D&D General My "Perfect D&D" Would Include...

[Vaalingrade]

I think the idea was that you could do either without much effort in 5E. If you wanted to dial up the grid combat you could do so with the modularity that was never produced.

I was looking forward to the doing another Lucy on Charlie Brown kinda deal with that with 5.5e. Pity.

 

[delericho]

Perfect D&D, or perfect D&D-like game?

The reason I ask is that D&D has some genuinely sacred cows (such as the six ability scores and nine alignments) that I think have to be there or it isn't D&D, but which a non-D&D game shouldn't emulate.

So if you're looking for my "perfect D&D", 5e is actually reasonably close. There are a load of individually-minor tweaks I'd like to see made, but the fundamentals are pretty sound.

But for a D&D-like game, I would keep class and level, and reconsider everything beyond that - I'd even be strongly inclined to remove all non-human intelligent species from the game entirely.

 

[Lanefan]

I put it to you that the Great Dividing Line above is:

Grid based combat vs. Theater of the mind based combat

You can come up with a great long list and none of those things hint at a real separator in terms of how combat flows and how the game is actually played, until you get to that one.

That is the Great Generational Divide. That is the OD&D/1st/2nd/BECMI vs 3//4/5 divide.

Then how-why have we been playing 1e with a grid and minis for 40+ years now?

(though I should note we've never used "squares" as distance or pixellated fireballs - the grid and minis are mostly there to show positioning, give a quicker idea of ranges for missiles and spells, help with mapping, and so forth)

TotM would just turn into an endless argument, I think.

 

[Lanefan]

To the shock and horror of all, my list is.

...
20 Levels or Less
Epic Levels
...

Aren't those two somewhat in contradiction of each other?

 

[Aldarc]

My perfect D&D would probably be something closer to a mix of Shadow of the Weird Wizard, Fabula Ultima, Blue Rose/True 20, and/or a far more polished 4E D&D that took notes from game design over the past 14 years it has been sleeping.

There are a number of things from 4e, in particular, that I wish were in current versions of WotC D&D: e.g., attack rolls vs. defenses (instead of saves), heroic/paragon/epic tiers of play, encounter-based design, utility spells as rituals rather than in-combat magic, certain classes (e.g., Warlord, Warden, Swordmage, Shaman, Psion, etc.), powers and roles, interesting monster design, easy encounter-building, less quadratic spellcasters, engaging martial class design, etc.

 

[Minigiant]

One thing my perfect D&D would have is not "Race as Class" but "Culture as Class".

Basically each race would have a list of culture as each culture would have a list of classes within it.

For example Barbarian Culture would have Berserker, Chieftain, Shaman, and Warrior classes. Primal Culture would have Berserker, Druid, Ranger, and Shaman. Orcs in the default game would have Barbarian and Primal culture classes but not Arcane or Feudal culture classes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Which of the elements in the poll would your personal "perfect D&D" include?

Note: these are all the things I could think of off the top of my head while setting this poll up, so I probably missed a bunch of stuff. I tried to hit the highlights of all the editions.

First off I love this poll, because according to the results at time of writing, the most important things to be in D&D are:

1) Skills

2) Advantage/Disadvantage - Feats (tied)

3) Skill Challenges

4) XP from Story

This is amazing because basically none of these things was in 1E (in the core anyway), and Skills/XP from Story were barely/arguably in 2E. Skill Challenges are only in 4E, yet apparently very popular, and really Skills/Feats are a WotC edition thing. Good turnout for Advantage/Disadvantage too, totally unsurprising given how popular a mechanic it is.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My perfect version of D&D would probably steal mechanics heavily from 4E, 5E, and Worlds Without Number, as well as a few other systems, like key things it needs are:

1) Combat that at least can be TtoM without being wrecked.
2) Encounter-based design and balancing, rather than attrition-based design.
3) Heavier use of ritual magic.
4) Monsters that are defeated through knowing their weaknesses more (hopefully without just making them immune to everything).
5) No power gap between casters and others, and none of this "start weak become mega-OP" nonsense (which explicitly the design of OD&D, note)
6) Not species-as-class but stuff like vampire-as-class? Go for it. If it's a thing you can be transformed into, cool.
7) Multiclassing where you're actually both classes (probably 2 class max MC'ing, three classes was always shenanigans), you're not just taking a level in X. I think this would actually be easier to balance, long-term, as it entirely avoids "dips" and similar nonsense. Some classes could be basically MC only like Worlds Without Number.
8) Good rules/guidelines for improved stuff in combat. It's so profoundly odd that 4E, the most regimented D&D game in combat is the only one which had these. If you're ever forced to make more than one d20 roll to do something in combat, that action should be commensurately stronger if it works.
9) Feats more as a tool to customize your character than to just make them stronger.

Etc.

 

[Cadence]

I put it to you that the Great Dividing Line above is:

Grid based combat vs. Theater of the mind based combat

You can come up with a great long list and none of those things hint at a real separator in terms of how combat flows and how the game is actually played, until you get to that one.

That is the Great Generational Divide. That is the OD&D/1st/2nd/BECMI vs 3//4/5 divide.

That is TSR vs WotC. Old vs New.

Since I chose both, I now have the feeling that I need to think about it more...

 

[Reynard]

It is interesting what feel a little controversial (hanging in around 50%). Stuff like Kingdom rules and complex fighters and random treasure and even grid based combat.