What would be your WILD ideas for D&D?

[Stormonu]

Everything - attack bonus, AC, saves, skills - would be a skill check and something you advance by putting skill points into.

Spellcasting would be rolled into the feat system. To cast magic missile, for example, you would take a feat. Of course, many feats would have prerequisites based on a certain number of ranks in a skill. I would attempt to avoid "you must have this feat to get that feat" as much as possible and try to avoid overlap of abilities.

Classes would simply be starting packages that give you a clump of skills and a handful of starting feats.

I'd use a non-gold system for acquiring/maintaining magic items - possibly a mana system. You could use mana to channel/maintain magic items in your possession or to cast spells; "wizards" would likely have few magic items so they could cast spells, while "fighters" would likely sink their available mana into weapons, armor and gear.

 

[Shades of Green]

I'd get rid of the Divine/Arcane Magic dichotomy and of the Cleric class (and its derivatives, as well as of the armor restrictions of spellcasters. "Priest" or "cleric" would be an in-setting description rather than a character class. Instead, the spellcasting classes will be along the lines of a Bard/Paladin/Ranger (i.e. lots of fighting ability and a little magic), a Fighter-Mage hybrid and a pure Wizard. Only pure Wizards won't start the game skilled in armor, though they should be able to learn how to use it (using a feat or proficiency) if they want.

All spellcasters would use the same magic system, with the difference being their access to magic (spells known and spells per day based on class) and their personal spell-list.

I'd also consider getting rid of the Vancian magic system for the most part and focusing on At-Wills/Encounter Powers or, alternatively, a fatigue system ala Shadowrun.

EDIT: I'd also get rid of Raise Dead, Resurrection and Teleportation or, for the very least, greatly curtail them. These spells, once they become available, tend to make many plots very difficult to run. Death should be meaningful and frightening, not a minor inconvenience.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd actually probably go "pure D&D."

I wouldn't make it something else. I'd make it the best D&D it could be. Which would include focusing on the adventures, the Big Four classes, Tolkeinesque races, chromatic dragons, dungeons, a heirarchy of humanoids, some random tables & charts, all that classic D&D jazz.

I'd just do it with a more modern design aesthetic.

Anything else I'd do I can probably do with True 20 or something instead.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I'm kind of curious now: why would you need the design to be free of tradition for that?

 

[WheresMyD20]

There are already a multitude of roleplaying games that are free of D&D tradition. If you create a "new" D&D that's free of D&D tradition, then you would be creating yet another non-D&D roleplaying game and then sticking the D&D logo on it.

The only reason to do something like that is if you wanted D&D's name recognition, but you didn't want the actual game that went along with it.

 

[Alcamtar]

Divide the line again into Classic and Advanced.

Classic: draws mainly from OD&D/RC. Four classes, four races, single axis alignment, vancian magic. Preserves the original style of D&D with all the sacred cows intact. Designed for a rules-light "OSR" style of game. Designed for broad compatibility with OD&D/RC in both rules and game balance. However a few things might be changed, like reverse AC. Published like the RC, all in one volume, preferably no more than 128 pages.

Advanced: combines aspects of 3E and 4E, including skills, feats, and so forth. Compatibility is not a goal, but still familiari: d20-based using DCs.

Offhand, not sure how I'd do Advanced, but here are some general thoughts:

Two classes, fighter and spellcaster - with no overlap. The only way to increase combat ability is to take fighter levels, the only way to increase magic is to take spellcaster levels. Use skills, feats, powers, templates, prestige classes to customize further. All core mechanics use a point-based toolkit built on a solid mathematical base, but are presented so the toolkit is invisible in ordinary play or game prep. (It could be published as a separate Designers Guide for the benefit of gearheads and third party publishers who care about that sort of thing.)

No more hit dice or rolling stats, all randomness is eliminated from character creation and advancement, replaced with some sort of point buy.

Spell levels match character levels: a 7th level spellcaster has access to 7th level spells, is matched against 7th level monsters, which are found on the 7th level of the dungeon. This would require re-balancing the spell lists, so that a 9th level spell is now a 17th to 20th level spell. The whole game is balanced to max out at 20th level.

Magic is point-based, and spells also have a loose toolkit not unlike HERO or maybe M&M. But again the toolkit is hidden so that it does not affect play or prep. Overall the magic system resembles GURPS with unlimited mana, but cranked up to 11 to support D&D style super-spells. Epic spells and enchantments are mana-based rituals, like GURPS.

Core 'Advanced' races would be Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnomeling (combine gnomes and halflings). Core prestige classes would be Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Thief. Add on books would provide additional options, or you could use the toolkit to roll your own.

 

[WheresMyD20]

Divide the line again into Classic and Advanced.

Classic: draws mainly from OD&D/RC. Four classes, four races, single axis alignment, vancian magic. Preserves the original style of D&D with all the sacred cows intact. Designed for a rules-light "OSR" style of game. Designed for broad compatibility with OD&D/RC in both rules and game balance. However a few things might be changed, like reverse AC. Published like the RC, all in one volume, preferably no more than 128 pages.

Advanced: combines aspects of 3E and 4E, including skills, feats, and so forth. Compatibility is not a goal, but still familiari: d20-based using DCs.

I love this idea. 4e style D&D and OSR style D&D really are two different games. Why not have two product lines? Especially since the "Classic" version probably won't require much new development and it already has 20+ years of support in the forms of modules and supplements that can be re-released with only minor tweaks.

 

[Festivus]

I love this idea. 4e style D&D and OSR style D&D really are two different games. Why not have two product lines? Especially since the "Classic" version probably won't require much new development and it already has 20+ years of support in the forms of modules and supplements that can be re-released with only minor tweaks.

But you would be competing against a number of retro clones that already have it quite right imo (and are free as well). I really like Basic Fantasy RPG for example, and when I want to play a basic RPG, that is my go to game.

I haven't any suggestions for how to redesign a game system that I haven't already seen. I am very impressed with how easy 4E is to teach and learn... I'd be hard pressed to make improvments on that, but if I were to do so, that is an area where it's important to make them.

 

[Set]

What Shades of Green said above. Ditch the concept of divine magic vs. arcane magic, and certain spells only being available to certain types (such as healing).

The 'generic classes' from Unearthed Arcana (or True20) seem like a good idea, with the bajillion Prestige Class abilities or specialized abilities (like Sneak Attack, Rage, Favored Enemy and Unarmed Flurry) being turned into feat chains, so that any 'fighter' can snag elements of barbarian and ranger, without having to multiclass, or have one of those builds you see on the CharOps forums like 'Swashbucker 1 / Fighter 4 / Ranger 3 / Barbarian 5 / Frenzied Berserker 5 / Exotic Weapon Master 2.'

Anything else I'd change would probably risk turning D&D into some sort of bastard love-child of Mutants & Masterminds and GURPS, and run the risk of destroying what makes it D&D.

 

[WheresMyD20]

But you would be competing against a number of retro clones that already have it quite right imo (and are free as well). I really like Basic Fantasy RPG for example, and when I want to play a basic RPG, that is my go to game.

Basic Fantasy is an excellent game. The only real improvement I could think of is to consolidate the saving throws into Fort/Ref/Will or do what Swords & Wizardry did and just have a single saving throw category. Also, converting thief skills to a d20 saving throw-like mechanic would be nice. (Instead of % roll under a number, a d20 roll equal to or better than a number)

Anyway, I don't think there would be much competition if WotC put out a "Classic D&D" product. It wouldn't be a retro-clone - it would carry the D&D name, be an official edition, and have a major publisher behind it.

Right now, the OSR is pretty fragmented. None of the retro-clones have really reached "critical mass" like Pathfinder has with the 3e market. An official, in-print OSR version of D&D would have a much better chance than any of the retro-clones of hitting that critical mass in the OSR market.