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Is D&D a setting or a toolbox?
- Thread starter Alzrius
- Start date
Bravo! (must spread yada yada...)
Hussar
Legend
I gotta admit, I agree with [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] and [MENTION=7706]SkidAce[/MENTION] here.
Compare games where the game really is the setting. Err... Let me rephrase that. Where the setting is hard wired into the game. Shadowrun, Star Wars, Battletech, etc. If you were to try to strip the setting elements out of these games, in a lot of cases, they cease to function very well. Trying to run Shadowrun in 13th century Italy, for example, isn't going to work. Trying to run Battletech in a different universe isn't really going to work either - the whole game centers around mercenary groups with giant robots. Trying to set Battletech in, say, a Star Wars setting just won't work.
D&D, OTOH, doesn't really have a fixed baseline setting. I mean, different editions have all baselined to different settings. Basic/Expert's Known World is most definitely not Greyhawk. Yet the base rulesets between AD&D and Basic/Expert are pretty clearly related. Given the huge range of published settings all using the D&D (not d20, just D&D) ruleset, I don't understand how anyone can say that D&D is a setting. Greyhawk and Eberron are about as far apart as you can get. EN World's Zietgeist setting is pretty different as well. Yet, you can play all those settings in 3e or 4e without any problems.
Not sure about 1e and 2e, to be honest. I don't think Eberron would work in AD&D without a LOT of additional work. But, that's not really a problem. There are how many settings built off of 2e D&D? [MENTION=9849]Echohawk[/MENTION] can likely tell us the answer pretty definitively, but, just for the 2e system, I'm going to guess that the number of published (never mind homebrew) settings numbers in the dozens.
A setting based game has one setting. And that's it. Changing the setting will generally radically alter how the game works. Changing the setting for D&D typically doesn't require much work at all, depending on how far from baseline assumptions you want to stray.
Compare games where the game really is the setting. Err... Let me rephrase that. Where the setting is hard wired into the game. Shadowrun, Star Wars, Battletech, etc. If you were to try to strip the setting elements out of these games, in a lot of cases, they cease to function very well. Trying to run Shadowrun in 13th century Italy, for example, isn't going to work. Trying to run Battletech in a different universe isn't really going to work either - the whole game centers around mercenary groups with giant robots. Trying to set Battletech in, say, a Star Wars setting just won't work.
D&D, OTOH, doesn't really have a fixed baseline setting. I mean, different editions have all baselined to different settings. Basic/Expert's Known World is most definitely not Greyhawk. Yet the base rulesets between AD&D and Basic/Expert are pretty clearly related. Given the huge range of published settings all using the D&D (not d20, just D&D) ruleset, I don't understand how anyone can say that D&D is a setting. Greyhawk and Eberron are about as far apart as you can get. EN World's Zietgeist setting is pretty different as well. Yet, you can play all those settings in 3e or 4e without any problems.
Not sure about 1e and 2e, to be honest. I don't think Eberron would work in AD&D without a LOT of additional work. But, that's not really a problem. There are how many settings built off of 2e D&D? [MENTION=9849]Echohawk[/MENTION] can likely tell us the answer pretty definitively, but, just for the 2e system, I'm going to guess that the number of published (never mind homebrew) settings numbers in the dozens.
A setting based game has one setting. And that's it. Changing the setting will generally radically alter how the game works. Changing the setting for D&D typically doesn't require much work at all, depending on how far from baseline assumptions you want to stray.
teitan
Legend
I think in this context people are mistaking setting, like Forgotten Realms with assumptions of the game, like how the classes work etc implying a strong genre that can be defined as d&d specific. Within the context of those assumptions one can build a world but the physics of that world, how classes work etc is strongly defined by d&d as genre. sure greyhawk is sword & sorcery, FR is high fantasy, ebberon is pulp, dark sun survival etc and aside from Dark Sun. But the way classes work is largely the same with Dark Sun being the setting that has the greatest variation from the base line. The extremely skeletal setting of d&d for example is clerics heal, wizards do not. Fighters fight but Paladins are holy warriors that are very specific implementation of fighter & cleric abilities. Each class functioned in ways that are very d&d specific and not reflective of anything but d&d and its own incestuous fiction.
Again I am not saying it can't be a tool box but that requires heavy modification and in most cases creates a different game... thusly WOTC were doing a Ravenloft game as opposed to a setting. Ad&d was a poor system for emulating gothic horror as seen in masque of the red death. Sure the world was great but the gun rules and care assumptions of hit points meant the game didn't reflect an element of the setting well at all even if the horror system worked tacked onto the ad&d chassis. The treasure assumptions based on level were also built into the math making a Conan game not work as well as something like BRP or Hero. Would you call Conan d20 d&d? Mongoose had to heavily modify the d&d system to work with Conan. The Elric supplements from chaosium for 3e were notorious for showing how d&d was a poor system for some genres of fantasy.
So by setting I don't mean a campaign world. I mean a core assumption of the rules and how a world is expected to work in regards to magic etc.
Again I am not saying it can't be a tool box but that requires heavy modification and in most cases creates a different game... thusly WOTC were doing a Ravenloft game as opposed to a setting. Ad&d was a poor system for emulating gothic horror as seen in masque of the red death. Sure the world was great but the gun rules and care assumptions of hit points meant the game didn't reflect an element of the setting well at all even if the horror system worked tacked onto the ad&d chassis. The treasure assumptions based on level were also built into the math making a Conan game not work as well as something like BRP or Hero. Would you call Conan d20 d&d? Mongoose had to heavily modify the d&d system to work with Conan. The Elric supplements from chaosium for 3e were notorious for showing how d&d was a poor system for some genres of fantasy.
So by setting I don't mean a campaign world. I mean a core assumption of the rules and how a world is expected to work in regards to magic etc.
Echohawk
Shirokinukatsukami fan
For 2nd Edition, more than a dozen, less than two dozen, depending on how you count the various sub-settings and minor settings:
Major settings: Al-Qadim, Birthright, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Mystara, Planescape, Ravenloft, Spelljammer.
Minor or sub-settings: Council of Wyrms, Horde, Jakandor, Kara-Tur, Lankhmar/Nehwon, Malatra, Masque of the Red Death, Maztica, Sanctuary, Savage Coast, Taladas.
Other D&D (sub-)settings not specifically supported in 2nd Edition: Blackmoor, Eberron, Ghostwalk, Hollow World, Hyborian Age (Conan), Kingdoms of Kalamar, Lendore Isles, Mahasarpa, Nentir Vale, Pelinore, Rokugan, Thunder Rift, Warcraft.
That isn't really a definitive answer though. I'm not sure there is one. What counts as a campaign setting? For example, Wikipedia counts Astromundi Cluster a campaign setting in its own right, and there's certainly enough material there to run an entire campaign, but I wouldn't count it as separate from Spelljammer.
That's somewhat debatable. For instance, if you take out the giant robot/mecha trappings, Battletech is a game about mercenary captains trying to make a living in a world lacking established central authority and with lots of conflicts - which is a plausible post-RotJ Star Wars universe in that it's plausible the Empire is splintering and the Republic hasn't just taken control of everything as if nothing had happened. While they're not driving mecha, they're driving AT-ATs or gunships or even using infantry.
Or another example which I've played around with, Pendragon is a game about powerful warriors, their adventures, their heritage, their codes of honour, and their conflicts. Heroic age Greece, anyone? Three Kingdoms China?
Or for Shadowrun, which admittedly I don't play much. Expendable individuals with a variety of unusual talents get hired by large organisations to perform a variety of shady and dangerous tasks. A landscape of gangs, competing fiefdoms, secretive groups, and authority depending on who has the cash to hire the weapons. 13th century Italy doesn't need the guns or the magic, which probably makes Shadowrun a bad choice, but spies, saboteurs and assassins are hardly unknown.
Leatherhead
Possibly a Idiot.
After reading this thread, I have come to the conclusion that nobody can agree as to what a toolbox actually is.
Which is a box, that you put tools in, not as useful as what is inside of it for sure. It is something that is entirely unlike a rule system for games. You might be able to argue that the tools themselves are like rules. But that just gets silly as you then have to account for the fact there is a toolbox for every type of tool out there. You got a box for hammers and a box for drills or whatever. Sure, you can only do one or two things with hammers, but that doesn't make it less of a tool than a power drill with multiple heads.
What I am saying is this analogy was a poorly chosen.
But more importantly: RPGs simply don't work without settings. D&D gives people a basic setting partly because making the universe is hard work, and partly because it helps to give examples of how rules (like how clerics get spells) work. Having a guideline like that just makes things easier for getting into the game, and talking to other people about it. It also makes it easier to strip the setting out and replace it with your own if you don't like it.
Which is a box, that you put tools in, not as useful as what is inside of it for sure. It is something that is entirely unlike a rule system for games. You might be able to argue that the tools themselves are like rules. But that just gets silly as you then have to account for the fact there is a toolbox for every type of tool out there. You got a box for hammers and a box for drills or whatever. Sure, you can only do one or two things with hammers, but that doesn't make it less of a tool than a power drill with multiple heads.
What I am saying is this analogy was a poorly chosen.
But more importantly: RPGs simply don't work without settings. D&D gives people a basic setting partly because making the universe is hard work, and partly because it helps to give examples of how rules (like how clerics get spells) work. Having a guideline like that just makes things easier for getting into the game, and talking to other people about it. It also makes it easier to strip the setting out and replace it with your own if you don't like it.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
On the other hand, Star Wars Saga Edition works pretty well for Mass Effect settings.
Viking Bastard
Adventurer
The discussion seems pretty stuck on "What constitutes a toolbox?"
I can't answer that question, but I can give some perspective on where I'm coming from.
Earlier in the thread people referenced the publication of MMs as a reason why it's a setting, which struck me as odd, as when I think of D&D as a toolbox, that's exactly the kind of book that I think of. The Monster Manual doesn't tell me what monsters exist in the D&D setting, it gives me options to include in my D&D game. A monster doesn't exist in the game world until it's referenced in-game. I don't find this to hold true for Star Wars or the oWoD. Or Dark Sun or FR, for that matter. I may not use the Hutts in my SW campaign, but it's still assumed they exist out there somewhere.
A large reason I like D&D is the macro level of the tools provided: In GURPS, which was my preferred game system pre-d20, it's a lot more work to put together a campaign. I have to make a lot of decisions on the micro level. D&D makes a lot of those decisions for me, and it basically comes down to picking and choosing elements from a catalog: Monsters, classes etc.
I can't answer that question, but I can give some perspective on where I'm coming from.
Earlier in the thread people referenced the publication of MMs as a reason why it's a setting, which struck me as odd, as when I think of D&D as a toolbox, that's exactly the kind of book that I think of. The Monster Manual doesn't tell me what monsters exist in the D&D setting, it gives me options to include in my D&D game. A monster doesn't exist in the game world until it's referenced in-game. I don't find this to hold true for Star Wars or the oWoD. Or Dark Sun or FR, for that matter. I may not use the Hutts in my SW campaign, but it's still assumed they exist out there somewhere.
A large reason I like D&D is the macro level of the tools provided: In GURPS, which was my preferred game system pre-d20, it's a lot more work to put together a campaign. I have to make a lot of decisions on the micro level. D&D makes a lot of those decisions for me, and it basically comes down to picking and choosing elements from a catalog: Monsters, classes etc.
Viking Bastard
Adventurer
I guess, but people also can't agree on what constitutes "a setting".
Calling D&D a "framework" is perhaps more accurate. Is D&D a framework or an app?
Going by that I'd call D&D a framework on a similar level as Ruby on Rails/Django (and d20 = vanilla Ruby/Python).
Hussar
Legend
Yes, but, gunships and infantry isn't really Battletech at all. Stripping out all the setting material from Battletech and there isn't a whole lot of game left. You've got a combat engine and that's about it. Everything from character generation forward is driven by the Btech universe.
[MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION], I'm probably going to lose all geek cred here but, I've never played Mass Effect. Would Jedi work in that setting? Is a SW game still SW without any jedi?
At the very basic level, sure, all games are essentially generic. When you get right down to it, mechanics are only task resolution systems anyway. But, if you took out all the SW specfic elements out of the SW game, I'm going to say that it really isn't the Star Wars game anymore.
However, comparing to D&D, taking out the setting specific elements and you get the SRD - which is a pretty easy system to create an entire campaign around. The fact that people basically ignored a lot of the setting specific stuff right from day one and then built whatever campaign they wanted, without a lot of difficulty, to me, shows that D&D is more toolkit than setting.
