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

[Nagol]

Can you die if you still have healing surges?


I guess my question is if all other things are equal, would playing or running a game NOT be D&D if two consumable traits need to be tracked rather than one.

For the previous filters (Class as a defining factor, requires a DM) I can see that even if all other factors were the same, the game would feel different. I'm not sure that hit points being the singular consumable is sufficiently defining.

 

[Gryph]

Can you die if you still have healing surges?


I guess my question is if all other things are equal, would playing or running a game NOT be D&D if two consumable traits need to be tracked rather than one.

For the previous filters (Class as a defining factor, requires a DM) I can see that even if all other factors were the same, the game would feel different. I'm not sure that hit points being the singular consumable is sufficiently defining.

Absolutely, my last game as a player we lost 2 party members in a very brutal fight. They both had more than half of their surges left.

As for the consummable, I may retract it. I wasn't reaching for HP in the consummable sense as much trying to exclude wound track, death spiral type systems from consideration and the body/fatigue systems. What I am reaching for is a good statement of abstraction in combat resolution. The more crunchy, simulation bits you add to combat (wound penalties, hit location rules, armor as damage reduction, etc.) the further you move out of the core.

Let me ask this, Is there a difference between a significantly house ruled D&D game and a fantasy clone for purposes of this discussion?

 

[Lalato]

double post!

 

[Lalato]

I agree there are some commonalities across all forms of D&D. Let me pose a question. I feel Pathfinder is "more D&D" than 4e is, to me. Is Pathfinder Rome?

I don't see why not. Pathfinder is one of the more blatant derivative works you can find. It is, in essence, 3.5 D&D with a few tweaks. I bet there are people with more jarring houserules for 3.5 than you'll find in Pathfinder. That's part of the reason Pathfinder is marketed as backward compatible with 3.x. Because, it is, at its heart just another version of D&D 3.5.

--sam

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

First, there isn't really a progression built into most of them. Some have optional points that could be spent later but that isn't universal or definitive.

Which makes them not unlike 3-5 level PcCls.

Second, I don't really think they qualify as archtypes. Policeman, reporter, and such are bundles of skills that represent a job not a character type.

Depends on the package deal. Most of the package deals for creature types are clearly archetypal. And the police, etc., are just the ones provided as exemplars in the main book, which is edited to give you everything you need for a modern/spy/supers game. Look in Fantasy HERO and you'll find more.

Don't get me wrong- I don't want to include D&D sims in HERO as part of D&D. But if we can' eliminate it- as Mecurius wants, on non-mechanical grounds- we have to question the nature of what we're calling a "unique and universal D&D experience."

 

[Gryph]

Which makes them not unlike 3-5 level PcCls.



Depends on the package deal. Most of the package deals for creature types are clearly archetypal. And the police, etc., are just the ones provided as exemplars in the main book, which is edited to give you everything you need for a modern/spy/supers game. Look in Fantasy HERO and you'll find more.

Don't get me wrong- I don't want to include D&D sims in HERO as part of D&D. But if we can' eliminate it- as Mecurius wants, on non-mechanical grounds- we have to question the nature of what we're calling a "unique and universal D&D experience."

Fair enough. I disagree with Mercurius though, mechanics have too much impact on the experiential feel of a play session to be eliminated from this kind of discussion. We are talking about games here and games have rules. Rules affect play experience. I think it is a chimera to pursue a mechanics free Rome.

 

[Hussar]

EXACTLY!!!!!! Go read the OP. It wasn't until other people tried to impose the strawman of "defining D&D" that you guys started getting into this cat and mouse. All I'm saying is if one wants to talk about the D&D experience... Talk about your experience of D&D. We won't get anywhere by talking about some platonic ideal of what is D&D.

But I guess some folks would rather talk about fiction-first and rules-first and gamist and a lot of other semantic gobbledygook instead of actually finding common ground. Why? I have no idea, but it seems like a useless and futile exercise. I'm just pointing that out. Apparently, some folks don't agree with me. That's fine by me, but it has little, if anything, to do with the OP.

Now, this I disagree with. A lot of useful stuff has come out of this thread which has remained surprisingly congenial overall.

Discussing these things allows me to refine my own understanding and to question my assumptions, which is always a good thing. I might not admit even to myself that a viewpoint has changed within the thread, since I'm too busy typing to actually think, but, later on, down the road, I've certainly felt that my opinions have shifted on a number of issues.

On a side note, this is why I almost never drag in ancient history posts into a new thread. I don't assume that people carve their opinions in stone. Dragging in an off the cuff comment from four years ago isn't productive IMO.

 

[Hussar]

DannyA - Considering the depth and breadth of the Hero system, it would be virtually impossible to come up with a definition of ANY role playing game that could specifically exclude Hero on a mechanical level.

I would exclude Hero a different way though. The basic function of the Hero system is that it is a generic system. That's the way it's presented. Granted, you can then go on to make that generic system emulate D&D, but, you can also emulate Traveller or Battletech too if you wanted. The Hero system, at its base, is not D&D because D&D is not a generic game.

Which nicely excludes GURPS too. Sure, I can emulate D&D using GURPS, but, at that point, all I've done is turn a generic system into a clone of another system. At that point, it becomes D&D, but, the basic game isn't.

D&D, as far as people have agreed with is:

A class based system
A system which presumes the presence of a DM (although it doesn't necessarily require it as evinced by solo modules.)

I would add that D&D is not a generic system. The basic presumption of the game is that you will be playing a certain kind of game (heroic - in the sense that you start weak and gain power in a sort of Cambellian Hero's Journey) in a certain genre (fantasy).

So, if we go with those three elements: class based, with a DM to adjudicate, and non-generic fantasy based, that excludes most other activities.

 

[pawsplay]

DannyA - Considering the depth and breadth of the Hero system, it would be virtually impossible to come up with a definition of ANY role playing game that could specifically exclude Hero on a mechanical level.

I would exclude Hero a different way though. The basic function of the Hero system is that it is a generic system. That's the way it's presented. Granted, you can then go on to make that generic system emulate D&D, but, you can also emulate Traveller or Battletech too if you wanted. The Hero system, at its base, is not D&D because D&D is not a generic game.

Which nicely excludes GURPS too. Sure, I can emulate D&D using GURPS, but, at that point, all I've done is turn a generic system into a clone of another system. At that point, it becomes D&D, but, the basic game isn't.

I don't see how it excludes either. Not all GURPS or Hero games are "D&D," but some of them are. In fact, in the mid 90s, I participated in a Hero conversion of D&D with some adapted Palladium material. I assure you, it was very D&D. Probably moreso, IMO, than most games of 4e. You didn't have healing surges and "sliding" and tieflings as a core race, and so forth. You have people rolling to hit, doing damage, casting spells, getting loot, slaying monsters, etc.

 

[Hussar]

But, that's precisely my point Pawsplay. You took a system and then adapted it to emulate another system. You did so successfully, so that the emulated system feels the same as the base system.

However, that doesn't mean that the base system presumes that you are going to do that. Just because I can drive my sports car cross country does not make it an off road vehicle. It just means that through my own perserverence, I can use one tool to do the same thing as another tool.

Perhaps a better analogy. I can play MAME ROMs on my PC but that does not mean my PC is an Atari console, despite the fact that I can have a one button joystick and play Space Invaders quite well on my PC. All that means is that I can emulate an Atari console on my PC and do so quite well.

And, as a side note, can we please stop with the cheap shots? "Moreso than most games of 4e"? How many games of 4e have you played/observed? How much information are you actually basing this on? Or is it just enough to keep somehow scoring points in a game that no one else is interested in playing?

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On a side note, I had a fantastic D&D moment in the last session we played in. We were defending a ruined fort from invading goblinoid cultists. Having a blast. One of our NPC allies was a badly damaged warforged engineer (as in the siege type) who was manning (droiding?) our lone catapult. Near the end of the battle, the bad guys having broken into the fortress and things were hanging in the balance, and the catapult out of ammunition, the warforged launches himself from the catapult and aims for the leader of the opposition.

Sails through the air.

Rolls a natural 20, critting the leader and killing it outright.

If that's not D&D, I have no idea what is.