D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[robertsconley]

I'm sorry, are you trying to all seriousness argue that a very much non-generic, heroic fantasy-specific RPG is "basically the same" as RPGs intentionally and consciously designed to be generic and genre-mutable? Because you should pull the other one, that one has bells on!

That's just funny and deeply unserious position. D&D is obviously not designed for that, and is much narrower and more specific than any of those three, all of which are actually designed to bend/flex to accommodate genres.

As someone who’s spent years with GURPS, Hero System, Fate, and other genre-flexible RPGs, I think the comparison to D&D deserves a more nuanced take.

D&D isn’t generic out of the box like GURPS is. But if you understand its design history, how hit points, armor class, and ability scores evolved, it becomes clear how it can be repurposed for settings with different assumptions and even other genres. It's not designed for flexibility in the same way as BRP or Fate, but it's not locked into a single expression either. The core structure can be adapted.

The real work in making D&D genre-flexible isn’t in the mechanics so much as in the "stuff", character options, monsters, equipment, spell lists, and so on. With enough effort, you can swap out those lists and make the game feel like something entirely different.

It's also worth noting that not all “generic” systems are plug-and-play. GURPS, especially in its early 4th edition years, leaned heavily into the toolkit approach. For a long time, it lacked ready-to-run materials like monster lists or adventures. That changed with releases like Dungeon Fantasy, Monster Hunters, and Action!, but building a playable GURPS campaign still takes a lot of work.

So when you compare the effort to realize a specific setting using GURPS, BRP, or Hero System to doing the same with the chassis of D&D, the gap isn’t as wide as you suggest.

That said, there are exceptions. D&D 4e, with its exception-based design, is much harder to retool. Repurposing 4e for a different genre is comparable to designing a full release of Magic: The Gathering, individual elements are manageable, but the sheer volume makes the workload massive. D&D 5e’s 20-level progression poses similar issues, though they’re not nearly as extreme.

The key point here is that most RPGs, whether generic or genre-specific, center gameplay around what human(oid) characters can do. That shared baseline serves as a kind of Rosetta Stone, letting designers port systems into wildly different settings. It’s still work, but in my experience, D&D, especially classic editions, doesn’t present unusual obstacles in that regard.

 

[TwoSix]

D&D isn’t generic out of the box like GURPS is. But if you understand its design history, how hit points, armor class, and ability scores evolved, it becomes clear how it can be repurposed for settings with different assumptions and even other genres. It's not designed for flexibility in the same way as BRP or Fate, but it's not locked into a single expression either. The core structure can be adapted.

The real work in making D&D genre-flexible isn’t in the mechanics so much as in the "stuff", character options, monsters, equipment, spell lists, and so on. With enough effort, you can swap out those lists and make the game feel like something entirely different.

The core issue with using D&D as a generic toolkit system is its magic system. D&D has an incredibly specific, bespoke magic system.

You can strip it out fairly easily, sure, and use the remaining resolution systems as a core chassis. But to do that, you've stripped out so much from the game that the question becomes "What's left?"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure a traditional DM might do this. Though most DMs would just have the bandit encounter whenever they wanted on a whim.

Though all tables and rules even have the ability to engineer things: this is one of the huge bad things about them. When anyone makes a rule or table they might engineer things.

I'm not sure why you are stating this as something that must happen? Maybe you are saying this always happens in your games, and if so that is fine.

So, okay, the DM sits back and lets the player create the bandits. I guess the twist here is the player knows all about the bandits and can sit back all smug and knowing? As opposed to a traditional player that would be culeless.


I guess a DM could do this?

My point is, the bandits being 'random' is kind of a fig leaf. I don't know what game it would be where the players create the bandits outright. In, say, DW a player might be asked a question and answer it with a statement about bandits. Or a player might say and do things in character which implies their existence. The GM is undoubtedly still going to supply most of the details.

And why question that last bit? It's not like Narrativist play has any monopoly on putting the screws to characters!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As someone who’s spent years with GURPS, Hero System, Fate, and other genre-flexible RPGs, I think the comparison to D&D deserves a more nuanced take.

D&D isn’t generic out of the box like GURPS is. But if you understand its design history, how hit points, armor class, and ability scores evolved, it becomes clear how it can be repurposed for settings with different assumptions and even other genres. It's not designed for flexibility in the same way as BRP or Fate, but it's not locked into a single expression either. The core structure can be adapted.

The real work in making D&D genre-flexible isn’t in the mechanics so much as in the "stuff", character options, monsters, equipment, spell lists, and so on. With enough effort, you can swap out those lists and make the game feel like something entirely different.

It's also worth noting that not all “generic” systems are plug-and-play. GURPS, especially in its early 4th edition years, leaned heavily into the toolkit approach. For a long time, it lacked ready-to-run materials like monster lists or adventures. That changed with releases like Dungeon Fantasy, Monster Hunters, and Action!, but building a playable GURPS campaign still takes a lot of work.

So when you compare the effort to realize a specific setting using GURPS, BRP, or Hero System to doing the same with the chassis of D&D, the gap isn’t as wide as you suggest.

That said, there are exceptions. D&D 4e, with its exception-based design, is much harder to retool. Repurposing 4e for a different genre is comparable to designing a full release of Magic: The Gathering, individual elements are manageable, but the sheer volume makes the workload massive. D&D 5e’s 20-level progression poses similar issues, though they’re not nearly as extreme.

The key point here is that most RPGs, whether generic or genre-specific, center gameplay around what human(oid) characters can do. That shared baseline serves as a kind of Rosetta Stone, letting designers port systems into wildly different settings. It’s still work, but in my experience, D&D, especially classic editions, doesn’t present unusual obstacles in that regard.

That's an awful lot of words to fundamentally not disagree with what I'm saying. I guess you did say you were nuancing it, so I can't complain!

But as I've repeatedly pointed out, it is 5E specifically that always gets suggested. It's literally never the editions you're discussing. No-one comes into a thread where people are discussing say, which RPG for John Wick-style action, and say "Well, why don't you build a John Wick style game based loosely on the OD&D rules-set!". They say stuff like "I just use 5E and change the names of stuff!". And further, let's be honest, even working from those editions require a level of creativity and follow-through using a generic system with supplements flatly does not. You can't even argue otherwise! It's simply a fact that you have to put massively more effort in. Whereas both generic RPGs with appropriate supplements, or specifically-designed RPGs require basically very little construction effort!

I already discussed Crawford. He's basically deconstructed and reconstructed OSR D&D into a peculiar generic system of his own design, which he then puts setting-specific classes and elements into. It's pretty cool - I have almost all his work, and have been a fan for a long time, except of his boneheaded decision to use AI art, which stopped me getting his most recent book (like if you can't afford art, don't put it in! But from how much he makes from Kickstarters etc. I am confident he can, in fact, afford some professional art, which makes it particularly galling!).

And again, Crawford's works both are not the ones being suggested, nor do they attract opprobrium. On the direct contrary, they often attract praise.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The core issue with using D&D as a generic toolkit system is its magic system. D&D has an incredibly specific, bespoke magic system.

You can strip it out fairly easily, sure, and use the remaining resolution systems as a core chassis. But to do that, you've stripped out so much from the game that the question becomes "What's left?"

Level Up's Voidrunner's Codex doesn't use the D&D magic system (the psionics system is quite different), and they seem to come out pretty well.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's an awful lot of words to fundamentally not disagree with what I'm saying. I guess you did say you were nuancing it, so I can't complain!

But as I've repeatedly pointed out, it is 5E specifically that always gets suggested. It's literally never the editions you're discussing. No-one comes into a thread where people are discussing say, which RPG for John Wick-style action, and say "Well, why don't you build a John Wick style game based loosely on the OD&D rules-set!". They say stuff like "I just use 5E and change the names of stuff!". And further, let's be honest, even working from those editions require a level of creativity and follow-through using a generic system with supplements flatly does not. You can't even argue otherwise! It's simply a fact that you have to put massively more effort in. Whereas both generic RPGs with appropriate supplements, or specifically-designed RPGs require basically very little construction effort!

I already discussed Crawford. He's basically deconstructed and reconstructed OSR D&D into a peculiar generic system of his own design, which he then puts setting-specific classes and elements into. It's pretty cool - I have almost all his work, and have been a fan for a long time, except of his boneheaded decision to use AI art, which stopped me getting his most recent book (like if you can't afford art, don't put it in! But from how much he makes from Kickstarters etc. I am confident he can, in fact, afford some professional art, which makes it particularly galling!).

And again, Crawford's works both are not the ones being suggested, nor do they attract opprobrium. On the direct contrary, they often attract praise.

I love Crawford's work, including his new book. The Ai art thing isn't a deal breaker for me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Some of this stuff seems to come back to @AbdulAlhazred's assumption that if the GM creates something, they'll make sure the players encounter it, but that is simply not the case if the GM is actually following the principles we're talking about.

Plenty of stuff I've put work into simply gets ignored by my players when I'm running a sandbox. Sometimes I'm even disappointed by that (yes, I have my own feelings and interests). But I don't let my disappointment dictate what happens; if the players aren't interested, then it is what it is. I focus instead on the things the PCs are interested in, the things they have decided to do and the places they have decided to go. And, because I do so, when I look back on the game, I am likely to be much happier when I see the ways in which my expectations were subverted and the strange and unexpected places the players chose to take the game. Forcing specific directions on the players wouldn't just be a derogation of my duty, it would result in less overall fun for me.

I don't assert that everything will be seen, some may even exist contingent on certain directions of play. However it's designed to be seen, and the GM can mostly both respect the constraints of plausible fiction AND manage to present pieces they've decided they want out there. I'd argue a lot of this is done to manage pacing, provide drama, and increase gameability. I find it puzzling that there's so much resistance to acknowledging what is plain fact.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Double post

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I love Crawford's work, including his new book. The Ai art thing isn't a deal breaker for me.

If he was like, really struggling, and his books desperately needed art, I'd disagree with it but could forgive it. But frankly his Kickstarters do extremely well, as do his aftersales on Drivethru (rarely does he not have multiple books in the top 100, often in the top 20), and actual art is not inherently expensive - you just have to actually look around and find reasonably-priced artists (there's no shortage of them!). So him refusing to do that really doesn't work for me. If he changes his tune next Kickstarter I'd happily pay more for a "real art" illustrated book. It's a black mark rather a permanent dealbreaker imho.

 

[Bedrockgames]

For clarity when I say D&D, to me that refers to any edition if D&D, retro clone or OSR modification. I don’t play 5E so if I comment on D&D, that usually isn’t the edition I have in mind