less be my list, though I'm not as firm on #3, #6, and #7 as the rest. I think, for example, that you could have a version of D&D that used Str, Dex, Int, and Wis--and then moved the functions of Con and Cha off into something else (skills, feats, etc.) It might annoy a lot of people, but I think it would still feel like D&D. However, see below.

I don't think any particular class, race, monster, magic power, magic item or milieu is the sole determinant, however.

This is getting into Potter Stewart territory, but I think there are a lot of things that aren't individually required, but are needed in some numbers to sustain the D&D feel. Are bags of holding required? Of course not. Can you cut out bags of holding, +1 swords, elven cloaks, rings of invisibility, fireball wands, and healing potions and get away with it? Probably not. That's why taking out Con and Cha would be risky. Taking those out uses up a lot of capital that might better be spread in other changes.

 

[NewJeffCT]

No "I know it when I see it" answers here, please, Potter Stewart: What concrete elements make a game Dungeons & Dragons and not, say, Runequest or Tunnels & Trolls or Advanced Fighting Fantasy?

1) Armor Class & Hit Points
2) Vancian Magic
3) 9 alignments
4) Level progression/advancement in power/experience points
5) Base classes of Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Rogue/Thief, Wizard/Magic-User, Cleric and sometimes Druid
6) Base races of human, half-elf, elf, dwarf, halfling and sometimes gnome and half-orc
7) basic monsters that include: orcs, goblins, kobolds, lizard folks and hobgoblins at low levels; ogres, trolls and a few others at low-to-mid levels; giants, mind flayers, minor dragons at mid levels; and dragons, demons and devils at higher levels.
8) Magic divided between arcane & divine, and sometimes psionic
9) fantasy, of course
10) money represented by copper, silver, gold, platinum and sometimes electrum.
11) six characteristics: STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHA that are a base of 3-18.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1) Armor Class
2) Hit Points
3) Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma (not necessarily in that order)
4) Level progression/advancement in power/experience points
5) Classes with relatively well defined roles
6) Vancian Magic
7) 9 alignments, with actual mechanical ramifications
8) Magic divided between arcane & divine. (Personally, I'd add psionic- others may pop up as well.)
9) Uses all the regular polyhedrals (d4 through d20) with d20 as the primary die for determining To-Hit