D&D General What makes D&D feel like D&D? (conclusions and follow-up questions)

[JEB]

Following on from this poll... here are the results out of 132 responses, ranked in tiers (with my thoughts):

Very important to D&D's feel (80% and up):
Ability scores (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha) [87.1%]
Distinct character classes [87.1%]
Levels [87.1%]
Hit points [81.8%]

These seem to be the game features that the overwhelming majority of respondents consider important to D&D being D&D. In short, D&D needs to be a level-based game with characters defined by their ability scores and distinctive character classes. Hit points are also very important (presumably as opposed to other ways of measuring health). A version of D&D that drops these elements, or radically changed how they worked, would likely lose a lot of fans.

Important to D&D's feel (60% to 80%):
Armor Class [73.5%]
Using multiple types of dice [70.5%]
Saving throws [66.7%]

These aren't quite as widely agreed upon as the above, but still have pretty strong support among the respondents. I suspect you could change the particulars of how these work, but eliminating them entirely would be frowned upon by a majority of fans.

Debatable importance (40% to 60%):
Distinct character races/lineages [58.3%]
Experience points [50.8%]
Lists of specific spells [49.2%]
Alignment [45.5%]

Here's where things start to get interesting. Only a narrow majority thinks that character races and XP are important to D&D's feel - a lot of respondents could apparently live without them. I'm not sure what that means for character races - in fact, I'd really like to investigate that question further - but I'm betting a lot of respondents use milestone leveling rather than XP? Meanwhile, slightly less than half like having specific spells - again, curious what alternatives people have in mind - and alignment.

These seem like things that D&D could drop or significantly change and still have that D&D feel overall... but doing so would be a turn-off for a significant portion of the player base. So these are elements Wizards should keep around, likely... but there may be some negotiating room as to how important they are, and how they're executed.

Less important to D&D's feel (20% to 40%):
Lists of specific magic items [39.4%]
Initiative [36.4%]
Hit dice [24.2%]
Lists of specific equipment [24.2%]

Now we're into elements that aren't seen as important to D&D by the majority of respondents, though they still have some support. I assume being this low means one of two things:

a) Elements that could be changed or removed from the game. Certainly you could lose specific magic items, and especially equipment, and express them in some generic way (an upgrade of the various packs, perhaps?). Removing initiative prompts the question of how turns would be decided instead, though. Hit dice, of course, are kind of a remnant at this point anyway. (I separated hit dice from hit points on purpose, apparently correctly.)

b) Elements that aren't seen as particularly distinct from other RPGs, i.e. things that other RPGs have as well. That would be an odd fit for hit dice, but the others I can certainly see (especially initiative).

I'd be curious about clarifications on this point from anyone who responded. But my guess is that D&D could live without these elements, and it wouldn't be a deal-breaker for most fans... though it would be sad for a significant minority, and the replacements had better be good enough to make it worthwhile.

Not important to D&D's feel (20% and below):
Creature types [17.4%]
Deities [16.7%]
Great Wheel cosmology [15.9%]
Multiclassing [15.9%]
Feats [10.6%]
Proficiencies [10.6%]
Damage types [9.1%]
Surprise [5.3%]
Advantage/disadvantage [4.5%]
Conditions [4.5%]
Challenge ratings [3.8%]
World Axis cosmology [3.0%]
Backgrounds [2.3%]

Since many of these are NOT in other games besides D&D, so I have to assume this tier largely represents the true expendables. A version of D&D could quite probably drop all of these and replace them with something else, or at least radically alter them, and most fans would still be content with the game. Not coincidentally, these are mostly more recent innovations from 3E or later, so they lack the tenure of many other features... though there are exceptions, of course.

A few other specific comments:

• Deities are only important to less than 20% of respondents. That asks for more questions.
• Great Wheel is significantly more popular than World Axis, but neither is important to a majority of fans for D&D's feel. That suggests to me that the cosmology/lore changes were probably not the major factor in 4E's troubles; more likely changes to other, higher-ranking elements.
• 5E's flagship mechanics, advantage/disadvantage and backgrounds, don't rank highly in "feel". (I am aware that technically both had ancestors before 5E.)

But the above are just my thoughts. What are yours?

If you voted in the poll, you are also invited to elaborate. However, I will repeat from the last thread: please do not criticize the preferences of others. Just let everyone say their piece without judgment.

EDIT: I posted this as a "question" and can't seem to change it to a generic post. The votes on the right therefore don't matter. Carry on.

 

[Shiroiken]

What makes D&D has changed a lot over the decades, but some core aspects remain fundamental to the feel. That doesn't mean that specifics aren't really good, like advantage/disadvantage and backgrounds, merely that they aren't necessary for the game itself. I'd wager that most games use deities and feats, but they aren't fundamental to the game, especially deities in settings like Dark Sun and Eberron.

 

[Burnside]

While I did not, for example, include Advantage/Disadvantage in things that “feel” like D&D, it would rank pretty highly if I had been asked “what’s something you’d like to see D&D keep as the game evolves.”

 

[pemerton]

You are correct, I did not ask about preferences. I asked about "feel", very deliberately. I wanted to see what most folks agreed on as definitive aspects of D&D.

If those definitive elements are irrelevant to your interest in D&D, or if they're even reasons why you dislike D&D, I can certainly see why that wouldn't reflect your preferences. Heck, maybe you even actively want D&D's "feel" changed. That's perfectly fine.

But generally, when people like a game, "feel" is an important part of that. Changing things that are a significant part of that "feel" therefore creates a serious risk of alienating existing fans.

Suppose that many people didn't say that deities are part of the feel of D&D, because they regard these as generic to most fantasy RPGing.

It hardly follows that they would be happy with a version of D&D that didn't have room for deities.

Without any account of what is taken to constitute "feel" - particularly where it's clear, from your earlier thread, that many posters treated this as overlapping with and maybe even equivalent to what is uniquely distinctive about D&D - I don't think your generalisations in this thread are terribly sound.

 

[Emerikol]

I think for most of us there is an edition of D&D that is our home. Mine is 1e AD&D though I started briefly with the red boxed basic set first. I still love B2 Keep on the Borderlands.

So our conception of D&D is very much based upon where we came from in D&D's history. I do find it interesting though that in 1980's we had D&D and AD&D and now we have D&D and Pathfinder. The market wants what the market wants I guess. Though I admit D&D 5e is a bit more crunchy than old D&D and Pathfinder is quiet a bit more crunchy than AD&D. So the trend is more crunchy.

For me the attributes are important. I'd never write a D&D "clone" and replace wisdom with willpower even though I think wisdom is a lousy choice and willpower would be so much better. I even think the order has a feel to me. Real D&D'ers, tongue in cheek here folks, list there stats in STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHA order. Not sure where I got that notion but when I see them listed out of order I find it mildly irritating. How's that for an odd take.

I think there is an implied setting for D&D. It includes the wheel but even more importantly the Devils, Demons, etc... They are very much D&D to me. Having said that I was overjoyed when 4e switched it up and I think every setting should have a different cosmology. I tend to create my own cosmologies these days. Yet for the implied setting it's the great wheel. I think all of the named spells and magic items are part of that implied setting. I think classes are "of course". I think elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings are. To be honest I'm generally not a lover of the other newer races that have come along as core. I do often like to introduce new races for a unique setting though.

I admit though that my views are driven by my history. The younger generation never played 3e let alone 1e. They probably will feel differently about all of these things. I admit I'm on the back nine in my life. The generation right in front of me is dying off. So the game will go on. I am very happy though that because of the OGL, we have such a broader set of options today than we had in yesteryear. Obviously it's niche but you can now play any style you want and you can buy the original AD&D books even if that is to your taste. I prefer some of the improvements in game design so I tend towards a modified retroclone. I'm thinking ACKS could be my game.

 

[DEFCON 1]

For me, the stuff that I felt were needed for the feel of D&D were the ones that have appeared in almost every single version of D&D since the beginning. Whereas stuff down in the 20% category are things that have only shown up in a few editions, and a lot of those are just categorization-- something that could be re-done in a different way mechanically to get the same effect. IE - feats are just class features that almost class can take and do not have a set level for their appearance. You could easily create a different system or incorporate the effects into the current system to acquire those features. Thus feats are not to me essential to the feel of D&D.

Likewise... anything that are flavor for specific settings are also not required for me. Neither of the cosmologies nor specific deities are necessary, because as we saw with 4E the game could create a whole new cosmology for a whole new setting and people would be fine with it. Obviously changing any of the existing settings to the new version would cause an uproar (as we saw in 4E with the changes to the Realms cosmology)... but if 6E released their game with cleric domains and just treated the domains as "forces of the universe" and not from specific gods in the PHB... no one would much care. Because people would either use the deities already created for all the previous campaign settings people use (either published or homebrewed), or they'd decide to adapt to the new idea of domains being more like paladin oaths (which are not deity-specific, but can be aligned to a deity by those players that want it). At this point in D&D history.... with as many of the settings and worlds that exists for the game... the more generic and non-setting specific the base rules are, the more comfortable people tend to be.

 

[transmission89]

This is an interesting analysis. Worth bearing in mind though that a lot of the more “debatable” and “less important” ones were still in 4e (as well as the more definitive elements) and it was still criticised by many as “not feeling like d&d”. Regardless of one’s opinion on that, it was a common refrain.

So a possible follow up question could be “what makes it feel like d&d?” Or, “to what extent do these mechanics contribute to feeling like d&d?”

It would be difficult to draw a conclusion just from this poll of what a D&D game “needs”.

 

[Emerikol]

This is an interesting analysis. Worth bearing in mind though that a lot of the more “debatable” and “less important” ones were still in 4e (as well as the more definitive elements) and it was still criticised by many as “not feeling like d&d”. Regardless of one’s opinion on that, it was a common refrain.

So a possible follow up question could be “what makes it feel like d&d?” Or, “to what extent do these mechanics contribute to feeling like d&d?”

It would be difficult to draw a conclusion just from this poll of what a D&D game “needs”.

Well perhaps in that vein, I'd say a simple fighter that is mechanically understandable to a twelve year old is one thing I'd like. That feels like D&D to me. That doesn't mean the game can't support a large variety of fighter types. I'd just like the old fighter to stay in the game. And for those worried about balance, play the complex fighter if that suits your desires. The people wanting the simple fighter aren't likely overlapping in a great way with those worried about balance.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It would be difficult to draw a conclusion just from this poll of what a D&D game “needs”.

Actually... I think you probably could draw some solid conclusions about what WotC would need to have in their next version of D&D based upon surveys like this... especially as the number of respondents got larger and larger and more definitive beliefs came out of it.

I mean, if you were to create a version of D&D and only included in it the things that were in the top 3 categories (40% or higher), it probably would be looked at as a serviceable version of the game Dungeons & Dragons (assuming the rules were filled out to make combat and the like playable). Sure, there would be specific people annoyed that specific things they liked were no longer in these rules (like Advantage / Disadvantage for example)... but the game itself would not look or feel foreign to anyone.

That game might not be anyone's prefered version of D&D... but it could certainly join the pantheon of versions of D&D.

 

[TwoSix]

This is an interesting analysis. Worth bearing in mind though that a lot of the more “debatable” and “less important” ones were still in 4e (as well as the more definitive elements) and it was still criticised by many as “not feeling like d&d”. Regardless of one’s opinion on that, it was a common refrain.

So a possible follow up question could be “what makes it feel like d&d?” Or, “to what extent do these mechanics contribute to feeling like d&d?”

It would be difficult to draw a conclusion just from this poll of what a D&D game “needs”.

Agreed. There's a lot of parameters that set different flavors of D&D-like games apart from each other that aren't included in the voting above. Like what classes to include, how different are those classes from each other, what sort of subsystems do the classes use, how magic works, how frequent magic use is, what range of effects is allowed via magic (or other subsystems), etc.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Interesting results. It maps on, more or less, with what I have always thought .... so it must be true!

One example is that you often see people propose new groupings of the "Classic Six" abilities (either SIWDCC or SDCIWC, depending on when you started). Sometimes fewer, sometimes more, sometimes renamed. But while any individual proposal might have merit, none of them has enough merit to get rid of the classic six, if for no other reason that those abilities provide a straight through line from now back 50 years.

So looking at the list:
Ability scores (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha) [87.1%]
Distinct character classes [87.1%]
Levels [87.1%]
Hit points [81.8%]

This is "classic" D&D. Six abilities, zero-to-hero, playing some sort of archetype, and the "hit points" model that, while terribly unsatisfying from a realism and narration standpoint and a frequent source of debate, is nevertheless so popular in became the model for countless video games afterwards.

You can tinker around the edges with these (re-order the abilities, add classes, more or less hp), but I can't imagine releasing a mainstream D&D product without them.


Armor Class [73.5%]
Using multiple types of dice [70.5%]
Saving throws [66.7%]

I'd put these in the same category, although allowing more tinkering (weird!). Saving throws, if you think about it ... kind of weird! Armor class? Started from a naval game. Lots of dice? Well, I mean ... lots of games get by with a single type. And yet, while these have also changed, they remain "core" D&D.

Saving throws went from specific and against certain types (saves v. rod, staff, wand!) and based on level to saves based on ability score, but we kept the name and concept. It would be difficult to conceptualize a D&D game without being asked to "save" against something, even though out-of-context, it's kind of odd.

Same with AC. Even though we are long removed from descending AC, or tables, or THAC0, different types of armor (and magic, etc.) providing different types of "armor class" is inherent to the combat of the game.

And dice? Dice are cool. You'll have to pry my d12 from my cold, dead hand.


Distinct character races/lineages [58.3%]
Experience points [50.8%]
Lists of specific spells [49.2%]
Alignment [45.5%]

Finally, we get to the more interesting ones. In a way, it shows that, perhaps, the top-level items above aren't immovable. One of these is just kind of ... eh (lists of specific spells). I mean, sure? If this had been written as something that reflected only that D&D has spells that can be cast by characters, I'd think the response would be higher. But the other three?

XP is an integral part of D&D ... in RAW. But most people are familiar with alternate systems for leveling up, and have either experienced them or played them.
And while race and alignment have always been a part of D&D, they are both the source of ongoing conversations about their continued place and importance.

I think that, had this poll been run 5 or 10 years ago (to pick random times), the results for race and alignment would likely have been higher- at least in the ~70% range. Nothing is unchanging.