D&D is actually kind of unique

[Ariosto]

Level-based system: While I'm sure there has to be some, I can't think of any.

Try almost every thing prior to RuneQuest, and a good deal since!

If you consider getting 5 points in Champions to be entirely different from getting a 'level', then I can only wonder what criteria WotC-D&D meets. In 3e and 4e, 'levels' are mainly similar chances to choose from a menu of boosts. If the picks were a bit freer, or the "level benefits" dropped, then it would be a hard sell to call 3e or 4e a "class based" game!

As things stand, I don't see how you can include them while excluding so many of the designs that introduced such techniques to the gamers who became WotC's designers.

Combat-focused system: I'll call this one uncommon.

I'll call it bog standard. Even the "indie rules-light narrative-centric" games tend to get that way by reducing everything to a variation on the original D&D combat system.

It's not just that the games arose in the wargaming hobby, or that the chief addition to the wargame mix was -- and remains -- an injection of borrowings from generally violent genre fiction. (The game genre taken as a whole basically resembles a pile of sweaty Manly Manhood Action paperbacks, which bowdlerization often just makes creepy to my eye. Even video games seem to have more range.)

It is not just that even "professional" game designers tend to follow conservative conventional wisdom, to "do it the way it's always been done" because "that's what the market expects".

No, it is also that when we were making up RPGs back in the '70s, without an established tradition as to what makes up an RPG, combat happened in practice to be an aspect that was more conducive to the formulation and application of stereotyped rules than were some others.

GDW's En Garde (1975), and FGU's Bunnies & Burrows (1976) and Chivalry & Sorcery (1977), stood out early as having more rules systems. It might not be just coincidence that they had more tightly defined game premises.

D&D had -- in supplements and magazines -- a whole raft of rules for other topics. However, D&D games had different settings and emphases depending on the interests of the participants. Even the Dungeon Masters Guide was a pretty well-laden buffet -- but very much attuned to the campaign of Mr. Gygax.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've always considered the unique elements of D&D to be classes, levels and fire & forget magic.

Admittedly the last of those has been changed a lot by 4e, but on a broad historical basis those are the things which always stood out to me. That's not to say that other systems haven't clustered around that - early competitors (Tunnels and Trolls, Chivalry and Sorcery) stuck quite close to the class/level format, and arguably many new systems in the OGL renaissance have once again clustered around the traditional D&D format.

My personal preference has always been with the more organically grown skills-based systems (from RQ onwards), although I can enjoy a good D&D game just as much.

cheers

 

[Ariosto]

Well, I think you've got it backwards; where there are levels, there are usually classes. White Wolf's system, for example, has classes but not levels.

Tri Tac's, for example, has levels but not classes.

What? Do we need to sort out a tally from among the thousands of rules sets published over the past 35 years? So far, you are not exactly giving evidence of being very well equipped with knowledge even of the major landmarks basic to any effort toward a critical analysis.

 

[Ariosto]

If you're talking about the amount of tactical detail given to combat, then D&D is probably high on the scale.

That's true of WotC-D&D, certainly, or maybe fin de siecle 2e. Even 1st ed. AD&D, though, paled in that department next to most rivals -- one of their common selling points!

The Original series had some proto-AD&D (and other) oddments in the supplements, but those were still utterly optional. The Basic/Expert books had combat less abstract than T&T, but were still on the "quick and dirty" side of the spectrum even in the early '80s -- much less in today's much "geekier" market.

The trend I think has been toward more complexity. Rolemaster made C&S look like child's play, and GURPS might have more combat-specific rules than The Fantasy Trip had rules in total. Traveller went on to Traveller: The New Era. Even RuneQuest and Champions got more chrome piled on in later editions.

Those are just samples from what seems to me a general trend.

The d20 System seems pretty much to have defined a decade, one of "crunch", and of course 4e continues in the same vein. What trends shall move through this new decade? We have 10 years yet to find out!

 

[Wik]

Agree? Disagree? Care to fill me in on some of the alternatives I missed?

Yup. You missed a big one - and everyone else on this thread did, too.

Earthdawn.

It's probably "more D&D than D&D". Lesse, here.

Euro-centric fantasy setting: Yup. In fact, not only is it Euro-Centric, but it is actually SET in Europe! Granted, it's Europe in the time before Atlantis, all the names have changed, and whatnot... but it's still Shadowrun's Europe. Much of the game's architecture has a sword and sandals, vaguely roman style to it.

Flashy, dramatic magic: Oh yeah. There are some big spells you can cast in the game. But there's also the horrors (super magical beings of terror and destruction), flying airships, and an entire city that can teleport. Plus, all of the PCs are magical adepts, in one way or another. Even the basic warrior can use "Air Walk" at first level.

Variety of races: Yes and no. There are humans, elves, dwarves, pterrans, windlings, obsidimen, trolls, and orcs - eight races. But the game basically says "that's it" - there are no other new, playable races... only these eight are name-givers. So while it has as many races as "out of the box" D&D, it lacks the explosion of splat races. Which I think is a good thing... YMMV.

Class-based system: Yup. It has a class system. Later editions make the class system a bit more flexible, similar to how 3e handled the classes.

Level-based system: Yup. In Earthdawn, you progress through the "Circles". The cool thing is, it's still a Karma-system, meaning players spend XP to improve abilities. Some players will spend points on more skills and talents, while others will choose to shoot through the levels to get access to new powers. No group of PCs will ever be the same level after only a few sessions.

Crunchy, rules-heavy system: Dude, the game was created by FASA. "Crunch" is their middle name. Later editions of Earthdawn have kind of stream-lined things a bit, and I'd say new Earthdawn is generally less rules-heavy than 4E. Until we get to the finer points of magic use...

Combat-focused system: Yyup. However, Earthdawn is very much a fan of the "fewer, more dramatic fights" option than the "many, smaller fights" option of some older editions of D&D. Unlike 4e, though, Earthdawn fights can get very swingy - what with exploding dice, armour-defeating hits, knockdown tests, and wound thresholds, even lowly goblins (were they to exist in Earthdawn) can potentially kill you. Which is a feature, not a bug, to me.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Huh?!

I dunno about BW, but SW seems to me not just one of the latest but one of the blandest retreads. YMMV on that, but still...

I don't see how any of those "notes" is missing from Tunnels & Trolls, RuneQuest, The Palladium Fantasy RPG, Dragon Warriors, Warhammer Fantasy RP, Fantasy Hero or GURPS Fantasy -- just to scratch the surface of currently in print commercial offerings.

This. And i'll add The Arcanum, Talislantia (sp?), and even the original Villains and Vigilantes for a few more out of print examles.

 

[Ariosto]

I was always under the impression that Tunnels & Trolls was a retroclone.

LOL!

As I recall, word was it outsold D&D when they debuted at GenCon.

Now, TSR has come and gone, and D&D is a name on distinctly different designs -- and Flying Buffalo is still selling Ken St Andre's game (and running, and winning Origins awards for, Starweb).

 

[Ariosto]

pretty unique

"Unique or unique not. There is no 'pretty'."

 

[Celebrim]

I can see how d&d is somewhat unique. Since its so huge in the rpg space, I think other games have to try to be different just to attract a niche market that will buy them.

Bingo.

There are a huge number of games that are practically D&D clones that were produced over the years. But, because they were D&D clones, they never attracted much a wide audience because well, you could just play D&D and customize it how you wanted it without the need for a new system.

And it didn't help that many of the worst games ever written were more or less D&D clones so that 'D&D clone' became something of a synonym for 'bad game'.

 

[Nagol]

Isn't the fact that you can apply D&D to such a wide variety of worlds, from Star Wars (D20 Star Wars) to Dark Sun, post-apocalyptic Earth (Gamma World, D20 Modern) to elves-in-space (Spelljammer), and medieval settings of all types ("traditional," Oriental Adventures, Al-Qadim, Maztica, Ravenloft, etc.), pretty unique? Basically, if you want to have an adventure, you can find D&D products and/or spin-offs to support it. It also does that differently than other "kitchen sink" style games, like GURPS.

It doesn't speak to a uniqueness in the system so much as a uniqueness of product placement. Almost any of the other game systems can be folded, spindled and mutilated to cover similar genre sets. It's just that D&D had enough of a leadership role in the hobby that people spent the effort to produce material for a large variety of secondary genres.

After all Aftermath (post apocalyptic rpg) had Bushido (fantasy Japan), and a Magic supplement.