Has D&D become too...D&Dish?

[Glyfair]

But that wasn't the major point. Which was that D&D has particular conceits that are UNIQUE to D&D. And 3e, rather than leaving them there, chose to emphasize them. And in so doing, it separated the game from its root goal: emulating fantasy closely enough that people who enjoyed fantasy could PLAY fantasy. And before I get raked over the coals for it, I'll grant the high magic thing is not one of the conceits that's "unique" to D&D.

I'll say that I don't believe one of the design considerations for 3E was "let's get back to the roots." Improving the game, gaining strong consistant rule foundations and generally "fixing" all the things that have been suggested over the previous 10 years were things. 3E did that admirably, although it might not have been to everyone's taste. "Recapture the lapsed players who quit or moved to other RPGs, was another." Again, it seems to have done admirably in that.

Even then, I think that "emulating fantasy closely enough that people who enjoyed fantasy could PLAY fantasy" wasn't the only goal in the beginning. There were elements of that, but there were also elements of "let's move the war game to individual units in a Dungeon environment" The dungeon has been there pretty solidly from the beginning, and that's not a major element of most fantasy stories.

 

[Dracorat]

IMO, Monte was the carbon paper that took fantasy as we knew it and applied real world rules to it that could be determined using dice.

He did a great job.

 

[JohnSnow]

Well, let me throw out one example of an almost strictly D&D conceit that's been mentioned a few times throughout this thread.

One member of every adventuring party is a cleric: an adventuring priest who casts spells to heal people of their injuries. Why are they in D&D? Well...practical reasons mostly. D&D features combat, so we need a way for characters to recover quickly. Healing magic sounds like a good idea, but the game's creators thought it would be unbalanced to have the wizard cast healing spells. Enter - the cleric. Of course, we can't have a class that does nothing but hand out healing spells, so clerics get all kinds of other abilities too.

As the game wore on, the cleric's role was revised and expanded. What had originally been a necessary conceit for the fact that D&D was a game was justified in the context of the game world. Later, that context was used to justify further alterations to the cleric class. And variant classes were introduced that filled the same game role as the cleric but with different context. Now, 30-some years later, Core D&D has clerics, druids, and so on.

The cleric and druid are D&Disms. Why is "druid" a separate character class from "wizard?" Why does the druid's "wildshape" ability need to be a protected niche? The game has become more about preserving itself than modelling fantasy for its audience.

Some of these things are desired, of course, but certainly not all of them.

 

[Psion]

The cleric and druid are D&Disms. Why is "druid" a separate character class from "wizard?" Why does the druid's "wildshape" ability need to be a protected niche? The game has become more about preserving itself than modelling fantasy for its audience.

Again, why should D&D be held to the goal of modeling a specific fantasy novel? Why is D&D not allowed to break it's own ground? Do people complain that the Game of Thrones does not model LotR? I think a fantasy (meta)setting has just as much license to do its own thing as any novel does. Moreso, since there are many things that work well in novels that don't work well in games, and vice-versa.

 

[diaglo]

Well, let me throw out one example of an almost strictly D&D conceit that's been mentioned a few times throughout this thread.

One member of every adventuring party is a cleric: an adventuring priest who casts spells to heal people of their injuries. Why are they in D&D? Well...practical reasons mostly. D&D features combat, so we need a way for characters to recover quickly. Healing magic sounds like a good idea, but the game's creators thought it would be unbalanced to have the wizard cast healing spells. Enter - the cleric. Of course, we can't have a class that does nothing but hand out healing spells, so clerics get all kinds of other abilities too.

As the game wore on, the cleric's role was revised and expanded. What had originally been a necessary conceit for the fact that D&D was a game was justified in the context of the game world. Later, that context was used to justify further alterations to the cleric class. And variant classes were introduced that filled the same game role as the cleric but with different context. Now, 30-some years later, Core D&D has clerics, druids, and so on.

The cleric and druid are D&Disms. Why is "druid" a separate character class from "wizard?" Why does the druid's "wildshape" ability need to be a protected niche? The game has become more about preserving itself than modelling fantasy for its audience.

Some of these things are desired, of course, but certainly not all of them.

do you know the background of the cleric or the druid?

the cleric just like the fighting man and the magic user were the only classes available in OD&D. clerics got some advantages from both the other classes and disadvantages of their own. they filled a unique niche. no spells at level 1. no edged weapons. ability to wear good armor. use of more magic items than fighting men less than magic users.

the druid on the other hand was introduced as an NPC class only. a hybrid of the magic user and the cleric class. when it went PC class the rules for PC classes had changed.

variable hit dice for hps although the cleric class which now included the druid was still a d6

 

[JoeBlank]

Well, let me throw out one example of an almost strictly D&D conceit that's been mentioned a few times throughout this thread.

One member of every adventuring party is a cleric: an adventuring priest who casts spells to heal people of their injuries. Why are they in D&D? Well...practical reasons mostly. D&D features combat, so we need a way for characters to recover quickly. Healing magic sounds like a good idea, but the game's creators thought it would be unbalanced to have the wizard cast healing spells. Enter - the cleric. Of course, we can't have a class that does nothing but hand out healing spells, so clerics get all kinds of other abilities too.

It recently hit me that I disagree with the idea that wizards can not cast healing spells.

I play D&D/C&C with my sons, ranging from age 4 to 8. At this point, I do not want to confuse them with the idea of mythical gods and the worship of these gods. So I think I am just doing away with the cleric class in our game. I'll let wizards and sorcerers pick from any spell list.

My kids don't have any idea how to min/max yet, and even if they did, balance be damned.

 

[SSquirrel]

ROTF. Would help if people would actually WATCH the shows they use for comparison. If PC's were like DBZ characters, they would be the weakest putzes on the block, constantly have their butts handed to them by obviously superior enemies and only survive by the deus ex machina arrival of another super powered NPC.

What like in the Forgotten Realms?

if it's the dominant subgenre, that's the reality of the marketplace, but I'm not sure if it's in the best long-term interest of the game for it not to cater terribly well to "generic fantasy" as a genre.

See the problem, in my view, is that you're looking for something generic. I've never enjoyed being generic. Looking back, 1E thieves (for example) are totally generic. Only levelup certain skills at certain levels on the proscribed chart. 2E did a much better job with that IMO. 3E even more so. I don't WANT D&D to be generic and bland. I've always preferred a more high-magic game. It's why FR was more interesting than Greyhawk and Dark Sun was cooler than both of them If you want a more generic fantasy, GURPS Fantasy is there to fill that need.

And the question I was trying to raise for discussion was basically the following: should Core Rules D&D continue to specifically and by default support the genre of gaming it currently does, or should it be presented in a more adaptable way wherein changing from that genre to a different one is more feasible, without the need for a "variant player's handbook."

Now while I like the direction 3E decided to head, I do think that a more complete toolkit for helping people to tweak the game (esp those who aren't natural born tweakers or who make 200+ page players guides) would have been a good thing.

 

[Hussar]

Just as a point.

The "demographic" of MMORPG gamers is 30 years old, been playing computer games for about 10 years, and 50% female.

DnD dreams of being in this demographic.

You want DnD to grow? Get more than a 5% female player base (According to the latest Dragon readership poll).

 

[WayneLigon]

The point is D&D isn't getting those people. They're looking at D&D and thinking "huh, I'll pass." Or their parents and the other adults in their lives are looking at D&D and NOT thinking "Hmm, he likes Harry Potter, maybe he'll like THIS." D&D seems too different.

I don't think they're 'looking' at D&D at all. I bet the vast majority of them don't even know it exists. There's been a lot of discussion about just why this is, but I think it comes down to the fact that if they have a choice of spending $65, it isn't going to be on a set of game books unless someone is teaching them first. That's still a tremendous amount of money for your average Harry Potter reader (And I still haven't seen anything that suggests that the Harry Potter crowd is moving on to read other works of YA fiction or fantasy; if anyone knows differently, I'd like to hear it).

 

[Emirikol]

It's all about selling product. Nobody wants to purchase "yet" another game system in which they have to learn a whole set of new rules that could just as well have been D&D.
CONANRPG..case in point.

Too, players are not interested in abandoning their concept of the game. Just ask anyone who is attempting to get players for a game system other than D&D..worse if you play D&D and it doesn't have pansy elves and annoying hobbits. CONAN STOMP NASTY HOBBITZIZ AND NEVER COME BACK!

You can have the best new game on the market, logical, fast system, easy, customizable, great adventures and nobody gives a dumpling because of the mythology that D&D has created of itself.

jh
I don't go to KFC to get chicken. I go to get KFC.