Is D&D becoming more fantastical?

[hong]

Baseline D&D has gotten more fantastical in a sophmoric, cheesie, watered-down sort of fashion. (I'm recalling a barfight ad for 3.x here) When your halfdragon-tiefling sorceror walks into a tavern someone should notice but you actually aren't all that different from the half-gith assassin in the corner or the beholderkin serving drinks at the bar. The fantastical nature of the original character becomes meaningless as it is washed out in a tsunami of "unique" and wonderous characters.

OTOH, it could throw the ordinary, everyman nature of the original character into sharp relief. Which could explain why I'm always banning nonhuman PCs.

 

[Pinotage]

OK, you said that 3e fighter was basically a normal person. Now, tell me about the ranger and all the threads we had objecting to it being a spellcasting class. Or the multitude of supernatural abilities a monk has; is he just a normal guy who knows some karate? Is a paladin just a guy with a do-gooder attitude?

Seems like you're hedging your bets with a few classes while overlooking others. Heck, we've had people grousing about spellcasting rangers since day one of 3e.

What you seem to channeling is the shift away from vancian spellcasting being the sole source of active magical abilities, in particular that there's going to be a new power source alongside arcane and divine: "martial". But there's no speculative musing about game design evolution there. That's a conscious, specific, and intentional change.

Fair point. I'll admit that there are a lot of fantastic classes out there - ranger, monk, and others all prove that point. I was just indicating that I believed some of the non-fantastical classes like the fighter are becoming more so. You're right, though, there appears to be a conscious shift to a 'martial' magic.

Pinotage

 

[Pinotage]

To Pinotage's question of whether D&D has become more fantastical is perhaps asking the wrong question - many have pointed out that D&D has always has very "fantastical" elements (although as time has progressed, I think more weird things have been developed than mundane/medieval).

For me and I sense a lot of others, the real question is "Can I shoehorn D&D to fit my concept of a fantasy world?" and "Is this shoehorning becoming more and more difficult as D&D has evolved?"

Very good point. I hadn't thought about it like that.

Pinotage

 

[JDJblatherings]

OTOH, it could throw the ordinary, everyman nature of the original character into sharp relief. Which could explain why I'm always banning nonhuman PCs.

so the oddball at the table has become the Human Fighter with a sword, spear, mace and dagger. Unless there are house rules to make this more likely.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

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 cannot add anything to this other than I endorse this message. <Brought to you by the Committee to Elect Steel_Wind for President of WotC>

 

[Raven Crowking]

Well, now you're getting into fine detail - whether the fighter, specifically, is more fantastic does not say whether the game overall is more fantastic.

I disagree with this very much. The fighter is historically one of the (now few remaining) core elements in the game of "normal skilled person fighting the fantastic". If that element becomes more fantastical, it turns the whole game with it.

IMHO, anyway.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Does this mean... sense of wonder is coming back?!

Not IMHO. I would say that SOW requires juxtaposition of the fantastic with the mundane. Making everything fantastic, like making everything mundane, destroys it utterly.

Of course, YMMV.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'd say that the precise difference is that the martial classes now have more "fantastical" abilities. I'd also posit that this is necessary in order to keep them on par with spellcasters at mid- to high levels without having to give them specially-made artifacts.

Yet, oddly enough, it is also necessary to beef up those spellcasters, even at mid- to high-levels, to keep them on par with the fighters......

 

[Raven Crowking]

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.

Steel_Wind, I have seldom seen a post that I agree with more. Thank you for putting that so very bloody well.

RC

 

[Mallus]

For me and I sense a lot of others, the real question is "Can I shoehorn D&D to fit my concept of a fantasy world?" and "Is this shoehorning becoming more and more difficult as D&D has evolved?"

Terrific question! Much better than all the old-school gamer ubi sunt 'oh where is the elf-fancying of yore?' posts.

And to answer the question: representing my various conceptions of a fantasy world has never been particularly easy using any edition of D&D (I play D&D because its the lingua franca of the FRPG world). So shoehorning my ideas into a D&D framework hasn't become more difficult, just different in terms of the specifics.