D&D General Disentangling D&D from D&D Fantasy

[Mecheon]

There are no Beholders in WoW and that game is 100% "D&D Fantasy." That is what I mean -- the style of fantasy that D&D popularized, that then metastasized as it bounced back and forth between computer games and other TTRPGs and books and different editions of D&D. Lord of the Rings was an ingredient in "D&D Fantasy" but just one among many.

There are absolutely WoW Beholders. They're part of the extended Observer family

 

[SothFan]

What do you, specifically, mean by writing out the D&D Fantasy out of classes and spells?

I think the entire thing means to remove the IP from the game. Game rules can not by copyright by themselves, but some things can be trademark. So it is making it into the SRD, but what do I know?

 

[Maxperson]

There are no Beholders in WoW and that game is 100% "D&D Fantasy." That is what I mean -- the style of fantasy that D&D popularized, that then metastasized as it bounced back and forth between computer games and other TTRPGs and books and different editions of D&D. Lord of the Rings was an ingredient in "D&D Fantasy" but just one among many.

There are only so many ways to represent fantasy and virtually all of them are going to feel very D&D like or D&D adjacent. D&D is so generic it's hard for it not to touch quite a bit on any fantasy you make.

Earlier you mentioned going human only. To me that's still very D&D like since D&D is extremely human centric. Regardless of what the players decide to make, and it's often a non-human group as humans like to play things other than humans, the rest of the setting is generally primarily humans with demi-humans making up a relatively small percentage of the setting population.

Going with no humans at all makes the setting much less D&D like to me as it removes that human backbone. Remove all the PHB races and it would feel VERY different from D&D.

 

[Tonguez]

Isnt that what the d20 Licence was trying to do?

I'd consider Warhammer Fantasy to be not very DnD too

DnD in generally is hypercompetent suits in gonzo fantasy worlds

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Short answer: Yes, of course you can.

Long answer: There are dozens of dnd clones that do this. Adventures in Middle Earth is my go to example, but IIRC there are ones for sword and sorcery, final fantasy style fantasy, a ghibli inspired one, anime ones, i mean...

 

[Reynard]

Short answer: Yes, of course you can.

Long answer: There are dozens of dnd clones that do this. Adventures in Middle Earth is my go to example, but IIRC there are ones for sword and sorcery, final fantasy style fantasy, a ghibli inspired one, anime ones, i mean...

I am not sure all of those aren't "D&D Fantasy."

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I am not sure all of those aren't "D&D Fantasy."

Meh. None of them are directly based on dnd. Any other requirement is unreasonable.

And there are several that certainly are not strongly infkuenced (if at all) by dnd, so...

 

[MichaelSomething]

Well that goes back to my Ship of Theseus issue. What's the difference between taking D&D, removing all the races but human and replacing them with Alien species, rewriting all the classes and adding several new ones, changing the magic system to a psionic system fueled by you own HP, and then setting it in far flung future with robots and starships? Did I decouple D&D rules from D&D fantasy or did I just create Star Wars d20?

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Over the decades, "D&D Fantasy" has become its own genre. The reciprocal relationship between D&D and video games has not only embedded this sub-genre, but given it relatively consistent visual tropes and mechanical implementations. The decade or so of popularity of TSR setting novels also entangled the visual language of paperback fantasy with D&D -- even when the books had little or nothing to do with D&D fantasy -- and that is to say nothing of the generation of fantasists who grew up on D&D and its influence on their work.

What I wonder is: is it possible to disentangle D&D Fantasy from the game of D&D, to do D&D in a different or new flavor of fantasy? What would it take? Could D&D's "sacred cow" mechanics survive such a transition? What about its visual identity? Are there very D&D adjacent (OSR, OGL) games that manage it while still "being" D&D?

I feel like 2e, at least in part, did a good deal of that. Dark Sun, Planescape, and Birthright come to mind. But I'm assuming that's probably not the sort of thing you are talking about.

 

[GrimCo]

Beside 2e Dark Sun, which was more like game for itself, but based on 2e ruleset, there is one that springs to mind.

3e D20 Game of Thrones. It uses d&d d20 game engine, but it plays very different than standard 3.x d&d. All classes are reworked, magic system is removed, armor is now DR. There is no linear fighter quadratic wizard problem. They added some social mechanics also. It's as far away as you can get from classic d&d as you can, yet if you ever played 3ed d&d, it's more or less same engine.

Other game is 5e Free League's LotR. It's 5e engine, but it's definetly not your standard 5e power fantasy.