What is the essence of D&D

[lowkey13]

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[Arnwolf666]

I was having that talk pre-Internet!

We discussed the dart back then. We just found the dagger more useful because it could be used for melee or missile. And the staff was an equally good choice because of your chance of killing the lower hp critters in one hit.

Dear god we tried to keep the critters off and he wizard if we could. But we were generally outnumbered. We really wanted to get surprise so we could at least soften them up some.

Really at low level with the number of encounters surprise was king. It was great to have a sleep spell to hopefully bypass one encounter quickly. But that was it.

 

[Nagol]

Well, I think it's a combination of trademark (yeah, branding matters) and continuity. What you call superficial commonalities are what, IMO, allow for D&D to be both diverse, and seemingly monolithic.

It's fascinating to me, because I think it would make a great business school exercise to look at D&D as an entity and brand that has continued throughout the years; how is it that people can have continuing conversations about things as varied as OD&D and 4e, B/X and 3e, all under the rubric of D&D.

Or, maybe this idea (the continuity) is something that is more distinctly an OSR / 5e idea? That previously, prior editions were considered more of their own thing?

Hmmm.... something to think about.

The reason I call them superficial is because they are widely shared with things that demonstrably aren't D&D. Yeah, D&D used them first inside RPGs, but some of them predate RPGs altogether like the hit point concept.

I think prior to 3e, there was a much tighter set of things that could define D&D. 0e, 1e, 2e, Holmes, and BECMI were so close that one could take a product meant for one and use it directly in another almost without making a change. Sure some things might feel a bit weird like how a 1e dragon seems to be a wimp in 2e compared to its cousins, but the numbers and effects still made sense.

3e changes mechanics, but tried to keep the same basic feel with some limited success.

4e tries to change feel, but keep enough mechanics. (This is not a slam. It is an acknowledgement that 4e specifically tries to represent more modern sensibilities such as recovery, fast action, narrative flow in fights, reduced resource tracking, and reduced reliance on outside power such as item acquisition and NPCs. Much of the same can be said for later products of 3.5, but 4e is where these foci became the base game.)

5e tries to winnow the changes in both 3e and 4e.

It's hard for all groups playing any one of the four sets to look at the other three and say "I see my game there."

 

[Oofta]

Depending on edition and race in our games it was either darts or some weapon granted by the race. I seem to remember using a crossbow for my dwarven wizard in 2E.

 

[Nagol]

There was so much variability, though.

...was the dart thing more of a 2e thing? Maybe because I was playing in the sticks .... but darts weren't the weapon of choice for MUs in my neck of the woods.

It was for us: darts and staff, all the way. The 3/round was a huge bonus in early game. Limited damage didn't matter much because either it had a couple of hp and died or burning hands wouldn't have dropped it anyway.

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

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[Nagol]

See, I'm concentrating on the last bolded bit, because that's where I disagree with you. And a big part of that is the DIY nature of a lot of D&D ... but ....

You can have a lot of different approaches to, for example, a standard 5e campaign; people running it "old school" (OD&D, Dungeon Crawl), people bringing in 1e/2e sensibilities, people adapting it to a more 3e crunch game, people running it as more of a scene-based 4e-style game, and so on.

And it works back, too. I started running a new 1e game recently, and I reverse-incorporated a few 5e aspects into it.

I think a lot of people get hung up on the differences; I prefer to notice the similarities.

Sure it easy for any particular group to look at a particular other set and say "That's my game!" It hard for all groups to look at all the other sets and say "That's my game!"

 

[lowkey13]

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[Nagol]

I think the issue, IIRC, is that in 1e a MU only had one weapon proficiency until seventh level; if you chose "darts" at first level, you were 100% screwed because you never had any melee capability, darts were useless against opponents with armor, and you never found a magic dart.

In other words, better to have a useless dagger (melee and missile) o a useless staff (melee) than useless darts.

Who spent a proficiency on them? You took them and threw them with -5 to hit! 3 attacks at -5 beats 1 attack at base. The proficiency goes into staff because let's at least try to keep things past arm's length.