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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Odhanan" data-source="post: 5774918" data-attributes="member: 12324">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.</blockquote>

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