D&D General Character Classes should Mean Something in the Setting

[Fanaelialae]

You misremember.

I want to regard HP as the latter, but they are prevented from being that, because the game rules hard-block it, even if you don't regard them as "physics" that apply off-screen, they do apply on on-screen, and they prevent stuff that's a really, really basic component of really common fantasy settings, like uncontrolled falls killing or seriously injuring people, or people being knocked out or killed in a single blow. The fact that in D&D, all on-screen combat is weardown combat, and that there's basically a trinary state of being "basically fine", "dying" and "dead", with no injuries, and immediate returns to full effectiveness on the slightest healing, and where one night's sleep will fix literally anything does limit what D&D can do fantasy-wise, even just applying on-screen (and assuming off-screen things are very different).


This is disingenuous, though it may not be intentional on your part.

D&D was never close to Jack Vance's take in any edition (as has been much discussed), so it's a weird and pointless semantic argument to point that out. The term Vancian applies regardless.

I agree that it's not possible to have a truly universal magic system (god knows people have tried), but I don't think it's remotely true that you can't design magic systems that are broadly generic and whilst they might not be a 1:1 match, are say a 0.8:1 match, whereas D&D's bizarre magic system isn't even going to be a 0.1:1 match with most games. Either using an exhaustion-based or spell-point based system with casting checks and broader spells would get you a hell of lot closer to about 80% of fantasy media.

(As an aside, you could probably have a decent discussion about exactly how to fix this in another thread, because I don't think it would be impossible, esp. as most magic systems in fantasy media fall into about three categories none of which is even slightly similar to D&D's approach.)

Even WWN with it's intentionally-peculiar system at least has a properly worked-in spell-point based caster (and you can bring in Psionics from SWN). You'd have a hell of an easier time running DS with WWN than 5E D&D (indeed I've seen some people discussing how they're doing just that). And WWN isn't a "generic" system, it's a specific one.

GURPS is of course generic, but I will admit, I am drawing a blank of its magic system entirely so can't comment. SWADE's magic system is going to work better for a lot more fantasy than D&D (IIRC, it's been a while).

It's certainly not true to suggest most/all fantasy RPGs have the same issue to remotely the same degree. It's a risible claim that relies on us pretending to be blind to degree. D&D's system is hugely incompatible with fantasy in general because it's so odd.

Fair enough, I misremembered.

That said, I disagree that the rules block any such thing.

The rules allow you to do anything you want. Of course, here's the point where you would most likely invoke the ?Oberroni? Fallacy (just because the DM can make the game good, doesn't mean it's good). Let's put that aside for the moment, however, and examine how that approach allows D&D to work for a broader spectrum of fantasy.

Let's assume you want your game to feel like Black Company (lots of death and injuries that are seriously incapacitating for extended periods of time). I want mine to feel like The Wheel of Time (death is rare for important characters, and while injuries can be seriously incapacitating, healing magic usually renders this moot). Maybe doctorbadwolf wants a game like Journey to the West (serious injuries are usually nothing more than a temporary inconvenience for the main characters).

You can make any of those work for D&D.

You would need to enforce those injuries as you see fit.

I could probably get away with using the optional Lingering Injuries system.

doctorbadwolf wouldn't really need to make any adjustments, except to maybe start the campaign at a fairly high level.

Of course, you're probably thinking that you don't want to enforce injuries. Here's the thing though. D&D is a fantasy game that is intended to support a broad range of campaigns. Yes, experienced through the medium of D&D, but nonetheless a broad range.

The sweet spot of grittiness is going to vary by group. Some people love Warhammer Fantasy RPG. Other people (even those who might enjoy a gritty game) find it too gritty. Heck, you're lucky if your group can come to a general consensus about how gritty the game ought to be.

I would argue that a game that intends to have broad utility (which D&D strives for but WFRPG doesn't) is better setting the grit low. It can always be adjusted higher. People have been doing this in D&D for years with things like critical hit and fumble tables. It just makes the game deadlier than default (which is presumably the point).

A while back, in 5e, the character of a friend of mine fell off a cliff (thrown from the back of a giant goat), and the DM called for a saving throw to see whether he broke any bones. He failed and the DM determined that he had shattered his leg. We resolved it fairly quickly with a good heal check and a LOT of healing magic, but it would have taken him weeks to recover naturally, and he would have been hobbled in the interim.

Whereas tearing the grit out of a game like WFRPG would render it basically unplayable, IMO. Too many things interact with the health and injury systems. You'd have to rewrite half the game to make it work, IMO.

As such, I think its a bad criticism to claim that D&D doesn't support a broad range of fantasy as a result of the hit point system (frankly, I think it's mistaken to claim that D&D doesn't support a broad range of fantasy, given my own experience). You can always add grittiness. It's much harder to remove if it's baked in. I'm in no way saying that D&D is the best at this kind of game. The more versatile a game is, the less specialized it will typically be. However, it can do the job, and for a game like D&D that tries to be versatile, embedding grit into the rules would run counter to that versatility.

D&D's broad appeal is in part, I believe, because it's expected that it will be tinkered with to achieve the ideal experience that a given group is seeking. The designers can't provide that, since every group's ideal experience will differ. I'm of the opinion that D&D provides a good place to start. You probably disagree, and that's fine.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Anyway, perhaps a discussion of whether D&D is generic could be its own thread?

Sorry, just saw this after posting. >.<

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Of course, you're probably thinking that you don't want to enforce injuries. Here's the thing though. D&D is a fantasy game that is intended to support a broad range of campaigns. Yes, experienced through the medium of D&D, but nonetheless a broad range.

By the logic you're employing here, just about every game is a fantasy game designed to support a broad range of campaigns, which is what renders it surely nonsensical? No?

The real difference I see between ED and D&D is one of consciousness/honesty. ED consciously and transparently designs for a specific setting. D&D has a massive and complex implied setting, but sometimes claims to be a generic RPG (to be fair, D&D itself has made this claim far less often than certain fans have).

I would argue that a game that intends to have broad utility (which D&D strives for but WFRPG doesn't) is better setting the grit low.

I see pretty much no evidence of D&D "striving" for this, and a huge amount of contrary evidence, where instead it merely disregards broad utility in favour of sitting on the first-mover advantage, which is particularly gigantic with RPGs - this was never more evident than in the d20 boom.

As such, I think its a bad criticism to claim that D&D doesn't support a broad range of fantasy as a result of the hit point system (frankly, I think it's mistaken to claim that D&D doesn't support a broad range of fantasy, given my own experience).

This is a weak argument on your part because you're seemingly merely saying you can house rule/make up rules. By that logic, something rules-medium (approaching rules-heavy) like 5E is a terrible base. The HP system is merely representative of one of many systems D&D has that make it a fairly poor match for fantasy media in general, and the lack of change in that system is representative of the lack of any "striving".

I mean, were D&D striving as you suggest, I'd very much expect to see it have injury rules or the like, alternative magic systems (rather than the very half-baked SP system briefly presented), and so on. Games which do strive do such things. Plenty of games "strive" in this way. 3.XE made more efforts in this direction than any other edition, to be sure.

 

[Jaeger]

D&D's broad appeal is in part, I believe, because it's expected that it will be tinkered with to achieve the ideal experience that a given group is seeking. The designers can't provide that, since every group's ideal experience will differ. I'm of the opinion that D&D provides a good place to start. You probably disagree, and that's fine.
The real difference I see between ED and D&D is one of consciousness/honesty. ED consciously and transparently designs for a specific setting. D&D has a massive and complex implied setting, ...

I do not think that is the expectation at all these days.

Certainly that was part of D&D gaming culture in the past, OD&D, and AD&D1 were a hot mess rules wise.

But post 3e I think the general trend of the D&D player-base has been towards a very RAW approach.

You can see this effect in various threads on this very forum; in discussions on class restrictions, how magic should work, and official rules clarifications quoted from the 5e designers.

(D&D..). merely disregards broad utility in favour of sitting on the first-mover advantage, which is particularly gigantic with RPGs - this was never more evident than in the d20 boom.

something rules-medium (approaching rules-heavy) like 5E is a terrible base. The HP system is merely representative of one of many systems D&D has that make it a fairly poor match for fantasy media in general, and the lack of change in that system is representative of the lack of any "striving".

I mean, were D&D striving as you suggest, I'd very much expect to see it have injury rules or the like, alternative magic systems (rather than the very half-baked SP system briefly presented)

D&D is its own fantasy genre.

D&D does D&D style Fantasy.

It has become a Very Influential genre, from videogames to anime, and in many cases forming many peoples impressions of what "Fantasy' is.

There is nothing inherent with the d20 system that prevents it from being modded to do other genre's of fantasy. But the stock OGL D&D systems needs to be changed to reflect the different genre assumptions; like HP progression and the magic system.

Unfortunately the majority of the d20/OGL/SRD offshoots don't do that.

Bards should not be tied into any campaign, ever, and instead should be tied to heavy rocks and tossed into deep lakes.

This is Wisdom.

I declare Snarf Zagyg to be a true gentleman of impeccable taste and cultural refinement.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I do not think that is the expectation at all these days.

I can’t think of any popular actual play shows that don’t make their own stuff. And certainly Dimension20, Adventure Zone, Critical Role, High Rollers, Not Another D&D Podcast, etc all have very different worlds, with different assumptions, and different optional rules turned off or on. And most of them feature homebrew races, classes or subclasses, etc

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I agree with the premise of the thread, with the caveat that I appreciate it when the base rules are written generically enough (or easily modified enough) to support different explanations with different settings.

Our own Pathfinder 2e setting has seen me write setting appropriate twists on many of the classes, so that it can feel like a sufficiently different fantasy world. There's room to be flexible with some of these, to hew back to the more traditional flavor, or to reflavor completely, but its intended to be somewhat hesitant to preserve the integrity of the fiction.

- There are many Gods of drastically differing levels of power, and just about any spirit (which includes all the outsiders, and Dragons, and Giants) can be appointed to Godhood, which is called 'Authority', which awards them at least one office (domain.) Each office allows them to empower a certain number of followers, collectively known as their Divine Household, we're still drafting all of this up for our World Anvil, but the number I'm starting with is 4 followers per Domain. So Clerics and Champions are members of these divine households, might be stronger than their gods, and are part of a small group of empowered followers, with things like classic paladin orders being made up of the followers of more than a single god, with all the politics that might imply. Your god might be the god of a single family (like large) or small village, all the way up to some national or internationally recognized deity, this also means that in theory, Champions and Clerics could compete to be a part of the most prestigious divine households, since membership is so limited.

- Sorcerers aren't descended from magical creatures, most of which are now spirits (I don't think Spirits can breed, given how they come into existence, but maybe they can, its undecided) instead they're individuals whose souls house spirits-- sometimes this happen via an involuntary sealing, sometimes this is a deal (my thinking on a clan of sorcerers is actually that they would be a family who has a deal they cut with a group of spirits), or grafting parts of a spirits soul onto them. Aasimar, Tieflings, and such, are all magically invested by groups of spirits, kind of like a way of marking them, there are societies where this is analogous to baptism.

- Witches practice 'Witchcraft' which is specifically the art of communing with Spirits and drawing on their power through deals and such, which they can study to channel into a kind of psuedo wizardry... in fact Wizardry was developed by Witches who didn't want to rely on spirits anymore, which is why Wizards have to use 'Manathyst' for their casting, as a battery and catalyst for their magic, whereas Witches can get it straight from Spirits, who gather and format it naturally from the world around them.

- Barbarians are instinctive warriors explicitly compared to Fighters as technique warriors, they also practice spirit trances (except Fury Instinct) that allow them to reformulate their soul to 'imitate' that of spirits and enable them to draw on innate magical abilities, like those of Giant Instinct, Dragon Instinct, and Spirit Instinct.

- In fact, all Martials absorb the world's ambient magic during their training, which their body internalizes to make them capable of super human feats of strength, agility and etc. This is definitively to assert the setting's tone as somewhat 'shonen action fantasy anime' in so far as the action goes, and my explanation for why human sized fighters can meaningfully wound colossal dragons and such.

- Oracles are sort of free agents who get a little power from many different gods, their curse is a product of their bodies not being able to adjust to any single god's power, and the sometimes conflicting forces that wash through them, whenever they do anything, they're functionally calling in favors they've haggled for and earned (often in small ways). They don't have to be a member of a Divine Household like Clerics and Champions do.

- Primal Magic is life force (as Sage Chakra from Naruto) Druids and other primal magic users can channel from their surroundings, and gather up that energy to use.

- Occult Magic is a kind of power produced by the Soul, Bards don't have to use music, but its considered a great way to connect to the Soul, and either apply magic to it, or draw magic from it.

- Arcane Magic is an ever so slightly refined 'raw magic' that results from trying to channel magic in as close to its raw form as possible (since each tradition reflects a way in which the energy of magic is processed, and has drawbacks-- which is why they can't all be used for all of the same spells, raw magic could theoretically do everything, but Arcane is as close as anyone can get) through the use of Manathyst. Note that anyone can use Manathyst (its what's meant by 'Material Components' in our setting) but that they process it into the kind of magic they're accustomed to using.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I agree with the premise of the thread, with the caveat that I appreciate it when the base rules are written generically enough (or easily modified enough) to support different explanations with different settings.

Our own Pathfinder 2e setting has seen me write setting appropriate twists on many of the classes, so that it can feel like a sufficiently different fantasy world. There's room to be flexible with some of these, to hew back to the more traditional flavor, or to reflavor completely, but its intended to be somewhat hesitant to preserve the integrity of the fiction.

- There are many Gods of drastically differing levels of power, and just about any spirit (which includes all the outsiders, and Dragons, and Giants) can be appointed to Godhood, which is called 'Authority', which awards them at least one office (domain.) Each office allows them to empower a certain number of followers, collectively known as their Divine Household, we're still drafting all of this up for our World Anvil, but the number I'm starting with is 4 followers per Domain. So Clerics and Champions are members of these divine households, might be stronger than their gods, and are part of a small group of empowered followers, with things like classic paladin orders being made up of the followers of more than a single god, with all the politics that might imply. Your god might be the god of a single family (like large) or small village, all the way up to some national or internationally recognized deity, this also means that in theory, Champions and Clerics could compete to be a part of the most prestigious divine households, since membership is so limited.

- Sorcerers aren't descended from magical creatures, most of which are now spirits (I don't think Spirits can breed, given how they come into existence, but maybe they can, its undecided) instead they're individuals whose souls house spirits-- sometimes this happen via an involuntary sealing, sometimes this is a deal (my thinking on a clan of sorcerers is actually that they would be a family who has a deal they cut with a group of spirits), or grafting parts of a spirits soul onto them. Aasimar, Tieflings, and such, are all magically invested by groups of spirits, kind of like a way of marking them, there are societies where this is analogous to baptism.

- Witches practice 'Witchcraft' which is specifically the art of communing with Spirits and drawing on their power through deals and such, which they can study to channel into a kind of psuedo wizardry... in fact Wizardry was developed by Witches who didn't want to rely on spirits anymore, which is why Wizards have to use 'Manathyst' for their casting, as a battery and catalyst for their magic, whereas Witches can get it straight from Spirits, who gather and format it naturally from the world around them.

- Barbarians are instinctive warriors explicitly compared to Fighters as technique warriors, they also practice spirit trances (except Fury Instinct) that allow them to reformulate their soul to 'imitate' that of spirits and enable them to draw on innate magical abilities, like those of Giant Instinct, Dragon Instinct, and Spirit Instinct.

- In fact, all Martials absorb the world's ambient magic during their training, which their body internalizes to make them capable of super human feats of strength, agility and etc. This is definitively to assert the setting's tone as somewhat 'shonen action fantasy anime' in so far as the action goes, and my explanation for why human sized fighters can meaningfully wound colossal dragons and such.

- Oracles are sort of free agents who get a little power from many different gods, their curse is a product of their bodies not being able to adjust to any single god's power, and the sometimes conflicting forces that wash through them, whenever they do anything, they're functionally calling in favors they've haggled for and earned (often in small ways). They don't have to be a member of a Divine Household like Clerics and Champions do.

- Primal Magic is life force (as Sage Chakra from Naruto) Druids and other primal magic users can channel from their surroundings, and gather up that energy to use.

- Occult Magic is a kind of power produced by the Soul, Bards don't have to use music, but its considered a great way to connect to the Soul, and either apply magic to it, or draw magic from it.

- Arcane Magic is an ever so slightly refined 'raw magic' that results from trying to channel magic in as close to its raw form as possible (since each tradition reflects a way in which the energy of magic is processed, and has drawbacks-- which is why they can't all be used for all of the same spells, raw magic could theoretically do everything, but Arcane is as close as anyone can get) through the use of Manathyst. Note that anyone can use Manathyst (its what's meant by 'Material Components' in our setting) but that they process it into the kind of magic they're accustomed to using.

I do not get the absorb background magic for martial it ruins the basic fantasy of them, also last I checked sage chakra magic in naruto came form a space monster so why would it have anything to do with nature?

also if any magic came out of the souls it would be that mad thing from 3.5 or psionics as mind and souls have been synonymous for a very long time.

 

[Jaeger]

I can’t think of any popular actual play shows that don’t make their own stuff. And certainly Dimension20, Adventure Zone, Critical Role, High Rollers, Not Another D&D Podcast, etc all have very different worlds, with different assumptions, and different optional rules turned off or on. And most of them feature homebrew races, classes or subclasses, etc

Aside from the fact that no one was referencing AP Shows...

Actual Play shows aren't representative At All of the average 5e D&D group.

WOTC has turned out plenty of official D&D AP's and sourcebooks, which have sold rather well.

The 5e RAW culture can be seen on this very forum; I've seen you in enough threads to know you have come across it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

D&D is its own fantasy genre.

D&D does D&D style Fantasy.

It has become a Very Influential genre, from videogames to anime, and in many cases forming many peoples impressions of what "Fantasy' is.

There is nothing inherent with the d20 system that prevents it from being modded to do other genre's of fantasy. But the stock OGL D&D systems needs to be changed to reflect the different genre assumptions; like HP progression and the magic system.

Unfortunately the majority of the d20/OGL/SRD offshoots don't do that.

I agree with all of this, yeah. The d20/OGL stuff had an unfortunate habit of either not going far enough, or abandoning almost everything except the d20 resolution mechanism. Spycraft was a great example of not going far enough for my group.

I'm continually surprised we don't just see more games which minimize HP growth. If every PC started with like 30 HP and never went beyond say 60 (at most), you could build a really tight game around that. Make dropping below 0 give you a few simple injuries (or maybe you can take an injury to avoid X points of HP loss) and you're about 4 million miles closer to 90% of fantasy and you've made the game more interesting.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I can’t think of any popular actual play shows that don’t make their own stuff. And certainly Dimension20, Adventure Zone, Critical Role, High Rollers, Not Another D&D Podcast, etc all have very different worlds, with different assumptions, and different optional rules turned off or on. And most of them feature homebrew races, classes or subclasses, etc

Agree completely but AP shows don't even slightly resemble normal tables. Even here, with the sort of people most likely to do that, including published designers and so on, it's relatively rare. Reading the reddit where people are a bit more normal, people will make up minor variants on stuff (esp. on the main D&D reddit people often have variant Tieflings or Dragonborn or the like, most of whom seem to exist for Original-Character-Do-Not-Steal-type reasons), and they'll absolutely use UA stuff, but they don't even use 3PP stuff much (esp. if not Kickstartered), let alone original stuff by themselves.

And most of the APs I'm aware of exist in a pretty narrow range of the fantasy spectrum, albeit sometimes leaning a bit steampunk/space fantasy. I don't see much stuff that resembles the kind of fantasy you see in APs of other games.