The D&D Experience (or, All Roads lead to Rome)

[Raven Crowking]

So how could we define D&D, then? How about something like this (and I'm just making it up as I write, so bear with me):

D&D is any fantasy roleplaying game that bears the brand name "Dungeons & Dragons," or is derived from a brand name D&D game and still retains enough factors from said version of D&D to bear a strong resemblance to it, in terms of game play and experience.

No, thank you.

I differentiate between the brand identity, and the identity of the game, thank you very much. If I accepted the above, I would also have to accept that Candyland was D&D should it be published under the D&D brand.

May I suggest:

D&D is any fantasy roleplaying game that is derived from any version of the D&D game, or the OGL published by WotC, and which still retains enough factors from the original version of D&D, as published by TSR, to bear a strong resemblance to it, in terms of game play and experience.

(I personally agree that 4e is D&D, but not due to the branding. Nor am I happy to give carte blanche to anyone to determine the meaning of the D&D game - as opposed to trademark - simply because they hold the trademark. Nor would I accept similarity to 3e, 4e, or even 2e as evidence that something was "D&D" in the game sense, if it did not also strongly resemble the game play and experience of the original game. YMMV.)


RC

 

[shadzar]

Well, you can't copyright game rules. As long as you don't use unique elements- Monsters, place names, uses of language, etc.- you're free to make your game as similar to the original as you'd like.

True, but you can't put the words "Dungeons and Dragons" on it to define it as D&D unless you hold the copyright/trademark.

So in defining things other than D&D products as D&D, you end up in the area where "Xerox" was used in commercials to mean "photocopy", and then Xerox must come defend their trademark or risk losing it. Right?

Defining D&D then must first start off as excluding things NOT of that specific trademark, and only including those things that bare it. Otherwise you are taking a risk, as well confusing the definition.

I would never accept anything without the trademark D&D on it as D&D, but that doesn't mean I accept everything WITH the trademark on it worthy of bearing it either.

 

[BryonD]

(I personally agree that 4e is D&D, but not due to the branding. Nor am I happy to give carte blanche to anyone to determine the meaning of the D&D game - as opposed to trademark - simply because they hold the trademark. Nor would I accept similarity to 3e, 4e, or even 2e as evidence that something was "D&D" in the game sense, if it did not also strongly resemble the game play and experience of the original game. YMMV.)

Exactly. Buying the rights and slapping the name on a cover would not make GURPS fantasy suddenly be a different game experience.

If GURPS fantasy IS D&D to someone today, then their concept of D&D is so amorphous as to be useless to me.

If it is NOT D&D today and it is legally possible for it to become D&D 5E (which it is), then it must take more than that to really qualify.

 

[pemerton]

Your hyperlink took me to page 13 which only has a couple very short posts by you. Can you provide a direct link or, better yet, a post #?

Sorry, I'm configured to 20 posts per page.

The post number is 246.

 

[pemerton]

Do you also get cheesed off when people say that D&D is essentially killing people and taking their stuff? That's a common phrase around here, including in defense of 4e despite it also generally reducing the game down into a tactical killing and theft game.

I'm personally not the biggest fan of that slogan, but it tends not to cheese me off because it tends to be used in a self-deprecating way. Whereas the assertion that "4e is really a skirmish came" is normally used in a context that gerenates an implication of superiority on the part of the speaker.

I do feel that 4e put far too much emphasis on the mini skirmish game element of the rules.

Now that doesn't irritate me at all, for at least three reasons. First, it's very clearly a statement of preference.

Second, it doesn't assert that 4e is a skirmish game. Rather, it just presupposes the obvious truth that the 4e combat enging is a tactical minis engine. And I don't disupte that - I've read the rles and played the game - I just dispute (i) that the combat engine exhausts the game, and (ii) that a combat engine of that sort is a necessary impediment to roleplaying. In fact, I find that the combat engine actually feeds roleplaying at my table - but that's primarily a truth about me, not about 4e.

Third, my familiarity with your posting history on these topics makes me fairly confident that you're don't have an agenda of denying that 4e is a serious roleplaying game.

(And fourth - my four year old daughter loves your "dancing boy" picture and makes me scroll back up to your posts so she can see it again whenever she's watching over my shoulder while I'm on ENworld.)

 

[pemerton]

You want to dictate what others think and/or tell you.

No. I have preference about how they describe me.

There is no rhyme or reason. Encounters exist to be had when needed, IS just a series of hack-n-slashes. You can loosely connect them with a story, but there is little when the reason the encounter exists is because the players want one now.

And this is a classic case of what I object to. You're here, telling me, that there is no rhyme or reason to the sequence of encounters in my game. That my game is just a series of hack-n-slashes.

And all that without any reference to the copious detail I've posted and referred to about how my game plays.

Me or anyone else seeing your way of playing as not a good way to play

I don't believe you have the least idea of how I play the game.

 

[The Shaman]

In fact, I've recently come to the realization that one of the things about 4e I don't like is that it feels like I'm participating in a pro-wrestling game. Lots of special, even weird, moves get thrown around in a fight, usually only once... reminds me very much of pro-wrestling.

Y'know, if someone hacked 4e to make a masked wrestlers game . . . I'd consider buying it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Y'know, if someone hacked 4e to make a masked wrestlers game . . . I'd consider buying it.

Dibbs on Senor Bag of Crap.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sorry, I'm configured to 20 posts per page.

The post number is 246.

Thanks for that one - an excellent summary of the way I DM. I'd XP you for it if I hadn't done so very recently for the thread in general

 

[Hussar]

I would love to get these four, along with yourself and Celebrim and Piratecat, sitting at the same table in the same pub for a long afternoon and evening discussing the sort of stuff we talk about in here. We could design the perfect game in one day!

Lan-"I suggest this year's GenCon, Tuesday afternoon-evening at the RAM for this"-efan

Heh, if you spring for the airfare.

I have no doubt nor disagree with the idea of roleplaying having matured and expanded, just like the rulesets of rpgs have matured and expanded. On the other hand, if the "evolved" definition can no longer encompass the original definition there is something entirely too limiting about the evolved definition.

The breadth and scope of gourmet hamburgers that I can get today for lunch does not mean that the simple beef patty on a bun is no longer a hamburger. The fact that most people (myself included) prefer to add some nuance and personality to their characters when playing an rpg does not mean that the guy who plays his elf ranger in a quiet, mechanistic way is not roleplaying.

Anyway, I stand with the folks that accept that the guy playing WoW or other CRPGs is, in fact, roleplaying. An admittedly bland and generic sort of roleplay, but roleplay none the less.

I got a bit sidetracked in my original answer away from the point I originally made. Tabletop RPG's presume that the player will be taking on the persona of the character he creates. Even going WAAYYY back to early D&D, you still had Alignment rules and strong penalties for straying from your alignment. You had fairly broad rules for training and what happened, and how much time and money it was going to smack you with, if you strayed from playing your character.

In other words, the persona of your character was enforced by the mechanics.

Just about every RPG ties the persona of the character to the mechanics in some form. MMO's do not. I can pillage, kill and say whatever I please and it has no mechanical effect whatsoever.

There is no presumption in an MMO that the people playing that game will assume any sort of persona, or role.

So, I'm going to disagree with you on this. MMO's are not role playing games in the sense that tabletop RPG's are. In an MMO, your role solely depends on your combat abilities and not any sort of persona.

Now, you can certainly role play IN an MMO. Of course you can. No problem whatsoever with that. And, to be fair, it's not a huge step from MMO to rpg. But, I still stand by the idea that something like WoW is not a role playing game (in the sense that role=persona).