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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kae'Yoss" data-source="post: 1869292" data-attributes="member: 4134">Olgar had a good list of sacred cows, and others made some good contributions. I'll repeat here mostly, with my thoughts on the things.Campaign Settings: D&D isn't "the roleplaying game in the world of Adventuria" or something. There is no one fixed game world that is welded to the rules. You can take the rules and bring them to a great number of worlds, with differing game themes - from tolkien-like high fantasy to gothic horror to wuxia. With d20 you now even can play in our present, mundane world or in our fictious future.Heroics: Characters in D&D are usually not your run-of-the-mill guy who gets drawn into the adventure against his will and survives by sheer luck and plot as much as because he's capable enough. D&D Charakters are heroes. They're better than the average guy, they're larger than live.Abstraction in general and especially in several points I'll bring up later. The game isn't about realism, it's about fast and fun play.Action: Though the current installation of D&D does a good job at handling non-combat situations and solutions, the main focus of D&D lies on action and combat. Classes, Races and Levels: In D&D, you buy your powers largely in packages. You can give a good, general description of a character by saying "He's a Gnome Wizard 13" Sure, with the current Skills and Feats system and multiclassing rules, you have more freedom of choice than ever before in D&D, but you still have to get your packages. Also, race and class are not the same (though that wasn't so in the very first editions) - you can be an Elf AND a Wizard.Hit Points: A fast and easy way to check if the monster is dead yet. It's not realistic (you go from "fully capable of wreaking havoc" to "bleeding to death" in a single instand) but no big bother, either. Also, hit points are tied to your class and level, so more expereienced heroes can suck up more damage than lower-level ones.Armor Class: The avarage character either ignores the hit or gets it full force. Not realistic, either, but again, fast and easy.Detailed Combat: Though most roleplaying games have their own chapter about combat, D&D has a very detailed combat system that tells you what to do when you want to hold on to that enemy, sweep him off his feet, get his weapon, or push him down that cliff.Alignment: Good and evil (as well as chaos and order) aren't just concepts, they're a palpable force in D&D. Every character's behaviour is, at least to a degree, defined by the two axes. Unlike a lot of other games, D&D doesn't associate order with good and chaos with evil, or even the other way around. You can have (lawful) good quarrel with (chaotic) good about the proper proceeding at having caught an urgin stealing out of hunger, and (lawful) evil and (chaotic) evil fighing an eternal war.Vancian magic: In D&D, spellcasters don't just blast away with their magics. Being an effective (read: surviving) magic user, you have to plan your spell selection in advance, as it is limited - either the spells in your reportoire or the spells you cast today. There's no "mana points" you use to whatever spell takes your fancy at the time. Also, not every spellcaster has access to every spell, as there are spell lists.Funny dice: There's more than just one or two types of dice in D&D - The game usually uses 7 different die types, plus 2 "virtual" ones (d2, d3, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, d%) to signify different power levels.</blockquote>

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