D&D General Hypothetical: D&D without ability scores (or bonuses)

payn said:

You muddy the waters by saying they have to be done to D&D.

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Why? How? I mean those things IN D&D.

payn said:

Factually, yes. It is published by the IP owner it is D&D. If WotC made a book of songs to sing while playing jump rope and called it D&D, it would be D&D. How they feel about it as to their interest cant be wrong, its just an opinion.

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So anyone saying D&D without ability scores isn't D&D would be wrong if the IP holder put that game out. Okay. Where does that leave the people who draw that line in the sand?

Reynard said:

Why? How? I mean those things IN D&D.

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Then, I think you need to stop asking if folks would be all right with it. Just ask folks how it would work or how they would do it. Maybe even needing to make a "+" thread of it to head off those discussions that are inevitable.

Reynard said:

So anyone saying D&D without ability scores isn't D&D would be wrong if the IP holder put that game out. Okay. Where does that leave the people who draw that line in the sand?

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Probably not playing D&D anymore. While my example is extreme, less extreme changes have been made and its what has happened before.

AnotherGuy said:

Yes I didn't disallow your opinion, I just find it to be peculiar.

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That's because @payn is a peculiar person, but that has mostly to do with their obsession with House Marik...

Different people can have different opinions, the problems start when some people start phrasing their opinions as facts... And opinions can change with age. My views are certainly not the same as they were 35 years ago...

Technically, whatever the D&D IP owner slaps the D&D brand on is D&D. Be that a game, be that Lego, be that socks... It's technically D&D, it's also technically not D&D whatever thought experiment a fan thinks up, like this thread... The point is, what do we think? When we look at the direction D&D4e went, WotC backpedaled HEAVILY on their design, so much so that 10 years later they didn't even dare to call their new edition 6e, just 5e 2024...

Reynard said:

It is interesting what some folks consider "no longer D&D" based on things that have been removed.

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5e still has saves, they now just work a little differently from say 2e (but still a bit based on level progression and class). And core 2e had proficiency, like 5e has now. And D&D Basic had no skill points at all... Other things that people might have considered D&D holy cows might have been THAC0 and we did away with that 25+ years ago... But there are still people that don't play 3e/4e/5e, but still play 1e/2e or even Basic D&D...

Sidenote: Our group ditched didn't play D&D4e for example, we didn't play any pnp RPG during that era, as a matter of fact... We picked up 5e a few sessions early on, life got in the way again and we picked it up again a couple of years ago. With Foundry VTT helping out with the life issues... We did play a lot of board games in the meantime... Things like Doom, Descent, Gloomhaven, etc. I suspect that if currently a new edition of D&D shows up that we collectively don't like, we'll probably play something else or stay with the current edition we do like. I was already working on getting into Pathfinder 2e (Remastered) just before D&D 5e 2024 was published, it took a bit but eventually we all like it more then the previous version...

payn said:

If you really want to explore these elements you would get a lot more traction by just making topics on those elements. You muddy the waters by saying they have to be done to D&D.

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You also don't generate nearly as much interest and posts. "Let's remove Constitution and Intelligence from 6e" will absolutely generate more interest than "What do you think about my fantasy heartbreaker with 4 stats?"

TwoSix said:

You also don't generate nearly as much interest and posts. "Let's remove Constitution and Intelligence from 6e" will absolutely generate more interest than "What do you think about my fantasy heartbreaker with 4 stats?"

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Do you feel satisfied with the thoughts on your 4 stat heartbreaker ideas in those threads?

payn said:

Do you feel satisfied with the thoughts on your 4 stat heartbreaker ideas in those threads?

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This isn't Stack Overflow. I'm not posting because I'm looking for solutions.

Reynard said:

We can just make a list of games that ARE D&D and see how divergent they get.

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There's other information to be gained form the question I asked, that this doesn't get us. What is the intended purpose of calling it "D&D"? Why do you want to call it that?

Reynard said:

We can. But I imagine a world in which a new version of D&D could actually be different.

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I can imagine a world in which you ask for an apple, and you might get handed a citrus fruit, but I'm not sure that world is particularly better.

Reynard said:

We can just make a list of games that ARE D&D and see how divergent they get. Obviously we have all the games with D&D on the vocer and in the name, but we also have:
Pathfinder 1E
Shadowdark
OSE and other reetroclones
and arguably Pathfinder 2E (not remastered) and maybe 13th Age.
There are a TON of games that aren't D&D but are inspired by it, from Stars Without Number to DCC.
What are the things that are common throughout all of those? Off the top of my head: the 6 ability scores, hit points, classes, levels. I don't know if they all have saving throws or AC.
This strongly suggests that no, not having ability scores, is probably not-D&D. Which is too bad but hey, them's the breaks.

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Outright clones may as well be D&D even if they're using a differenr cosmolimigy for copyright reasons. This includes Pathfinder 1 but not 2E.

D&D cousins eg 13th Age, Shadowdark. DCC are not D&D.

Reynard said:

It is interesting what some folks consider "no longer D&D" based on things that have been removed. For example, 5E is considered by many (most?) to be the purest form of the game, yet it does not have skill points, nor does it have save or die, or even saves based on level progression. Why don't any of these exclusions make 5E "not D&D"?

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Skull points were only a thing in D&D for a collahoet time, save or suxk is still a thing, and the Proficiency mod handles level based saves elegantly.

Ability scores have been a constant for over 50 years, since the beginning. They are inherent to the form of "D&D"-ness