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

[Zardnaar]

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

It's out there but as I said why the Monk got included was because of a single player who wanted to play one. Kung fu/karate was also a popular thing late 70s and 80's.

I don't think the Monk makes it in this time around.

Any race or class invented by Gygax or a previous edition definitely won't be in it. No Drow, Dragonborn, Tieflings, Half Orcs etc.

Elves Dwarves might make it in Halflings maybe not.

 

[Faolyn]

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?

Purple is often associated with the mind and thought. And while psionics may not be part of the magic system, mind control, phantasms, and telepathy usually are.

Going by some color association pages I grabbed online:

Red: passion, danger, luck, fire, blood, wrath

Orange: warmth, energy

Yellow: the sun/heat, joy, cowardice, noticability

Green: nature, healing, growth, money, sickness, jealousy

Blue: water, the sky, wisdom and intelligence, stability, sadness

Purple: calmness, thought, royalty, religion/spirituality, wealth

Black: negativity, death, grief, evil, power

White: perfection, softness, cleanliness, purity, unification, coldness, ice/snow, sterility, death

Pink: love, playfulness, femininity

Brown: wholesomeness, honesty, outdoorsiness, agriculture, comfort

So whether the magic would flow from these sorts of interpretations or if colors would be added willy-nilly (like acid being associated with orange and green for energy), I dunno.

 

[wingsandsword]

Any race or class invented by Gygax or a previous edition definitely won't be in it. No Drow, Dragonborn, Tieflings, Half Orcs etc.

While the term "tiefling" is a D&D invention, the idea of a person with a fiendish bloodline that makes them distinct from humans is NOT.

In Arthurian legend, that was the explanation for the origin of Merlin's powers. . .his mother was seduced by a fiend and the inhuman heritage is where his magical talent came from.

Perhaps the more common (and public domain) term Nephilim for a person descended of angels or devils would be used in place of Aasimar and Tiefling as a character race, and Nephilim definitely are a part of broader literature and popular culture beyond D&D that could become a PC race.

The last official stats for Merlin in D&D I know of made him a Human Wizard 17/Druid 14, but that was in 1990 in Legends and Lore, published 4 years before Tieflings were added to D&D in Planescape in 1994, and a decade before Sorcerers were added in 3rd Edition in 2000 (Sorcerer would definitely fit the description of someone who got their magical ability from ancestry instead of study more accurately than Wizard).

Perhaps Tiefling Sorcerer 17/Druid 3 might describe Merlin more accurately in 5th edition terms (or Tiefling Sorcerer 7/Druid 3/Mystic Theurge 10 in 3.5e terms) (using the formulas in the 2nd to 3rd edition conversion book to translate 2e multiclass stats into the unified level system of 3rd and later editions he'd be 21st level, but Tiefling is Level Adjustment +1 in 3.5e, and levels caps at 20 in 5e but there's no level adjustments)

 

[Minigiant]

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?

In my low magic urban fantasy game, these are the colors.

• White: Healing and Blessing
• Black: Death and Cursing
• Red: Elemental Energy (fire, cold, electric, light, "force", radiation)
• Blue: Knowledge and Divination
• Yellow: Body magic, transmutation,and alchemy
• Green: Plants, Animals, Fungus, and Germs
• Orange: Chronmancy and Conjuration
• Purple: Mind magic and psionics
• Brown: Elemental Matter (earth, metal, wind, water, sound)
• Grey: Illusions and Raw Magic

 

[Zardnaar]

While the term "tiefling" is a D&D invention, the idea of a person with a fiendish bloodline that makes them distinct from humans is NOT.

In Arthurian legend, that was the explanation for the origin of Merlin's powers. . .his mother was seduced by a fiend and the inhuman heritage is where his magical talent came from.

Perhaps the more common (and public domain) term Nephilim for a person descended of angels or devils would be used in place of Aasimar and Tiefling as a character race, and Nephilim definitely are a part of broader literature and popular culture beyond D&D that could become a PC race.

The last official stats for Merlin in D&D I know of made him a Human Wizard 17/Druid 14, but that was in 1990 in Legends and Lore, published 4 years before Tieflings were added to D&D in Planescape in 1994, and a decade before Sorcerers were added in 3rd Edition in 2000 (Sorcerer would definitely fit the description of someone who got their magical ability from ancestry instead of study more accurately than Wizard).

Perhaps Tiefling Sorcerer 17/Druid 3 might describe Merlin more accurately in 5th edition terms (or Tiefling Sorcerer 7/Druid 3/Mystic Theurge 10 in 3.5e terms) (using the formulas in the 2nd to 3rd edition conversion book to translate 2e multiclass stats into the unified level system of 3rd and later editions he'd be 21st level, but Tiefling is Level Adjustment +1 in 3.5e, and levels caps at 20 in 5e but there's no level adjustments)

Some sort of infernal descent pc might make it in but it's not called Tieflings.

I doubt it though as they were added in 2E the 3.0 frcs then 4E.
Without that I doubt they make it into our variant 1E PHB.

 

[Faolyn]

Any race or class invented by Gygax or a previous edition definitely won't be in it. No Drow, Dragonborn, Tieflings, Half Orcs etc.

Elves Dwarves might make it in Halflings maybe not.

No drow, definitely. Either no orcs (full- or half-blooded), or orcs that were pure Tolkien and are actually corrupted members of other species, possibly putting them on equal footing with undead and lycanthropes. Which would actually be kinda cool and would avoid the problems associated with a normal species that was Always Evil.

The idea of a demon-blooded person is a pretty sexy one, and in addition to Merlin, I seem to recall that there are plenty of them in anime, so a part-demon--and likely, part-angel aasimar--people would be more likely, I think. I don't know if there are enough stories of elemental-kin to work genasi in.

Actually, come to think of it, without Gygax's religiosity getting in the way, demon- and angel-kin might be more common, as might demigods. Dunno how that would balance--maybe the game would involve some sort of ECL thing.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

I'm sort of puzzled by the assumption that the RPG in this hypothetical scenario of tabletop RPGs only being invented now would be high fantasy, or even fantasy at all. Is it being implied by the thread title?

 

[Zardnaar]

No drow, definitely. Either no orcs (full- or half-blooded), or orcs that were pure Tolkien and are actually corrupted members of other species, possibly putting them on equal footing with undead and lycanthropes. Which would actually be kinda cool and would avoid the problems associated with a normal species that was Always Evil.

The idea of a demon-blooded person is a pretty sexy one, and in addition to Merlin, I seem to recall that there are plenty of them in anime, so a part-demon--and likely, part-angel aasimar--people would be more likely, I think. I don't know if there are enough stories of elemental-kin to work genasi in.

Actually, come to think of it, without Gygax's religiosity getting in the way, demon- and angel-kin might be more common, as might demigods. Dunno how that would balance--maybe the game would involve some sort of ECL thing.

Either wouldn't be in it or no one cares about balance as that evolved over time espicially with 3E.

I think someone would have invented rpgs by late 80's anyway or at least as a video game.

So no d20 and no 40 years of accumulated knowledge. Assuming an reg even got invented it's probably va decade or two behind where we are now.

 

[JEB]

I'm sort of puzzled by the assumption that the RPG in this hypothetical scenario of tabletop RPGs only being invented now would be high fantasy, or even fantasy at all. Is it being implied by the thread title?

The thread is asking about an alternate D&D, so yeah, I guess it is implied. Some of us just got more down into the weeds of the alternate-history part.

That said, you raise a fair point - SF is much more likely to be the basis for the first RPG in this alternate timeline, probably something inspired by Star Wars. So we should probably be thinking of, "what would D&D look like if SF tropes had inspired the RPG industry"?

Purple magic/psionics certainly seems likely to be central, for one.

 

[wingsandsword]

I'm sort of puzzled by the assumption that the RPG in this hypothetical scenario of tabletop RPGs only being invented now would be high fantasy, or even fantasy at all. Is it being implied by the thread title?

Yes.

If we're talking about D&D being created today, ex nihilo, as if it had never existed before, that still would make it D&D, so there's an assumption that in being D&D, it would be some sort of vaguely medieval fantasy world.

It DOES create the chicken and egg scenario that the last 40+ years of fantasy literature, movies, games etc. have been heavily influenced by D&D, so it would be trying to create D&D from a world where D&D didn't exist, but somehow the fantasy genre was much the same (without very uniquely D&D elements) as it is today.