What is the essence of D&D

[lowkey13]

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[Arnwolf666]

I don't even know if I'm a real pizza eater anymore?

....maybe they're all just unfolded calzones?

Well. As a 2E player there is an optional rules that allows calzones.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Nagol]

I despise nostalgia. I genuinely view it as a poison in our social nature; something we should be taught to sublimate and hold in low regard.

5e is fun as hell without any nostalgia.

Couldn’t possibly disagree more. Or, well, I guess I only care at all about roughly 3 editions, and even then only really 4e and 5e, but still. 4e and 5e are very close to each other, but no other edition comes close on the scale.


eh, I don’t care much about this particular argument. IMO having lore in the entry for every single option in the game promotes role playing, for a start.

As does making out of combat challenges have more mechanical weight, and keeping the binary result paradigm to simple checks.

Skill challenges alone helped turn “Garthok moves x [movement] and then attacks using [ability or weapon]/ I want to roll to intimidate the Duke” players into players who inhabit their characters and spend the entire session paying attention and thinking in the “voice” of their character about what’s going on.

The powers themselves also [try to] encourage thinking about how your character moves, fights, defends, and views the battlefield. IOW, they encourage and support roleplaying in combat.

The thing is, no mechanics can succeed at generating roleplaying, for every player. But even if we could somehow prove that 4e mostly failed at this, and that’s why it divided people (even tho they were divided before the PHB even came out), it wouldn’t mean that 4e doesn’t support RP. It would just mean they failed to engage most people with the game to the degree they needed to.


So, this is what I mean about presentation.

What laser-like focus on combat? Are skills, utility powers, rituals, magic items with no direct combat use (or movement stuff that clearly has use just as much in as out of combat), feats that do social or exploration/travel stuff, the mountains and mountains of lore in every single book and mag issue, skill challenges, etc all somehow focused on combat in a way that I missed?

What abilities are only usable in combat? Damaging powers? Even if we ignore that you can absolutely use those out of combat, how is that different from other editions?

Again, I’m not saying you’re wrong to have seen these things this way, I’m just saying that this perception is the result of presentation, not the actual nature of the things in question.

Thus my theory that the essence of DnD for many/most is at least half presentation and socially shared acceptance. Another significant factor is magic feeling as different as possible from the mundane. Make magic a set of skills with basic uses laid out that you have to “stunt” with just like physical skills and attacks in order to do wild stuff, and it probably won’t feel like dnd to most folks.

Take a look at the 1st level spell list my 1e Magic-user has. 11 spells. 1 mandatory, 3 random assignments.

1 attack spell. I got that one randomly at 1st level.

For my 1st 3 levels, all I had was a subset of those 11 spells. At 3rd, I think I had 5? in my spell book.

Do you know how any time I cast magic missile in those 3 levels? Once.. More often than not I had no more than one memorized.

By 3rd level, how many combat abilities would my Wizard have in 4e? How many of those can be optionally swapped out for additional utility abilities?


Our credo is "If we're fighting, something has already gone wrong."

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I don't even know if I'm a real pizza eater anymore?

....maybe they're all just unfolded calzones?

Nah, there are differences between pizza and calzones beyond folding.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Garthanos]

I'm telling you this as a friend.

You may want to re-evaluate your life-choices if you have optimized your fast food pizza.

I am certain I left out a few Zios pizzeria in Omaha - vegetarian with those nifty tomato slices

I kind of do it with any eating place... though

Amu Manu - Tan Tan Men
Bisonwitches - Wisconsin Cheese bread bowl soup and half a Rueben sandwhich.... oooooh yeh
Kelleys fish market (Walleye sandwich to die for)

 

[Garthanos]

Nah, there are differences between pizza and calzones beyond folding.

Lazzaris Calzones yush... and they certainly are different

 

[lowkey13]

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[Garthanos]

Take a look at the 1st list list my 1e Magic-user has. 11 spells. 1 mandatory, 3 random assignments.

I have characters with far more than a dozen rituals in 4e...

and um yeh that can be at low level by end game those are really cheap