What makes D&D, well, D&D?

[Gentlegamer]

Here are a few:

Character attributes based on a bell curve, each point of attribute at high ends add more than "one point" of benefit: benefits do not increase linearly as attribute scores increase

Class based system of recognizable archetypes, each character is a specialist emphasizing co-operative play within a party

Referee is final arbiter of all rules and is trusted to adjudicate "vague" rules and guidelines in an ad hoc manner -- not every situation must be spelled out in the rulebook

Fighting types significantly better in combat than non-fighting types (significantly superior combat tables or THAC0, use of arms and armor, hit points)

Non-tactical combat

Game-play modeled on heroic standards rather than superheroic standards

Binary abilities and magic enhancements rather than unending number of bonuses to die rolls

The truly fantastic is limited to extraplanar and weird (usually Underdark) races

 

[Mercule]

The six attributes, rated 3-18 for humans.

Strong, heroic archetypes -- i.e. classes.

The d20 for combat, etc.

Levels.

Not setting specific.

DM as absolute arbiter and referee.

Tolkien races.

And, unfortunately, the Vancian magic. (The only element that I dislike.)

 

[Gentlegamer]

Dungeons & Dragons has purely Vancian magic (spells are mnemonic only).

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons has magic that is a blend of Vance and the Incomplete Enchanter's (Camp and Pratt) sympathetic magic.

 

[glass]

To me, D&D has to have classes, levels, and hit points or something similar, but lots of games have those. Things really specific to D&D:

Ilithids
Vancian magic
+X weapons
Broad classes covering the basics plus a cople of oddballs

Pretty much everything else is negotiable.


glass.

 

[Orius]

Impossible kingdoms, improbable dungeons, silly monsters, a superabundance of magic and magical items that somehow do not affect society at large, convenient currency accepted everywhere (and an all-cash economy based on extensive gold coinage), language same, whittling combat, character classes, levels, spell levels (that specifically do not correspond to character levels), "fire-n-forget" magic, several hundred planes of existence, adventuring accepted as an occupation, High Middle Ages society meets upward mobility and meritocracy, magic that is great at maiming and destroying yet cannot ease birth pangs or truly aid crops, high level characters running around with abandon while kingdoms remain stable and have precise histories often going back 1000+ years, elves at 100 not knowing as much as a human at 18, monster overpopulation, many core races living together in peace and harmony, a "mirror world" underground that has neither peace nor harmony and is much tougher than the world above...

I think this is why I play rpgs and D20, rather than D&D...

I think this is why I play D&D!

I know this is why I play D&D.

 

[The Shaman]

I think it's the science fantasy element that is the real catalyst for the whole weird conconction: without psionics, beholders, mind flayers, clones, and the like, you just would have a pretty crummy and unfocused patchwork of derivative fantasy fiction. Somehow, adding science fantasy transforms this collection into something new . . . and better.

This made me smile...I started playing D&D in 1977 and in the years from then to now I have never used a mind flayer or a beholder in any adventure that I ran as the GM. The whole science fantasy element was the first thing I tossed overboard as GM, right from the giddyup.

As far as what makes it D&D for me, it's the magic system, the class system, and the races.

 

[Remathilis]

Take Moorcock, Vance, Lebier, Tolkien, Howard, Carroll, and Lovecraft, get them all drunk, dim the lights, and put on an Isaac Hayes Albumn... Thats D&D to me.

Its an amalgam of great authors and ideas mixed in the spirit of both homage and improvement are mixed to great something grander than the sum of its parts.

 

[Samothdm]

going to strange, exotic locales, meeting interesting and exotic people and creatures, then killing them

Somebody just watched "Full Metal Jacket".

The mechanics of D&D definitely help define it, but another part of it for me is the general idea that this group of heroes can just march around the world killing things and looting the bodies and that's just fine. They define the ideas of right and wrong according to their own moral compass, and then the laws don't apply to them.

That idea is pretty much built into the game system and helps to define the game as D&D as much as the idea of classes, levels, Hit Points, and bell-curve ability scores.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Take Moorcock, Vance, Lebier, Tolkien, Howard, Carroll, and Lovecraft, get them all drunk, dim the lights, and put on an Isaac Hayes Albumn... Thats D&D to me.

Its an amalgam of great authors and ideas mixed in the spirit of both homage and improvement are mixed to great something grander than the sum of its parts.

Don't forget Burroughs, Clark Ashton Smith, de Camp and Pratt, and A Merrit . . .

 

[Garnfellow]

This made me smile...I started playing D&D in 1977 and in the years from then to now I have never used a mind flayer or a beholder in any adventure that I ran as the GM. The whole science fantasy element was the first thing I tossed overboard as GM, right from the giddyup.

As far as what makes it D&D for me, it's the magic system, the class system, and the races.

For that matter, I've never used a mind flayer, beholder, or psionics, either. And haven't missed 'em. In fact, these were the very elements I most hated about the game when I started playing, my head all full of the fantasy of Tolkien, LeGuin, and Lloyd Alexander.

But part of me sees the very Vancian magic system, that fundamental underpinning of D&D, as just another part of the whole science fantasy heritage. Magic in the D&D game is based on reliable, naturally-occurring forces that may be predicted and manipulated by those with the proper technical training and experience. Magic obeys consistent, pseudo-scientific principles, even though we’re talking "planar energies" rather than electricity or fusion or whatever. The 1st edition DMG used the operation of a toaster (!) as an example of how magic works.

Plenty of other fantasy role-playing games have fire-and-forget magic mechanics, classes, and Tolkien races -- but they ain't D&D. The question was, what makes D&D distinctively D&D?