NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 4091949" data-attributes="member: 21169">D&D has always pulled in ideas from all over the place to craft something distinct from its sources. That was true in 1974 and it's true today.The original game was very different from its source material in many ways. Most fiction has a single protagonist plus sidekick and romantic interest. There are very few clerics and thieves in fantasy fiction. Precious few hero wizards too. 90% or more of protagonists would be fighters imo. Vancian magic and the arcane/divine split, very distinctive features of D&D aren't 'fantasy tropes' but were ripped from specific fictional works. I can't think of any fantasy novel in which the heroes kill as many and as diverse a selection of foes as they do in a typical D&D dungeon bash.And this was always a good move. The demands of an rpg are quite different from the demands of fiction. The balance between the classes is a good example of this. It's obvious D&D always tried to be balanced (in the sense of each class having a different but equally valuable contribution to make to mission success) but didn't quite manage it. The wizard was supposed to start off weak but become uber by campaign's end. This idea was problematic because it forced campaigns to run to a particular point, ending no sooner or later, or the balnce would be off. Vancian magic led to strong pressure for a 15min day and if this happened the fighter never got a chance to be best. The cleric had an important niche - healing magic - but no one wanted to play one. Later classes like the thief didn't have enough niche left by the mighty wizard who could duplicate all the abilities of the late-comer.These are some of the balance problems 4e seeks to fix. And of course they wouldn't be problems in fiction. But rpgs *aren't* fiction. They are a blend of all sorts of diverse elements. WotC's market research shows players need all the different parts to be in place for an enjoyable game - story, yes, but also tactical challenge and an increase in complexity as you go up levels.Given the succes of WoW and its tremendous similarity to D&D, the designers would be crazy not to look at it and steal anything that can be successfully transferred to the ttrpg medium. That doesn't mean 4e is based on videogames, any more than it means 1970s D&D was based on comic books cause they stole Swamp Thing to be a shambling mound.</blockquote>

Verification