Of Roads, and Rome, and the Soul of D&D

[Mercurius]

If there is a singular soul (and I am still not convinced there is one), figuring out what it is will, at best, be a task akin to genre definition. The edges are going to be vague, and a thing need not have all the tropes, or match all the style points listed to be included.

Basically talking about D&D is like talking about mystery novels. You tend to know it if you see it, but sometimes others will call it a thriller when you think of it as a mystery...

Exactly, well put. I am in 98.972% agreement

So, is BECMI Mystara not D&D, or is AD&D Greyhawk not D&D? I'd like to know which one, based on the criterion you have stated.

Wait for it...

Agreed.

Strange that, huh? We both agree with what Umbran said.

(pawsplay, keep going...)

If you want to be absolutely literal, sure. I think you won't gain much from the conversation doing that, but it is your right, so long as you aren't argumentative about it.

I think you'll get a whole lot more out of it if you look more at the spirit of the statement than the letter.

This. Thanks for this clarification.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't agree about the 99% of monsters, but there is probably a subset of monsters that should appear in the game system (if not each individual campaign world). I.e., certain monsters that are iconically D&D.

 

[pawsplay]

If you want to be absolutely literal, sure. I think you won't gain much from the conversation doing that, but it is your right, so long as you aren't argumentative about it.

I think you'll get a whole lot more out of it if you look more at the spirit of the statement than the letter.

Why are you assuming I am being absolutely literal and not looking at the spirit of the statement? i wasn't being argumentative, I was expressing the absolutely least disagreement necessary. But I am disagreeing; the statement is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Greyhawk and Mystara have somewhat similar sets of monsters, but they are not mostly overlapping; if you throw 4e into the mix, forget about it.

Mystara has no drow. It has no mind flayers. Originally, it had neither half-elves nor half-orcs. It has no tieflings. It has no devils. Gnomes are small dwarves. Kobolds are small dog-like goblinoids. It has an entirely different set of advanced undead, including Haunts and Spirits. It has shadow elves, faceless mujinas, tarantella spiders, cyclops, feline rakasta, and swamp-dewlling kopru. There is only one kind of metallic dragon (gold), which breathes fire and poison gas. It has manscorpions, the weird Horde of the plane of Earth, and fiery helions. Shadows are not undead. Gargoyles are constructs. There is such a thing as a Frost Salamander. Drakes are shapechanging dragonkin.

 

[pawsplay]

I don't agree about the 99% of monsters, but there is probably a subset of monsters that should appear in the game system (if not each individual campaign world). I.e., certain monsters that are iconically D&D.

Like what? Assuming you omit real-world animals.

 

[Mercurius]

Pawsplay, I think you misunderstood the 99% statement - I used that number in saying that if a setting does not have 99% of the monsters in the various books than it probably isn't a D&D world. I did not say that a setting has to include 99% of monsters to be a D&D world. I would say that a setting should include a good portion of canonical themes, tropes, creatures, races etc, to be a "D&D World," but there is a lot of room for flexibility (thus Dark Sun).

I like to think of D&D as a tradition, or the D&D Tradition. If we're ok not looking for sharply defined boundaries as to what is within and what is outside of the Tradition, it becomes a flexible concept. A D&D world draws from the Tradition. It may (and usually does) vary it, but it is drawing material from the Tradition. Different worlds may veer further away from the Tradition, and there is no set formula to what decides whether a given setting is part of the D&D Tradition, but there is also a distinctive "signature" that the Tradition carries that, I think, is different from other fantasy traditions.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Basically talking about D&D is like talking about mystery novels. You tend to know it if you see it ...

Isn't that the Supreme Court definition of porn? If so, that means D&D equals ... not sure I want to finish that thought.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Isn't that the Supreme Court definition of porn? If so, that means D&D equals ... not sure I want to finish that thought.

I don't know about you, but I read Dragon for the articles.

 

[pawsplay]

Pawsplay, I think you misunderstood the 99% statement - I used that number in saying that if a setting does not have 99% of the monsters in the various books than it probably isn't a D&D world. I did not say that a setting has to include 99% of monsters to be a D&D world.

Ok, I apologize for the misunderstanding. Your statement is completely ambiguous. I read it as:

I used that number in saying that if a setting does not have 99% of the monsters in the various books than it probably isn't a D&D world.

You see?

Anyway, if a setting does NOT have 99% of the monsters in the various books, not only is it not likely D&D, but it's probably not set in any Earth-like world, either. Of course, that mainly excludes Tekumel... which was originally built as a D&D campaign.

 

[Mercurius]

Yeah, the phrasing is awkward. But do you get the point? Forget about the number. Think of all the monsters that are unique to D&D, or at least iconic to, and only known through, D&D (I think many of the seemingly unique D&D monsters are actually little known mythological creatures, like the catoblepas).

Think about beholders, mind flayers, drow, behir, remorhaz, Lolth, Orcus, Type I-VI demons, yugoloths, svirfneblin, otyughs, owlbears, bullettes, bugbears, sahuagin, aboleth, githyanki, death knights, etc. I am not saying that a D&D world has to have the majority of these creatures, but that they almost always have a large number of them, at least as a possibility.

D&D is an almost 40-year tradition that has included a large accumulation of ingredients - not just monsters but magic items, races and classes, tropes and themes. Go back to Umbran's analogy of the pantry. Over the last 37 years tons of ingredients have been placed in the pantry (and continued to be placed in the pantry); once they are there, they are permanent fixtures even if they aren't used for years (e.g. did the aurumvorax receive a post-1E treatment? I can't remember), or even if some cook form the pantry don't use anything that was placed in after a certain date. Different campaigns (and DMs) use different ingredients, but most D&D campaigns mainly use stuff from the D&D pantry, or variations of the D&D pantry.

What were we talking about again?

 

[Haltherrion]

D&D is absurd. It's always been absurd. We have sentient acid-jello as one of our biggest mascots. And the other one is a giant floating gasball...with eyes!!! A good portion of monsters came from Gary just grabbing random kids toys and going "Ok, this one...uh...turns things to rust with it's antenna!"

I suppose that may be true for those who think the soul of D&D includes the setting specific items. That's not the case for me or nearly anyone I game with though.

But I've been accused of not playing D&D because I don't use the planes system. I suppose such accusations might fly very thick if some knew all the "standard" critters I disallow (which varies by the particular setting I happen to be running at the time).

The point is, there are at least some folks who think of D&D as a ruleset that encourages a certain style of play without necessarily having to include specific setting elements or the more juvenile aspects of the game. When it comes to settings and sense, I'm pretty much anti-Gygax but I still feel quite dedicated to D&D and in tune with it's rather ill-defined soul.

D&D doesn't have to absurd, at least how I define. It may hew to movie physics and heroics but you don't have to have sentient acid-jello and accept the entire, accreted mish-mash of 35 years of setting evolution. One does have the power to execute a vision, to pick and choose.