What defines "D&D?"

[ExploderWizard]

D&D is:




Snicker-snack

 

[rogueattorney]

D&D is a brand of fantasy role playing games published by TSR from 1973 to 1999-ish and by Wizards of the Coast from 2000-ish to present.

 

[Cadfan]

Richard Dawkins has a discussion in one of his books about how people's understanding of the nature of a "species" tends to be impeded by an affectation for a way of looking at the world as if it were governed by platonic forms. That is, they envision that there's some ideal "raccoon" that defines what a "raccoon" is, and they get all confused about the idea that a raccoon could have evolved because that means that at one time there was a species of "not-raccoon" that has now transformed into "raccoon." They demand to know whether not-raccoons started having raccoon babies, or ask any number of misinformed questions, because they find it difficult to intuitively grasp how a species made this massive change for "not-raccoon" into "raccoon."

His point is to explain that species exist on a continuum. Not every member of a species is the same. The population as a whole, if it interbreeds, shares some traits, but a lot of variation is included. Over time these traits shift, or maybe a group gets split off and no longer interbreeds, and the general composite of the population ambles around. Eventually humans come along and with our tendency to insist on names and categories we start putting things in boxes- raccoon, not-raccoon, etc, as if there were some essentialism that creates clear and unbreachable distinctions between genetically connected populations separated by time and perhaps geography.

 

[Ariosto]

People design games, and people (or at least corporations) own trademarks.

There's a curious asymmetry here, in a special treatment of "D&D" as generic whereas all other trademarks are highly specific. I doubt that someone with a greater investment in the Palladium brand would be so delighted to have it so denatured into "D&D" -- and, from what I have seen, I would expect quite fierce objections if 3e or 4e were similarly categorized as "Palladium" or "RuneQuest".

 

[billd91]

For me, D&D is a game with:

• classes
• levels
• humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, half-orcs, and half-elves as main protagonist races
• Armor Class
• hit points
• Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha
• funky and/or useful magical gear
• iconic (and sometimes weird) monsters from shriekers to kuo-toa
• a variety of polyhedral dice
• a history

For me, that history part is fairly important. D&D wouldn't be the same without it's quirks, continuity, and lore. Vecna's relics, Orcus's wand, Bigby's hand spells, bracers of armor, Frostbrands, helms of brilliance, etc. They may not all appear in a particular campaign, many cannot appear in certain campaigns, but they're part of the game's richness. D&D without its history, not just mechanics, wouldn't really be D&D any more than Call of Cthulhu would be CoC using the same mechanics but without the idea of Great Old Ones lurking in the horrific shadows.

 

[howandwhy99]

For me:

• Pattern finding and pattern recognition as the two initial and primary game mechanics
• Class as role and the scope of the game for each player
• Cooperative design
• Gaining XP as the game objective
• Fantasy reality mishmash added to by every participant
• Unknown world and role exploration
• Mystery(puzzle) solving with the world and roles as the mystery
• Win/Loss conditions and rewards in a story puzzle

In other words, The Original Situation Puzzle Solving Game.

 

[WizarDru]

I was gonna try and distill it down...and then billd91 did it all for me. Pretty much everything he says is exactly what I would have said.

 

[Lidgar]

- Dungeons (and Wilderness) to loot
- Dragons (and other monsters) to kill
- A group PC's with fantasy races, classes, levels, Armor Class, Hit Points, and 6 Attributes (that typically range between 3-18) to conduct the aforementioned looting and killing
- Graph paper to map stuff on

There is other stuff, like a combat system that relies on dice rolls to determine success and damage extent, and Saving Throws, but the above is the "core" that comes to mind.

 

[TerraDave]

Below are results of a poll I did on october 2007.

It has a lot of specific things, 95% of which I think should be in D&D (and I could add 10-50 more).

But of course, almost all these things have been in the many variations of the game. I think there is much more commonality across editions then is sometimes acknowledged.

d20s 90.45%
d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s, d12s, d00s 76.97%
Six abilities 76.12%
3-18 ability scores 54.21%
Alignment (3 or 9 point) 41.29%
HP 75.56%
AC (damage avoidance) 66.29%
Saving Throws 61.52%
Critical Hits 52.81%
Levels (for class/character) 86.52%
Spells 90.73%
spells per day 28.37%
6 or more kinds of Armor 54.78%
chainmail 51.97%
20 or more kinds of weapons 58.15%
polearms 48.31%
Gems and Gold 74.72%
Magic Items 86.80%
“” that boost strength, etc. 23.31%
eXPerience points 77.53%
Dungeon adventuring 88.48%
Wilderness adventuring 80.06%
City adventuring 76.12%
CLASSES 83.99%
fighter 79.21%
rogue/thief 76.12%
wizard/magic-user 78.09%
cleric 75.56%
barbarian 22.75%
druid 35.96%
paladin 39.04%
(sep) sorcerer 20.22%
bard (pc or prc) 25.28%
monk 19.10%
assassin (pc or prc) 20.22%
anti-paladin/blackguard 16.85%
Multi-Classing 62.92%
RACES 84.55%
human 85.11%
elf 81.18%
dwarf 80.90%
halfling 64.33%
gnome 28.93%
halfelf 34.83%
halforc 24.44%
tiefling 14.33%
half-ogre 9.55%
MONSTERS 84.83%
dragons 87.92%
orcs 77.53%
kobolds 69.38%
goblins (and kin) 78.09%
giants 76.69%
trolls 74.44%
beholders 66.85%
mind-flayers 65.17%
drow 50.28%
giant/dire insects and animals 55.62%
elementals (and kin) 67.98%
demons and devils 71.91%
fey 57.87%
griffons and minators (and so on) 65.73%
dinosaurs 28.65%
tarasque 40.17%
evil humans 70.79%
OTHER 26.40%
NONE OF THE ABOVE 1.69%
NO D&D 0.28%

 

[Riposte]

-A strategy combat/action system
-(Optional) Stat progression
-A focus on narrative freedom parallel to the combat system
-Rule 0