"Modular" does not mean "Generic"

[Odhanan]

I've seen a lot of comparisons between "D&D Next" and GURPS popping up all over the place, like the game would inevitably follow the same track and turn into some kind of mashup with no identity of its own.

I think this is a false premise. Sure, by creating a modular game system, you might end up in a situation where the core of the system, what is basically playable by switching off all the modular parts of the game, turns into something that is bland, without personality, a completely generic system for fantasy that would just end up sucking big time.

This future is possible. But it is not automatically the case.

The baseline of the game can still be Dungeons & Dragons, if the designers of the game really get to the identity of the game itself and what makes it really "what it is".

I posit that the identity of the game is just that: "dungeons", and "dragons". By which I mean:

Dungeons: the theme of exploration of the unknown. The places of danger that are mapped by the DM and keyed with different critters. The dungeon underground, and the wilderness above. The locales of adventure.

Dragons: the threats faced while exploring the unknown. The critters, the traps, the danger lurking around the corner. The theme of survival of the game. Of making it through the dungeon, bringing back riches, experience and glory to the surface, or civilization.

If the baseline of the game focuses on these elements, the game itself has a personality of its own: it's D&D through and through.

From there, you can add all sorts of variants and elements to take the game in any number of places, describe your characters however you want, use miniatures and tactical grid combat or not, use feats or not, have Vancian castings or convert spells into power-units comparable to other classes, venture into dungeons or not, use story-narrative structures and APs or sandbox-style open universes, and so on, so forth.

So GURPS really isn't an appropriate comparison in my mind, because it tries to be this Generic, Universal Role Playing System that D&D does not have to be. The basic D&D formula is a winner. This is what should be kept central to the game's shared experience. From there, with the right tools and the right add-ons, it can be taken anywhere, almost.

 

[grimslade]

Yes! D&D is the fantasy RPG. No two campaigns are ever the same in any edition with player and DM preferences and house rules. Hopefully, 5E will make the options chunkier to plug or unplug and play.

 

[thedungeondelver]

Exactly. Nobody should think this will wind up as GURPS: FANTASY. D&D has and I believe will still have a recognizable product identity. I'd heard that the default setting would be FORGOTTEN REALMS*, that alone should tell you that the thrust is towards keeping the game as rooted in its history of being D&D as anything prior.



...

*=WEEPING...WEEPING

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Yes. The modular bits in GURPS (and Fantasy Hero) are too fine for D&D. D&D should use a more coarse form of granularity. Cross a certain threshold of fineness in your options, and classes are no longer a good basis for your characters. And I don't think classless D&D is going to cut it.

 

[MortonStromgal]

I've used a couple GURPS comparisions but I dont think D&D is going generic. Its more like two GURPS players playing at different tables. Table one uses bang skills and generic damage, table two uses specializations, hit locations, and hex maps. They are still both playing GURPS, and can even both be playing in the same world, just different sets of rules for how much crunch a table wants.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Um, not to suggest anything to do with the mechanics of the game as such, but wasn't D&D always meant to be a generic fantasy game? That is, it drew it's concepts from a variety of different sources and encouraged the creation of your own fantasy worlds. I agree that modularity doesn't mean the same as generic, but in my view D&D should be generic anyway.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Modular systems are necessarily complex (and complex games tend to be hard to learn, slow to play, and difficult to keep balanced), and GURPS is a fair analogy in that sense.

Aside from that, though, you're right, there's nothing about a modular aproach that requires a game be generic. Really, GURPS, though the poster boy for 'Generic' and 'Universal' and having both right there in the name, isn't really either.
It's really 'multi-genre.'

 

[kitsune9]

All this talk about GURPS makes me want to point-buy a character up and get playing.