D&D vs D20

[der_kluge]

I think it's going to mean different things to different people. For some, who long for a more realistic, grittier style that was accomplished with earlier editions, HARP may very well do D&D better than 3e does. I doubt you'll find anyone here who would agree that 3e D&D is just like 1e D&D, or chainmail.

To me, "D&D" means being able to cast fireball at 5th level, expecting a certain level of magic items at certain levels, storming dungeons, and not being surprised to find out that an extraplanar demon is behind the strange goings on in town, or to meet orcs and goblins and kobolds along the way. That's D&D to me.

 

[Desdichado]

D&D is the game, d20 is just a spin-off.

I do not consider d20 as a generic system, really. The basic d20 is D&D.

It's certainly possible to write a generic d20 rulebook with what is available (remove all stuff D&D from D&D, which would be like 50+% of the whole), but noone has done this up to date AFAIK.

Wizards have done it four times (Star Wars, Wheel of Time, d20 Modern and Call of Cthulhu). Mongoose has done it several times (Conan, Stargate, etc.. AEG has done it several times (Spycraft and others). Green Ronin has done it several times (Tesament, Mutants & Mastermind, Skull and Bones, Blue Rose and others) Badaxe Games probably did it best, since Grim Tales is the most flexible toolkit approach to d20 out there. The others are typically adaptations of d20 to a different setting than a D&Dish setting.

Sorry, your post is incredibly ill-informed. In fact, it's flat-out 180-degrees wrong.

 

[scourger]

For me, D&D is d20 and d20 is D&D. I want to play games based on the rules that I already know, understand and love. WoTC's other games using a variant of the d20 system are less satisfying. I own & play Star Wars because it has a strong setting appeal to me. I would run it if other options were exhausted (but Jedi would have to be more powerful for the all-jedi game; otherwise I fail to see the point in playing that game). My group quit Wheel of Time, and I am glad I never bought the book. I owned & sold d20 Modern, and I never got Call of Cthulhu d20.

Some third party d20 games--ones that require the use of the D&D core books--have withstood the rigors of play and the test of time for me: Judge Dredd (I still want to run it), Omega World (ditto), DragonStar (although I would probably sell it off now since I can't get myself or my group really into it), Spellslinger (we played a mini-campaign with it, but it's over now), and Skull & Bones (I scrapped about 3/4 of the book and used it run Pirate D&D until one of the main players blew town). The dozens of other d20 games I have I now realize will never see play.

Third party "OGL" games are even less satisfying. I just don't buy them at all anymore.

The best thing a d20 publisher can market to me is an adventure. This is particularly true if that publisher wants me to play a variant d20 game. A campaign setting is fine if it is short on setting and long on adventure. For example, I want to run Mesopotamia without the new classes, magic & feats. So, I will only use about half of the very little campaing setting information that is there.

Otherwise, I *might* buy counter collection digital CD and the 30 years of D&D book.

 

[Desdichado]

For me, D&D is d20 and d20 is D&D. [snip]

Urrgh! You just described the complete opposite, and I mean complete opposite of my position. I'd typically much rather play the other d20 games than D&D; d20 Modern and d20 Call of Cthulhu being two of my favorite games in existence. I prefer to maintain a core d20 mechanic for probably all of the games that I play or run for the foreseeable future, although I have fairly little interest in playing D&D itself anymore. With the exception of a little Eberron we've got about to start up soon.

And I certainly have no interest in published adventures; I can't think of a worse way to waste my gaming budget. So, to each his own!

 

[Narfellus]

And I certainly have no interest in published adventures; I can't think of a worse way to waste my gaming budget. So, to each his own!

What's wrong with published adventures? Sorry, just curious, it's probably notched to personal preference. I'd rather have a high quality adventure than yet another book of feats and spells and magic items that i've seen before. To each his own!

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, I'm not really interested in more feats, magic items, etc. either. But I don't do much with pubslished adventures. The most use one would possibly get is that I'd lift a concept or two in the games I'd run. I'd certainly never run one as is.

Granted, some of the better ones I do have, and have borrowed from more than once. I do like my Freeport and Witchfire adventures, and I have an issue or two of Dungeon. But to me it's more work to run a published adventure than to simply come up with my own.

 

[Turjan]

So, I guess what I am asking is, does anybody else feel that perhaps D&D is no longer just a set of rules for a game, but actually a style of play or perhaps a sub-genre of fantasy games that could possibly be played with different set of rules?

D&D has been much more than "just a set of rules for a game" for quite some time by now. D&D is a specific combination of several more or less related sets of rules and a sub-genre of fantasy. I agree that the set of fantasy tropes connected to D&D (races like elves and dwarves, classes like wizards and rogues/thieves) is more important to the perception of what D&D comprises than the exact set of game rules. For example, I think everybody would know exactly what I'd be up to if I announced that I wanted to play a session of D&D with HeroQuest rules during the next meeting. All questions I'd expect to get would be related to character generation, I'd suppose. However, this example is only valid to stress that the sub-genre of fantasy bears more weight in brand recognition than the set of rules. A D&D session following HeroQuest rules would not be D&D, even though we'd still use a d20 .

As far as your other point goes, style of play, I don't agree. Even if the D&D rules cater more to kill'n'cash-like games, it's perfectly viable for story-driven games. This means that I would not see a specific style of play part of the D&D brand.

d20 as a trademark is just that: a brand name. You can alter you d20 game as far as you want from D&D, as long as you use the PHB's character generation. The d20 game itself does not necessarily have any resemblance to D&D. However, I suppose the use of a 20-sided die is somehow connected to the image of D&D, though many other games use d20's, too, like HeroQuest or Talislanta.

As far as HARP goes, the recognition or HARP with D&D is pretty easily explained. This has historical reasons (we know where it comes from), and the effect of opening the HARP rulebook and immediately recognizing all the usual races, classes, skills and feats does the rest. Anyway, a look at the details reveals that it is not D&D. Of course, it serves the purpose of playing in a recognizable D&D environment with a different ruleset just well, without much tinkering with your mental images.

Anyway, this is just semantics. The point is that D&D is a brand that evokes more or less accurate images even in people outside the RPG world, because of brand recognition. I doubt that this is equally true for Rolemaster, let alone HARP. Maybe you should call Jack Chick for some free promotion .

 

[Rasyr]

Actually, my question had nothing to do with HARP, other than that quote from somebody which got me onto this train of thought.

The question applies equally to using Fudge, the Rule Cyclopedia, 1e, 2e, Palladium, Unisystem, Burning Wheel, or any other system.

To me it seems that D&D has become MORE than just a game, it has become its own entire sub-genre or style of play, no matter what system is being used for it.

 

[Psion]

To me it seems that D&D has become MORE than just a game, it has become its own entire sub-genre or style of play, no matter what system is being used for it.

If so, it could vary wildly depending on what mode you tend to play the game in. And what mechanics will or will not support, or "be" D&D will vary from person to person.

I've had fun playing Fantasy Hero. But I wouldn't call it D&D.

No game run under GURPS will ever approximate D&D to me.

 

[Turjan]

Actually, my question had nothing to do with HARP, other than that quote from somebody which got me onto this train of thought.

The question applies equally to using Fudge, the Rule Cyclopedia, 1e, 2e, Palladium, Unisystem, Burning Wheel, or any other system.

To me it seems that D&D has become MORE than just a game, it has become its own entire sub-genre or style of play, no matter what system is being used for it.

The part regarding HARP was just a minor sidetrack in my answer, because you specifically mentioned it. Most of my answer was completely unrelated to HARP, and I actually used HeroQuest as an example for playing D&D with a different rules system and the implications