Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 8690778" data-attributes="member: 19857">So I think this is an interesting question the way it's phrased.  Because there are a LOT of things that I could consider to be "a" D&D that I don't think the broader public would accept as "the" D&D. And there are things that were part of "the" D&D in previous editions that I think the broader playing base of D&D would rebel against if Wizards tried to put them back into the next iteration of D&D.  So I kind of view this in two parts - what's the minimal set of things that must be in a game that wants to be "a" D&D for it to be considered as one, and what would a D&D in 2022 need to have on top of that to be considered an acceptable follow on to the current edition.Thinking on it, the minimal set of things that have to be in "the" D&D is fairly large.  You have the elements that have burrowed into the brain of pop culture to the point that they are part of D&D's "brand identity" and so either the game would feel "off" without them or there's no way Wizards is going to lose the brand consciousness by getting rid of them.  So you've got to have the standard six attributes and there has to be at least a nod to a distribution of 3-18 across their scores. You have to have something you call alignment and it probably needs to be on the 9-point alignment grid because memes are free advertising (it doesn't have to do anything - it just needs to be there for the memes). You need to have something called a saving throw (though the mechanics can be any kind of reaction roll - the name is what's important) because everyone knows that if you fail your save you did something dumb/clumsy/whatever and that it comes from D&D.  You need to have hp and AC because those are also things that people know are in D&D and show up in memes and jokes in the pop culture (I'd also argue they're good game mechanics, but nothing on this list is here because it's a good mechanic - it's about brand identity).Then there are the things that are the core identity of the game - classes and levels.  Anything you call "the" D&D has got to have those.  You can drop them for "a" D&D but "the" D&D has to have both. Likewise, in anything you want to call "the" D&D you need to have different fantasy races (though they don't necessarily need to be called "race" and likely won't at some point in the future) both because you have to have the possibility of doing Tolkien fanfic at the table or else it's not really D&D and because the Mos Eisley Cantina feel for D&D is firmly embedded into the idea of what D&D is now and the game has to be able to support it.  Not to mention the joy that cosplayers get from dressing up as a tiefling or an elf.  To get to mechanics - for a modern version of "the" D&D it needs to be a d20 based system where rolling high is always good and rolling low is always bad.  A natural 20 is the best you can do and a natural 1 is always the worst. Combat is going to be a d20 roll vs. AC and you'll do random (not fixed) damage to an opponent probably based on the weapon you're using. There needs to be a skill system with a constrained list of skills that improve by level somehow and that also use the same d20 roll vs. a target number mechanic. Things that I consider to be "a" D&D don't need these things (for example, The Black Hack doesn't but it's clearly "a" D&D to me) but the actual official version following the arc of edition changes over time?  With a player base that is expecting certain things?  Yeah, it needs them.And then finally the thing that absolutely needs to be in the right range to be acceptable as a modern D&D - the feel of the rules.  The rules must be written specific enough that if you want you can run the game as a lightweight tactical miniatures game and yet vague enough that if you want you can run the game completely without miniatures and do it all in the heads of the players at the table.  There's a wide range between those poles but it has to be between them and not on one side or the other.  (This is the one that I always feel for the 5e design team on.  Threading that particular needle can't be easy).</blockquote>

Verification