What makes Dungeons & Dragons "Dungeons & Dragons?"

[Nemesis Destiny]

Certainly there are a lot of people who'd be happy to argue that Pathfinder is D&D, brand or no brand. Conversely, there are certainly videogames that have borne the name that I think pretty much everyone would happily disavow.

I agree, which is why I said I was tempted to do so but ultimately did not.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Several people have mentioned alignment, which is interesting to me, since there are plenty of groups that long ago either altered or discarded alignment on their own. Are they not playing D&D, by those folks' standards, or is OK to house rule it out, so long as it's at least listed in the core books? What if it's just listed as an optional rule?

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I think it should be included, but strictly optional. Mind you, there are others on here who will argue until blue in the face (and it's been done), that it isn't D&D without 9 alignments with mechanical repercussions to back them up for violating them.

It's a contentious issue to say the least, and not one you will ever likely see agreement on.

 

[Mercutio01]

As I indicated in my sblock, I could do without it completely, but I wouldn't object if there were still mechanics for it. I'd probably ignore them or else go with the 4E option of Unaligned for everything that wasn't an outsider from an aligned plane, which is pretty much how I run it now.

Let me rephrase--that isn't the standard, although unaligned is an option. But I currently ignore it except for things like demons, devils, angels, solars, modrons, etc.

 

[BenBrown]

1) Dungeons
2) Dragons

and neither of those has to show up all the time.

Holmes Basic plays entirely different from 4E, and has pretty much nothing in common except the names of some things (classes, races, spells) and the six D&D stats, and yet I'm not going to declare either of them to be "Not D&D" The six stats and rolling a 20-sided die to determine if you hit in combat are practically the only things that have survived without major alteration since D&D's beginnings, and I'm not entirely convinced that those are indispensable. At this point the d20 is pretty-well ingrained, but you could change to 3d6 (variant rules available in Unearthed Arcana) and still be D&D. You could also fold the stats into classes/races without losing much in current (4E) D&D.

Just as it's impossible to say a whole lot about what a dog is that fits each and every individual dog, but does not also fit a whole lot of non-dogs, so it is impossible at this point to describe D&D in a way that fits every individual D&D without including a whole lot of not D&D. Perhaps Justice Stewart's method is the best to follow.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Given the view so far on ability scores, I'm wondering which one of these people would find most offensive as a change to D&D:

• Con and Cha dropped, functions moved into other mechanics.
• Size added as numerical ability, similar to Runequest. Dex split into Agility and (Manual) Dexterity. Thus 8 scores total.
• Con slightly repurposed as "Health". Cha slightly repurposed as "Presence".

Assume that all the changes are not gratuitious, and actually have a good design and implementation to justify them. That is, your objection would be on "sacred hamburger" getting made rather than problems the change itself.

I can envision all three of those working very well in a version of D&D (assuming a new version where the ripples can be handled). But the last one I see as the most modest change, but also the most likely to irritate me.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I can just as easily envision scrapping stats altogether and still playing D&D. You just define your character in other ways, i.e. by what you can do (skills, abilities, etc).

Such experiments have been tried. The Death To Ability Scores 4e mod is the one I'm most familiar with. I think it's a sacred cow that would offend too many to slaughter though.

 

[Rogue Agent]

Wow, 7 whole posts before someone singled out 4e as 'not D&D' - predictable, but still disappointing.

I think you mean "predictable and completely understandable". Particularly in the context of this thread.

It's pretty easy to see why: From OD&D through AD&D2, games published under the D&D trademark shared a core gameplay with such little variation that people would routinely use products across editions without any conversion at all. (The only really significant incompatibility came in the BECMI treatment of race-as-class versus the separate race-and-class treatment of other editions.)

3E largely maintained that core gameplay, although it shuffled the math up and introduced enough new options to character creation to break easy cross-compatibility. (Proof: Take a pre-3E adventure, do a straight conversion, and run it in 3E. It will play identically. Take a 3E adventure, do a straight backwards conversion, and run it with a pre-3E version of D&D. It will also play the same. Fighters play like fighters; wizards play like wizards; etc.)

But then we come to 4E. And here -- despite large similarities -- it's relatively trivial to see that the core gameplay had been completely altered. Fighters don't play like pre-4E fighters. Wizards don't play like pre-4E wizards.

Given this reality, we now come to a thread where somebody says, "So what makes a game 'D&D' instead of something else?" There are two possible answers to this question:

(1) Anything with "Dungeons & Dragons" on the cover is D&D. Everything else isn't. (This answer is trivial, obvious, and incontrovertible in its application. Ergo, no one's going to talk about it. But lemme give it a stab: Do you guys really think of D&D Gamma World as being "D&D"? Do you think of the D&D boardgames as being the same game as the D&D roleplaying games? What about the licensed computer games?)

(2) There is something mechanically distinct which makes D&D different from other games.

And this is where you run into the self-evident problem. If you keep yourself focused to pre-3E D&D, coming up with some set of mechanics which D&D has but other games don't is relatively trivial: You just need to make it specific enough. (Very specific if you want to exclude literal D&D clones, less specific if you don't. Given the criteria you're using, you probably don't.)

Exclude BECMI from your pre-3E sampling and it becomes even easier to find that set of mechanics. Include 3E and you need to stretch it further, but (given the core gameplay) probably still do-able.

But once you had 4E to the mix, you've got a problem. 4E is so fundamentally different in its core gameplay that, if you try to include it, you're going to find it very difficult to stretch a definition that fits just D&D and not a bunch of other fantasy roleplaying games, too.

So, to sum up: You either need to simple define "D&D" as the trademark and nothing more; or you're going to find yourself rampantly and uncontrollably genericizing the term.

Several people have mentioned alignment, which is interesting to me, since there are plenty of groups that long ago either altered or discarded alignment on their own. Are they not playing D&D, by those folks' standards, or is OK to house rule it out, so long as it's at least listed in the core books? What if it's just listed as an optional rule?

Any mechanical distinction you choose to draw has almost certainly been houseruled out of existence by somebody.

I suspect alignment belongs on the list because it has a pretty notable pop culture presence (at least in geekly circles).

I can envision all three of those working very well in a version of D&D (assuming a new version where the ripples can be handled). But the last one I see as the most modest change, but also the most likely to irritate me.

I think there's a reason why every attempt to add additional attributes to D&D over the past 35 years has failed to take root. Those six stats are a pretty primal identification of the game for many people.

Which, upon reflection, makes sense. After all, what's the first thing most people were asked to do when they first sat down to play D&D? "Roll up your stats." Those six stats are literally people's first impression of the game.

 

[Wiseblood]

*Turn based combat.
*Initiative

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I think you mean "predictable and completely understandable". Particularly in the context of this thread.

I'm pretty sure I meant what I said. I'd appreciate if you refrained from telling me what to think or putting words in my mouth. It's against forum rules, and rude to boot. Thanks.