Is D&D becoming more fantastical?

[smootrk]

I think the fantastical parts of the game have been shifted from 'the setting' (npcs, monsters, environments, etc) to the 'character' (half-dragons, templates, special prcs, magical fighter hybrids, etc).... and for myself, it is a paradigm shift that I do not like much.

I prefer having relatively normal or low-powered folks adventuring in fantastical settings, experiencing the fantastical, or beating fantastical odds... not having fantastical characters who overshadow the antagonists with their splendor.

But that is just my opinion.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Yes it surely has.

D&D has upped the fantastical to the Player character side of the game in a major way. It has increased the power, disentangled itself from the medieval themes of the past and added more uber_options, assumed magic items as the default rule - and has added an experience point chart that ensures the game moves to higher and higher levels - with even more magical options - more quickly.

It is, as I have recently ranted, become a game that has become more about fantasy Supes Without Capes, than it ever has been in the past.

Which is not to say these elements have not been present since 1st Edition, simply that they have been thrust more firmly to centre stage as the default presumptions in the RAW.

And I bloody hate it.

George RR Martin has described "magic" in fantasy settings as "the Salt". It is "the Salt" that sets the epic fantasy genre apart from being an historical novel.

The problem is that so many writers have added so much of it to their setting and tales - you can't taste anything else. All you can taste is the Salt.

In large part, I blame gaming fiction for this trend.

Like gaming fiction, that is what D&D has become: a plate of salt with a pinch of meat.

The roots of D&D lie in historical medieval miniatures wargames, with a dash of Tolkien, Vance and Lieber added in for flavor and coolness.

Over the past 33 years, that "coolness" has been increased; the dash of salt has been upped until the taste of it overwhelms every other flavor in the game.

The designers of D&D have lost their way.

 

[Mallus]

It is, as I have recently ranted, become a game that has become more about fantasy Supes Without Capes, than it ever has been in the past.

Yup. Bog standard D&D is a superhero comic in quasi-Medieval drag. After the PC's acquire a few levels, that is. Whether it's become that recently is another issue.

Which is not to say these elements have not been present since 1st Edition, simply that they have been thrust more firmly to centre stage as the default presumptions in the RAW.

Right. There's been formal recognition. D&D's come out of the closet, so to speak. Or maybe I should say it's come out of the phone booth wearing tights and a cape.

The roots of D&D lie in historical medieval miniatures wargames, with a dash of Tolkien, Vance and Lieber added in for flavor and coolness.

People are always saying this, and it is true, but it's also largely irrelevant. D&D began getting bigger, weirder, and less faithful to its oft-invoked source materials right from the start. When did Dave Arneson's Blackmoor come out? Wasn't it one of the initial supplements for OD&D? The games I've seen have all bore more resemblance to the pun-heavy, genre-bending hodgepodge of settings like Blackmoor than they did to anything out of actual history or a serious counter-actual history a la Tolkien.

The current D&D isn't deviating from its roots, it's just offering better and more explicit rules support for them. Which isn't to suggest you should like it any better, but claiming that's there's been a sea change to the overall timbre of the game doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

The designers of D&D have lost their way.

Yes. The new editions don't contain enough six-shooter wielding demi-gods, trips to Alice's Wonderland and dungeons with laser-toting killer robots in their sub-basements...

 

[Korgoth]

Yes it surely has.

D&D has upped the fantastical to the Player character side of the game in a major way. It has increased the power, disentangled itself from the medieval themes of the past and added more uber_options, assumed magic items as the default rule - and has added an experience point chart that ensures the game moves to higher and higher levels - with even more magical options - more quickly.

It is, as I have recently ranted, become a game that has become more about fantasy Supes Without Capes, than it ever has been in the past.

Which is not to say these elements have not been present since 1st Edition, simply that they have been thrust more firmly to centre stage as the default presumptions in the RAW.

And I bloody hate it.

George RR Martin has described "magic" in fantasy settings as "the Salt". It is "the Salt" that sets the epic fantasy genre apart from being an historical novel.

The problem is that so many writers have added so much of it to their setting and tales - you can't taste anything else. All you can taste is the Salt.

In large part, I blame gaming fiction for this trend.

Like gaming fiction, that is what D&D has become: a plate of salt with a pinch of meat.

The roots of D&D lie in historical medieval miniatures wargames, with a dash of Tolkien, Vance and Lieber added in for flavor and coolness.

Over the past 33 years, that "coolness" has been increased; the dash of salt has been upped until the taste of it overwhelms every other flavor in the game.

The designers of D&D have lost their way.

I agree, Steel_Wind.

If someone is playing a half-dragon dude with wings and firebreath who can do a whole bunch of wuxia stunts... you're not really exploring a fantastic world anymore. You are the fantastic world at that point. Or if the fantastic is so prevalent that it is common, then the fantastic is really just an hysterical version of the mundane.

Not that PCs should all have to be human farmers. Elves and Dwarves, for example, are really humans conforming to an established and intelligible archetype ("trickster" and "adult", as a one sage put it). And I'm sure many of us have run a game with a dragon PC or something like that as a change of pace... but it's usually only just that, a change of pace.

Fantasy gaming used to have a balance of the medieval and the fantastical that was intriguing. I still gravitate to that balance. But I can see that the Hasbro direction is going toward "all awesome all the time", which is like saying (as you implied) "all sauce and no meat", "all seasoning and no entree".

One could, if so inclined, write a fantasy game about Beholders: everybody's character is a Beholder. Either these Beholder characters would do the same sorts of things that humans do in other games, in which case there's really not much sense in them being Beholders, or else they would do only kooky alien Beholder activities. In the latter case, I think it would be hard for such a game to be very popular because it would be hard for most people to relate to it.

 

[Victim]

I've been thinking about this in the light of rumours of rules from 4e, but also in the light of many recent releases from WotC and others.

Back at the start of 3e, you had a fighter, who was well, a human that was very good at fighting. But by his core he was still human. Much like a real human today.

These days you have classes like the warblade, for example, that is much more fantastical. He's not a mere human anymore. He's a magical human, that can create fire with his manuevers or other 'magical' effects.

It strikes me that the concept of being 'human' has changed through the years. The average 'person' in D&D is now a lot more magical, can easily gain supernatural abilities, and can use magic more often. D&D to me appears to be becoming more fantastical.

I suspect that 4e is going to go that way even more so. The average 'person' in the game will be able to likely utilise magic in some way, be it creating fire with his blade as a warblade, or healing supernaturally as a cleric. Gone is the concept of a human in a fantasy world, to be replaced by a race of human where fantasy pervades them more.

Is it just me, or has the 'norm' changed and the average person now better fits the fantasy world where things are supposed to be more fantastical.

Pinotage

The average person is still mundane - they're just a commoner 1-3 instead of Fighter 0.

When the ordinary human fighter can withstand blows from giants and routinely jump off large cliffs and live, I'm not so sure that he's ordinary anymore. Characters have always been capable of unrealistic feats after low levels.

 

[SSquirrel]

I've been gaming for 20 years now and I definitely prefer a more fantastical game. The way the base setting of the game was kept in a more medieval setting when it's a world where food creation and resurrections are possible just didn't make sense to me.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I've been gaming for 20 years now and I definitely prefer a more fantastical game. The way the base setting of the game was kept in a more medieval setting when it's a world where food creation and resurrections are possible just didn't make sense to me.

There are three solutions to this conundrum:

1 - say that food creation and resurrection spells are quite rare and not common enough to have much of an effect on the world;

2- nerf food creation and resurrection spells altogether (or make them ultra rare);

3- make magic the "technology" of the world, standardize it, package it, make it controllable, common as hell and predictable to a fault - and nerf the medieval world. Arguably, you nerf magic as being, well, magical at the same time.

Default D&D 3E chose option #3. 1st Ed AD&D chose #1

Many long time DMs here choose option #2.

 

[AllisterH]

Personally, I prefer classes to be on a reasonably even keel without having to build magic item dependency into the mix. I will also say that D&D has backed itself into a corner regarding the need to power up fighters by allowing playable magic-using characters; most S&S wizard-types aren't really PCs. By creating PCs that use magic willy-nilly, you are, in a sense, forcing everyone to have at least partial access to magical resources.

Thank you.

It seems weird that when people talk about wanting D&D to resemble more gritty fantasy, they tend to ignore the fat that half of the classes enable the PCs to "USE MAGIC". Really, in the type of "gritty stories" people seem to think D&D should be more closer to, the fact is M-U only appear as two types. The "GREAT EVIL" or the "The PATRON".

D&D should've never allowed for magic users to be a playable class.

re: 1E fighter and others.

As weird as it sounds, I think 1E PCs were actually *STRONGER* than their equivalent level 3.x counterparts based on how they matched up with the actual obstacles a.k.a., the monsters. After you hit a certain level, fighters couldn't die in melee and pretty much were immune to save or die spells. A balor for example is a serious fight for a 4 person party in 3.x whereas that selfsame balor could be solo by a 13th level fighter in 1E.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I myself prefer highly fantastical enviorments and PCs in my games. I like stuff Crystal Palaces floating on clouds in the sky. Or vast caverns in the Underdark with strange multicolored lights streaming through them. Or mechanical airships that are basically floating cities.

EDIT: I apparently have an obsession with floating things.

Oh, and to me, magic is the main dish, not a seasoning.

 

[ruleslawyer]

There are three solutions to this conundrum:

1 - say that food creation and resurrection spells are quite rare and not common enough to have much of an effect on the world;

2- nerf food creation and resurrection spells altogether (or make them ultra rare);

3- make magic the "technology" of the world, standardize it, package it, make it controllable, common as hell and predictable to a fault - and nerf the medieval world. Arguably, you nerf magic as being, well, magical at the same time.

Default D&D 3E chose option #3. 1st Ed AD&D chose #1

Man what?

AD&D didn't "choose" to have magic like this be rare; there are rods of resurrection available in multiple modules in this era, and you can buy them according to the DMG.

I'm seeing rose-colored glasses sprouting here.