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

[Ruin Explorer]

In our overly-litigious modern society there's probably a good reason for that...

No, not really. If one thinks that one probably doesn't know much about intellectual property. Copyright is a very precise and limited thing. Plagiarism that isn't actual plagiarism is nearly impossible to prove. Saying you were influenced by a story isn't going to "let someone sue you" or something. If you mess around with threatening/suing people in mainstream fantasy/SF, your publisher will drop you instantly, because the reputational risk of your behaviour is incalculable. And you'll basically be blackballed, because all major publishers publish fantasy/SF that could be subjected to unreasonable-but-annoying claims of plagiarism, so anyone who is doing that is impossible to work with and likely to harm long-term profits if encouraged in any way.

The only area this isn't true in, that I'm aware of, is one corner of the fanfiction-derived kink-heavy erotic novel arena. There is an extremely litigious and extremely stupid individual there who has repeatedly lost or settled entirely specious plagiarism lawsuits and sent false DMCA takedown notices, and things which have gone so badly at least one of her lawyers have ended up being disbarred. This has only been possible because things are so small-potatoes that she found a tiny publisher willing to (for a time) go a long with this, because she was their main source of income. If you want to hear about this horror, and I advise you don't, Lindsay Ellis (who normally does discussion of Disney films and the like) got roped into this when the idiot tried to sue her for discussing it (... on the grounds she quoted some bits, apparently the author didn't understand the concept of "fair use" and her lawyer was a buddy and apparently not afraid of potentially being disbarred) and has done some funny YouTube videos about it. Even then whilst other people in this arena have threatened lawsuits, this idiot is the only one who has done it.

So if you're writing really kinky erotic fiction for a really small niche market, maybe there's a risk, but for like, anything normal? No.

(As an aside, despite being in the UK my wife and I once managed to get an opposing US lawyer disbarred, or I guess he got himself disbarred through extreme incompetence, but that's a whole other story!)

 

[Minigiant]

I would counter with: the Monk class as it is now is terrible as a catch-all for wuxia character concepts. These guys are don't look like monks, they're some kind of fighter who can use chi.

I'd expect several wuxia classes. Maybe one called 'monk', but that would be more specifically someone form a cloister of some kind.

If D&D AU doesn't start with a catchall fighter at the start and goes with many warriors, I could see

• A generic fighter class
• A generic Knight class with various flavors a subclasses
• A "European Barbarian" class that mimics movie Vikings, Celts, Goths etc but isn't called Barbarian.
• A Shieldbearer class for Hoplites, Impi,and Aztec warriors
• Unarmed Unarmored Chi Warrior
• Weapon and Armor using Chi Warrior
• An agile warrior class for bandits, pirate, swashbucklers, and highwaymen
• A Gladiator class to host all obscure or exotic warriors that need special mechanics,
• A magic warrior with spells
• A magic warrior with magic gifts

 

[jmartkdr2]

If D&D AU doesn't start with a catchall fighter at the start and goes with many warriors, I could see

• A generic fighter class
• A generic Knight class with various flavors a subclasses
• A "European Barbarian" class that mimics movie Vikings, Celts, Goths etc but isn't called Barbarian.
• A Shieldbearer class for Hoplites, Impi,and Aztec warriors
• Unarmed Unarmored Chi Warrior
• Weapon and Armor using Chi Warrior
• An agile warrior class for bandits, pirate, swashbucklers, and highwaymen
• A Gladiator class to host all obscure or exotic warriors that need special mechanics,
• A magic warrior with spells
• A magic warrior with magic gifts

Indeed - the "four basic classes" is very much a weird dnd-ism that happened to reflect gameplay patterns rather than a natural way to divide types of characters in fantasy fiction.

 

[Minigiant]

Indeed - the "four basic classes" is very much a weird dnd-ism that happened to reflect gameplay patterns rather than a natural way to divide types of characters in fantasy fiction.

Exactly.
Modern gaming is big on grouping and classification but not on using the same skeleton for different ideas. Not anymore. Stales too fast.. Today's designers would call Arthur, Leonidas, Conan, and Samurai Jack as warriors but they wouldn't dare attempt to put them in the same class. They would give these warriors different classes mechanics to match the various featsof skill and benchmark them to a level that they set ahead of time.

I think the 5E "Different ways to calculate AC. Choose the highest" would be a core rule from the start.

One class would ge most AC from their armor (Knights and Fighters)
Another class would get most of its AC from their shield (Shieldbearers)
Another class would get it from ability score ("Barbarians" and "Monks")
Another class would get it from level and spent resources ("Samurai"/"Kensei" and Gishes)

 

[Faolyn]

Now, that said, Pratchett's first fantasy novel was actually published in 1971, and it's clearly a Discworld precursor. So many of his ideas are clearly not owed to D&D. On the other hand, said first novel didn't make a big impact, and it was five more years before his next novel, and 12 more years before he ventured into fantasy again. And D&D popped up in the middle of that span.

In one of his books--either The Colour of Magic or The Light Fantastic--he uses Vancian magic. Talked about how it took days to memorize a spell and then you immediately forgot it upon casting. So he was either influenced directly by Vance or indirectly through D&D. Then he promptly stopped using that system and his spellcasters used either force-of-will or rituals for their spells.

Yeah, alchemy and elemental magic certainly seem likely as sorts of magic in this alt-D&D. I also stand by my earlier assertion that psionics/telepathy/etc. would have a prominent role, since the first RPGs would likely bring in SF tropes.

I can definitely see that. Psychic powers are probably just as popular now as they were back in the 70s.

In any case, we haven't even seen a chess-based RPG in our history (that I'm aware of), so I dunno if it would be an influence on this alt-D&D. (Though now I'd like to see someone try making an RPG like that...)

I blame game evolution. The RPG niche is already filled so it's unlikely that a brand new type of RPG would grow to supplant that. See: games that rely on playing cards instead of dice, or diceless games, or GM-less games. They exist, but they're not that popular.

EDIT: Wait, were you suggesting chess, or chess games, could have inspired monster battles in Pokémon? I suppose it's possible,

I mean, it's possible, especially in a world where RPGs don't already exist. I'm no chess player so I can't go deep into specifics, but there are approximately twenty bazillion variants (well, 2,000 or so) that do things like cause pieces to respawn or change color, giving pieces "bombs" that blow up when captured, cause pieces to turn into more or less powerful pieces when they move, that paralyzes pieces... It's probably that many of the variants are tongue-in-cheek, as there's one called "Haft Schrödinger Chess" where your pieces start "in a quantum superposition initially able to be any piece until the waveform is collapsed by observation."

But I can see some clever person getting a list of chess variants and turning the pieces into fantasy (or SF) creatures and using that as a basis. The end result wouldn't look much like chess, but then again, D&D, especially when done with theater of the mind, doesn't look all that much like a wargame either.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Indeed - the "four basic classes" is very much a weird dnd-ism that happened to reflect gameplay patterns rather than a natural way to divide types of characters in fantasy fiction.

My head just tilted in confusion so hard I felt like an owl.

Ever heard of the 5-Man Band?

The core 4 classes are just a variation on that. They arose from player demand because player demand tends to reflect the common archetypes, of which the 5 are classic examples, especially for an ensemble.

AuDnD would probably lean into them more, not less.

 

[Mind of tempest]

My head just tilted in confusion so hard I felt like an owl.

Ever heard of the 5-Man Band?

The core 4 classes are just a variation on that. They arose from player demand because player demand tends to reflect the common archetypes, of which the 5 are classic examples, especially for an ensemble.

AuDnD would probably lean into them more, not less.

it would likely do a bit of both as it might use keywords or tags or description to say this is for the big guy experience.

 

[Lanefan]

My head just tilted in confusion so hard I felt like an owl.

Ever heard of the 5-Man Band?

The core 4 classes are just a variation on that. They arose from player demand because player demand tends to reflect the common archetypes, of which the 5 are classic examples, especially for an ensemble.

I'll see your owl-tilt and raise you an eyebrow....

4 classes come from 5 classic examples? Where'd the fifth one go? Something doesn't compute here...

 

[Minigiant]

My head just tilted in confusion so hard I felt like an owl.

Ever heard of the 5-Man Band?

The core 4 classes are just a variation on that. They arose from player demand because player demand tends to reflect the common archetypes, of which the 5 are classic examples, especially for an ensemble.

AuDnD would probably lean into them more, not less.

You're missing a Man then.

The 5 man band lean only works if the focus was on roles like 4e:

Leader- Cleric
Melee Striker- Rogue/Ranger/Barbarian
Controller- Wizard
Defender- Fighter
Ranged Striker- Warlock/Sorcerer/Ranger

If the focus is one recreating archetypes, then you have way more than 4-5 classes. Because by 2021, there would be way more than 4 basic fantasy archetypes.

Early D&D was just lazy and tried to force every archetype to bea variant of the first 4 it thought up.

 

[Mind of tempest]

You're missing a Man then.

The 5 man band lean only works if the focus was on roles like 4e:

Leader- Cleric
Melee Striker- Rogue/Ranger/Barbarian
Controller- Wizard
Defender- Fighter
Ranged Striker- Warlock/Sorcerer/Ranger

If the focus is one recreating archetypes, then you have way more than 4-5 classes. Because by 2021, there would be way more than 4 basic fantasy archetypes.

Early D&D was just lazy and tried to force every archetype to bea variant of the first 4 it thought up.

do you have that list?