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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Harzel" data-source="post: 7794181" data-attributes="member: 6857506">So I agree pretty much with the items listed in the OP.  I also think there is significant truth to [USER=177]@Umbran[/USER]'s notion that you may just need a substantial subset of those to make it feel like D&D, although I don't think you can take away very many before it would begin to feel 'off'.  Further, some of them I'm hesitant to say you can remove at all.  If you are missing in particular HP, AC, classes, or leveling, the game may be recognizably D&D-like, but I'm not sure it's D&D.To the list of things that contribute to D&D-ness and you need most but not all of, I would add the familiar quartet of particular classes - fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief (rogue, whatever) - and some particular playable races - human, elf, dwarf, halfling.  Probably half-elf should be in there, too, but they've always seemed to me kind of forgettable.I'm sort of on the fence about murderhoboing and its cousin kill-the-monsters-and-take-their-stuff.  Those are certainly play patterns that AFAIK originated with D&D and evoke D&D, but I'm not sure I think their lack in any way makes a game seem less like D&D to me.Finally, I would add to the list one thing that is a sort of rule 'theme' and perhaps a generalization of the nature of D&D spells that [USER=205]@TwoSix[/USER] mentioned.  D&D rules have always been, to a greater or lesser extent, idiosyncratic, irregular, asymmetric, and even inconsistent - lacking (or perhaps having a surfeit of) underlying patterns and principles, full of special cases, and greatly prone to corner cases emerging when rules collide.  Going too far in that direction, of course, leaves you with a hot mess, but if you have just a modest tendency, IMO it lends an air of warm, fuzzy, hominess - kind of like a flannel shirt vs. a starched, white linen button-down.  And while I never played 4e, the descriptions and commentary I see sound like it tamped down significantly on irregularity and asymmetry; if that's accurate, I can see that that might have made it feel less like D&D.</blockquote>

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