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lowkey13
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What makes D&D, D&D?
I don't think there is anything we can point to and say "That's D&D!" other than product identity.
There is no tent big enough to hold D&D that doesn't hold other games like Chivalry and Sorcery, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Dungeon World, or Burning Wheel. If you start with a larger tent, say all RPGS, and start adding rules to remove things that are not D&D, you'll end up in a position where either other games aren't excluded or some D&D rulesets are.
There is no tent big enough to hold D&D that doesn't hold other games like Chivalry and Sorcery, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Dungeon World, or Burning Wheel. If you start with a larger tent, say all RPGS, and start adding rules to remove things that are not D&D, you'll end up in a position where either other games aren't excluded or some D&D rulesets are.
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lowkey13
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I think you can do that with any single edition of D&D and maybe with certain subgroups of editions, but the family is too diffuse and there are things that are not D&D too similar to each of them to tease apart.
Even if we use your starting points, different D&D editions don't meet the criteria. 4e doesn't have saving throws, for example. 3e has a different order to stats. Basic has classes only existed for humans -- other races are races.
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Zardnaar
Legend
Most of your points hit it but I would say the big ones are.
Class based game
6 ability scores
Alignment
Saving throws
Hit points
Armor class
Iconic Races (the AD&D ones basically)
Iconic Spells
Iconic monsters
Technically all the D&Ds have that and Pathfinder has most of it lacking a few iconic monsters but I think the thing is the D&D playstyle that links most of the editions. That is the casual explore and beat em up nature of the game that the OSR playstyle kind of is along with 5E and casual 3E (that is if you play it like 2E with some bells and whistles and don't know or care about the expected online assumptions).
There are some sub playstyles that in the minority (20% maybe combined)- hard core 3.X, 4E, Fantasy Vietnam OSR (Tomb of Horrors, gotcha), but I think the pick up and play aspect of 5E is simialr enough to the old B/X game and 1E how most people probably played it (roll 1d6 initiative and go).
Class based game
6 ability scores
Alignment
Saving throws
Hit points
Armor class
Iconic Races (the AD&D ones basically)
Iconic Spells
Iconic monsters
Technically all the D&Ds have that and Pathfinder has most of it lacking a few iconic monsters but I think the thing is the D&D playstyle that links most of the editions. That is the casual explore and beat em up nature of the game that the OSR playstyle kind of is along with 5E and casual 3E (that is if you play it like 2E with some bells and whistles and don't know or care about the expected online assumptions).
There are some sub playstyles that in the minority (20% maybe combined)- hard core 3.X, 4E, Fantasy Vietnam OSR (Tomb of Horrors, gotcha), but I think the pick up and play aspect of 5E is simialr enough to the old B/X game and 1E how most people probably played it (roll 1d6 initiative and go).
4e doesn't have Saving Throws...? Maybe I was playing a different game.
Zardnaar
Legend
It does but they were expressed very differently form the others D&D. 3E Fort/Ref/Will was essentially consolidated AD&D ones (with uncapped DC's) and 5E is not that different from 3E (with in effect capped DCs). 4E ones were more 50/50 (45/55?). Still even 4E did not cut the saving throw concept completely, it kind of replaced a lot of them with NADs (which are not iconic to D&D, neither are feats).
And by iconic I mean you could take something out and still have D&D. Feats for example are not used in a lot of OSR games or TSR era D&D but I don't think you can believably claim B/X is not D&D. If you replaced the 6 ability scores with modifiers or 3 scores (or 12) well you might have a D&D type game but its not D&D IMHO. Same thing if you made it a skill based system.
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lowkey13
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lowkey13
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Zardnaar
Legend
Yeah love it or hate it I think alignment is iconic to D&D.
I think I will release my homebrew game with 1 class and race and have 1E-3E alignment restrictions. Gnomes and Goblins (G&G) set in a Gnome centric world where the only class is Paladins and you can only play Gnomes. I'll basically clone the 1E paladin and add a smite ability on it with AD&D holy avengers. The idea of Gnomes and Goblins is to get a holy avenger (old school +5, +10 damage vs evil) and go and kill Goblins including the babies as in this game that is the LG thing to do. Errol Otus cover as well. It'll be on kickstarter any day now.
The BBEG is a level 20 Goblin trickster named Lowkei.
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