Mearls: The core of D&D

[ExploderWizard]

By that logic, GURPS does D&D better then D&D!

Heh. GURPS can do fantasy adventure great, it just isn't D&D.

I did a GURPS/D&D mashup back in the early 90's that came close. I used GURPS building blocks to make classes, levels, alignments became disad groups, etc.

It was called DURPS

Dweomercraefting
Universal
Role
Playing
System

 

[Raven Crowking]

Moreover, I totally disagree that the source material of D&D is generally lacking in healing magic or even healing potions. What's Miruvor in game terms if not a healing potion? Even the orcs are shown to use a similar device of their own making. Harry Potter is filled with healing magic. Lucy's vial of crystal from the Narnia series is essentially a healing potion that fulfills much the same role in the story of keeping the characters up and in the story rather than recuperating as a healing potion does in D&D. And we could go on and on.

The healing salves of the green martians of Barsoom are a particular favourite.....

Lucy's cordial, the gunk the orcs smeared on wounds, the orc drink, the elf drink....Yes, these are all healing potions or salves. Lucy's codial takes Edmund from near death to hale in a very short period, using just a few drops. Then she goes about healing the rest of the wounded on the battlefield. I would call that extremely effective!

Miraculous healing in fantasy is no more rare than dreams of miraculous healing are in the real world. REH is actually unusual in not having potions of healing!


RC

 

[mmadsen]

I disagree. Combat does vary tremendously in its depiction across authors.

You think a combat system fit for Tolkien's Lord of the Rings would not work for Robert E. Howard's Conan stories?

What's to understand about 'you got hit and took n points of damage'?

Oh, c'mon. Arguments about hit points are legendary.

Hit points do nothing to push a game world full of healing potions and spells. That's a genera decision.

No, hit points do push a game toward frequent healing. In earlier editions, the "genre decision" was to make that healing via magic potions and spells. In later editions, they embraced the notion that the points lost aren't really wounds, so "healing" can come via pep talks.

D&D's hit point system has hits come often, and these hits slowly wear down the target's hit points -- whatever those might be. If the game made hits very, very rare, but very, very deadly, then you would regularly win fights without taking any damage.

Moreover, I totally disagree that the source material of D&D is generally lacking in healing magic or even healing potions. What's Miruvor in game terms if not a healing potion? Even the orcs are shown to use a similar device of their own making.

So, a sip of miruvor or the orc drink should have brought Boromir back from the brink? As described, the elf-drink is more like chicken-noodle soup, and the orc-drink is more like Irish coffee. They certainly couldn't heal mortally wounded warriors in seconds.

The real proof of this though is the ability of D&D to go the other way and generate the novel from the mechanics of play. Many fantasy series from Feist's Riftwar Saga, to Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksinarrion, to the DragonLance series themselves can be read as and were often inspired by the mechanics of play. Yet they read much like any other high fantasy novels.

When I read the Dragonlance novels, my first thought was, This sounds more like GURPS than D&D.

Clerics occurs everywhere through out literature, myth, and legend.

Armored holy men with maces who turn undead are everywhere through out literature, myth, and legend? Some of the tales of the saints involve spell-like miracles, but not much else matches up.

The Wizard is the modern origin, and its going to be very very hard to find examples of the Wizard in literature that aren't influenced by the D&D Wizard.

So Merlin, Gandalf, etc. aren't Wizards? Is that where we're going with this?

 

[Stoat]

IMO, how well D&D emulates any particular genre depends on 4 or 5 factors:

1. What genre are we talking about?

2. How closely do we want to emulate that genre?

2a. How important/necessary is it to emulate that genre through game mechanics, as opposed to simply making changes to the game's descriptive flavor?

3. Do we want to emulate that genre for a one-shot adventure or for a longer campaign?

4. At some point, does emulating that genre change the rules/playstyle so much that we really aren't playing D&D anymore?

IME, the elements of D&D that are the biggest impediment to using D&D to emulate different genres are:

1. Hitpoints, Healing, and the need for Clerics as healers.

2. The reliance on equipment to improve armor class.

3. The dramatic increases in PC power inherent in the leveling system.

 

[Bluenose]

Where D&D could be much more abstract is in the magic system, which isn't at all generic. Any one of the numerous spell-point systems or roll-to-cast systems could match any number of descriptions of what might be going on in the game world of the wizard, but spell slots? "Forgetting" spells? Those are quite specific and evoke a particular flavor far from most of the source material.

While this might be true, I'd also suggest that one of the huge differences between D&D spellcasters and most fictional/mythical ones is how easy spells are in D&D. They're cast quickly, most don't require anything particularly hard to find as spell components, and magic users don't worry about whether the spell might go wrong and what the consequences of that would be. Easy magic, magic without costs and risk, that's a D&Dism.

 

[Lanefan]

3. The dramatic increases in PC power inherent in the leveling system.

Not jsust PCs, but anybody/anything that is levelled e.g. NPCs, monsters, etc. Not quite such an issue in 0-1(-2?)e but still noticeable.

While this might be true, I'd also suggest that one of the huge differences between D&D spellcasters and most fictional/mythical ones is how easy spells are in D&D. They're cast quickly, most don't require anything particularly hard to find as spell components, and magic users don't worry about whether the spell might go wrong and what the consequences of that would be. Easy magic, magic without costs and risk, that's a D&Dism.

More and more so with each passing edition.

Lan-"but you see, I've got this sword of wizard-slaying"-efan

 

[Celebrim]

You think a combat system fit for Tolkien's Lord of the Rings would not work for RObert E. Howard's Conan stories?

I'd have to reread REH to see. But a combat system that does Tolkien well can't necessarily do Robert Jordan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, or Terry Brooks to name a few off the top of my head.

Besides, my argument is that it fits Tolkien or REH well enough despite their differences. If you want to argue that the combat in various fantasy is generic enough that a generic system works, then you are conceding my points for free.

What's really ironic of course is that when you get around to actually objecting, it's precisely on the claim that combat systems aren't generic that you object, quote:

"If the game made hits very, very rare, but very, very deadly, then you would regularly win fights without taking any damage."

That would be one example of how two different authors approach combat narration in their story.

Nonetheless, I still consider this a very weak objection. Not only do hit points do a good enough job of simulating that the hero rarely takes damage in systems were the narration is "hits are rare, but when they happen they are lethal", but it does a better job of simulating the plot protection enjoyed by most fantasy protagonists than directly implementing the obvious mechanic like "hits are rare, but when they happen they hurt". The obvious mechanic results in random and unpredictable deaths of the protagonists that just doesn't match up with the source material. The real strength of hit points is predictability.

No, hit points do push a game toward frequent healing. In earlier editions, the "genre decision" was to make that healing via magic potions and spells. In later editions, they embraced the notion that the points lost aren't really wounds, so "healing" can come via pep talks.

You aren't saying anything new. Read 'The Deed of Paksenarrion' and get back to me. Hit points only push the game toward more frequent healing if the protagonist expects combat to come so regularly that they will have no time to recover from battle AND if he also expects that in a given battle he'll lose a large portion of his hit points. If you pace the game diferently, such as the game time year that Paks spends campaigning in a mercenary company to go from 1st to 2nd level, then the notion that frequent magical healing is required goes away. Natural healing is available and works just fine so long as the pacing of the game changes.

So, a sip of miruvor or the orc drink should have brought Boromir back from the brink?

Possibly. We are engaging in a counter factual here. Boromir wasn't given a draught nor was a master healer like Elrond on hand, so we don't know. LotR is such a low magic campaign, that miruvor might well be a healing potion that only heals non-lethal damage, or possibly Boromir was at -9 bleeding out and no healing was available and the DM just gave him a 'Last Gasp' round to do a purely RP death scene in. In any event, we've now moved from, "Well potions don't exist in the source material.", to "Well the potions in the source material aren't always exactly like those in D&D." We've moved from "can't" to "can't do it well enough". I can just as easily counter that Edmond was as badly injured as Boromir at the end of Lion Witch and Wardrobe and the potion DID bring him back from the brink.

When I read the Dragonlance novels, my first thought was, This sounds more like GURPS than D&D.

Was that right about the time that Raistlin cast sleep on the goblins, or when he tried the same thing on the Draconians and whispered, "Magic resistance!". And did you read the books before or after playing the campaign?

Armored holy men with maces who turn undead are everywhere through out literature, myth, and legend?

Magicians, shamans, socerers, wise men, witches and priests - some armored and some not - with the power to rebuke spirits and drive them away are ubiquitous throughout literature, myth, and legend and in myth and legend in particular little distinguishment is made between them. Moreover, in literature myth and legend the sort of spells that magicians cast are much more often of the subtle curse, hexes, and blessing sort than the flashy pyrotechnics of the D&D Wizard. Historical conceptions of magic are almost always based on calling up and binding spirits, which the cleric does just as well and if not better than the Wizard. Necromancers? Clerics do it better than Wizards. Witches? Clerics do it better than Wizards and frequently Witches were concieved as priestesses of some deity (which hasn't changed much to the present day). About the only sort of magic that doesn't fit the cleric better than the Wizard is D&D inspired Wizardry - ei "Fireball!".

Virtually every magic user of history or legend is better presented as a cleric than a wizard. And the 2e notion of specialist clerics and the 3e notion of domains makes this even more true.

So Merlin, Gandalf, etc. aren't Wizards? Is that where we're going with this?

Merlin is a half-demon or fairy being, whose historical origins appears to have been in part a prophet (ei cleric) and who from the account of the literature would be at least as well concieved if not better as a druid (ei cleric variant) than a wizard. His more modern depictions in child friendly modern media are typically santized of any occult references, helping to create the wholly modern conception of a Wizard that D&D has helped promote perhaps better than any other medium (with the possible exception of Disney). However historically the practice of magic is tied to the innovacation of spirits and divine power - the very sorts of things we associate with clerical magic in D&D. And indeed, the clerical spell list is much more closely aligned with the sort of powers that historical magicians (and their literary counterparts) claimed to have - killing with a touch, healing disease, calling down curses, exorcising evil spirits, etc.

Gandalf is an angel whose powers appear to be of divine origin and innate. But to the extent that I agree that Gandalf can be well simulated by a D&D Wizard, that again involves you conceding my point about D&D being able to do multiple sorts of source material rather than undermining it.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'd have to reread REH to see. But a combat system that does Tolkien well can't necessarily do Robert Jordan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, or Terry Brooks to name a few off the top of my head.

I'm not greatly familiar with Jordan, but I certainly feel a combat system can do Tolkien, Burroughs, and REH well!

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not greatly familiar with Jordan, but I certainly feel a combat system can do Tolkien, Burroughs, and REH well!

Sure. But let's keep in mind my position here. I'm not arguing that a single combat system can't do them welll; in fact, my position requires that D&D do all three well enough. What I'm stating is that despite signfiicant differences in how combat is portrayed in Tolkien, Burroughs, REH, etc., D&D can be used to simulate all of them. Keep in mind that I'm addressing the complaint, "Of course it can do combat well, because there aren't differences in how combat is portrayed in fantasy literature."

As an example, combat in Tolkien is usually over in seconds, whereas John Carter might engage a single opponent for an hour. Combat in Tolkien is described in a very terse way usually focusing only on the lethal event that ends it, whereas combat in Jordan's books is described in cinematic detail alternating with sequences of manuevers and counter manuevers which are given evocative poetic names. But, my argument is that by selecting the level of character appropriate to the power level presented in the story, and by appropriate narration, hit points do just fine for all of that. Obviously certain rules subsystems make one edition or the other perhaps preferred for meeting specific goals, for example something like Tome of Battle is more appropriate to Jordan than it is to Tolkien, but its all still D&D.

 

[rounser]

But again, I think this is moving away from what Mearls is actually discussing. I can accept you saying, "Hey, I don't think the core setting of 4E" - but that is a different thing from saying, "That setting means it isn't D&D." And if that is what you are saying - did you say the same thing about Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Al'Qadim, or any number of other settings that also played around with the races and classes and environment?

The distinction is that these are settings. I really like Dark Sun, but it's a very specific world. If Dark Sun paraphernalia were the default in the PHB to build a thousand other worlds, I'd probably skip that edition too.

Axiomatic simplifications like "crunch is better than fluff" (referring to what is or isn't D&D, based on mechanics no less) have led the direction of the game astray already, it's more complex than that IMO.