Should D&D do all fantasy?

[Crothian]

From another thread since we don't have the split function. This post got me thinking about things

I'm saying that D&D only addresses one sub-genre of fantasy, and it should include more, specially if it's "the definitive fantasy RPG". As I said, I want to play Conan, A Game of Thrones, Viriconium, Malazan, Perdido Street Station, The Wheel of Time, The Black Company, Dragonlance, Ravenloft and even Discworld.

Oddly, D&D has done some of those things he mentions but that's not the point. Should D&D have broaden itself to include all types of fantasy or are people happy the D&D just basically does D&D fantasy?

Is D&D the "the definitive fantasy RPG"? If not, what is?

 

[dmccoy1693]

Is D&D the "the definitive fantasy RPG"? If not, what is?

No, nor will it ever be Link:

That person [that purchased non-D&D RPGs] left D&D looking for something simpler, something more complicated, or something different, and all the second tier companies offered the customer their various options.

The OGL allowing games like Spycraft, M&M, and so on allowed for customers to not deviate to far from D&D. 4E, what we know of it thus far, eliminates that avenue. Instead, when someone leaves D&D, there will probably be a longer road for them to come back to D&D.

 

[Joe Sala]

Just a clarification: it was me who wrote that, but "the definitive fantasy RPG" was a quote from another forum member.

 

[jdrakeh]

Is D&D the "the definitive fantasy RPG"? If not, what is?

No, it is the most popular and best known fantasy RPG, however. I'm not sure that there is a fantasy (i.e., a fantasy only) system out there that covers the full breadth of the genre. Frankly, I think that this is where generic systems like GURPS and Savage Worlds shine. While the still won't do every possible brand of fantasy well, I think that they handle more brands, better, than D&D does.

Having said all of the above and further acknowledging that I would love to see a more wide open fantasy RPG suited to different mode emulation. . . If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Millions of people the world over crave the highly fantastic, low verisimilitude, style of purely escapist fantasy that is D&D's primary currency. Millions.

For whatever reason, more people prefer that mode of fantasy than they do any other (or are at least more willing to pay for that mode of fantasy than they are any other). Mucking with this guaranteed popular, best selling, formula doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Don't believe a single system can cover all of fastasy and definitely to everyones satifaction.

D&D does what it does, which is pretty much high magic fantasy modeled on D&D. It never really did Conan or Leiber or Tolkien not without some house ruling. In the past the big issues were magic or in 3e the required magic items assumption and the balance issues resulting from fiddling with this.

It was easy run low or non magic campaings pre 3e but magic items were built into 3e. I am not saying this could not be done, lots of people have done it but not by the RAW that I have ever heard.

It might be easier to do a wider range of fantasy under the new 4e rules, though that remains to be seen, since I don't have them yet

As for the definitive fantasy well what is definitive fantasy. If we could agree on that there might be a tiny chance to build a game system to cover it.

 

[mmadsen]

Is D&D the "the definitive fantasy RPG"?

In a sense, yes, D&D is the definitive fantasy RPG, because it defined what a fantasy RPG was, and its influence has been immense.

On the other hand, D&D is not at all equipped to emulate most fantasy settings -- or at least earlier editions certainly weren't; I guess the verdict is still out on 4E.

I do think D&D could benefit from specifying fewer things in the mechanics that break with standard fantasy tropes, but I don't think most people want to see D&D become purely a kit for building up one's own fantasy game from scratch.

 

[Crothian]

Just a clarification: it was me who wrote that

Hope you don't mind me borrowing your statement

 

[UngainlyTitan]

No, it is the most popular and best known fantasy RPG, however. I'm not sure that there is a fantasy (i.e., a fantasy only) system out there that covers the full breadth of the genre. Frankly, I think that this is where generic systems like GURPS and Savage Worlds shine. While the still won't do every possible brand of fantasy well, I think that they handle more brands, better, than D&D does.

Don't know Savage Worlds but Gurps yields a different play experience than D&D and I think part of the reason that D&D is popular is the play experience it delivers.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It never really did Conan or Leiber or Tolkien not without some house ruling.

How about Vance? I ask because I read The Dying Earth and The Eyes of the Overworld recently and they're the closest thing to a D&D world I've seen in fiction. The Dying Earth is teeming with wandering monsters, and ruins. When Mazirian leaves his mansion to chase the woman through the forest he has something like half a dozen encounters with monsters. Magic items are plentiful. 'Magic user' is a particularly appropriate term as to be a wizard in Vance is to own a large collection of magic items. Voynod, the wizard who travels with the pilgrims, never casts a spell once, relying solely on gear. Maybe he can't.

But yeah, D&D doesn't do all fantasy, how could it? In two important respects, Vancian magic and the arcane/divine split, it models only specific works of fiction. A proper generic fantasy magic simulator would give you building blocks and maybe a few example systems such as Vancian and Earthsea. In other words it would be a heck of a lot of work and only gearheads would want to run it.

 

[jdrakeh]

Don't know Savage Worlds but Gurps yields a different play experience than D&D and I think part of the reason that D&D is popular is the play experience it delivers.

GURPS offers coverage of more genre modes as-written, but D&D offers truly exceptional coverage of its comparatively smaller number of genre modes as-written (i.e., D&D covers fewer genre modes as-written but the handful that it does cover it covers very well).
My point earlier was not that GURPS is a better system than D&D but that it's more versatile by design, specifically including rules and advice for many more genres and genre modes than D&D does by design.

The issue is (as you point out) that people generally don't want more versatility -- they want high magic, low levels of reality simulation, and escapism in large quantities. D&D is these things. While generic systems can emulate these things, they can't emulate them as well as D&D can because generic systems aren't as focused in that regard -- provisions were made to accommodate a larger array of genres and genre modes at the cost of tightly focusing on any one.

D&D is the best-selling fantasy RPG on the market, despite its lack of support for many genre modes as-written because a significantly smaller portion of the market seems to be interested in the genre modes that D&D doesn't cover (or doesn't cover especially well). The few genre modes that D&D does cover by design are the few genre modes that the majority of consumers have an interest in. D&D has tapped the market for fantasy RPGs.

Dilluting that pool to cover genre modes that comparatively few people care about would be madness. I don't think that making the same trade-off generic systems do (i.e., broader coverage for less focused emulation) is a wise decision in the case of D&D. D&D works. It might not do eveything that a generic system can do, but it certainly does what it can do better than any generic system (that's a mouthful!) And that is what most people want.

[Edit: I just realized that this may be construed and saying that publishers of generic systems are effectively living off of D&D's table scraps. This was not my intent. Generic systems have a wide audience, as well; merely not as wide as D&D's (I don't think anybody would contest that).]