Is D&D a setting or a toolbox?

[teitan]

D&D does not require hacking. Anyway, what definition of hacking are you using? People have been using the word to describe everything from small tinkering and house rules to hacking together a new game, which is what meaning I--myself--personally have always put into the term. When I call D&D a toolbox (or framework), I do not mean "easily hackable". I mean that it's a game which consists of wealth of material (conveniently listed in catalogs like the various Monster Manuals, Splat Books, Planes of Existence) to cherry pick from to piece together my own D&D game (as in the game at my table) and setting (as in the one I create myself). I appreciate that D&D gives me this, while also making a lot of micro decisions for me, without forcing a setting down my throat. It's like the Mac OS of RPGs.

I don't know much about Hero, but GURPS was my old group's preferred system for a few years, as it's the near-ultimate toolbox and we liked being able to jump between genres without having to change rule systems. GURPS is a lot of work, though, as it decidedly doesn't make those micro-decisions for you, and plays in a way very different from D&D. We used it to recreate D&D-esque games (among other things) as me and my group did not really care for pre-d20 D&D rules as a whole, despite loving the D&D genre. It took us a while to get GURPS to "feel" enough like D&D in the way it played, so we hacked away at it until it did--significantly changed how it played at the table, while still using the wealth of information that came with GURPS.

I think when people feel motivated to hack D&D, it's something similar going on. People want to use that wealth of information (of which no other game has in the same abundance) but want it to play differently. Or they want something different to play like D&D, while jettisoning D&D genre-expectation.

I hope this helps you understand.

I already understood it. I just don't think d&d is good as a toolkit, once you start hacking it so much it's a different game. Look at all the people that were up in arms about 4e or even 3e. The major criticism is that they aren't d&d in spite of sharing the same assumptions as previous editions. 4e especially was a very different game than traditional d&d. Plays different but the genre tropes are all there and it still has that feel in spite of the differences.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I already understood it.

Then why did you ask?

I just don't think d&d is good as a toolkit, once you start hacking it so much it's a different game. Look at all the people that were up in arms about 4e or even 3e. The major criticism is that they aren't d&d in spite of sharing the same assumptions as previous editions. 4e especially was a very different game than traditional d&d. Plays different but the genre tropes are all there and it still has that feel in spite of the differences.

Yes. D&D has very strong genre assumptions. I, like many, would call it a subgenre in itself.

I can see how it would become a worse toolkit if you hacked it to bits. I wouldn't know, I've never had the need to hack it to bits. I switched to 3e when it came out, so I wouldn't need to hack GURPS to bits anymore.

I switched out a generic toolkit for a specialized one.

 

[teitan]

Rhetorical question ;-)