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

[Aldarc]

Bards appear to struggle in D&D because they have no obvious role in combat. In non-combat oriented FRPGing I've never had any trouble incorporating characters whose schtick is dealing with people, performing for them (either mundanely or using magic, typically illusions), outwitting and gulling them, etc.

Bards weirdly seem to have better coverage and more usage in JRPGs.

I'm also a fan of a similar class/profession in Guild Wars 1 & 2 called the Mesmer. It was basically a mage focused on mind magic, chaos magic, and counter-magic: e.g., illusionism, enchanting, buffing, fast-casting, psionics, etc. So it was a bit like a bard, illusionist, enchanter, and psion rolled into one.

Yes! Even the Hexblade is a pale imitation of what an 'Elric' class would be. I messed around with making a Class for it, but so much of it is spread around a bunch of classes/subclasses at this point.

It's not as if the warlock is even mechanically required to interact with their patron or make lesser pacts along the way.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There's a couple to maybe add to the list, on the warrior side:

The Legolas (nimble light-or-no-armour archer or sniper type)
The small-g gladiator (swords-and-sandals has had bursts of popularity since the 1950s and shows no signs of stopping)
The small-f fighter (using LotR comparisons, a cross between Boromir, Faramir and Gimli) as some people just want to hit things.

• Legolas is just a Swashbuckler with a bow for a primary weapon. Literally every single trick he pulls in LotR is classic Swashbuckler stuff.
• We're talking book 1 and Gladiator is not a book 1 class, no matter how good Spartacus was (it was very good, outrageously so for a show that verged on porn/splatterfest at times). Later though yes.
• Nobody who "just wants to hit things" is going to be looking for a specific "extre-generic!!!" class to do it. That's not how people think. They'll just pick the Barbarian-equivalent or whoever has the most simple rules.

With no D&D, the LOTR movies would be even bigger hits due to uniqueness and Gandalf and Aragorn might stand out. Although with no D&Dto guid it, The Aragorn might meld with Jon Snow and Aquaman by then and have more narrow powers.

• Gandalf has virtually nothing going on except his wisdom and mental fortitude - magic he ain't got much - he certainly shows absolutely no sign of being a diverse caster with a ton of abilities. He's barely even a spellcaster, and doesn't seem like a PC at all. I could buy a Merlin/Ged/"Gandalf" Archmage type class, but I'm skeptical that it wouldn't just be a Harry Potter with a lot of levels.
• I'm still not sure what you think makes Aragorn a class. I'm not saying he doesn't have anything, but what are you thinking there? What exactly is "unique" about this class?
• And I'm sorry guys but Fighter will never, ever, ever, ever be a class without the 1974 D&D's Fighting-Man. Not in a million years. And you can't have "Generic-ass Fighter" AND a bunch hyper-specific fighting-men. It won't happen. It's just not being realistic. The closest you might get is some sort of "Leader" or "Marshal"-type warrior class, who is pretty generic in terms of weapons/fighting, but a leader of men. Is that what you see for Aragorn?

 

[Mind of tempest]

• Legolas is just a Swashbuckler with a bow for a primary weapon. Literally every single trick he pulls in LotR is classic Swashbuckler stuff.
• We're talking book 1 and Gladiator is not a book 1 class, no matter how good Spartacus was (it was very good, outrageously so for a show that verged on porn/splatterfest at times). Later though yes.
• Nobody who "just wants to hit things" is going to be looking for a specific "extre-generic!!!" class to do it. That's not how people think. They'll just pick the Barbarian-equivalent or whoever has the most simple rules.

• Gandalf has virtually nothing going on except his wisdom and mental fortitude - magic he ain't got much - he certainly shows absolutely no sign of being a diverse caster with a ton of abilities. He's barely even a spellcaster, and doesn't seem like a PC at all. I could buy a Merlin/Ged/"Gandalf" Archmage type class, but I'm skeptical that it wouldn't just be a Harry Potter with a lot of levels.
• I'm still not sure what you think makes Aragorn a class. I'm not saying he doesn't have anything, but what are you thinking there? What exactly is "unique" about this class?
• And I'm sorry guys but Fighter will never, ever, ever, ever be a class without the 1974 D&D's Fighting-Man. Not in a million years. And you can't have "Generic-ass Fighter" AND a bunch hyper-specific fighting-men. It won't happen. It's just not being realistic. The closest you might get is some sort of "Leader" or "Marshal"-type warrior class, who is pretty generic in terms of weapons/fighting, but a leader of men. Is that what you see for Aragorn?

do they mean a ranger? like they guy apparently everyone copied

 

[Faolyn]

Gandalf has virtually nothing going on except his wisdom and mental fortitude - magic he ain't got much - he certainly shows absolutely no sign of being a diverse caster with a ton of abilities. He's barely even a spellcaster, and doesn't seem like a PC at all. I could buy a Merlin/Ged/"Gandalf" Archmage type class, but I'm skeptical that it wouldn't just be a Harry Potter with a lot of levels.

Well, we all know Gandalf is only a 5th-level Magic-User.

 

[Minigiant]

Gandalf has virtually nothing going on except his wisdom and mental fortitude - magic he ain't got much - he certainly shows absolutely no sign of being a diverse caster with a ton of abilities. He's barely even a spellcaster, and doesn't seem like a PC at all. I could buy a Merlin/Ged/"Gandalf" Archmage type class, but I'm skeptical that it wouldn't just be a Harry Potter with a lot of levels.

I think people will see Gandalf as a Merlin whether he actually casted magic like him or not. Old person with grey hair, a bunch of little magic tricks, and a sparky boom boom in his back-pocket would be a class.

I'm still not sure what you think makes Aragorn a class. I'm not saying he doesn't have anything, but what are you thinking there? What exactly is "unique" about this class?

Well Druid would not be a thing. So all the nature warriors with some supernatural power will get their gifts boosted. So Aragorn, John Snow, Dar, and some of the nature/animal/plant superheros would be rolled up into one class. Wildshape, beast companions, self heals, talking to animals/rocks/plants, and 15 different ways to entangle a foes will be grafted on a stripped down warrior chassis.

And I'm sorry guys but Fighter will never, ever, ever, ever be a class without the 1974 D&D's Fighting-Man. Not in a million years. And you can't have "Generic-ass Fighter" AND a bunch hyper-specific fighting-men. It won't happen. It's just not being realistic. The closest you might get is some sort of "Leader" or "Marshal"-type warrior class, who is pretty generic in terms of weapons/fighting, but a leader of men. Is that what you see for Aragorn?

I agree and disagree. There won't be a generic fighter like the 1974 one unless the designer is a lazy bum.

However I should see a Professional Soldier class that takes the role of the well trained commoner Man-At-Arms. It won't be generic as you'll likely be forced to specialize at level 1. No "Proficency in all simple and martial weapons and all armors".

 

[pemerton]

I want to step out of the weeds of this debate about fighter/warrior classes.

Let's begin by looking at a different, contemporary RPG: Cthulhu Dark. Here is the character building process from that system:

Choose a name and occupation. Describe your Investigator.​

Here's the reason why your character's occupation matters:

To know how well you do at something, roll:​

* One die if the task is within human capabilities.​

* One die if it’s within your occupational expertise.​

Imagine adapting this system from Mythos RPGing to FRPGing: if I call my warrior character a samurai that gives my character a bonus die when riding, shooting my bow, fighting with a katana and (if the table has bought into a certain conception of the courtly life of samurai) composing a haiku. If I call my warrior a gladiator then I get a bonus die when fighting - even with weird weapons - and when revving up the crowd and maybe (if the table has bought into a certain conception of gladiators) when leading a slave revolt.

13th Age uses just this approach to PC backgrounds and their role in non-combat resolution; Cthulhu Dark just generalises it to the whole of the game. (And a mechanically more sophisticated approach to this sort of free descriptor-style of PC build can be found in Robin Laws's HeroWars/HeroQuest RPG.)

Now the reason original D&D needed only a single "fighting man" class was because it didn't have class abilities beyond what weapons can you use, what armour can you use, and what magic can you perform. The fighter class is the one that answers all, all, none.

There would be no point in an alternative, invented-today D&D having multiple fighter/warrior classes unless it was also going to have intricate and distinct lists of class abilities associated with each (along the lines of 4e D&D, or 5e D&D subclasses). But just as likely, as a design, would be to stick with a single fighter class (probably called warrior because I think that sounds less like a boxer and has a bit more resonance) and then just use some sort of background/free descriptor mechanic to distinguish gladiators from samurai from Robin Hood-style foresters etc.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I want to step out of the weeds of this debate about fighter/warrior classes.

Let's begin by looking at a different, contemporary RPG: Cthulhu Dark. Here is the character building process from that system:

Choose a name and occupation. Describe your Investigator.​

Here's the reason why your character's occupation matters:

To know how well you do at something, roll:​

* One die if the task is within human capabilities.​

* One die if it’s within your occupational expertise.​

Imagine adapting this system from Mythos RPGing to FRPGing: if I call my warrior character a samurai that gives my character a bonus die when riding, shooting my bow, fighting with a katana and (if the table has bought into a certain conception of the courtly life of samurai) composing a haiku. If I call my warrior a gladiator then I get a bonus die when fighting - even with weird weapons - and when revving up the crowd and maybe (if the table has bought into a certain conception of gladiators) when leading a slave revolt.

13th Age uses just this approach to PC backgrounds and their role in non-combat resolution; Cthulhu Dark just generalises it to the whole of the game. (And a mechanically more sophisticated approach to this sort of free descriptor-style of PC build can be found in Robin Laws's HeroWars/HeroQuest RPG.)

Now the reason original D&D needed only a single "fighting man" class was because it didn't have class abilities beyond what weapons can you use, what armour can you use, and what magic can you perform. The fighter class is the one that answers all, all, none.

There would be no point in an alternative, invented-today D&D having multiple fighter/warrior classes unless it was also going to have intricate and distinct lists of class abilities associated with each (along the lines of 4e D&D, or 5e D&D subclasses). But just as likely, as a design, would be to stick with a single fighter class (probably called warrior because I think that sounds less like a boxer and has a bit more resonance) and then just use some sort of background/free descriptor mechanic to distinguish gladiators from samurai from Robin Hood-style foresters etc.

By this logic, the only classes would be warrior and wizard.

At which point, I'd say they probably wouldn't do 'classes' at all and just have you pick a couple of skill-blocks. Which isn't a bad way to run it, especially if it's coming form a story-game background.

 

[Scott Christian]

Concept wise, the classes and races would be pretty similar.

I think without D&D modern video game RPG's wouldn't exist. Heck, the fantasy book as a genre would be a lot less. Would the LotRs movies had been made? Maybe?

That said, this is something to think about. I think their take on race would be just as narrow. They would make all orcs evil. They probably wouldn't let players play most races. And the ones they did let them play, would be statistically uneven. Like the old Rolemaster Middle Earth where noldor elves got a +45 bonus to stats and the dunedain only got +20 and the dunlendings only got +10.

The reason for this is they wouldn't have had all the experiences and time to learn from past circumstances. So they would just model it after Tolkien or someone else's book.

 

[pemerton]

By this logic, the only classes would be warrior and wizard.

Frankly I think there's a lot to be said for this.

Another option - and I appreciate I'm sketching this at a pretty high level of generality - is to have (say) two bonus dice to start with, and you can allocate them across a mundane profession (which could include gladiator, samurai etc but also swashbuckler, guild thief, forester, lay brother from a priory, etc) or a sphere of supernatural ability.

A "fighter" or "thief" would be two dice into the mundane.

A warrior-mage or MU/thief and the like is one mundane die and one supernatural die in "arcane".

A paladin or traditional cleric is one mundane die and one supernatural die in "divine" - maybe there's scope to play with dice sizes and so a paladin is d8/d4 whereas a cleric is d6/d6. A druid would be one die in "primal/nature magic" and one die in mundane "forester" or "farmer" or similar.

A wizard is two dice in the "arcane", a cleric/MU one die in "arcane" and one in "divine" (and so less broken than the traditional AD&D cleric/MU) etc.

Maybe a two-dice character has to specialise with the second die, which is how a warrior/samurai differs from a warrior/gladiator, and how a mage/illusionist differs from a mage/elementalist.

Still staying at the overview level: I think if the game were to be created today and wasn't a cross-over from wargaming, there perhaps would be less reason to envisage the supernatural in terms of long lists of fairly concretely-defined abilities, and more reason to think of it in the way Cthulhu Dark or In A Wicked Age or HeroWars/Quest do, of opening up the fictional space for action declaration (eg an illusionist can declare "I hide" even though there's no cover; an elemental mage can declare "I blow them all up" even though s/he doesn't have a grenade ready to hand; etc). This allows a lean ruleset to cover a wide range of tropes.

 

[Minigiant]

Still staying at the overview level: I think if the game were to be created today and wasn't a cross-over from wargaming, there perhaps would be less reason to envisage the supernatural in terms of long lists of fairly concretely-defined abilities, and more reason to think of it in the way Cthulhu Dark or In A Wicked Age or HeroWars/Quest do, of opening up the fictional space for action declaration (eg an illusionist can declare "I hide" even though there's no cover; an elemental mage can declare "I blow them all up" even though s/he doesn't have a grenade ready to hand; etc). This allows a lean ruleset to cover a wide range of tropes.

I think the issues is degree of success and argeement of who has better odds in certian occassions.

For example, you can say all the warriors could be 2 dice characters.

But who has the advatange vs a mob of mook goblins? The strong warrior with heavy armor and a great-weapon OR the fast warror with light armor and 2 light weapons OR the sorta strong sorta agile warrior with the big shield and a long spear?

What about when they are fighting a single big ogre?
What about a pair of orcs?
How do they compare to the unarmored unarmed warrior using martial arts?

Such simplistic rulesets or low class number RPGs tend to sit around gameplay that doesn't get deep into specific areas nor allow for changing variable to be part of the challenge. They rely on everyone quickly agreeing on the logic behind the game. If total agreeming on the logic and how the tropes interact isn't quick or clean, they don't work. And D&D runs on a lot of tropes.