D&D General What elements does D&D need to keep?

[Minigiant]

Maybe. Fly I'll give you as being major. Fireball not so much, in that though it looks big and impressive and it's hella fun to cast there's often better ways for a Wizard to mess up the opponents. And the 100 h.p. character was 90 h.p. yesterday; and 2 attacks a turn (at least in my game) is only jumping up from 3/2 attacks, so those are more incremental

Fireball is The game's first real room clearer.

100 hip points pulls you out of Power Word Kill range.

And two attacks a turn doubles your damage or major targets in combat.

Each edition had their own types of "Switch on" abilities and they tended to coalesce around certain level ranges.

 

[Aldarc]

Following from this poll, and as suggested by @Charlaquin in this follow-up thread...

The previous poll asked, "what makes D&D feel like D&D"? This poll takes the same general elements from that poll, but asks a different question - what elements should D&D carry forward into future editions? Vote only for things that you definitely want to see stay in the game; don't vote for the things you could live without, don't care about, or actively want to go away. And remember that this is your opinion; don't vote for what you think will stay, but what you think should stay.

As with the previous poll, you are welcome to elaborate, but please refrain from arguing. Everyone should feel free to share here without criticism.

D&D only needs the five elements: Water, Earth, Fire, Air, and Boron.

 

[MGibster]

don’t disagree, but I will point out that one thing the d20 System and its conversions of various other games did was expose those games to a wider audience. I would probably never have learned of Call of Cthulhu had it not been for the d20 conversion, and while the d20 System didn’t do the tone of CoC any favors, it did make the game more approachable to folks who were familiar with D&D but not eager to learn a new system (which at the time was me).

And d20 Call of Cthulhu was a legitimately good game in its own right. It had some fantastic advice for new Keepers, how to run the game in different eras (30s, 40s, 50s, 60s), and even how to incorporate Cthulhu into your D&D game.

 

[cmad1977]

Definitely not alignment

 

[jmartkdr2]

I honestly don't care about variety. I think there's too much variety in 5E and especially 3.5E.

Hmm. Yeah, we're not going to see eye-to-eye on this. Variety is my second- or third-favorite thing about DnD. Take that away and there's no good reason to choose this system.

(Aside form the fact that other people play it, which makes it easier to find people to play with. But now I wonder if anyone knows if more people are moving to PF2 or OSR.)

 

[MGibster]

Nah; D&D has major nostalgia value, and it's the RPG that everyone has heard of. It'd be more shocking if a different system had become as namebranded as D&D did.

The only game I can think of that's come close is Vampire in the 1990s. Vampire was never the household name D&D was in the 1980s, but it did spawn a prime time television show, was featured in an episode of Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, and those of an Evangelical bent may have heard their pastor or radio personality talk about the game.

 

[loverdrive]

D&D only needs the five elements: Water, Earth, Fire, Air, and Boron.

Also, morons.

 

[loverdrive]

Hmm. Yeah, we're not going to see eye-to-eye on this. Variety is my second- or third-favorite thing about DnD. Take that away and there's no good reason to choose this system.

(Aside form the fact that other people play it, which makes it easier to find people to play with. But now I wonder if anyone knows if more people are moving to PF2 or OSR.)

I feel like there's a lot more variety in Pathfinder

 

[MGibster]

Also, morons.

I'm pretty sure they're called Modrons.

 

[MGibster]

I could do without multiclassing. But I feel as though that might be left over resentment from 3.5.