What makes Dungeons & Dragons "Dungeons & Dragons?"

[Dannyalcatraz]

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?

While I think is OK to houserule alignment out for a campaign, at a certain fundamental level, it won't feel like D&D to me if it is. Ditto the other things on my list.

And for the record, in the 34 years i've been playing, I've not played a single session of D&D where alignment was HRed out.

 

[GreyLord]

Off the cuff light minded answer...

Before 2000...

The rules of AD&D or D&D BECMI/BX or D&D original.

After 2000...whoever owned the trademark...whatever they chose to call D&D and put the label on...that's D&D.

 

[tuxgeo]

It's Dungeons and Dragons when whoever legally owns the brand name calls it Dungeons and Dragons.

Otherwise, it's any number of combination of arbitrary things that someone may "feel" is D&D, although no one's feeling is going to jive* completely with someone else's, and certainly not with gamers as a whole. < . . . snip . . . >

As aurance said, it is D&D when so branded.

However, having said that, I want to add this as well: there are certain features that make it recognizable as "D&D-the-fantasy-roleplaying-game," which taken together enhance the recognizability of the game; but, at the same time, there are also other brands of products which, having been inspired by D&D, also contain some or all of the same features.**
A partial list follows:

Classes: There are character classes and armor classes and difficulty classes.
Levels: There are experience levels and dungeon levels and spell levels and monster levels and challenge levels (or ratings).
Races: The players' characters could all be human; but each one could be a member of some other race, instead.
Platonic-Solid Dice: Even if the dice are simulated by computer programs or other aids, the probability distributions of the regular d4, d6, d8, d12, and d20 apply. (If the game also uses d10 and d100 dice, that doesn't throw this off.)
Items and Abilities, Magical and Mundane: Money and clothes and rations and staffs and wands and spells and potions and scrolls.
Weapons: Clubs, Daggers, Maces, Swords; maybe even Glaive-Guisarmes, for those who like such things.
Miscellany: cantrips, orisons, traps -- stuff like that.
Attributes: STR, CON, DEX, INT, WIS, CHA (in any order).
Bonuses and Modifiers and Penalties, because it's meant to be educational (do the arithmetic in your head).
Obscure or Fascinating Cultural References, because it's meant to be educational. Strange lands, dangerous monsters, vertiginous landscapes, natural hazards.
One Character Per Player (with exceptions): You're playing your character instead of playing your group or your faction.
Monsters: Dragons are a must, but the entire litany contributes to the recognizability.
Alignment: The writings of Anderson and Moorcock must be served, so there's that. (Each particular group might decide how or whether they're actually going to use that stuff, but rules for alignment are included in the game.)
Medieval Fantasy: Alchemy but not gunpowder. Religion but not existentialism. Horses and folding boats. Flying carpets, but no cruise missiles. Magic Circles. Pact Magic. Wonder-working. War.
Combat: It's traditional in the game, so it must be included. (In that connection, Hit Points and Damage are also iconic.)
Mockery: Taunts. Unladen Swallows. Glede Wurp the Eyebiter. Bad puns. Anagrams.

Not required:
(-) Gold: Dark Sun has very little metal.

* "jibe," of course.
** I guess I'm saying that these features are not exclusive to D&D.

 

[Rogue Agent]

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.

I'd appreciate it if you gained a little tolerance for elemental rhetorical techniques. Thanks.

(I'd take your "outrage" more seriously if your original post hadn't been a thinly veiled group attack and your reply wasn't completely off-topic.)

Off the cuff light minded answer...

Before 2000...

The rules of AD&D or D&D BECMI/BX or D&D original.

After 2000...whoever owned the trademark...whatever they chose to call D&D and put the label on...that's D&D.

Isn't that the exact same answer both before and after 2000?

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, in a lot of ways, it does boil down to what is written on the box.

Fantasy Roleplaying is too broad, and a single edition of D&D is too specific.

Those who say 4E is not D&D have a particularly loathsome axe to grind, in my opinion.

To me D&D:

Has the iconic monsters, like trolls, dragons, orcs, goblins and more
Primarily uses a d20 but other odd dice are important.
Has magic mostly restricted to certian classes but marginally available to other classes.
Is built on Strong Dude, Holy Dude, Magic Dude, Stealthy Dude foursome.
Has heroes who increase in power massively from start to finish.
Uses hit points as the primary damage measure.
Has saves to avoid magic.
Magic is very rigid (in the rules), in all its forms.
Has the potential to be played in many different ways by different tables.
Has classes, levels and xp that not really spendable till a new level is reached.

But a lot of games fall under that, so it is still primarily what is onthe box.

 

[Niccodaemus]

To me, a big part of D&D is the voice of the designer(s), speaking to you from the page. Encouraging you to bend (or break) the rules, and giving you examples of play.

Here's the intro from 3.0, page 6 (the first page that is not an index or copyright info), paragraph 2.

"Lets start with the biggest secret of all: the key to Dungeon Mastering. (Don't tell anybody, okay?) The secret is that you're in charge. This is not the telling-everybody-what-to-do sort of in charge. Rather, you get to decide how your player group is going to play this game, when and where the adventures take place, and what happens. You get to decide how the rules work, which rules to use, and how strictly to adhere to them. That kind of in charge."

It is the spirit of that voice... encouraging house ruling, that I see as the lifeblood of D&D. It is the voice that has caused oh-so-many versions of OSR/retro-clones/what-have-you. "These are my house rules. This is how I choose to run D&D"

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I'd appreciate it if you gained a little tolerance for elemental rhetorical techniques. Thanks.

(I'd take your "outrage" more seriously if your original post hadn't been a thinly veiled group attack and your reply wasn't completely off-topic.

Elemental or not, that sort of thing is explicitly spelled out as being in bad form on these forums. Sorry.

And there is no "outrage" on my part, nor could I care less if you take it seriously or not.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Nemesis Destiny, please don't take offence so quickly. Rogue Agent, please avoid rising to the bait.

Nothing more to see here, let's move on.

I'd appreciate it if you gained a little tolerance for elemental rhetorical techniques. Thanks.

(I'd take your "outrage" more seriously if your original post hadn't been a thinly veiled group attack and your reply wasn't completely off-topic.)



Isn't that the exact same answer both before and after 2000?

Elemental or not, that sort of thing is explicitly spelled out as being in bad form on these forums. Sorry.

And there is no "outrage" on my part, nor could I care less if you take it seriously or not.

 

[Kzach]

Has anyone mentioned ale or whores yet?

 

[steenan]

For me, the assumed and encouraged playstyle and general setting structure are much more important than mechanical details. Many things listed as crucial in previous posts (eg. 6 attributes) mean near to nothing to me. On the other hand, I'm surprised that many criteria that seem obvious to me when comparing D&D to other games I play are ignored by others.

My list below may seem negative in some places. It's not intended to be an attack. It's just that, for me, D&D is fun, but offers a narrow playstyle - other games I play work much better in other areas.

1. A world that has a lot of magic, but is non-magical underneath. There is a division between magical and non-magical and most things are by themselves non-magical.
2. Focus on adventure and action over characters' beliefs, goals, relations and issues.
3. Combat as something that happens often, is the main way of resolving conflicts and has detailed mechanics.
4. XP and levels; significant increase in power during the game; gaining power as a significant aspect of gameplay.
5. Dungeon exploration as a major part of play. Looting as the main way of gaining wealth. Wealth mainly spent on increasing power.
6. Narrowly focused on challenges and working in action movie logic. Nearly no effort on creating deeper, consistent and believable world.
7. Fighter, cleric and wizard archetypes (not necessarily classes from my POV).
8. Very strange monsters, made up or taken from wide range of sources. No unifying theme or explanation of them existing.