D&D 5E The Essence of D&D

[Olgar Shiverstone]

What is the essence of D&D?

To crush the monsters

See them looted before you

And hear the lamentations of the DM

CROM!

Would XP, but "you must spread some XP around ..."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Fair points. You can certainly make efforts to run D&D as a super-serious game. But I'm not at all convinced that the mechanics have ever supported that style of play. I'd say they work against it pretty hard, in fact.

Hitcher, honest question, why do you always take what I say to mean something really extreme?

The space between "outright goofy" and "super-serious" is pretty massive. 95% of D&D games I've played were somewhere in that space. 2E, in my experience, tended towards the serious, because it was all presented in a very serious tone and there was silly stuff, but it tended to be tucked away. Whereas 3E tended towards the goofy, pretty strongly, right from get get-go, when you were summoning Celestial Badgers and leaping around with double-swords, and so on. 4E was somewhere in between those, in my experience, sillier than 2E, but easier to take seriously than Celestial Badgers. 5E seems to be in a similar place to 4E.

In the grand scheme of RPGs, D&D is perhaps slightly closer to the goofy end of the axis than the serious end, design-wise, but it's still very near the middle (all IMO).

I would like to clarify my point (4), however. When I was talking about the "scientific" feeling of magic, I was really thinking about the way the player mechanics work, rather than about the possibility of strangeness and more magical magic in the setting. I think that this is a consequence of the fact that (a) whenever you try to lock down and systematise magic, it loses a lot of the strangeness that makes it magical, and (b) the magic system is D&D is particularly rigid and predictable, with all the spells in their own little boxes. But there is certainly still the possibility to keep mystery and magic alive in the NPCs and environment of the game (as long as the DM doesn't fall into the trap of making all the NPCs and environments follow the exact same rules as the PCs). A good example of this is the Trinkets table in Basic, which is not coincidentally one of my favourite sections of the rules.

I think Earthdawn and many others show that it's possible to both quantify magic enough to make it totally playable and to have "everyday magic" without making it un-magical, but let's be fair, D&D was operating in a vacuum, in the dark, they had no idea what a magic system could or should like, and by that standard, it's not bad for magic-ness. But it's the obsession with neat little "spells" that both increases D&D's goofy-ness and makes the magic seem "scientific". I do wish that, for semi-magic classes (Ranger or Paladin, for example) who weren't primarily "about spells", in 5E, they'd gone with more 4E-style "magic powers", which defy the sort of analysis spells are subject to. But hey, they sort of have, with Barbarians/Monks. So, not bad. Trinkets are definitely an example of how to do it right.

 

[The Hitcher]

Q:

Hitcher, honest question, why do you always take what I say to mean something really extreme?

The space between "outright goofy" and "super-serious" is pretty massive.

A:

My introduction to D&D was through deadly serious settings and very impressive RP and adventure design...

Sorry, I didn't realise "deadly serious" was less serious than "super-serious". I'll have to check my seriousness scale more closely next time

In the grand scheme of RPGs, D&D is perhaps slightly closer to the goofy end of the axis than the serious end, design-wise, but it's still very near the middle (all IMO).

Maybe. I don't think situating it on such a continuum tells us much about the way the game works or plays, though.

I think Earthdawn and many others show that it's possible to both quantify magic enough to make it totally playable and to have "everyday magic" without making it un-magical, but let's be fair, D&D was operating in a vacuum, in the dark, they had no idea what a magic system could or should like, and by that standard, it's not bad for magic-ness. But it's the obsession with neat little "spells" that both increases D&D's goofy-ness and makes the magic seem "scientific". I do wish that, for semi-magic classes (Ranger or Paladin, for example) who weren't primarily "about spells", in 5E, they'd gone with more 4E-style "magic powers", which defy the sort of analysis spells are subject to. But hey, they sort of have, with Barbarians/Monks. So, not bad. Trinkets are definitely an example of how to do it right.

I agree with pretty much all of that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sorry, I didn't realise "deadly serious" was less serious than "super-serious". I'll have to check my seriousness scale more closely next time

Oh, I get you! Yeah, the settings were deadly serious, what I should have said is that the play wasn't, but it wasn't "goofy" either!

Maybe. I don't think situating it on such a continuum tells us much about the way the game works or plays, though.

Yeah, I dunno either way on that, but I know the D&D I played (with various groups) was a lot less goofy than some people reported theirs to be! I also know that 3.XE seemed intensely goofy to me, relative to previous editions, but some people seemed to take the ridiculous-ness of double-swords and Celestial Badgers and Monkey Grip and Eldritch Knights and Shadowdancers and so on (those names...) in their stride, so I presume their D&D was always that goofy (this may be a faulty presumption, of course).

 

[pemerton]

On the "seriousness" thing - I've always played D&D more seriously than Gygax seemed to, judging at least from the "Monty Haul" write-ups in the old Dragon magazines.

Play itself is sometimes (often, even) light-hearted, but the gameworld/fiction itself is not.

For me, the original OA sets my preferences for tone.

 

[KarinsDad]

Well, if you want to be snarky about it . . .

Humor, not snark. Guess you missed the point about one hit dragons.

4e and 1996 OA both, as part of PC building, give PCs a backstory that integrates them into a conflict-riven gameworld (analogous to the kingdom ruled by a dragon tyrant).

So does the 5E Starter Set.

In other words, it's not particularly about killing dragons, in a single blow or otherwise. It's about a game that has mechanics that support a story about fantasy heroics rather than fantasy mercenaries.

I was just responding to the quote. Iv'e never ever read of killing a dragon in a single blow in literature. It's not a story type I'm familiar with and it's not something my players would enjoy. One PC kills the BBEG with a single blow of the mcguffin and the rest of the PCs stand around with their fingers up their butts. In literature, there is often one hero. In my game, there are six. But I was only focused on that quote, not the rest of your story preferences.

 

[pemerton]

Humor, not snark. Guess you missed the point about one hit dragons.

<snip>

Iv'e never ever read of killing a dragon in a single blow in literature.

In "A Wizard of Earthsea" Ged kills several dragons each with a single spell or blow (delivered while himself shapechanged into a dragon). In "The Hobbit" Smaug is killed with a single arrow.

But as I said (and as you quoted) it's not particularly about the one-hit dragon kill. It's about the focus of play - heroic fantasy rather than fantasy mercenary - which the Moldvay quote evokes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In "A Wizard of Earthsea" Ged kills several dragons each with a single spell or blow (delivered while himself shapechanged into a dragon). In "The Hobbit" Smaug is killed with a single arrow.

But as I said (and as you quoted) it's not particularly about the one-hit dragon kill. It's about the focus of play - heroic fantasy rather than fantasy mercenary - which the Moldvay quote evokes.

Sigurd gutted a dragon with one 'blow' (though, to be fair, it was more of an assassination). In the movies, a dragon will often take only one real wound, right at the end of the fight. The only exception I can think of is Dragonslayer, where the poor thing was wizarded to death.

In D&D terms, though, whittling down hps doesn't always require clear wound-producing blows. All those other arrows rattling off his scales could have been whittling down Smaug's hps, for instance. The whole scene may not have hinged on Smaug rolling a natural 1 on his save vs an Arrow of Dragon Slaying.

 

[Starfox]

Sigurd gutted a dragon with one 'blow' (though, to be fair, it was more of an assassination). In the movies, a dragon will often take only one real wound, right at the end of the fight. The only exception I can think of is Dragonslayer, where the poor thing was wizarded to death.

In D&D terms, though, whittling down hps doesn't always require clear wound-producing blows. All those other arrows rattling off his scales could have been whittling down Smaug's hps, for instance. The whole scene may not have hinged on Smaug rolling a natural 1 on his save vs an Arrow of Dragon Slaying.

As you observe, all these "one blow" situations are probably best reflected in hp attrition in DnD - only the blow that actually brings you to negative hp is a telling one. Any more on this topic and we're off-topic for this thread.

 

[Derren]

The "essence" of D&D is what holds it back.

It started as a wargame and whenever WotC is in doubt they default back to being a wargame.

Maybe it is just wishful thinking, but I do not think just being a wargame is enough any more. Especially as co puters get better and better in providing a wargame gameplay and also offer better and better social tools.

But for whatever reason, WotC shies away from expanding D&D beyond it.