Dungeons & Dragons: Is anything essential?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm sort of surprised no D20 publisher has taken a crack at a Spelljammer-like subsystem and setting. Dragonstar had a very different vibe to it.

 

[TheYeti1775]

I'm sort of surprised no D20 publisher has taken a crack at a Spelljammer-like subsystem and setting. Dragonstar had a very different vibe to it.

Well if any do I can gurantee them at least 6 sales. Cause when I buy some stuff that I use regularly that is off the beaten path as far as books go, I buy a set for my group. Last Christmas I gave them Valus (written by an EnWorlder), they now have a campaign in it that I run.

 

[Nifft]

D&D can be thought of as a set with fractional membership.

Each game is an element with a "degree" of membership in the set -- a Core rules game run in a classic setting could be thought of as a more "central member" than a heavily houseruled game run in a novel setting.

Because a game has so many different parts, taking any one away only slightly decreases your degree of membership in the set D&D. Thus, you could lose Cleric and Rogues and still be playing D&D -- it's just less D&D than a more archetypal game.

- - -

An example of a set with degrees of membership: Birds. Robins are high-degree members: they fly, they lay eggs, they migrate, they sing. Penguins are low-degree members. Pigeons are in between (thanks to the lack of singing and migration). Flying is an important characteristic -- it "weighs" more than singing -- but it is neither necessary nor sufficient for set membership.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Delta]

My current character is a rogue 1 / ranger 3 / fighter 2 / scout 1 / wildrunner 2 / shadowdancer 3. I dipped and cherry-picked abilities because, well, I wanted to and the game doesn't care either way.

Of course, you had to house-rule away the XP penalty, I assume (or are you actually accepting the XP penalty)?

I agree that such a class combination is achingly cumbersome -- my preferred fix would be to restrict the number of different classes to say, 3, with only one prestige class allowed.

 

[Doug McCrae]

There are two separate but related issues. What's essential to a published product, and what's essential to 'live D&D' - sessions, campaigns and so forth. As crazypixie said it would be essential for published D&D to contain dragons, as that's part of the name. But it wouldn't be essential for a game of D&D.

The issues of consumer or player expectation are quite similar, though players probably expect less. Even so a DM who calls his game D&D is creating certain expectations, just as publishers are.

I don't agree with maddman75 that anything published that's called D&D, is. Even the owners of the name know they can't get away with anything, and I suspect the creators of 3e were acutely aware of this. They could only change so much. Go too far and your product won't be regarded as D&D by the customers.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Of course, you had to house-rule away the XP penalty, I assume (or are you actually accepting the XP penalty)?

As far as I can tell, there is no XP penalty. The character is a wood elf with favored class: ranger. All the other base classes are within 1 level of each other. Shadowdancer is a prestige class, so that doesn't impact multiclass XP penalty.

I agree that such a class combination is achingly cumbersome -- my preferred fix would be to restrict the number of different classes to say, 3, with only one prestige class allowed.

That's a reasonable solution, but the number is arbitrary. Why not restrict to 1? Or 4? Or none? What's the ultimate goal? If it's just to force players to stick with a class, then why is that goal desirable?

 

[The Human Target]

I deny the existence of an essential "D&Dness". Whatever the company that holds the trademark publishes with a "Dungeons and Dragons" logo on the cover is *real* D&D. The only point of defining certain things as "D&D" or "unD&D" is so that you can point to those who play differently and act superior, because you like the real game, not this newfangled fake thing the kids are all playing. See: diaglo.

I'm not a big fan of alignment, classes, or levels, but it doesn't bother me if someone else likes them. Confuses me a bit perhaps, but if you're having fun you're doing it right.

I like you and agree with your thoughts.

You've earned a gold star.

 

[Delta]

As far as I can tell, there is no XP penalty. The character is a wood elf with favored class: ranger.

Gotcha, I wasn't going to guess the non-PHB race.

The goal of limiting classes would be to make PCs quickly identifiable, as they were in AD&D (3 classes maximum). I don't feel that classes should be abstract rules chunks; they really should be recognized as in-game professions, or there's no point to the classing system. To take an idiom from real life, you may hear about people being described as a "triple-threat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_threat), but you practically never hear people list 5 or 7 or 9 separate professions as their active current job(s). The point is to avoid the precisely the "cumbersome" issue that you pointed out yourself.

Of course, I'm used to the OD&D/AD&D system where each separate class level actually had its own title that was recognized in-game by the characters. I'm broadly expecting there's no way you'll agree with this sensibility of what the class system brings to the game, though.

 

[Pale]

They could ditch Alignment, Classes and Levels and I would be fine with it.

Classes and levels have seemed extremely clunky to me since I was introduced to very viable and popular systems that get by just fine without them and allow you to tailor your character to a high degree while still falling into a general category.

Take a look at Shadowrun: How many D&D classes/prestige classes do they encompass with category "Street Samurai"?

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I think D&D needs class, levels, the standard races, and polyhedral dice (a d20 is rolled for most things). Having said that, I think a class construction system would be cool and I would still call it D&D.