L
lowkey13
Guest
*Deleted by user*
What is the essence of D&D
Celebrim
Legend
Class, level, hit points.
Everything that uses those things owes D&D and will feel something like D&D.
Those mechanics shape the D&D experience:
You have a role that gives you something you are good at.
Starting from very limited ability, you have the ability to get better at that role.
You have plot protection in the form of hit points that serve to pace the story and warn you when you are getting in over your head and may be in trouble.
There a lot of other things that are really iconic as well - the six attribute bonuses certainly would be high up there. Any time you see a design with six attributes, classes, levels, and hit points, you can pretty much guarantee that the designer got his start with D&D, or got his start in games where the designer got his start with D&D.
I'm not entirely sure the shared experience is as shared as people assume. There are people playing recognizable D&D set in 4th century Constantinople and focused heavily on political intrigue where the DM is geeking out on his love of ancient history and languages. There are people playing D&D in stone age settings where the world is covered in ice and giant mammals rule the world, where the DM is geeking out on his love of primitive survival techniques and archeology. There are people playing D&D in spaceships in outer space. But we know it is all D&D because the characters are defined first by what they can do, and their story is about how they steadily acquire resources and escape death and disaster with cunning, valor, and a generous helping of hit points.
Everything that uses those things owes D&D and will feel something like D&D.
Those mechanics shape the D&D experience:
You have a role that gives you something you are good at.
Starting from very limited ability, you have the ability to get better at that role.
You have plot protection in the form of hit points that serve to pace the story and warn you when you are getting in over your head and may be in trouble.
There a lot of other things that are really iconic as well - the six attribute bonuses certainly would be high up there. Any time you see a design with six attributes, classes, levels, and hit points, you can pretty much guarantee that the designer got his start with D&D, or got his start in games where the designer got his start with D&D.
I'm not entirely sure the shared experience is as shared as people assume. There are people playing recognizable D&D set in 4th century Constantinople and focused heavily on political intrigue where the DM is geeking out on his love of ancient history and languages. There are people playing D&D in stone age settings where the world is covered in ice and giant mammals rule the world, where the DM is geeking out on his love of primitive survival techniques and archeology. There are people playing D&D in spaceships in outer space. But we know it is all D&D because the characters are defined first by what they can do, and their story is about how they steadily acquire resources and escape death and disaster with cunning, valor, and a generous helping of hit points.
GrahamWills
Hero
"AC, HD, class, level, combat and magic mechanics, saving throws etc. etc. And those are easily to understand even by new players"
Not actually so. Having run for a lot of new players, D&D is not more obvious than Fate, Big Eyes Small Mouth, GUMSHOE, or, I am guessing, many others.
D&D's core advantage is simply that a lot of experienced players can sit down and play it together with little hassle. Not just because it's popular, but also because generic fantasy is both very understood and easy to play a wide variety of play styles in.
D&D's complete failure to make inroads into other genres shows that it is intimately tied to the genre. A reasonable was might be made that the essence of D&D is simply "being the most popular game for the fantasy genre".
If BRP or Runequest was dominating the genre, I don't imagine we'd have much of a different climate for RPGS. I don't think it's anything special about D&D, honestly
Not actually so. Having run for a lot of new players, D&D is not more obvious than Fate, Big Eyes Small Mouth, GUMSHOE, or, I am guessing, many others.
D&D's core advantage is simply that a lot of experienced players can sit down and play it together with little hassle. Not just because it's popular, but also because generic fantasy is both very understood and easy to play a wide variety of play styles in.
D&D's complete failure to make inroads into other genres shows that it is intimately tied to the genre. A reasonable was might be made that the essence of D&D is simply "being the most popular game for the fantasy genre".
If BRP or Runequest was dominating the genre, I don't imagine we'd have much of a different climate for RPGS. I don't think it's anything special about D&D, honestly
L
lowkey13
Guest
*Deleted by user*
OB1
Jedi Master
Here is my essential list
1. The D&D fantasy setting (all 45 messy years of it) of Monsters, Races, Worlds and Planes
2. A d20 to resolve uncertainty between players and DM
3. A rule set that modifies those d20 rolls with classes, spells and abilities
4. A rule set simple enough for a brand new player to RPGs to enjoy their first session and complex enough for the veteran to enjoy her thousandth
1. The D&D fantasy setting (all 45 messy years of it) of Monsters, Races, Worlds and Planes
2. A d20 to resolve uncertainty between players and DM
3. A rule set that modifies those d20 rolls with classes, spells and abilities
4. A rule set simple enough for a brand new player to RPGs to enjoy their first session and complex enough for the veteran to enjoy her thousandth
Oofta
Legend
I was just coming here to make that joke. Thank the gods I checked first!
You only need to thank one person. The one, the only, Sir McStabsalot.
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
I just came here to say that I find it interesting that two things you absolutely don't require to play D&D are:
1. Dungeons; and
2. Dragons.
1. Dungeons; and
2. Dragons.
Mercule
Adventurer
At a high level, it's two things: 1) A toolkit for a breadth of settings and 2) An approachable, large-grain system. Let me unpack that a bit:
1) Toolkit for a breadth of settings
D&D has lists. Lists of spells. Lists of classes. Lists of races. Lists of feats. Lists of magic items. Lists -- tomes, even -- of monsters. Heck, first edition even had lists of colors, smells, and freaking furniture. No setting has to use them all. In fact, I'd say most settings would benefit from being selective in how they mine the books, but that's an aesthetic. By mostly just mixing and matching from the menu, you can get Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, DragonLance, Eberron, Ravenloft, Kara Tur, Planescape, Spelljammer, and any number of others. Those settings are all stand-alone and do not require or imply any tie to the others. You can tie them together, but I'd argue that's just a matter of using Planescape, Spelljammer, or a homebrew setting in a similar vein.
D&D lets you pick up the core books and immediately start building your own setting. I know this because that's what hooked me as a 10 year old punk in the early 1980s. There really isn't any other system that provides the tools for doing that. Things like Hero or GURPS have the mechanical wherewithal to create anything, but little is ready made. Fate and Savage Worlds are similar, but lighter weight. Shadowrun, Star Wars, and a number of others have had almost as many crunchy books published as D&D, but the lists are all tied into their dedicated settings.
2) Approachable, large-grained system
D&D is easy to play. You've always been able to hand a new player a human fighter (standard human champion, in 5E) and turn them loose with 15 minutes of explanation. You can make convoluted characters, but the basics are straightforward enough to hit the ground running. It owes a lot of the approachability to the large-grained system. So, what do I mean by that?
What do hit points mean? How about armor class? If AC determines how hard you are to hit, why do most folks say that hit points aren't just the ability to take damage? If HP includes things like near misses, why do we need AC? It doesn't make sense. But, it doesn't matter. Many of the concepts are mechanically as gross (large, not icky) as building with Minecraft.
Anyone who has ever played in a point-based game knows that there's no way a class and level based game can compete for customizing your character. Again, it doesn't matter because most players show up to, you know, play. Many of them have a character "type" and don't mind having their 14 barbarian in a row, other than that one strength-based ranger. The levels, classes, HP, AC, even the six stats all factor into the large-grained nature of the game. It's a feature, not a bug.
The specific configuration of those large grains are a mix of taste and feature. Skills didn't used to be a thing. Now they are. Clearly, they aren't definitive for "what is D&D". I don't think that barbarian adds value to the game, as a class. Others love it. Some sick bastards want to ditch the 3-18 range in ability scores. I think that's a crime, but 2E Dark Sun wasn't "not D&D" just because they used 5d4, so who knows.
1) Toolkit for a breadth of settings
D&D has lists. Lists of spells. Lists of classes. Lists of races. Lists of feats. Lists of magic items. Lists -- tomes, even -- of monsters. Heck, first edition even had lists of colors, smells, and freaking furniture. No setting has to use them all. In fact, I'd say most settings would benefit from being selective in how they mine the books, but that's an aesthetic. By mostly just mixing and matching from the menu, you can get Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, DragonLance, Eberron, Ravenloft, Kara Tur, Planescape, Spelljammer, and any number of others. Those settings are all stand-alone and do not require or imply any tie to the others. You can tie them together, but I'd argue that's just a matter of using Planescape, Spelljammer, or a homebrew setting in a similar vein.
D&D lets you pick up the core books and immediately start building your own setting. I know this because that's what hooked me as a 10 year old punk in the early 1980s. There really isn't any other system that provides the tools for doing that. Things like Hero or GURPS have the mechanical wherewithal to create anything, but little is ready made. Fate and Savage Worlds are similar, but lighter weight. Shadowrun, Star Wars, and a number of others have had almost as many crunchy books published as D&D, but the lists are all tied into their dedicated settings.
2) Approachable, large-grained system
D&D is easy to play. You've always been able to hand a new player a human fighter (standard human champion, in 5E) and turn them loose with 15 minutes of explanation. You can make convoluted characters, but the basics are straightforward enough to hit the ground running. It owes a lot of the approachability to the large-grained system. So, what do I mean by that?
What do hit points mean? How about armor class? If AC determines how hard you are to hit, why do most folks say that hit points aren't just the ability to take damage? If HP includes things like near misses, why do we need AC? It doesn't make sense. But, it doesn't matter. Many of the concepts are mechanically as gross (large, not icky) as building with Minecraft.
Anyone who has ever played in a point-based game knows that there's no way a class and level based game can compete for customizing your character. Again, it doesn't matter because most players show up to, you know, play. Many of them have a character "type" and don't mind having their 14 barbarian in a row, other than that one strength-based ranger. The levels, classes, HP, AC, even the six stats all factor into the large-grained nature of the game. It's a feature, not a bug.
The specific configuration of those large grains are a mix of taste and feature. Skills didn't used to be a thing. Now they are. Clearly, they aren't definitive for "what is D&D". I don't think that barbarian adds value to the game, as a class. Others love it. Some sick bastards want to ditch the 3-18 range in ability scores. I think that's a crime, but 2E Dark Sun wasn't "not D&D" just because they used 5d4, so who knows.
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