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

[Ruin Explorer]

The move to RPGs does not exactly seem all that arduous of a task as some people make it out to be. It's sometimes a regular process of games. Even if we account for the fact that fantasy video games have been influenced by D&D, we can see how certain games have drifted towards RPGs from different genres.

Warcraft started as the RTS game Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. The sequel Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness followed up on the prior formula. Then in the expansion pack Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal, the game introduced more specialized hero units, which was greatly expanded on in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos. WC3 brought in specialized hero units that were stronger than regular units, had unique abilities, and could even level up and acquire magic items found in the map. The game also shifted from larger armies and nations to smaller ones centered around the stories of hero characters. WoW was actually in co-development behind the scenes as WC3, but over time the Warcraft series shifted from the stories to the individual level, with World of Warcraft being the ground-eye individualistic level of an RTS game. It's much how D&D was a tactical skirmish game that came from war gaming roots. All it takes is one person to ask "what would it be like to play as a single unit in this game in this world?"

As illustrated earlier in this thread, and am too lazy to re-write, Aldarc, not, this is not true.

We already discussed how it's easy to move to "what if you control one unit", but that just makes it a peculiar wargame, like 40K's 2001 Inquisitor wargame, not an RPG. An RPG entails more than playing just one character in a wargame. And I think modern tech and design would actively inhibit doing more, because people are so used to operating inside boxes.

 

[Minigiant]

The first CYOA book was written in 1970, and published in '76.

I theorize that would be the root of the genre that fills the jrpg niche (well, visual novels, but they'd be more popular without jrpgs to compete with.)

Visual Novels.

Dare Pelor if AUD&D is built of visual novels. Better not dump Charisma of Warlock-chan will Eldritch Blast you so hard.

Although having so many Cha classes would start to make sense.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah what I'm saying is, and you're sort of agreeing with via examples is that those are people who aren't adventurers/heroes.

At that time, yes. What I'm also saying (maybe not very clearly) is that those are exactly the sort of people with the potential to become adventurers/heroes and should be able to do so without changing anything about what they do other than - as time passes - get better at it.

Those people who don't have their own books. They're not as skilled at fighting as the sort of people PCs are.

Here we might get into a debate re PC vs NPC builds: to me, a 1st-level NPC Fighter guard is mechanically exactly the same as a 1st-level PC Fighter. They're interchangeable, such that if the PC Fighter drops dead the player could take over the NPC guard without missing a beat. (or, when the player rolls up another Fighter, its backstory could suggest that up till now it was that third guard on the left)

This is to maintain internal setting consistency, which gets blown up if PCs and NPCs operate by different rules.

That's why those examples - they're side-characters and people who don't have lines and get summarily defeated by the main characters. There's nothing distinctive or special about them. If they did have a book about them, suddenly they'd be more distinctive and specially trained,

More distinctive, yes. But specially trained? Why would this be necessary?

like the dude in Legend (the book, not the movie), who ends up basically as a "Barbarian"-type character at the core. Less is more - they're not going to have a million classes in book one, though I expect they would have a lot more "fighting person" classes than D&D.

I agree there'd be more warrior types than D&D has. I just think one of those would be a very generic "Fighter"-type class without really any special abilities at all other than being handy with a weapon and reasonably tough.

I mean, if we look at someone like Vimes in Guards, Guards, he's an investigator and negotiator and not a particularly special fighter. Though maybe that's an interesting point? Would see a Sherlock Holmes/Brother Cadfael/The Name of the Rose/etc. class? I think if there was a "skill monkey"-type class, that's what we'd be looking at. Like everone in AUD&D he's basically competent at fighting and has his own style (Sherlock had his Savate/stick-fighting, Cadfael was an ex-crusader, etc.), but maybe his "main deal" is investigation stuff - like maybe investigating things fill the same sort of role in AUD&D that traps and locks did in earlier D&D in our history?

Don't know Guards, sorry.

But otherwise, you could be right: maybe almost everyone would be a warrior-plus. (though at some point game balance concerns would doubtless rein this in)

 

[Aldarc]

As illustrated earlier in this thread, and am too lazy to re-write, Aldarc, not, this is not true.

We already discussed how it's easy to move to "what if you control one unit", but that just makes it a peculiar wargame, like 40K's 2001 Inquisitor wargame, not an RPG. An RPG entails more than playing just one character in a wargame. And I think modern tech and design would actively inhibit doing more, because people are so used to operating inside boxes.

/sigh. If you want to practice Grade A pedantry, sure, additional steps are required, but my point was to illustrate that a move from armies to the perspective of the individual was something that we have seen elsewhere in gaming, so it's likely that it was only a matter of when not if there was the leap into what would become RPGs.

 

[Lanefan]

... it's likely that it was only a matter of when not if there was the leap into what would become RPGs.

With this I agree; though I suppose there's the slight possibility that the 'when' falls in what's now our future, i.e. the leap will happen but hasn't yet.

But assuming the leap has already happened the question then becomes threefold: what those RPGs might look like (i.e. whether their game-mechanics systems would bear any resemblance to anything we have now); when they might have emerged (could be anytime from the 1970s to now); and from what roots that leap-to-RPGs might have sprung.

All kinds of interesting theories have been put forward in this thread in answer to one or more of these three questions.

 

[Minigiant]

I agree there'd be more warrior types than D&D has. I just think one of those would be a very generic "Fighter"-type class without really any special abilities at all other than being handy with a weapon and reasonably tough.

The Generic Fighter wouldn't be that generic. It would be fully embracing whatever archetypes not taken by the other warrior classes.

If Swashbuckler, Knight, Barbarian, Jedi, and Monk are classes, the Fighter will snag the role of the chainmail wearing professional sellsword who is good but not best at everything combat related.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Don't know Guards, sorry.

This is an error on your part you would be happy if you rectified.

Guards! Guards! is one of the early Discworld novels. It's entire schtick is that it is a fantasy story not about about the heroic adventurers, but about the poor, innocent third guards on the left that the adventurers beat up, just because they're trying to do their jobs.

 

[Puddles]

This is an interesting thread (I will say, I haven’t read all 16 pages though!)

One thought I had comes from the following video:

(This is a great channel btw that I fully recommend). In this video it’s argued that one of the major differences between JRPGs and Western CRPGs is in the latter you play a set character or roster rather than create your own character, and that was due to the limitation of game console cartridges having limited memory.

Presuming JPRGs develop without D&D but Western CRPGs don’t, it might be the case that modern TTRPG have much less emphasis on creating your own character. It could be that when you buy Rime of the Frostmaiden you get a set of characters to play through the story with and this is something the book is tailored for, (I imagine part of the fun might be finding out the epic backstory of your own character as it’s revealed by the DM.)

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

It's essentially impossible to speculate on the results of 40 years of alternative development that FAILS to lead to the creation of D&D, especially when you have to specifically discount the enormous influence that D&D did have over those 40 years in the real world. Enough weight to influence the development of computer games and then in turn BE influenced by those same computer games in its own future development. If you establish more givens of X is created, Y happens but Z does NOT happen... and THEN ask what does D&D then look like when it's created, the speculation will mean something. It's even easier to ask: What do OTHER RPG's that were invented after 1974 look like when invented without original D&D to influence them? But to posit that D&D doesn't get invented, then 40 years of other stuff happens, and THEN D&D is created so instead of being the influence itself, it is influenced by all the other speculative 40 years of development? There's just nothing solid to base arguments on. Define specifically what happened in the 4 decades before D&D is invented this afternoon and I can speculate what that might look like. But the OP isn't really asking what D&D looks like - it asks what the 4 decades looks like WITHOUT D&D (even if it hadn't intended to). And as with any decent alternative history, you deal quite quickly with the butterfly effect.

 

[JEB]

It's essentially impossible to speculate on the results of 40 years of alternative development that FAILS to lead to the creation of D&D, especially when you have to specifically discount the enormous influence that D&D did have over those 40 years in the real world. Enough weight to influence the development of computer games and then in turn BE influenced by those same computer games in its own future development. If you establish more givens of X is created, Y happens but Z does NOT happen... and THEN ask what does D&D then look like when it's created, the speculation will mean something. It's even easier to ask: What do OTHER RPG's that were invented after 1974 look like when invented without original D&D to influence them? But to posit that D&D doesn't get invented, then 40 years of other stuff happens, and THEN D&D is created so instead of being the influence itself, it is influenced by all the other speculative 40 years of development? There's just nothing solid to base arguments on. Define specifically what happened in the 4 decades before D&D is invented this afternoon and I can speculate what that might look like. But the OP isn't really asking what D&D looks like - it asks what the 4 decades looks like WITHOUT D&D (even if it hadn't intended to). And as with any decent alternative history, you deal quite quickly with the butterfly effect.

You're not wrong that "what happened instead" is important, but I think this thread has covered that pretty well so far, plenty of alternate history possibilities to work with... are there important things that haven't been addressed? Happy to hear your opinion on the matter.