Do we really need (fill in the blank)

[Li Shenron]

I don't think D&D NEEDS anything except humans, wizards, and fighters. It NEEDS to have other races than human, it NEEDS to have other classes than wizards and fighters, but it doesn't need any individual one of them to be D&D. And they don't need to be in the exact form they're currently in either. I think one could drop wizards and leave sorcerers instead, for instance. But I think you need about a half-dozen races and about a dozen classes. Which ones are up to you.

I agree with you. Having extra races and classes in "needed" to give the players an important choice to make at the start of the game, and to make the PCs different enough so that each one feels like having its own important role in the game. No specific race or class is effectively "needed" and also it is not needed to have a huge number of races/class in the same game.

In some games it can even be a bad thing: if the DM and players keep using different subraces for every new PC/NPC, and there is actually no time for giving a race its own place in the world (because you don't see more that 1-2 of each race), it may end up that every race is more or less the same.

 

[Remathilis]

Do we REALLY need dice? Can't D&D go diceless? They always seem to mess me up when I'm doing something cool. Dice are broken!

To me, I need the followint things to make it D&D. Remove them and I'm not playing true D&D.

* Humans, elves, dwaves, halflings
* Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief
* d20 to Hit and Save
* Alignment
* Spell Slots and Spell Levels
* Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds, Gnolls, Ogres, Giants, Trolls, Dragons, Undead, Demons/Devils, Beholders and Golems.
* +1 Swords and other magical gear.
* XP and Levels
* Arcane/Divine Magic
* Armor Class, HP (in some form) and HD.
* Underground Complexes full of Monsters and Traps

Thats what I NEED. Everything else is just gravy...

 

[Salad Shooter]

The question is not "do we need it?", the question is "What can we do with it?" If you can doo cool and interesting things wiuth it, keep in your game.

I'll agree with Crothian here. Spelling errors and all. If there is something you don't think you need, get rid of it! Use the mythical rule 0: If you don't like it, change it. Personally, I like all the different races, classes, etc. Use what you will, discard the rest, if there's something missing you want, invent it. No one is going to kill you over it.

 

[VoiceOfReason?]

well, I was gonna post, but then started reading the other replies, and the first damn one said everything I wanted to say. Props Crothian