D&D General If D&D were created today, what would it look like?

[Aldarc]

My view on those tropes must be not aligned with yours, but through the history of the game (especially 3.5 with its unending tidal wave of Prestige Classes) and even today in 5e you can build characters which can fit into those tropes.

White Wizards are just healers. Clerics, Divine Souls, Celestial Warlocks. Yeah there is the divide between Divine/Arcane, but that doesnt mean it cannot be covered (or has not been).

Witches, yeah I dont know the tropes well enough so if thats a miss, thats fine.

Necromancer, I'd say this has or could be covered.

See my note on White Wizards, White Necromancers, and White Witches. Also, pemerton even notes in what you quote that this is subsumed by the heavily armored cleric.

 

[Minigiant]

one colour but super depths for it.

Well that's the idea.

1 magic but many branches of it.

There would be no separate white mages and black mages. There is a wizard who specializes in white, black, grey, blue, red, green, yellow, orange, purple, or brown magic but has access to them all.

Then you get another class that only gets access to 3 colors but specializes in all 3. You choose brown, white, and green for your druid. White, blue, and yellow for your holy cleric. etc.

Then you have you trickster class, your warlocky class, and your gish class that only gets one color but gets other stuff.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

White Wizards are just healers. Clerics, Divine Souls, Celestial Warlocks. Yeah there is the divide between Divine/Arcane, but that doesnt mean it cannot be covered (or has not been).

Have you played any of the Final Fantasy games? Familiar with Aerith Gainsborough, at least? I believe that style of "White Mage" is being referenced here.

 

[Scribe]

Yes, I know it was taken up by the Cleric, but other options did come about, we have 2 right now, that are not clerics that blend the types of magic.

My point was only that with the classes we have had for an extremely long time, they can be bent towards almost anything.

Have you played any of the Final Fantasy games?

Not in an extremely long time.

 

[Lanefan]

It's the manipulation of life force. Go one way, you heal; go the other way, you harm; go a third way, you bring life to the dead. Whether you want to call that necromancy or something else depends on the game.

I've always seen (fantasy) necromancy as very much the latter two of these, leaning into the trope of the evil necromancer making things be dead and then playing with the corpses.

 

[Lanefan]

Well that's the idea.

1 magic but many branches of it.

There would be no separate white mages and black mages. There is a wizard who specializes in white, black, grey, blue, red, green, yellow, orange, purple, or brown magic but has access to them all.

Then you get another class that only gets access to 3 colors but specializes in all 3. You choose brown, white, and green for your druid. White, blue, and yellow for your holy cleric. etc.

Then you have you trickster class, your warlocky class, and your gish class that only gets one color but gets other stuff.

OK, let's dive into this a bit.

In your thoughts, roughly what branch (or school, or whatever term you like) of magic does each colour represent? A few are kinda obvious e.g. the whole "black magic" trope, but some aren't - what's purple magic, for example?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

what's purple magic, for example?

Psionics, duh.

 

[Lanefan]

Psionics, duh.

You're making a connection I'm not, then; and on a broader note would psionics even be part of this overall magic plan or treated as its own discrete system?

 

[Zardnaar]

guns are not allowed in fantasy for some mad reason.

the monk has finally hit passable and would likely still happen if made today.

so the problem of AE is people are dumb?

Why I don't think the Monk would make it today is how it was added in the first place.

A player was a fan of kung fu tv show. There's no comparable martial arts thing atm in cultural relevance.

Much more likely viking related so maybe a bezerker class. Due to shows like Vikings, Norsemen and The Last Kingdom.

Throw in darker themes in pop culture in general and yeah more gritty with GoT and Viking stuff being a bigger influence.

One could argue that GoT wouldn't be made without D&D but it's not that influenced by it.

So more gritty, no monk, lower magic would be my guesses. Darker in tone.

More superhero would be another guess but different genre. I looked at popular fantasy and dark ages-renaissance pop culture.n

Classical and ancient (Rome, Egypt, Greece) world probably have some influence still.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

A player was a fan of kung fu tv show. There's no comparable martial arts thing atm in cultural relevance.

Might just be the circles I hang out in, but...

This seems relevant.