What Is The Essence of D&D?

[The Shadow]

It's become abundantly obvious that people have widely divergent ideas about what D&D fundamentally 'is', what is at its core. What is the common thread that binds together 1e, 2e, 3e, and presumably 4e, even though they are four very distinct games in both fluff and crunch?

For me I think it's a few things:

Classes. D&D is a game where you know what your character fundamentally 'is'. The rise of flexible multiclassing has altered that feel a fair bit, but it's still there.

Levels. D&D is a game where the good stuff comes in measured doses. Addictive, really.

Fantasy. It is a fantasy game, and a peculiar style of fantasy too. Not easy to classify, but you know it when you see it. That peculiar style can be a real detriment at times, though. D&D is often not very good for doing classic fantasy settings in.

Archetypes. I cannot imagine any incarnation of D&D that doesn't have the fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue.

Dungeon crawling. While it may not be the focus of a campaign, D&D definitely involves kicking in doors and taking names.

Personally, I'm willing to compromise quite a bit on the exact style of fantasy. It would be nice to be able to embody some different fantastic assumptions at times. And the details of dragon scale color and alignment? Chuck 'em, as far as I'm concerned. They aren't the essence.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

We had this thread last week. There I said:

• Dungeons
• Dragons
• Rolling a d20 to hit

 

[Mouseferatu]

What Is The Essence of D&D?

To crush your NPCs. To see them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of the DM.

(What? Someone was going to say it...)

 

[The Shadow]

We had this thread last week.

Whoops. Apologies to all concerned.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Whoops. Apologies to all concerned.

Aww, now I feel bad. I don't mean to shut down your thread. I think that perhaps the recycling of thread ideas has taken on a bit more churn since the 4th edition thing has got more people thinking about meta topics.

Also: killing people and taking their stuff. If it doesn't have murder and theft, it's not D&D.

 

[KarinsDad]

Also: killing people and taking their stuff. If it doesn't have murder and theft, it's not D&D.

You forgot breaking into their homes (err, lairs).

Paladin fare the world around. Breaking and entering, followed by murder (preferably by hacking to bits, but burning to a crisp is fun to watch too), followed by theft. Those Paladins are so darn good. They hardly ever rape anyone. Ditto for most of those Rangers.

 

[blargney the second]

Kill things, take their stuff. The rest is fluff.
-blarg

 

[Scarbonac]

Unremitting terror on the part of the PCs.

 

[Mephistopheles]

You forgot breaking into their homes (err, lairs).

Paladin fare the world around. Breaking and entering, followed by murder (preferably by hacking to bits, but burning to a crisp is fun to watch too), followed by theft. Those Paladins are so darn good. They hardly ever rape anyone. Ditto for most of those Rangers.

Reminds me of one of my players who ran a paladin who once took a preventive approach to saving innocent townsfolk from an imminent evil: kill 'em before the bad guys can get to them. He concluded that the evil had already corrupted them when the townsfolk started barricading themselves in their houses to keep him out. His faith did not falter. He proceeded to kick their doors down and put the now obviously tainted souls of the townsfolk out of their misery.

In case you're wondering, yes, he took their stuff, but only because the proceeds of crime should be confiscated and donated to the church.

It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If you only compare the editions to one another, they look pretty different, but if you compare them to other frpgs such as RoleMaster, Pendragon, Amber or GURPS, they look a lot more similar.

All have classes and levels, alignment, hit points, armour class, d20 to hit, saving throws, Vancian magic (in the sense of spells per X period of time rather than mana points) and a plethora of monsters and magic items.