D&D General If D&D were created today, what would it look like?

[Lanefan]

What would D&D look like if created today?

Bland. Humourless. Corporate. Safe. Dumbed-down (it'd probably be aimed at the 7-14-year-old market). Inoffensive to a fault.

How would it be intended to play?

Fast. The idea of a years-long or even months-long "campaign" would not exist. It'd be unusual for a single game (equivalent to our campaigns now) to even require a second session to complete; needing a third session would be crazy talk.

The idea of DMs homebrewing adventures, settings, or stories would be suppressed in favour of all such things having to be purchased. The marketing ideal would be that for every session of play, a new adventure would be bought (or subscribed to; even better if everyone has to keep paying for that content month after month).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What would D&D look like if created today?

Bland. Humourless. Corporate. Safe. Dumbed-down (it'd probably be aimed at the 7-14-year-old market). Inoffensive to a fault.

How would it be intended to play?

Fast. The idea of a years-long or even months-long "campaign" would not exist. It'd be unusual for a single game (equivalent to our campaigns now) to even require a second session to complete; needing a third session would be crazy talk.

The idea of DMs homebrewing adventures, settings, or stories would be suppressed in favour of all such things having to be purchased. The marketing ideal would be that for every session of play, a new adventure would be bought (or subscribed to; even better if everyone has to keep paying for that content month after month).

This set of ideas has vanishingly little basis in reality.

A D&D made today would most likely be just as indie as it was in the 70’s, funded via a crowdfunding site after circling through other tabletop game spaces for a few years, and would be weird and probably really gay.

Edit: seriously, D&D has become extremely gay. People meme eachother into specific queer categories based on the races and classes they prefer, and I’ve even seen gen z D&D players state that “pretty everyone under 40 who plays D&D is queer.”

D&D would more likely come from queer teenagers with tiktok accounts than from a corporation, were it made today.

 

[Zardnaar]

This set of ideas has vanishingly little basis in reality.

A D&D made today would most likely be just as indie as it was in the 70’s, funded via a crowdfunding site after circling through other tabletop game spaces for a few years, and would be weird and probably really gay.

Edit: seriously, D&D has become extremely gay. People meme eachother into specific queer categories based on the races and classes they prefer, and I’ve even seen gen z D&D players state that “pretty everyone under 40 who plays D&D is queer.”

D&D would more likely come from queer teenagers with tiktok accounts than from a corporation, were it made today.

Pretty big generalisation there old boy.

 

[pemerton]

When I look at other games, I just really think as far as Fantasy goes, D&D nailed it. I dont know that they are primitive, as much as they are foundational?

Here are some fantasy conceptions that D&D didn't "nail":

* Various sorts of magic-users like white wizards, witches, necromancers etc - these are all subsumed into the heavily armed and armoured clerics (either good ones or bad ones);

* All sorts of martial artists from Chinese and Japanese tradition;

* Knights - D&D has never really had, and certainly didn't begin with, solid rules for jousting and charging on horseback;

* Robin Hood-types who don't use magic and don't fight "giant class creatures" but are at home in the forest rather than on conventional battle fields.

I've got nothing particularly against D&D, but I don't think there's any need to exaggerate it.

 

[Aldarc]

What would D&D look like if created today?

Bland. Humourless. Corporate. Safe. Dumbed-down (it'd probably be aimed at the 7-14-year-old market). Inoffensive to a fault.

How would it be intended to play?

Fast. The idea of a years-long or even months-long "campaign" would not exist. It'd be unusual for a single game (equivalent to our campaigns now) to even require a second session to complete; needing a third session would be crazy talk.

The idea of DMs homebrewing adventures, settings, or stories would be suppressed in favour of all such things having to be purchased. The marketing ideal would be that for every session of play, a new adventure would be bought (or subscribed to; even better if everyone has to keep paying for that content month after month).

Okay, Boomer.

 

[Mind of tempest]

What would D&D look like if created today?

Bland. Humourless. Corporate. Safe. Dumbed-down (it'd probably be aimed at the 7-14-year-old market). Inoffensive to a fault.

How would it be intended to play?

Fast. The idea of a years-long or even months-long "campaign" would not exist. It'd be unusual for a single game (equivalent to our campaigns now) to even require a second session to complete; needing a third session would be crazy talk.

The idea of DMs homebrewing adventures, settings, or stories would be suppressed in favour of all such things having to be purchased. The marketing ideal would be that for every session of play, a new adventure would be bought (or subscribed to; even better if everyone has to keep paying for that content month after month).

this assumes it spawns from a corporate background it would equally likely spawn from some strange group of internet people.

 

[Lanefan]

Here are some fantasy conceptions that D&D didn't "nail":

* Various sorts of magic-users like white wizards, witches, necromancers etc - these are all subsumed into the heavily armed and armoured clerics (either good ones or bad ones);

Not so sure on this one - I think the white-wizard and necromancer* tropes can fairly easily be approached via a wizard-type with a certain attitude and the right spell selection; while (as we've just seen in another recent thread) there's ways to get close to a witch-style character using any of Sorcerer, Nature Cleric, Druid or Warlock as a jumping-off point.

* - it's also fairly easy (it must be, as I've done it ) to design a new Necromancer class as a sub-class of wizard or MU.

* All sorts of martial artists from Chinese and Japanese tradition;

Yeah - they either needed to go all in on this or not bother trying. The Monk class has always seemed like no more than a "well, we tried" result.

* Knights - D&D has never really had, and certainly didn't begin with, solid rules for jousting and charging on horseback;

Despite the existence of the Cavalier class in 1e - which was in theory built around mounted combat - I agree there's never been a functional set of mounted combat rules in D&D.

* Robin Hood-types who don't use magic and don't fight "giant class creatures" but are at home in the forest rather than on conventional battle fields.

As its own class, no; but the concept can be achieved by a lightly-armoured Fighter specialized in bow, with some sort of outdoorsy background. Plan B might be a Ranger variant without the silly pets and without a favoured enemy but given some Fighter abilities in return to balance these losses.

 

[Lanefan]

this assumes it spawns from a corporate background it would equally likely spawn from some strange group of internet people.

To start with, maybe, but it'd be far more quickly snapped up if-when it became successful. More likely is those internet people would take it to a corporation to get it into wide release. Either way, it wouldn't get the same opportunity real D&D had to bake in the do-it-yourself and homebrew ethos before that'd get stifled by the suits.

(in case it isn't obvious, I always assume the worst of corporations and find I'm far too often correct)

 

[Aldarc]

Not so sure on this one - I think the white-wizard and necromancer* tropes can fairly easily be approached via a wizard-type with a certain attitude and the right spell selection; while (as we've just seen in another recent thread) there's ways to get close to a witch-style character using any of Sorcerer, Nature Cleric, Druid or Warlock as a jumping-off point.

* - it's also fairly easy (it must be, as I've done it ) to design a new Necromancer class as a sub-class of wizard or MU.

@pemerton's use of the adjective "white" is likely meant to extend collectively to all that follows: i.e., White Wizard, White Witches, White Necromancer. And it's undeniable that in D&D most of the healing or "white magic" has been subsumed by the heavily armored crusading cleric. There's never really been a healing/support-oriented "magic-user" or "wizard" supported in the game.

 

[Lanefan]

@pemerton's use of the adjective "white" is likely meant to extend collectively to all that follows: i.e., White Wizard, White Witches, White Necromancer. And it's undeniable that in D&D most of the healing or "white magic" has been subsumed by the heavily armored crusading cleric. There's never really been a healing/support-oriented "magic-user" or "wizard" supported in the game.

Ah. I wasn't looking at healing as a thing here; and though for some odd reason healing gets classed as necromancy I've never equated the two in the slightest. I have a hard time even grasping the concept of a White Necromancer or even a Good Necromancer (though my wife does her best to play one as one of her PCs); White Wizards and White Witches are do-able as noted earlier provided the definition of White doesn't include healing.

Healing has always been solidly in the divine-magic section rather than arcane - and for good reason in one regard: a wizard of any kind that could also heal itself would be even more over-the-top than wizards already are! Wizards, for the most part, already have more than enough going for them.

Healing-wizards would also gut the Cleric class as its primary niche would be gone...but maybe that's the intent?