D&D General Sacred Hamburger - What classic elements of D&D do you disregard?

[TwoSix]

In my most recent 5e game, I got rid of classes.

 

[Haplo781]

I play 4e so like most of them.

 

[CleverNickName]

I play 4e so like most of them.

I never really played it, but was 4E really that much of a departure from "classic D&D"?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

In my most recent 5e game, I got rid of classes.

Care to elaborate here or an other thread? My friend and I were just talking about something like that at breakfast yesterday. I'd like to know how you did it.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I never really played it, but was 4E really that much of a departure from "classic D&D"?

Nha, that more a meme than anything else.

You had class, you had races with 6 ability scores, rolled a d20 and some other weird shaped dice. Just because power progression and such worked differently, it was still pretty much D&D. Its like saying 3.5 wasnt really D&D because it was such a departure from 2e.

But I guess that depends on how much importance you give to the mechanical expression of the game.

 

[TwoSix]

Care to elaborate here or an other thread? My friend and I were just talking about something like that at breakfast yesterday. I'd like to know how you did it.

The players got stats, race, and backgrounds as normal. Every character starts with simple weapon and light armor proficiencies, 2 more skills of their choice, and proficient in 2 saves, which are their highest and lowest stats. Everyone uses d8 for Hit Die. Then they get feats, 3 at level 1, and then 1 every additional level. (We started at level 2, so each PC got 4 feats.) I made a document with a bunch of houseruled feats to give them more options.

In terms of worldbuilding, the campaign is seeded with a bunch of minor and major spirits, petty gods, strange magic items, and NPC mentors which give the ability for the PCs to acquire new abilities. As an example, in the last session, one of the PCs bonded with a friendly earth elemental, sort of like forming a minor warlock pact. The bond gave the PC minor tremorsense, the ability to use the cantrip move earth, and the ability to cast Maximillian's Earthen Grasp once per short rest.

 

[Haplo781]

I never really played it, but was 4E really that much of a departure from "classic D&D"?

To the point it was declared "not real D&D" by sanctimonious blowhards.

 

[Burnside]

Rolling for ability scores, rolling for hit points, experience points, and alignment.

 

[Vaalingrade]

How many hours do ya got? Let's see...

• Alignment
• Rolling Stats or anything but Arrays
• XP
• Species-based personality/culture
• Adversarial DMing
• Color coded dragons
• fear of flying PCs
• Undeath, lying and poison being wrong
• Everything fantastic is magic
• fear of arcane healing
• medieval stasis

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Dragon Heads: Dragons do not have different style heads based upon type. I can have red dragons with the curved horns typically seen in the books on a black dragon.

Wait dragons are supposed to have specific head types? This is news to me.

Dungeons and dragons. Well, okay, I did use dragons a bit in my last campaign but for the most part they almost never appear. It's not that I have an issue with them per se, but my campaigns tend to be urban and dragons should fight dirty and overall be quite cautious. After all you don't get to be an ancient dragon by landing and going toe-to-toe with people running around with sharp pointy things.

Classic D&D dungeons with multiple (frequently unrelated) different encounters are something I haven't used since high school. Occasionally he group needs to find something in ruins, but it's just a location for 1, maybe 2 encounters and they'll be going there for a specific reason. Occasionally I'll use a haunted house or similar which is kind of a type of dungeon but that's as close as I'll get.

This! As they say.

@Oofta It's funny to me because we argue a bit but when you describe your games it usually sounds a lot like my games!

• Alignment
• Rolling Stats or anything but Arrays
• XP
• Species-based personality/culture
• Adversarial DMing
• Color coded dragons
• fear of flying PCs
• Undeath, lying and poison being wrong
• Everything fantastic is magic
• fear of arcane healing
• medieval stasis

Another good selection. I haven't entirely got rid of some of those, but I'm certainly at least reducing all of those. Gary Gygax accidentally guaranteed I would forever oppose adversarial DMing with his book "Role-playing Mastery", which basically is an instruction manual on how to be an adversarial DM, and made me realize when I read it (at like 11 or 12) that I hated literally everything it stood for!