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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shardstone" data-source="post: 9126380" data-attributes="member: 6807784">Have to make a whole new game at that point.Spell slots would turn into a point type system or something based on narrative conditions. All classes would disappear and entirely new concepts would pop up in their wake, some made from old classes, some never before seen.I routinely do this as a thought experiment. You get things like a Witcher-inspired class, a dialed-in "I have one power/element" magic-user class (with gish potentials), a Batman or Hawkeye-style item user that probably makes use of Blade in the Dark's flashback mechanics, the fighter class gets replaced with FromSoft-style Sekiro or Dark Souls characters who are human but can literally parry gods and jump like 15 feet in the air. Overall you'd make a way better, far more exciting game that'd feel very fresh, topical, and like an evolution of old school D&D. Shame we'll literally never, ever get to see it under WotC. D&D has become the ouroboros. It's genre is D&D. It must feel like D&D. It must have the things D&D has. In typical artistic or game evolution, you see the components of the current game reimagined OR polished in the next game. The DNA is there, but typically, designing forward means not worrying so hard over cleaving to the original concept. New ideas can be brought in. Keep in mind that the very idea of the Fantasy genre has radically evolved since the 70s and 80s. Sword and sorcery white dudes killing thinly-veiled non-white cultures (Conan) are long gone. Even our idea of Tolkien is radically different, turning to the Peter Jackson movies. That wizard fights with a sword. Those fighters can summon ghost armies or run up elephants or shrug off dozens of orcs on top of them. Not to mention the rise of anime in the West. Overall, Fantasy is just a lot different.Contemporary D&D is a terrible for trying to capture anything else in Fantasy. It used to be the game where all Fantasy ideas came and nestled. However, it has failed to keep up with the zeitgeist. My inspirations in the form of Sanderson, Dark Souls, and even Martin's works just cannot be replicated in D&D. It can't even really be aped all that well. It feels bad trying to do D&D outside of D&D without extensive homebrewing or third party support.And the thing is, it doesn't have to be like this. We can have [USER=16412]@Micah[/USER]'s old school FIghter - Wizard - Thief - Cleric play in the same game as my power-fluid Elden Ring game. There are more than enough highly skilled designers of all stripes that WotC can hire to make such a game possible.So frustrating knowing that D&D is chained like it is, when it could be so much more without really losing anything at all.</blockquote>

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