What is the essence of D&D

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Guest 6801328]

Yeah, I have to admit I missed that on first glance!

@Nagol are you referring to the "finding loot" aspect of D&D? It's an interesting way of looking at it.

I was even just thinking more generally that worlds in which nobody in the present can replicate the mysterious (magical?) achievements of the past...are appealing to me. Whether that's the Third Age of Middle Earth, or post-Roman Britain in Bernard Cornwell's novels, or the lost glory of the Jedi order.

But, yes, one of the great things (to me) about found magic items...as opposed to bought or crafted ones...is that it evokes this feeling.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A note about genres because I think this is one of the strongest parts do D&D.

I can run a game in genres from stone age to Renaissance with little change. Stone age I have to limit weapons and armor a bit along with higher level magic and I'm done. Renaissance, include optional firearms.

That's what you mean by a range of genres? Same game, same classes, different weapons & armors (Ok, and social structures)?
That's eminently do-able from 3e on, little more than re-skinning gear is required. Mail becomes mammoth hide, broadsword becomes macuahuitl, wizard's spell book becomes cave paintings... OK, notched sticks & bones and bits of crystal for his traveling spellbook.

I haven't done anything more modern yet, but I could easily see near modern or steam punk (refluff some spells and be done). Or pick up the Eberron rules.

Steampunk's surprisingly easy if you're up for re-writing spells as technology (Myrlund famously did that back in the day, no?), easier the more amenable to re-skinning the system gets. You can go sci-fi be crossing over with gamma world with little issue.

But edition /barely/ matters in that. You had Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Six-guns & Sorcery back in the day. All the WotC eds (I'm pretty certain 5e didn't change this) let you re-skin /gear/, which is all you need to shift technology so long as you can make a case for the weapons/armor arms-race keeping pace (which is an oversimplification when you get to modern firearms, but could be fine for steampunk & sci-fi).

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Nagol]

Yeah, I have to admit I missed that on first glance!

@Nagol are you referring to the "finding loot" aspect of D&D? It's an interesting way of looking at it.

Yeah. It's one of the areas where 3.5 had me pulling my hair out. It was driven home to me when the PCs found a really nice magic item (Mirror of Mental Prowess) -- and promptly sold it and split the cash so they could fill out their "must-have" items instead.

For me, D&D is best when the players are anticipating what's in the next room, next treasure pile, spending time and money chasing leads for previous expeditions / rumoured items, and generally being forced to go out and engage the environment.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yeah, I have to admit I missed that on first glance!

@Nagol are you referring to the "finding loot" aspect of D&D? It's an interesting way of looking at it.

May be referring to the earlier takes on settings, and on the nature of items? I'm not sure when - it already seemed to be happening a lot when I started - we got this idea that today's magic-users need to be able to make any magic item, when, in genre, the distant past was often a pinnacle of magical power or a golden age. The genre's full of stuff like that: Tolkien's Ring and named glowing swords and Palantirs are essentially artifacts of the ancients. Artifacts/Relics were always part of the game. Greyhawk had empires destroyed by war or disaster in the past. Heck, even PoL fits that kind of theme, right up to (to my personal annoyance) the domains of the gods.

 

[Nagol]

I completely agree, although I was also thinking it in reference to three things:

1. Magic Shoppes. I know, I know, I just never liked them!

2. Artifacts; I still remember the first time reading the DMG (1e) section on artifacts, and how it sent a chill up my spine. Much as you note, the idea of these powerful things that we cannot match today.

3. D&D/Gamma World; they go together like chocolate and peanut butter! Seriously, though, a lot of D&D can be thought of as post-apocalyptic in a way. shrug Lost glories and all that.


EDIT- this is something worthy of its own thread, don't you think. Elfcrusher? Nagol?

Artefacts, crazy bits of extradimensional sections of dungeons, ancient huts with chicken legs that run around the forest, and magic items that potentially can be recreated, but are frankly easier to find (even if finding them requires extraordinary ability).

In older editions of D&D, the treasure tables combined with the item creation rules really brings home that much of the permanent items PCs can find were made long ago probably through processes that have been lost. And that's before you get into the artifact/relic craziness.

Reliance of found items accomplishes a bunch of things in general:

1. it gives a great reason for everyone to keep adventuring and not just sit down and make some stuff for half a year
2. it allows the introduction of class-leveling through the skewing of found treasure (so non-magic users can gain environmental protections, divinatory, and transport abilities mainly)
3. It makes PC advancement more unique -- sure there are 3 8th level fighters, but only I have the Hammer of Thunderbolts!
4. It provides some uncertainty in encounter design and gives the players a goal for investigation -- IF we are taking on Dim, the notorious anti-palaladin then finding out that his armour makes him invulnerable to fire would be... helpful in our planning and disastrous to discover in the field.

 

[Mort]

2. Artifacts; I still remember the first time reading the DMG (1e) section on artifacts, and how it sent a chill up my spine. Much as you note, the idea of these powerful things that we cannot match today.

Interestingly, while I found 4e magic items bland and uninspiring (hardly a unique opinion - and seemingly almost intended), 4e's treatment of Artifacts was really good.

I particularly liked how if an artifact's user drifted to far from the goals of the artifact, it would just disappear (or in the case of the Eye of Vecna, tear itself out of the user's eye socket and depart).

If/when I introduce an artifact or 2 into my current 5e (Greyhawk) campaign, I'm stealing many of the elements straight from there.

 

[Nagol]

May be referring to the earlier takes on settings, and on the nature of items? I'm not sure when - it already seemed to be happening a lot when I started - we got this idea that today's magic-users need to be able to make any magic item, when, in genre, the distant past was often a pinnacle of magical power or a golden age. The genre's full of stuff like that: Tolkien's Ring and named glowing swords and Palantirs are essentially artifacts of the ancients. Artifacts/Relics were always part of the game. Greyhawk had empires destroyed by war or disaster in the past. Heck, even PoL fits that kind of theme, right up to (to my personal annoyance) the domains of the gods.

3.0 really was the first edition which went out of its way to give item creation into the hands of the players. 2e was actually harder to make items than 1e.

I understand the urge. Tales of incredibly stingy DMs where nth level groups might have a few potions or scrolls between them were common even if those campaigns weren't. Allowing PCs to construct items short circuits the DM bottleneck. I find it undercuts one of my favoured aspects at the same time though.

 

[Guest 6801328]

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1. It makes PC advancement more unique -- sure there are 3 8th level fighters, but only I have the Hammer of Thunderbolts!

I was just thinking about this exact thing. And I want it to extend beyond magic items in as many ways as possible. I don't want my character differing from another character of level X and class Y solely because of the choices I made at each level, I want my character to be a unique result of the adventures he/she had along the way.

During my time away from D&D I played a lot of WoW, and the homogenization of that game, in a similar way to what happened in D&D, eventually spoiled it for me.