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

[Aldarc]

Did you even read the thread?

but don't come in here obviously not having read the OP

If YOU had read the thread, then you would know that I have already addressed the OP and contributed in this thread numerous times.

 

[pemerton]

@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.

Not really, though I don't think reading what I said in that way changes my point.

D&D doesn't do white wizards - healers, diviners etc - very well. Nor witches, be they white or green or malevolent - druids are about as close as it gets. And the closest to a necromancer in the undead-spawning sense is a traditional anti-cleric, who isn't a lot like the ancient sorcerers Conan tends to face off against; and if we think of necromancy in the sense of speaking to the dead, conjuring spirits for information and power, etc, then D&D doesn't traditionally do that all that well either.

My view on those tropes must be not aligned with yours, but through the history of the game (especially 3.5 with its unending tidal wave of Prestige Classes) and even today in 5e you can build characters which can fit into those tropes.

<snip>

I dont know, there's not much that throughout 2e/3.5e/5e I cant find a fit for, especially now that they are at the subclass stage of blending the types of Magic (Divine Soul/Celestial Lock).

My point was only that with the classes we have had for an extremely long time, they can be bent towards almost anything.

Given the context of your post as a reply to the OP about the original classes, I was thinking of the core of D&D rather than the periphery created by the vast amount of material created for 3E D&D and its offshoots.

4e also provides some of what I mention: invokers are "white wizards", the ranger is Robin Hood, and with warlocks and various primal and arcane options there are few more pathways to witches than in the classic game. The 4e ritual system also gets closer to permitting necromancy in a literal (rather than undead horde) sense. 4e is still not very good at knights.

Of the fantasy/mediaeval RPGs that I know, the only one that makes mounted combat seamless is Prince Valiant. (Mostly because it has a much more relaxed action economy than many RPGs.) Characters get unhorsed, pull enemies from their horses, mount up, ride down their enemies, etc. All the things those heavily armed and armoured D&D characters should do if they were going to live up to their tropes, but don't.

 

[Minigiant]

Anime combat/magic is directly and indirectly heavily inspired by D&D - many of the big earlier magic-heavy animes are directly D&D-inspired. Those that aren't are often JRPG-inspired, which was D&D-inspired. You're flatly wrong to say "It developed outside of D&D" as a general claim. There are other inspirations too, but fantasy anime would be completely different in character without D&D, far more focused on actual mythology.

So you're very wrong here, I'm afraid. It's not even hard to demonstrate if you look at the history of anime.

I also don't agree that people would see these different mechanics/ideas as "hard to melt into the same skeleton". On the contrary, I think people would think it was pretty easy, aside from the most outre stuff

Not all of anime.

If someone started doing the stuff you see in modern anime in D&D, an old school DM would have a heart attack.

Sure many of them mimic D&D in look. Some even use the mechanics. But it's not the majority. A whole lot of the anime archetypes that don't fit the D&D model that the inspiration has to be minimal.

 

[JEB]

Not all of anime.

If someone started doing the stuff you see in modern anime in D&D, an old school DM would have a heart attack.

Sure many of them mimic D&D in look. Some even use the mechanics. But it's not the majority. A whole lot of the anime archetypes that don't fit the D&D model that the inspiration has to be minimal.

Yeah, I think you have to distinguish between magic in anime that clearly owes a debt to JRPGs (which in turn owe a debt to D&D), versus magic in anime that are stylized upgrades of Japanese or other folklore, versus "magic" as it appears in some shonen series where it's really just super-powered martial arts (or just plain super-powers).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

Maybe. Or it might use something like classes that you can then branch out of as you advance, or a system none of us have seen before.

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...

Yep early D&D was incomplete in terms of archetypes. Nothing complicated here.

That's your bias showing.

If D&D were created today, as in February 2021, and it was made for general audiences.... D&D would have a lot of anime/manga influence. There would be systems to mimic the weapon and magic styles found in anime/manga and it likely would not mesh with more classical Western styles.

It would impossible to have fewer classes without watering down what those classes are.

This is silly, as an assumption. It’s possible, but far from a safe assumption. Super hero movies are just as likely an influence, as are fantasy high budget tv shows, and Star Wars.

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.

Yep, D&D hasnt ever really tried to do The Chick. Maybe the Bard, but yeah, D&D has always had a plethora of “5th Man” classes, and they’ve been called that by players.

but that is also irrelevant to my point. AUDnD would be more likely to focus on those broad archetypes and then build out from there, than to try to fit all the archetypes into the core book.

I don’t know why people assume that it would be made for mass appeal, either. It’d likely be very indie, and fairly niche in focus, while trying to be diverse and inclusive.

We might see a Seven Samurai twist on the Band, of course. But there would be a Leader, a Face, a Big Guy, a Smart Guy, and a Lancer (usually a fast heavy hitter that isn’t as tough as the big guy), for sure. By whatever names. Probably simple names like Warrior and Priest and Magician or Sorcerer or one of the other classic “magic guy” names, though Gandalf is a Wizard so that might still be what it’s called.

How the game would spin out from there is completely unknowable.

 

[Minigiant]

This is silly, as an assumption. It’s possible, but far from a safe assumption. Super hero movies are just as likely an influence, as are fantasy high budget tv shows, and Star Wars.

I didn't say anime will be the only influence.

I'm saying that, just like in the 70s, a DM or designer will create a class to match popular characters of the day. And some of them will be anime. I'd be shocked if AUDnD doesn't have a warrior with flash steps, air slashes, and power moves.

Yep, D&D hasnt ever really tried to do The Chick. Maybe the Bard, but yeah, D&D has always had a plethora of “5th Man” classes, and they’ve been called that by players.

but that is also irrelevant to my point. AUDnD would be more likely to focus on those broad archetypes and then build out from there, than to try to fit all the archetypes into the core book.

I don’t know why people assume that it would be made for mass appeal, either. It’d likely be very indie, and fairly niche in focus, while trying to be diverse and inclusive.

We might see a Seven Samurai twist on the Band, of course. But there would be a Leader, a Face, a Big Guy, a Smart Guy, and a Lancer (usually a fast heavy hitter that isn’t as tough as the big guy), for sure. By whatever names. Probably simple names like Warrior and Priest and Magician or Sorcerer or one of the other classic “magic guy” names, though Gandalf is a Wizard so that might still be what it’s called.

The point I was trying to make is that in 2020, the table will be broader in spectrum than in the 70s due to the expansion of media and audiences. Especially if there is no D&D of the past to guide many trends.

Therefore there is no way that AUD&D would be as narrow and trimmed as some think. Especially with how much more vocal people are now.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I didn't say anime will be the only influence.

I didn’t suggest that you did.

I'm saying that, just like in the 70s, a DM or designer will create a class to match popular characters of the day. And some of them will be anime. I'd be shocked if AUDnD doesn't have a warrior with flash steps, air slashes, and power moves.

AUDnD would be indie, more likely than corporate, and so whether it is significantly anime influenced would depend heavily on who makes it, what they’re into, and what kind of thing they’re trying to make.

 

[Faolyn]

AUDnD would be indie, more likely than corporate, and so whether it is significantly anime influenced would depend heavily on who makes it, what they’re into, and what kind of thing they’re trying to make.

Also it would depend on how open-source it becomes. The initial creators may stick with a few races and classes or whatever based on their interests but make it easy for other people to create things--and may even highlight favored creations with seals of approval, kind of like what's done in the DM's Guild. (Kind of, because I don't go there a lot so I don't know how everything is judged.) If AUD&D is open-source and mostly digital, then it would be easy to expand beyond the initial creation. After all, even with PoD services, wikis, pdfs, and e-mags are much easier and cheaper than dead tree books.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Also it would depend on how open-source it becomes. The initial creators may stick with a few races and classes or whatever based on their interests but make it easy for other people to create things--and may even highlight favored creations with seals of approval, kind of like what's done in the DM's Guild. (Kind of, because I don't go there a lot so I don't know how everything is judged.) If AUD&D is open-source and mostly digital, then it would be easy to expand beyond the initial creation. After all, even with PoD services, wikis, pdfs, and e-mags are much easier and cheaper than dead tree books.

Yeah the community collaboration element would likely be greater, especially if it still had its DIY mentality.

Really the punk rock of fantasy storytelling.

 

[Lanefan]

I largely agree with most of your well-thought-out take on this, except for these:

3) Thief/Rogue - Crosses over hard with Swashbucklers in fiction, and virtually all of these types in popular fiction by 2020-ish will be competent, even superior combatants, so there will be no need for them. It's unlikely traps and so on will loom as large either, given a later creation date. We might eventually see a skill-monkey class but it won't be linked to backstabbing/stealth.
4) Bard - RIP, I think that's another really unlikely one. We might eventually see a class with "singing magic", but I think they'd be much more of a conventional class than the weird thing Bards have often been. Even heavily D&D-influenced games often drop Bard or have no idea what to really do with it.

Thieves, Assassins and Rogues have been part of both general and fantasy fiction since forever; I can't imagine a broad-based RPG that doesn't find a way to include them in some form. Yes there'd be some overlap with Swashbuckler (or Pirate), but if the Thief-equivalent was more about stealth and cunning and info/loot acquisition than about combat (leave that to the Swashbuckler) there's loads of room for it.

As for Bard: while the class has never really been implemented well mechanically thus far, I don't think it would go away completely - again due to the idea of the travelling minstrel or skald or lore-master being deeply entrenched in both general and fantasy fiction for ages. What we'd likely see is, as now, repeated attempts to make it work - and who knows, maybe one of them even would.