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

[Dannyalcatraz]

...there is also a universal quality, the "elephantness"

Which has to be distinguishable from "rhinocerosness."

Though I'm not sure there IS a universal quality, the "elephantness" to D&D. I'm not saying there isn't one, just that I'm unsure of its existence.

 

[Mercurius]

Danny, when it comes down to it I'm unsure of existence period. But...well, there is what I experience. I am not unsure of the love I have for my daughters and my wife, or the joy I get from roleplaying games or writing or thinking about different theories of human origins. And I am also pretty sure (although not definitely sure) that there is an "elephantness" to D&D, a universal quality that I have shared with most (all?) of the people that I have played with.

Is it different than the quality of RPGs? I don't know, but I think so. It is more specific.

Does baseball have a unique, universal quality that all fans no matter how different can partake of? I think so. Is it different from other sports? Definitely.

We could discuss whether we really need to call it "universal" and I could really go either way. Maybe it is just my experience and your experience, but we're not experiencing the same thing. We could agree that there is a relation but we could also say that we don't need to characterize it with the word "universal." I'm fine with that. Actually, the definations and specific wordings are less important to me than the phenomena, the experience itself.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And I am also pretty sure (although not definitely sure) that there is an "elephantness" to D&D, a universal quality that I have shared with most (all?) of the people that I have played with.

Is it different than the quality of RPGs? I don't know, but I think so. It is more specific.

Well, that's the quandary, isn't it? If it isn't truly different, it's just a projection of our desires. And so far, it's been a real struggle to find that uniquenss.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not entirely sure what we're talking about when we're looking for "the sould of D&D".

Some of Mercurius's posts are fairly rich in metaphysical allusion. But if I approach this question as a genuinely metaphysical one, the difficulties to answering it quickly mount. First, there is the famous objection to the whole notion of essence run by Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations. It strikes me as particularly telling that he makes his point with reference to the word "game". Second, there is the problem of working out whether, by "D&D", we intend to refer to a collection of rulebooks, or a collection of gaming experiences, or some intersection of these two collections, or . . . Third, we have the problem that (it seems to me) for many people their gaming experience is intimately bound up with brand loyaltly to a particular trademark. Trying to work out what is common and constitutive across all this doesn't look easy to me.

When I run a game using Rolemaster characters and Rolemaster action resolution but am reading maps and descriptiosn from Bastion of Broken Souls or the Freeport trilogy, am I playing D&D? When I use Manual of the Planes (whatever edition) and Deities and Demigods/Legends and Lored (AD&D 1st and 2nd editions) to help build a cosmology for the same game, am I playing D&D? When I use rulebooks from HeroWars and Burning Wheel to teach me how to run skill challenges in a 4e game, am I playing D&D?

Runequest uses d20 (for hit location) as well as d100. It also uses polyhedral dice for weapon damage. AD&D used d100 (for thief abilities, among other things) as well as d20.

I can understand why Mike Mearls has an interest in trying to characterise and unify "the D&D experience". The whole raison d'etre of his job is to try to create such a thing.

But I don't feel I have quite the same need. If I nevertheless persevered, and tried to identify what, for me, distinguishes D&D from other fantasy RPGs, I would say its the gonzo in D&D. But even this doesn't really work: (i) Tunnels and Trolls surely is as gonzo as D&D; (ii) at least some people who like D&D like it despite the gonzo, or play it so as to try to avoid or exclude the gonzo (and even I don't like to play up the gonzo very much); (iii) I've GMed sessions of Rolemaster with D&D-style gonzo (such as when the lead fighter in the party jumped down a well only to land on top of some sort of ooze - convereted to RM from the 1st ed AD&D Monster Manual - and have his armour and swords eaten away by acid).

I'm just not sure that there is something uniquely defining and yet universal about D&D.

 

[Jools]

Its Elves and Dwarves going into a dungeon to kill things with arrows and hammers. Really.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Its Elves and Dwarves going into a dungeon to kill things with arrows and hammers. Really.

I don't mean this directed at you solely, Jools, but this is an example of a definition that:

1. Is trite and unhelpful.
2. Overly broad (other games do this as well).
3. Is also overly narrow (many D&D games may never have an elf, a dwarf or a dungeon).

Sorry, again, I'm not trying to direct this at you or anyone else specific. But when discussions like this come up and someone chimes in "D&D is rolling a d20" all it seems to do is obfuscate any attempts to find an actually helpful definition.

(That was going to be the end of my post, but...)


WAIT A SECOND.

What I just typed made me think a bit more. While I stand by my statement that definitions like that are generally not helpful (to the community as a whole's understanding), I need to stand back and take your statement with a bit more consideration.

Maybe, to you, that is a GREAT definition.

While it doesn't "define" all that encapsulates D&D, and nor does it exclude things that aren't D&D it gives me a lot of information about how you play, and what other games you may or may not have played. I'll assume you haven't played other games with dwarves and elves dungeoncrawling. I'll assume you like dungeons, and also the standard races (may or may not like politics driven adventures and the nonstandard races like tiefling and dragonborn). More importantly, it shows me what the really important part, the defining core, of D&D is to you.

Because, in part, we're discussing what definitions of "D&D" are good enough for each of us. Someone earlier (in another thread, or in this one?) had an excellent post about music and the different perspectives she and her ex-boyfriend had because of the style and focus they each had.

So, in a similar vein, maybe "overbroad" is unfair to you. Maybe, for it to feel like D&D, all it really needs is dwarves, elves, and dungeons. Had they, instead of holding off on gnomes in the 4e PHB, held off on dwarves, that might have been enough for you to feel as though it "wasn't D&D" until the dwarf race came out.

So I guess what I'm saying that I might be being unfair to you by saying your definition is flawed. It's not useful to me, but that doesn't mean it's not useful to you.

For me, and I'm starting to understand why pemerton is having so much trouble coming up with a satisfying "true" definition as I try to give some explanation myself what is necessary and sufficient for "D&D". I don't think I can do it.

But in the end, I think your post was actually very valuable for understanding that the claim of "it's all D&D" can't be supported as a universal claim. To some, that may be true, to others it is clearly not. A 5e that has everything in 4e D&D (or 3e D&D) except dwarves, elves, and dungeons would not be D&D to you.

No amount of "let's just all agree it's the same general concept and game we enjoy" would make it fit with your concept of what matters and forms the core, the essence of D&D to you.

Cheers.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm just not sure that there is something uniquely defining and yet universal about D&D.

and

the claim of "it's all D&D" can't be supported as a universal claim.

Been trying to get there for 3+ threads now- nice encapsulations.

 

[Umbran]

Take Firelance's elephant myth from the Hindu tradition. Depending upon which part of the elephant you touch, you will have a different experience of what the elephant "is", but it is all the same elephant.

Or, maybe it isn't the same elephant. We don't know.

I don't think of the game we're presented with (in the form of the rulebooks and traditions) as an elephant. It is more like a pantry. You're given a whole bunch of ingredients to work with. How they apply them is up to you.

Different people working from the same pantry can come up with entirely different dishes. Maybe they use the same ingredients, maybe they don't. Maybe some bring in elements that weren't in the original pantry. Perhaps one person makes mac and cheese, and the other makes split pea soup. Even if two people pick the same ingredients, they can come up with remarkably different dishes. D&D (and RPGs, in general) are less like elephants, and more like Top Chef.

This would lead me to suggest that the "soul" of the game lies not within the game itself, but in the cooks (the GMs and players), and you cannot speak of any universality, other than in some of the elements we are presented with to choose from.

I'm okay with that, as my usual line is that the gamers you're talking to are more important than what game you each happen to be playing.

 

[francisca]

Or, maybe it isn't the same elephant. We don't know.

Heisenberg is smiling. Or maybe its Schrodinger's Elephant.

I can't be sure.

 

[Mercurius]

No amount of "let's just all agree it's the same general concept and game we enjoy" would make it fit with your concept of what matters and forms the core, the essence of D&D to you.

Good post and I agree as a whole, although I don't think it is antithetical to what I've been saying about universality or in any way prevents us from finding a sense of community and shared experience.

Part of what I've been saying is that we all have our own unique experiences of the game, and define it in our own way, but we have a shared commonality in that - we're all playing variations of the same game, after all, within the same "Tradition."

In other words, the way I've been using the idea of universality or core essence is not in any way against one having a personal definition and experience.

Again, Niels Bohr: The opposite of one profound truth may be another profound truth.