What makes D&D, D&D?

[Oofta]

4th edition was the edition that was currently supported at a time when D&D almost died. It was partially, but not wholly responsible for that near-death, and that responsibility is only in part due to "not feeling like D&D."


Well, first of all, decide if alignment matters or not. If it doesn't have any more impact than a character's hair and eye color, just get rid of it. Otherwise, it needs clear, consistent definitions. Here's an article on the subject that is more or less in line with my own opinion.

I think we've covered alignment, but thanks for the link. Let's just say I disagree with both you and ol' Angry. I think alignment serves a purpose and is as clear as it needs to be. It is more important than hair color, but only as much as you want it to be. It's not a hard and fast rule, it's a descriptor for your morale compass.

Which brings me back to what makes D&D what it is. One of the things is that it's less of a dictation of how you will play and more of a base structure to build your game on.

 

[Oofta]

One more post because I inadvertently started alignment wars and found this while looking for the other chart.

 

[Eric V]

5e is simple enough for people to get started on it easily and quickly, has basic rules that people can remember pretty much from the get go, and is easily modified or utilized to play the game that they want.

Very true.

 

[Hriston]

I don't use alignment in my campaign. I think it's crass, and I'm glad it's divorced from the mechanics in 5e so it can be ignored. And that's before we get to the disagreements that can emerge between DM and player (insoluble by philosophers, let alone gamers) about what their character should do based on the meaning of the label they picked when they rolled up.

I like to think of a character's alignment as descriptive of its behavior, rather than prescriptive. That's why deviating behavior can result in a shift in a character's alignment.

Have characters (PCs and NPCs) say and do stuff. The audience at the table can get the measure of them from that, just like in any other form of fiction. In no other form of fiction (even genre fiction) - nor in life - are characters assigned explicit alignments. The personalities of characters are evident from their words and deeds.

The genre fiction in question is found in the stories of Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock. In those stories, various characters are aligned with cosmic forces of Law and Chaos, so again, it's the character's behavior that results in the alignment, rather than the other way around.

Alignment adds nothing to the game, and characters work fine without it. Try playing without it - you won't miss it.

For me, what alignment adds to D&D is a sense of the world as a battlefield. Minor conflicts are cast in terms of epic struggles between extraplanar forces, without which, I feel, the transcript of play, especially on the scale of the campaign as a whole, is perhaps less likely to result in an actual story.

So, taking this back on topic, alignment may well be one of the hallmarks of the game as a brand (and I think Mearls said it was something they felt had to be in 5e to make it D&D). But it's an element we don't actually need in play (and I think that is acknowledged by Mearls and co in its total superfluousness to the mechanics of 5e).

I suppose it isn't needed, but I do think alignment adds something to the game.

 

[Lanefan]

Here's the alignments.

https://imgur.com/gallery/DmKvb/comment/565655937

Thanks for that!

I've been on the lookout for code-of-ethics ideas for non-LG types for ages so as to design non-LG Paladins, and this looks like it might provide a good jumping-off point.

 

[Satyrn]

In any case put me on the side of most things are "good enough" and not sacred cows. Why change things that are not broken? There's a handful of things (I dislike how ability replacement items work) but those are easily house ruled.

Totally as an aside, here.

I've grown to love how those ability replacement items work. Well, not the items that make someone's stat 19 or 21 or the like. But items that set a stat to 12 or 14 can still be a boost to players, but by boosting their weaknesses rather than making their strengths even stronger.

Plus, I can hand them out like candy, Borderlands style, with players hoping that this Belt gives them that fabled Giant's Strength instead of just an orc's like the one tbey're wearing.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

h/t [MENTION=6906155]Paul Farquhar[/MENTION]

So a recent comment in a different thread started my thought process, and here it is-

"Racial stat boosts are one of the things that makes D&D D&D and not some generic fantasy roleplaying game."

So, what does make D&D, D&D? I mean, really?

I was thinking in terms of 5e (which is why it is posted here), and how one of the reasons 5e is supposedly appealing is that it manages to rope in some of the nostalgia/OSR/1e crowd (who, hopefully in turn, is teaching it to the young 'uns). This makes 5e very, um, D&D? Like, ur-D&D or something.

So, before going any further, it is my general understanding that there have been conversations about past editions of D&D and whether or not they are "D&D enough." DO NOT DO THAT, PLEASE. I am asking people to NOT rehash old grievances, however well-nursed. As we all know, the only proper grievance to express on these forums is the well-known and universally approved dislike of Paladins.

So, really, what makes D&D, D&D, such that "messing with it" really messes with D&D?

I have a few thoughts, and I was hoping to generate some discussion. Who know, maybe if we come up with a list, we can do a poll, or a survivor thread, or something.

I'm thinking-

The "classic" six abilities, you know, Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. And yes, that is the correct order.

Saving throws.

Hit points. (Whatever they might represent).

A class system.

The "core four" of, um, Fighting Man, Magic User, Thief, and Cleric.

General disapproval of Paladins.

Armor class.


Is this it? Or do you think it is other things, like racial stat boosts?

On the other hands, perhaps it is iconic lore from the game, such as:

Iconic Spells (Fireball, Lightning Bolt, etc.)
Iconic Monsters (Orcs, Beholders)

Thoughts? What makes D&D, D&D for you?

Something I’ve thought about for a while. I heavily modify our rules, yet to me (and the group) it’s still D&D. The FEEL of our game is very AD&D-like, but I think that’s because that’s how I DM.

The mechanics themselves are of less importance to us, but that’s in part because my approach is more along the lines of the players needing to know little of the rules - “tell me what you do, and I’ll let you know if you succeed.” I handle the majority of the rules, although I have a few players that also enjoy the rules aspect and they help.

Having said that, the things you mention, the dice, certain core classes and races, AC, hp, etc. have a big impact on the feel. A certain reliance on rules (more than a storyteller game, but less than a board game), with a certain open-ended approach is also part of it.

There is often little that differentiates it from other RPGs, and many could be considered D&Dif somebody just sat down at the table to play. Pathfinder is an obvious one, but many other games have been spawned to emulate a certain specific edition and playstyle of D&D. Some, like Hackmaster may have evolved beyond the D&D feel, others have not.

The key for us is that the game is about exploration. Exploring the setting, exploring the characters, exploring the dungeon, etc.

It’s a standard Tolkien-like setting, a pseudo-medieval world with the standard classes and races. Although I don’t necessarily think that’s required, when it goes too far beyond that type of setting it starts to feel different.

But then that’s part of what makes D&D so cool to me. You can bend it a long way before it breaks. There were some pretty diverse settings in 2e, and they were all D&D.

While I get the desire to not get into edition wars, I do think that it’s often easier to identify something that is not D&D than what is. For us, 4e changed things so much that it didn’t feel like D&D anymore. I know there are plenty who disagree, and it has provided some new aspects that have become part of D&D to us. It’s probably better to say that it didn’t feel like D&D to us, largely because we couldn’t easily maintain our long running campaign with the new rules.

And really, I think that the real answer is that it’s what feels like D&D, but that will be different for everybody who plays the game.

But I think that there are certainly editions and approaches that feel like D&D to a larger group than others.

 

[Oofta]

Totally as an aside, here.

I've grown to love how those ability replacement items work. Well, not the items that make someone's stat 19 or 21 or the like. But items that set a stat to 12 or 14 can still be a boost to players, but by boosting their weaknesses rather than making their strengths even stronger.

Plus, I can hand them out like candy, Borderlands style, with players hoping that this Belt gives them that fabled Giant's Strength instead of just an orc's like the one tbey're wearing.

Yeah, it's probably just a pet peeve. I invest my points (or high roll) in strength, when I get ASIs sacrifice other options to increase it ... and then Bob comes along with his 8 strength puts on a belt and suddenly he's the strongest one around.

Besides, the image of this guy being as strong as Thor because he put on a belt is just wrong somehow.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, it's probably just a pet peeve. I invest my points (or high roll) in strength, when I get ASIs sacrifice other options to increase it ... and then Bob comes along with his 8 strength puts on a belt and suddenly he's the strongest one around.

Besides, the image of this guy being as strong as Thor because he put on a belt is just wrong somehow.

View attachment 100967

I much prefer the return to the classic way of doing this. It is the Belt of Giant Strength. It makes you as strong as a giant, regardless of what you were before, wimp or wonder.

 

[Grainger]

I like to think of a character's alignment as descriptive of its behavior, rather than prescriptive. That's why deviating behavior can result in a shift in a character's alignment.

The genre fiction in question is found in the stories of Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock. In those stories, various characters are aligned with cosmic forces of Law and Chaos, so again, it's the character's behavior that results in the alignment, rather than the other way around.

For me, what alignment adds to D&D is a sense of the world as a battlefield. Minor conflicts are cast in terms of epic struggles between extraplanar forces, without which, I feel, the transcript of play, especially on the scale of the campaign as a whole, is perhaps less likely to result in an actual story.

I suppose it isn't needed, but I do think alignment adds something to the game.

Oh yeah, I forgot about those stories. I did know about it once, but, scarily, had completely forgotten about it! Which is shocking given how much I've read about the history of D&D, and fairly recently, too. I guess that aspect just interests me so little that I didn't retain it.

I get that alignment is descriptive, but what I'm saying is: "so what?". Just do and say stuff - play to your character concept. Why do you need to have it written down? And do the characters in aforementioned stories each have "an alignment"? That's taking it much further than living in a cosmically-ordered world. Characters (and people) just don't work that way.

Also, what about worlds that aren't cosmically ordered in such a way? I've never run D&D like that, different flavours of D&D have handled alignment and cosmic balance differently anyway, so why not open it up (as I believe 5e has to some extent by side-lining alignment)? DMs who want a cosmically ordered world can have that anyway. Those who are going for another feel then don't. Yes, DMs can drop alignment, but it seems odd to me to have a mechanism in the game that applies only to one world type. For me, D&D simply isn't about law and chaos.

Then again, D&D is quite specific about worlds in many ways - far more than I'd like. I get quite irritated when I read Monster Manual descriptions that drone on about "Orcs were forged by Fargle in the pits of Zargle" or whatever. I'll be the judge of that, don't tell me the cosmology of my game (and in any case, how Orcs were "made" comes so far down the list of world-building priorities that I am literally never going to think about it) - just give me monster descriptions and stats. I would rather the game was as agnostic as possible about the campaign world itself (except in campaign setting books, obviously).

But in addition to the above, alignment is sometimes problematic at the table - DMs applying it prescriptively is the main issue - and that's good enough reason to do away with it. As I said above, DMs can still have a world with a cosmological war between law and chaos if they like. It just doesn't have to be a standard field on every character sheet.