Experts on other systems, why aren't they d&d?

[gamerprinter]

It depends on point of view...

From a 3pp point of view, D&D is any derivitative of the license whether OGL, D20 or GSL, and although not "licensed" as such oD&D, that too. Pathfinder is D&D.

Despite D&D being the first RPG, I don't consider all RPGs to be D&D, thus Rolemaster, Palladium, World of Darkness, are RPGs but not D&D.

Having tropes like Elves, Halflings or Wizards, Bards, Rogues, in my eyes more more like basic D&D, but are not required. Thus OA's korobokoru and hengeyokai, or Sohei and Shukenja though not basic D&D is still D&D.

Regarding the brand name or IP of WotC/TSR, that would describe D&D from a legal point of view. I am not a lawyer, so basically this means nothing to me. I would consider 4e to be D&D, though not a game that I would ever play.

However, if somebody slapped the D&D logo onto a Candyland game, would it be anything other Candyland, no. The brand name means nothing to me, from a players standpoint. So slapping a D&D logo on anything does not make it D&D. Perhaps from a legal point of view, maybe. But again I'm not a lawyer so I don't think like one.

From a personal point of view, D&D is everything produced by TSR/WotC, and D20/OGL but not 4e, that's really a Hasbro product. (except for RPG products that were not meant to be D&D or a derivative, which there are a few.) And though Pathfinder is outside the license and not a product of TSR/WotC, since its based on 3.5 OGL, it is by my definition, D&D.

So it really depends on what perspective you are asking, because I have different answers, based on different points of view.

GP

 

[pawsplay]

D&D and the other early RPGs are outgrowths of the fantasy wargaming tradition. Fantasy wargaming gave birth to a larger family of games, what we call RPGs. Early RPGs were basically focused on character development and action resolution. There came a shift when designers started setting up new character goals. D&D was basically goal-neutral, with the assumption that gathering treasure and experience was a common goal.

The reasons we are not still playing fantasy wargames are:

* Metagame incentives. While D&D insisted you play a certain alignment and stay more or less within character class, it was largely up to you what you wanted to do. Marvel Super Heroes inched things along with Karma, and things took a quantum leap forward with Vampire, which brought storytelling to the fore over basic resolution systems.
* Reality check. While D&D and Marvel Super Heroes are both fantasies, GURPS WWII is not so much, and even a Call of Cthulhu game dealt with a lot of realistic elements. As the player demand for pseudorealistic resolutions increased, games had to do more than provide resolution systems, they had to provide resolution systems that produced logical results.
* The player-driven game. While sandbox games have been around since the beginning, it was not until games like Ars Magica and such came along that it became an option for a player to initiate the scenario, rather than the GM.

There are still a number of games that fit neatly into the fantasy wargaming mold, including D&D 4e, Rifts, Savage Worlds, Star Wars Saga, Fate, Hero System, and so forth. Then there quite a few games that really exist outside that paradigm, like the Dying Earth, World of Darkness, Story Engine. Apart from D&D, most popular games straddle the line. GURPS, D6, BESM, Shadowrun, Talislanta, and a lot of other games follow a fairly traditional fantasy wargame design, but provide various mechanical or narrative structures that move outside the world/resolution paradigm.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I suppose it would. It would then be something else. Rudgeons & Ragons or something.

IMHO, relationship to Mr. Gygax's work is the only thing that makes anything D&D, and "D&D" and "D&D Brand" mean two different things.

Thus, any argument that would call OD&D or 1e "not D&D" for any reason fails for me. Whereas, while I accept 4e as D&D, arguments that it is "D&D Brand" rather than "D&D" hold far more weight.

Gaining the power to restrict what is called a "chair", and then calling a table a "chair" doesn't make the table into what is generally known as a "chair". At best, it creates a break in the meaning of the term, so that when one uses the word "chair" one has to delineate if one means a table-chair or a chair-chair.


RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I like the distinction between "necessary" and "sufficient" conditions for something being D&D.

The necessary is the name on the label. Probably also that's an RPG (but that already has its own problems and extra conditions ).

The sufficient conditions can be manifold. The important thing about sufficient conditions are: There can be multiple, and even if you fail to qualify for one, you might qualify for another.

In the end, the sufficient condition seem to be dependent on each individuals preferences.

---

But what I actually hoped for to see in this thread - instead of edition comparisons and figuring out if any particularly edition of D&D is really D&D or just in brand only or whatever - Games that play very similar to D&D. Or games that look similar, but are actually very different. Or games that are totally unlike D&D, and how so.

For example, I think Warhammer has a lot of similarities to D&D - many common races, an XP based system, fantasy, all that. But, if you look closer - the atmosphere is very different from the "standard D&D. Sure, you could do that with D&D, but the system alone helps this atmosphere. Magic is risky, even for experienced practitioners. The game has hit points, but it doesn't have the D&D style hit points that make you almost invulnerable for some time - in Warhammer, every hit can debilitate you, even the first in combat if you are not flat-footed. Fighting against superior numbers is extremely dangerous (you get only one parry and one dodge - if at all!)

Torg is very different from D&D. Fantasy is just one subsetting, and it doesn't use Vancian magic, but a drain/backlash based model. There are no hit points in this system. Shock POints come close, but they don't kill, they just knock you out, actual wounds have their (integrated) subsystem.
The similarity is mostly that it supports heroic action, like D&D typically does. You don't have hit points, but possibilites allow you to negate damage.
But still, even if this is a similarity, it makes the game very different.

 

[Obryn]

IMHO, relationship to Mr. Gygax's work is the only thing that makes anything D&D, and "D&D" and "D&D Brand" mean two different things.

Thus, any argument that would call OD&D or 1e "not D&D" for any reason fails for me. Whereas, while I accept 4e as D&D, arguments that it is "D&D Brand" rather than "D&D" hold far more weight.

You can definitely start from that point. I don't know that this argument has anything more going for it than the brand name argument, though. From here, you're still deciding on what's important to you, and judging other games based on it. You're just limiting it in a different way. (And perhaps not very strictly, since every RPG relates back to OD&D somewhere in its family tree.)

Gaining the power to restrict what is called a "chair", and then calling a table a "chair" doesn't make the table into what is generally known as a "chair". At best, it creates a break in the meaning of the term, so that when one uses the word "chair" one has to delineate if one means a table-chair or a chair-chair.

I don't know that this is a good comparison. You're arguing about the object itself, not about the company who purchased the rights to produce one particular kind of chair.

I mean, we can go into Platonic arguments where we try and arrive at the "essence" of things, but I don't know that it'd be any more productive than it was last year.

-O

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Well, I'm still not so sure I agree... See I still think a lot of that "out of whack" stuff was in D&D already. Bo9S and such seemed to just be a test run for a new way to format it, or use it.

I actually agree with you. The "out of whack" stuff was a perception I got from others that did not seem to like Bo9S. I thought it was a good implementation of existing rules turned in a new direction to make one of the most innovative and exciting books to hit the game since....well, maybe ever. I can't think of a book I enjoyed the concept of more since first picking up the game. The one regret I have of leaving 3E behind is that I didn't have more time to explore Bo9S (but it didn't outweigh the other stuff I wanted to leave behind). And, although I am completely enjoying 4E, I don't find the classes of 4E to hold as much interest and flavor as the Bo9S classes.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You can definitely start from that point. I don't know that this argument has anything more going for it than the brand name argument, though. From here, you're still deciding on what's important to you, and judging other games based on it. You're just limiting it in a different way. (And perhaps not very strictly, since every RPG relates back to OD&D somewhere in its family tree.)

Sure. We are talking about issues of identity, and identity is not only not an intrinsic quality of an object, it is not even an objective quality. Nor is identity something one can own or forcibly change....although one can have legal control over the use of terms associated with identity.


RC

 

[rogueattorney]

I did this pole a while ago:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/205162-what-must-d-d-have-giant-poll.html

Actually before 4E, but from it, 4E has these things in common with past editions. Though some parts have changed:

Dice: d20s, d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s, d12s, d100s

Abilities: the classic 6, ranging from 3-18, or (or 19 or 20)

Alignment: chaos, law, evil, good

Races, both in general and specifically: human, dwarf, elf, variant elf, halfling, gnome

Classes, both in general and specifically: : fighter, rogue/thief , wizard/magic-user, cleric, ranger, paladin, barbarian, druid, bard

Character level and XP (for defeating monsters)

HP & AC (as damage avoidance)

“Fire and forget” magic (including more explicit vancian magic for wizards)

Mechanics for listning, sneaking, finding traps, and climbing walls.

Many (statistically) different kinds of armor and weapons

Gems, gold (coins), and magic items

Dungeon, Wilderness, and (maybe) city adventuring

Monsters: dragons, orcs, kobolds, goblins (and kin), giants, trolls, beholders, mind-flayers, drow, giant/dire insects and animals, elementals (and kin), demons and devils, fey, griffons and minators (and so on), dinosaurs, tarasque, evil humans

Whats interesting is that there are plenty of RPGs that have few of things, and or deemphasize them. But there are also plenty of RPGs that have most of these.

But how many have ALL of them? And wouldn't that be a D&D clone?

Funnily, a good portion of these things (bolded) weren't extant in the original Dungeons & Dragons rules. The roll d20 against AC function which most recognize as THE defining characteristic of D&D combat was even presented as optional.

Thus showing "what's D&D" often depends on which D&D a person's been exposed to. For a fan of older D&D, Tunnels & Trolls or Palladium FRPG might seem a lot more like "their" D&D than 4e, and from a strictly rules based stand-point, the fan of older D&D wouldn't be wrong.

The definition of "D&D" as "whatever the trademark holder of D&D says it is" is an unsatisfactory answer. It has a breaking point. Hyperbole is useful here -- if WotC were to slap a "Dungeons & Dragons, 5e" sticker on a Monopoly box, the vast majority of people, even people who have no clue what D&D is, would fail to recognize it as D&D. They'd say, "That's Monopoly."

I believe the term "Dungeons & Dragons" is now generally used simply for "fantasy role playing game," and given the plethora of rules that have been used at one time or another under the D&D banner, this isn't a particularly inaccurate usage.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't know that this is a good comparison. You're arguing about the object itself, not about the company who purchased the rights to produce one particular kind of chair.

BTW, a chair is one particular kind of furniture. There is no real difference between having the right to rename a subset of furniture and a subset of chairs (i.e., rocking chairs) with regards either to the analogy or to the conclusion that it draws.

No matter how specific you get, gaining the right to rename a 1991 Ford Taurus as "2008 Honda Civic", and gaining the right to rename a 2008 Honda Civic as "1991 Ford Taurus" breaks either term into terms (original and new) with opposed meanings. Neither actually changes the original meaning of the term.

The same is absolutely true for all terminology, as a function of language, including "D&D".


RC

 

[Ariosto]

On Pawsplay's points:

Greg Stafford's Pendragon (1985) and Prince Valiant (1989), as well as Ars Magica (1987) by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein•Hagen seem to me to undermine the "quantum leap" claim regarding Vampire: The Masquerade (1991). Prince Valiant in particular actually stripped down the conventional mechanics (almost all the way back to the simplicity of the original D&D set ) and employed devices designed especially for a story-telling game.

"Realistic" is not a term that comes to mind regarding 4E. Neither do I especially associate it with (e.g.) Tri Tac or Phoenix Command. The most realistic "resolution system" is what D&D carried over from Kriegsspiel: limited information on the part of players, and a referee who considers the particulars of the situation rather than being bound by arbitrary formulations.

While sandbox games have been around since the beginning, it was not until games like Ars Magica and such came along that it became an option for a player to initiate the scenario, rather than the GM.

So, what does "sandbox game" mean to you? Having some experience with both D&D and Ars Magica, I can make no sense of this claim.