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<blockquote data-quote="Gallowglass" data-source="post: 410046" data-attributes="member: 5284">What makes D&amp;D?Speaking as someone who got so frustrated with 1e that I stopped playing it circa 1982 and only started again with 3e (dipped in and out over the years but never saw anything to draw me back), I think that, especially in light of 3e, the core essence of D&amp;D probably is rules based, and it probably comes down to the sacred cows that the design team felt they couldn't remove (and that Monte Cook wrote an entertaining Line of Sight about a while back IIRC): Levels, AC, Hit Points.D&amp;D was always, at heart, a descendant of Chainmail, i.e. a miniatures wargame shifted to 1:1 scale and with rules bolted on to deal with non-battle situations. So it's always been a game focused on tactical skirmishes and a relatively high magic, epic feel. The genius of 3e was to strip down and regularise that core set of rules and to provide a seemless extension to cover the non battlefield stuff (the skill system in 3e is excellent IMO and so much better than proficiencies). But it is still at its heart a set of quick, fun, skirmish rules <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> AND THIS IS NOT&nbsp; A BAD THING!!There are IMO more plausible seeming combat systems than D&amp;D's, there are IMO more atmospheric magic systems, there are IMO skill and experience systems that are more flexible. But if you take levels, AC, hit points, or the Vancian magic system out of D&amp;D, it's just not D&amp;D anymore, IMO. The good thing these days of course, is that its still a d20 game...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gallowglass, post: 410046, member: 5284"] [b]What makes D&D?[/b] Speaking as someone who got so frustrated with 1e that I stopped playing it circa 1982 and only started again with 3e (dipped in and out over the years but never saw anything to draw me back), I think that, especially in light of 3e, the core essence of D&D probably [B]is[/B] rules based, and it probably comes down to the sacred cows that the design team felt they couldn't remove (and that Monte Cook wrote an entertaining Line of Sight about a while back IIRC): Levels, AC, Hit Points. D&D was always, at heart, a descendant of Chainmail, i.e. a miniatures wargame shifted to 1:1 scale and with rules bolted on to deal with non-battle situations. So it's always been a game focused on tactical skirmishes and a relatively high magic, epic feel. The genius of 3e was to strip down and regularise that core set of rules and to provide a seemless extension to cover the non battlefield stuff (the skill system in 3e is excellent IMO and so much better than proficiencies). But it is still at its heart a set of quick, fun, skirmish rules ;) [B]AND THIS IS NOT A BAD THING!![/B] There are IMO more plausible seeming combat systems than D&D's, there are IMO more atmospheric magic systems, there are IMO skill and experience systems that are more flexible. But if you take levels, AC, hit points, or the Vancian magic system out of D&D, it's just not D&D anymore, IMO. The good thing these days of course, is that its still a d20 game... [/QUOTE]

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