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

[Lanefan]

I doubt elements would be split that way unless made for a video game with limited magic types.

If the elements each get their own color, it would leave too few colors left for nonelemental magic..

They wouldn't each get their own colour, instead they'd be factored in to the associated colour with the other things already there.

It would also make some colors loaded with attack spells. Fine if your game is all about blasting. Like a video game.

About half the colours would have some sort of attack spells, yes; largely because if we're talking D&D, a character without some form of half-decent damage output of some type isn't going to be all that popular/useful unless it's completely OP in other ways.

In your original list, I suspect just about everyone would take "Red plus two others" as the chosen colours.

But if AU D&D is more than killing bad dudes, it doesn't work unless you jam a whole bunch of unrelated spells into 1 color.

I assumed this would be happening anyway - each colour would have a collection of spells that, while each related to the colour, might not necessarily be related to each other.

So, after a go-over and a second (not posted) re-think, I arrive at this:

• White: Healing, Blessing, Cold, Ice
• Black: Death, Undeath, Cursing, Earth-shaping
• Red: Sonic, Destruction magic, Berserking, Fire
• Blue: Knowledge, Divination, Electricity, Water
• Yellow: Body magic, Transmutation, Alchemy (potions), Light
• Green: Plants, Creatures, Air, Weather
• Orange: Chronomancy, Conjuration, Summoning
• Purple: Mind magic, Illusion, Dream magic
• Brown: Generalist, Written magic (scrolls), Travel magic
• Rainbow: Raw Magic, Wild/chaos Magic, Force
• =======================
• Separate unrelated optional system: Psionics

Assigning spells to each of these would be tedious, but in fairness it's work that would only have to be done once.

Some spells might be common to two or even three colours e.g. a spell that makes someone act completely randomly for a round might be on the lists for both Yellow (as body magic) and Rainbow (as wild/chaos magic). Brown would end up with a very small smattering of spells in common with each other colour, plus some writing-related spells and all the travel/locomotion spells.

Howzat?

 

[Aldarc]

I've always seen (fantasy) necromancy as very much the latter two of these, leaning into the trope of the evil necromancer making things be dead and then playing with the corpses.

But you are also heavily rooted in D&D fantasy. Again, @pemerton's point is that D&D doesn't really support White Necromancers and White Wizards outside of the armored, crusading, religious cleric. There hasn't really been a good rebuttal to this point yet. So I think that it still stands.

I know from my own experience playing 3e to 5e that I have encountered a number of players, including myself at times, who have been bummed about not being able to really play a more healing-focused wizard or a necromancer with a more wizarding aesthetic who can also heal and manipulate life energy.

 

[turnip_farmer]

indeed the entire idea of a "Dungeon Master" or "Storyteller" or "Gamemaster" would be alien, because none of those games have that

The role of GM was not an innovation of DnD, it was ported over from tabletop wargaming.

Modern wargames tend not to have GMs, because they have evolved towards more codified rulesets that clearly define what can and can't be done; but some older games took a much more freeform approach where players could order their troops to do pretty much anything - something that goes right back to the origins of wargaming where it was intended to be practice for actual military generals. This approach requires a neutral arbitrator to deliver rulings on the outcomes of whatever ideas the players come up with, and that's the role that became the Dungeon Master in DnD.

 

[Lanefan]

But you are also heavily rooted in D&D fantasy.

I'm really not sure whether this goes back to before I ever met D&D or not, but it certainly might.

Again, @pemerton's point is that D&D doesn't really support White Necromancers and White Wizards outside of the armored, crusading, religious cleric. There hasn't really been a good rebuttal to this point yet. So I think that it still stands.

For the White Necromancer piece, not only do I agree his point stands but I go a step further and say that there not being a White Necromancer concept in D&D is just fine with me.

As for White Wizards, it's not written in stone that a Cleric has to be either armoured or crusading. Religious, generally yes; but if one's game allows Druids to gain their spells direct from nature rather than from a deity then a healing-focused unarmoured Druid could get mighty close to a White Wizard concept.

If you're looking for a Wizard that can cast Fireball with one spell and Cure Serious Wounds with the next, however, then no; largely for balance and niche reasons that ain't gonna happen in the same class - though it can with multiclassing.

I know from my own experience playing 3e to 5e that I have encountered a number of players, including myself at times, who have been bummed about not being able to really play a more healing-focused wizard or a necromancer with a more wizarding aesthetic who can also heal and manipulate life energy.

I think that's largely because, as I mentioned upthread, such a character would probably be horribly overpowered.

That said, why not play a multiclass Wizard-Cleric to achieve the same ends? (yes, 3e-4e-5e multiclassing sucks all kinds of things, but still...)

 

[TheSword]

Keeping in mind that we wouldn't likely get Magic: The Gathering without D&D, and definitely wouldn't get Warhammer, are there any other likely inspirations for color-based magic? "Black" magic and "white" magic are old traditions, but I dunno about any other color - those all seem like fairly modern innovations, invented as the fantasy genre expanded in the 1970s onward (a development which owed much to D&D).


As I pointed out upthread, while GRRM doesn't cite D&D as a source for the original A Song of Ice and Fire books, he was a known RPGer and clearly responding to tropes in fantasy literature of the time (much of which was helped along by D&D). Prior to ASOIAF, he was mainly known as an author of SF and horror fiction. It's hard to say whether he crosses over into fantasy fiction without D&D and the bump it gave the fantasy genre.


It's interesting to consider a modern fantasy RPG that has a historical basis outside of medieval warfare - Rome and vikings could certainly be part of that. Certainly vikings have been a popular go-to for fantasy since well before D&D.


I'm skeptical whether or not we'd get The Witcher novels as well - the author's generally denied a D&D or RPG influence, but there still seems to be a lot in them that owes a debt to fantasy tropes popularized by D&D.

I’ll be totally honest. I see D&D as far more derivative than it is inspirational.

The number of fantasy novels (outside d&d publications) that resemble D&D are slim. They are much more likely to resemble other fantasy writers than the game system.

D&D may have encouraged writers to enjoy fantasy if they played the game. I see writers saying they played and enjoyed it (though as many as one would think)

But saying D&D inspired them? I see very little evidence of that. Is there anything from a D&D game, that you can say a writer must have pulled from D&D as opposed to another writer like Tolkein?

We had this where people said D&D inspired Pratchett. When in reality there is very little evidence of this.

 

[Minigiant]

They wouldn't each get their own colour, instead they'd be factored in to the associated colour with the other things already there.

That could work. Like Radiant with White and Necrotic with Black.

About half the colours would have some sort of attack spells, yes; largely because if we're talking D&D, a character without some form of half-decent damage output of some type isn't going to be all that popular/useful unless it's completely OP in other ways.

In your original list, I suspect just about everyone would take "Red plus two others" as the chosen colours.

Well that's where the Warhammerness comes in. Every color would have their own attacks.

In my game Red magic (Energy Matter) and Brown magic (Elemental Matter) have the most attack spells. However the rest aren't defenseless. Purple (Mind) and Grey (Illusion) mages deal tons of mental damage. A Green mage can chuck poisons, splinters, thorns, birds, or whales at people (a player chucked a conjured whale as a last ditch effort).

Although it's an urban fantasy game so people deal single target damage with guns.

In Medieval Fantasy, you might have to spread damage out a bit more.

Assigning spells to each of these would be tedious, but in fairness it's work that would only have to be done once.

Some spells might be common to two or even three colours e.g. a spell that makes someone act completely randomly for a round might be on the lists for both Yellow (as body magic) and Rainbow (as wild/chaos magic). Brown would end up with a very small smattering of spells in common with each other colour, plus some writing-related spells and all the travel/locomotion spells.

Howzat

Nice list. Of course some spells would be in multiple colors. Light spells in White, Red, and what every the illusion color is. Stuff like that.

The specifics dont matter much as it would be based of how the designers see it.

The core is that the arcane/divine/druidic thing would likely not be a thing. Nor the traditional D&D schools. And magic classes wouldn't be based on color grouping but on how many colors and specializations they get. Especially if fantasy builds from a sci fi source that doesn't do "magic" by classes but by specializations and personal choice/restrictions.

 

[JEB]

I’ll be totally honest. I see D&D as far more derivative than it is inspirational.

The number of fantasy novels (outside d&d publications) that resemble D&D are slim. They are much more likely to resemble other fantasy writers than the game system.

D&D may have encouraged writers to enjoy fantasy if they played the game. I see writers saying they played and enjoyed it (though as many as one would think)

But saying D&D inspired them? I see very little evidence of that. Is there anything from a D&D game, that you can say a writer must have pulled from D&D as opposed to another writer like Tolkein?

We had this where people said D&D inspired Pratchett. When in reality there is very little evidence of this.

If D&D encouraged writers to enjoy fantasy, doesn't that still count as inspiring them? Just because their novels don't have direct copies of stuff from their D&D campaign or the like doesn't mean it wasn't an influence.

Also, don't underestimate how D&D grew the market for fantasy fiction among its (generally young) audience, which surely gave a lot of fantasy authors a shot at publication they wouldn't have had otherwise.

As for Pratchett specifically, he ran D&D games, and there are D&D references in his works. Would he have have written fantasy without D&D? Probably. But it also wouldn't look quite the same.

Ultimately, though, all I'm saying is that "the alternate D&D would resemble my favorite works of fantasy fiction" is a line of thought that should be carefully considered. The less like D&D it is, the more likely it would still exist without it. But the closer it is to D&D, the more cautious you should be. Even if D&D is never directly cited as an influence.

 

[TheSword]

If D&D encouraged writers to enjoy fantasy, doesn't that still count as inspiring them? Just because their novels don't have direct copies of stuff from their D&D campaign or the like doesn't mean it wasn't an influence.

Also, don't underestimate how D&D grew the market for fantasy fiction among its (generally young) audience, which surely gave a lot of fantasy authors a shot at publication they wouldn't have had otherwise.

As for Pratchett specifically, he ran D&D games, and there are D&D references in his works. Would he have have written fantasy without D&D? Probably. But it also wouldn't look quite the same.

Ultimately, though, all I'm saying is that "the alternate D&D would resemble my favorite works of fantasy fiction" is a line of thought that should be carefully considered. The less like D&D it is, the more likely it would still exist without it. But the closer it is to D&D, the more cautious you should be. Even if D&D is never directly cited as an influence.

In a word no. Enjoying something simultaneously doesn’t mean the same as inspired by. If Terry Pratchett watches the Star Wars films and enjoys them, it doesn’t mean he was inspired by Star Wars.

I’ve seen the Forum reference you provided to the origin of Pratchett luggage being a d&d game. The dedication for his novel Sourcery reads...

“Many years ago I saw, in Bath, a very large American lady towing a huge tartan suitcase very fast on little rattly wheels which caught in the pavement cracks and generally gave it a life of its own. At that moment the Luggage was born. Many thanks to that lady and everyone else in places like Power Cable, Neb., who don't get nearly enough encouragement.”

Now did D&D inspire the luggage... or did Terry Pratchetts idea for the luggage make it into one of his D&D games? D&D fans love to think that D&D creates the work of writers they like but I’m a bit more sceptical.

Regarding D&D swelling the market. The actual numbers of people playing D&D was still relatively small in the 80’s, and arguable the 90’s and 2000’s too. Considering total turnover ranged from 2m to just shy of 9m over that decade. I’ve seen figures from 2007 suggesting the various editions PHBs sold between 0.7m and 1.5m. Only an indication but a useful one.

The colour of magic alone has sold 20 million copies. I’m not sure there is any evidence that the people who bought and enjoyed colour of magic did so because they played d&d rather than just being a fan of fantasy fiction.

 

[turnip_farmer]

In a word no. Enjoying something simultaneously doesn’t mean the same as inspired by. If Terry Pratchett watches the Star Wars films and enjoys them, it doesn’t mean he was inspired by Star Wars.

I’ve seen the Forum reference you provided to the origin of Pratchett luggage being a d&d game. The dedication for his novel Sourcery reads...

“Many years ago I saw, in Bath, a very large American lady towing a huge tartan suitcase very fast on little rattly wheels which caught in the pavement cracks and generally gave it a life of its own. At that moment the Luggage was born. Many thanks to that lady and everyone else in places like Power Cable, Neb., who don't get nearly enough encouragement.”

Now did D&D inspire the luggage... or did Terry Pratchetts idea for the luggage make it into one of his D&D games? D&D fans love to think that D&D creates the work of writers they like but I’m a bit more sceptical.

Regarding D&D swelling the market. The actual numbers of people playing D&D was still relatively small in the 80’s, and arguable the 90’s and 2000’s too. Considering total turnover ranged from 2m to just shy of 9m over that decade. I’ve seen figures from 2007 suggesting the various editions PHBs sold between 0.7m and 1.5m. Only an indication but a useful one.

The colour of magic alone has sold 20 million copies. I’m not sure there is any evidence that the people who bought and enjoyed colour of magic did so because they played d&d rather than just being a fan of fantasy fiction.

It's also worth noting that The Colour of Magic was a fairly unsubtle spoof of fantasy literature. Several of the works being spoofed can be found on Appendix N, so there's likely a strong element of DnD and Discworld sharing influences.

 

[TheSword]

To be clear, I’m not saying that authors like Pratchett or even Sapkowski didn’t play the game at some point or other.

I think if you’re going to claim someone have been influenced by something, whether music, films, writing etc you need to either have it in their words that X was an influence to them. Or see in their work obvious references. The problem is that D&D was far more derivative than any novel writer, pinching every idea in fantasy and plenty of ideas from outside of fantasy. So it is difficult to make the distinction.