D&D General Why the resistance to D&D being a game?

[mamba]

I have read all of LOTR, multiple times and Gandalf is regularly called a "Wizard".

that does not make him one in the D&D context, in D&D he would be an angel

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@ECMO3 I recommend playing Ars Magica to you.

 

[ECMO3]

they do not show a theme that requires D&D to be that way when the examples are taken from D&D itself.

The argument against me is that this was "obviously not true" in fantasy literature.

what D&D did is not relevant to whether there is a theme outside D&D that says that it should do so, it just shows that it did.

It was never suggested that this was a theme outside D&D. It was suggested that this theme was "obviously not true" in fantasy literature in general.

The examples I provided, date back to the 1940s AND include both D&D and non-D&D literature. They show this ascertion is false, even in explicitly warrior-oriented low magic settings. Further if you are making a statment about fantasy literature in general you can't exclude the largest producer of it in the 1980s-2010s.

As I said, ‘we always have done it this way’ is not an argument to keep doing it. Your outside literature could be an argument, the D&D one simply is not

I never said or implied that. We should do it because it is better, fun, more flavorful and more representative of common fantasy thematics.

 

[mamba]

The spirit of the game and the spirit of the fiction the game is based on (which as a point of fact predates TSR)

still no thanks…

Or you can be non-equally good and complement each other. The latter has far more flavor and is far more fun IMO.

it isn’t to me, why does the mage have the useless fighter around anyway, instead of bringing a second caster for more firepower?

 

[ECMO3]

that does not make him one in the D&D context, in D&D he would be an angel

Words matter and I don't recall ever once Gandalf being called an angel in LOTR. Certainly not in the primary trilogy and its prequel.

Please provide the chapter where he is called an Angel if he is in fact called one.

 

[ECMO3]

@ECMO3 I recommend playing Ars Magica to you.

I enjoy playing D&D. Maybe when that gets old I will move on to something else.

 

[ECMO3]

it isn’t to me, why does the mage have the useless fighter around anyway, instead of bringing a second caster for more firepower?

Story reasons. If you want to build the most powerful party possible you would have all Wizards and Sorcerers in 5E. Other versions of the game you might want a cleric and Rogue/Thief too, but in 5E these classes are not necessary either..

There is almost no mechanical reason to ever have a fighter in any version of the game. You could make a mechanics argument to include other martials in early versions of AD&D, specifically Rangers and Paladins, but they are casters, and in the modern game there is not much in the way of mechanical reasons for them either when compared to the full-casting classes.

Exception - Early on, when you were rolling for abilities you also ran into a situation where your abilities may have only qualified you for one or two classes. That would be the lone mechanical reason to play a fighter - if you had Stength greater than 8 but your intelligence was too low for a magic user or illusionist, your Wisdom was too low for a Cleric, Ranger or Paladin and you already had a Thief in the party. That would be a mechanical reason to play a fighter, but it is really the only one I can think of.

 

[mamba]

The argument against me is that this was "obviously not true" in fantasy literature.

and you show that by using non-D&D literature, not by using D&D books, the latter is circular

It was never suggested that this was a theme outside D&D. It was suggested that this theme was "obviously not true" in fantasy literature in general.

if your argument is that D&D has to do it that way because that is how it is being done in literature, then you cannot present D&D literature as the proof. That is very simple to understand, or at least it should be

The examples I provided, date back to the 1940s AND include both D&D and non-D&D literature.

which is why I said your argument is better without including D&D books, not that you have none without them

They show this ascertion is false, even in explicitly warrior-oriented low magic settings. Further if you are making a statment about fantasy literature in general you can't exclude the largest producer of it in the 1980s-2010s.

If the largest producer is ‘D&D’, then I absolutely have to exclude those for my argument, see above

I never said or implied that.

yes you did. The whole listing literature as an argument is exactly that, no more

We should do it because it is better, fun, more flavorful

this is the argument you can make without literature

and more representative of common fantasy thematics.

and this is the argument that relies on literature

 

[ECMO3]

and you show that by using non-D&D literature, not by using D&D books, the latter is circular

Which I did, and you are largely ignoring.

if your argument is that D&D has to do it that way because that is how it is being done in literature, then you cannot present D&D literature as the proof. That is very simple to understand, or at least it should be

Not my argument, never was.

If the largest producer is ‘D&D’, then I absolutely have to exclude those for my argument, see above

TSR and then WOTC were the largest producer of fantasy literature in the late 80s, 90s and 00s. It is not possible to state what is generally true "in any era of fantasy literature" if you are excluding them.

yes you did. The whole listing literature as an argument is exactly that, no more

That is not what I did. Go back and read my post. I did not start this off by talking about literature, other people brought Lituratue into the discussion by claiming that this was not a popular theme in fantasy literature.

Here is my statement which people incorrectly claim is refuted by literature:

"Thematically, martial abilities should be limited and weak compared to magic, and a PC who purposely decides to forgo magic should be limited and weak to a PC that doesn't IMO."

There is nothing at all about literature in there and it is how I phrased this in my first post on this thread.

 

[mamba]

Words matter and I don't recall ever once Gandalf being called an angel in LOTR. Certainly not in the primary trilogy and its prequel.

He is a Maiar, that people have no concept / understanding of that is why they call him a wizard

Words matter, but if you want to make an argument it should not be based on ‘namecalling’, it should be based on the actual fiction

Please provide the chapter where he is called an Angel if he is in fact called one.

First of all, he would be called a Maiar, an angel is just the closest common thing to that.

Second, just because he is not called that in a book that concerns itself with a few years out of several thousand years of history does not mean he isn’t one. Tolkien is very clear about Gandalf not being a wizard in the D&D sense, he wrote more than just LotR