What *is* D&D?

[Doug McCrae]

Roleplaying games are a form of entertainment that contains both game and story elements.

D&D is a fantasy roleplaying game with a vaguely medieval vaguely European setting, classes, levels, d20 to hit, armour class, hit points, lots of monsters and lots of magic, which primarily supports the dungeon bash format.

The aspects I enjoy the most happen to be:
1) Face to face interaction with friends.
2) Tactical combat.
3) World exploration.

But what I like is, and should be, irrelevant to what D&D is.

 

[Orius]

Killing Things and Taking its Stuff, all the way. And Some other thing, namely spending that money on ale and whores.

Seriously, I think pretty much all of it can fall under what D&D is.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

D&D is the first, commercially published and successful RPG. The game, or at least the name, is over 30 years old. Despite numerous re-writes and rules changes (and a lot more than four editions) the game, though much changed (and not all for the best) is still rocognisable as an offshoot of the original rules. Though the current edition with its numerous classes, feats and skills is much too complex and rules heavy for my tastes, I appreciate that many folk love it.

As a class, level, and hit point based system D&D could have created a mould that all other RPGs followed. Fortunately gamers have fecund imaginations. D&Ds success, together with desire for alternative ways to role-play led to other, classless and non-level based games and different ways to resolve conflict (which despite some folks opinion does not necessarily mean combat) using (usually) dice resulted in dozens of different games and different genres. Thanks to other early games (like RuneQuest and Traveller) genres and conflict resolution systems changed and the cross-fertilisation continues.

What is D&D?
D&D is one of many RPGs.

 

[shilsen]

But what I like is, and should be, irrelevant to what D&D is.

Kudos. If more people realized that about their tastes and D&D, we'd have a whole lot less arguing on these boards and elsewhere.

And the 4e forum would be unrecognizable.

 

[Desdichado]

D&D today is all of those things. My ideal D&D seriously reduces the emphasis on KT&TS, mechanical character development and frankly rather boring tactical combat, though.

 

[Desdichado]

But what I like is, and should be, irrelevant to what D&D is.

How so? For purposes of discussion, what you like is the only thing we can really talk about in relation to what D&D is.

Also, what D&D should be is equal to the aggregate of what it's fans want. While one individual fan's voice shouldn't overpower the rest, one individual fan's voice is not irrelevent.

 

[DaveyJones]

When did you start paraphrasing yourself in the 3rd person?

when i got confused as to which account i was logged in under. :doh:

 

[Deset Gled]

D+D is a brand. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[mhensley]

Mongol General: Conan! What is D&D?

Conan: To kill the monsters, see them fail their morale checks, and to take their stuff.

Mongol General: That is good! That is good.

 

[Reynard]

200 votes and off the front page -- I think it is a reasonable time to take a look at the results and see if we can determine anything.

"Heroic Stories of Adventure" and "Roleplaying and Character Development" came in tops, which surprises me a little on the second one there. It is a good sign, I think, but I expected it to sit somewhere a little lower on the totem pole.

"Killing things and Taking its Stuff" is popular with about 2/3 of respondents, as are "Creating/growing a fantastic world" and "beinga fun way to burn a few hours". I wonder how much crossover there is, because "casual gaming" seems at odds with longer term character and setting development.

Another surprise for me was that the "character build" beat out "tactical combat and complex rules" -- but that might be my fault for putting them together. Some people like a simple system with lots of tactical option overlaid, and some people want extremely rich simulationist rules but don't care much about tactics. Even so, only half or so of respondents voted "build" which is odd considering how important it is in 3.5 and appears to be in 4E (although 4E might reduce the "build" by limiting player chocie through rigid roles -- no one seems sure yet where "roles" means you have to do something or that you always can.

And, as usual, a significant minority just *had* to be different.