What's the difference between D20 Fantasy and D&D?

[BroccoliRage]

I do post on DF and I do say I like 3e on DF... I'm Valadriel on the DF forums. I also know DF is tame, its why I post there but I also stand by my opinion. Like I said, I like DF, its a great place to hang and just talk about D&D, whatever edition as long as you remain rule neutral but its the few grognards that make it look really, really bad at times and the TETSNBN stuff is ridiculous, but at least it recognizes that it is an edition, unlike statements like D20 or D20 Fantasy. I mean heck, I'd take D20D&D.

And the comment about the guy with Sean Reynolds was an example of the ill educated opinions being expressed as facts on DF, which does occur on every forum but something like that speaks basement dwelling troglodyte to me if the guy hadn't posted so intelligently in other places and I didn't usually enjoy most of his posts.

Yeah, but there's a flaw in that reasoning:

First, stating an opinion as an absolute is not wrong on subjective matters: With my milieu/paradigm/idiom, whatever, my opinion is law and universal. In yours, it may be wrong, but to me, this is how it is.

Saying d20 fantasy is not derogatory. I'm not going to call it d20D&D because it's not D&D to me. IF you disagree, that's fine, it doesn't bother me.

d20 fantasy is not a second class game. it is not my game of choice, but even if it were I would still not call it D&D, because it doesn't fit with the previous examples and lacks the uniform compatibility. THAT is the reason I started calling it as such, not because I wanted toss dirt on it.There's d20 Modern, d20 Past, d20 Future, d20 Call of Cthulhu, d20 Whatever You Want, what makes d20 Fantasy so much more derogatory? I'll tell you, the reason they didn't call it d20 Fantasy is because Dungeons and Dragons is a name with universality, but to me it's more than just a name it's a series of extrememly similiar game engines. Playing chess and calling it Risk doesn't make chess Risk. They may both be wargames, but the similarities end.


TETSNBN is just a joke. You shouldn't take any of it seriously.

 

[DonTadow]

Look, teitan, using emotive language like "ridiculous" and "snobbish" to characterise someone who takes a different view to you is counterproductive and more than a little confrontational.

I do understand that WOTC own the brand name "D&D" and are entitled to use it. I realise that. Equally, I don't have to agree that 3.x is D&D; by my standards, it isn't. I get to decide what I call it.

So the challenge is to come up with an alternative name for 3.x that isn't offensive or denigrating. I've always gone with "d20 fantasy" because I thought it was clear and descriptive and didn't contain any value judgments.

Having learned from this thread, I shall henceforth call it "WOTC fantasy roleplaying."

I could pretty much see where tietan is coming from on this. IT is as if you're looking at a cat, and saying, that's not a cat, because the only cat you consider a cat is your siamese that was ran over by a car 20 years ago.

There's emotional opinions and then there are factual truths. In your emotional opinion, 3e is not dungeons and dragons. Mostlyh because its not what you first played. Factually, it is dungeons and dragons, as wotc owns the license and has deemed this the new version of dungeons and dragons. Most of the world refers to dungeons and dragons as the current edition.

Again, as with the car anology, ford owns the rights to the mustang, if they want to replace the fox body and make it a sedan fine, its still a mustang as per the way they are designing the new mustangs.

It is a losing battle to look at the color red and say its not the color red. What you mean to say is that 3e is not the dungeons and dragons you remember.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

The car analogy

Fraid I disagree.

"Car" is a generic term, analagous to "RPG". I agree that 3.x is a RPG.

"Aston Martin" is a specific term. It's a brand name, analagous to D&D.

Imagine that Aston Martin ceased to exist and were bought out by another car firm. Then that other car firm started producing vehicles that were quite different to the cars I recognise as Aston Martins.

I could then say, "I agree they're cars, but I don't think they're really Aston Martins."

That's my view. I agree that 3.x is a RPG, but I don't think it's really D&D.

 

[teitan]

So does that mean that Star Wars is Space D20 because you might prefer the WEG edition? D&D is not generic fantasy, it's a specific form of fantasy and D20 Fantasy implies a generic fantasy rules set more true to something like True 20 than D&D3, which isn't a generic system in spite of its various campaign settings like Eberron, FR, Greyhawk, Dark Sun etc. Each of those is the D&D paradigm applied to a different genre like Eberron with Magitek, FR and Greyhawk to traditional fantasy, Dark Sun to survival wasteland, post apoc settings or Ravenloft is D&D applied to the horror setting but D&D isn't generic.

Again though, by refusing to call it by its name is implied snobbery and a second class game to the previous editions. I would accept D20D&D because that is an acceptable thinking of it because it is D&D concepts applied to the D20 mechanics, the magic Arcane/Divine split, ALignments, etc. If you mean to be snobbish or not, it still comes off that way.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I'm refusing to call it "D&D" because it's not what I understand as D&D.

You think that's snobbish and ridiculous. I get that.

 

[Nikosandros]

I find myself more or less in an "intermediate" position.

I believe 3e to be more or less still D&D. Many of the basic elements of the game are there and I find 3e to be closer to AD&D than to Rolemaster or other fantasy games.

On the other hand, I think that 3e is a quite radical departure from previous editions (and I realized how radical only after playing it extensively) so that it becomes almost a different game.

 

[teitan]

I'm refusing to call it "D&D" because it's not what I understand as D&D.

You think that's snobbish and ridiculous. I get that.

Still haven't addressed by question regarding Star Wars and Conan.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Still haven't addressed by question regarding Star Wars and Conan.

Don't know anything about them, I'm afraid.

I don't call the d20 horror product "Call of Cthulhu." I call it d20 Horror.

To me, "Call of Cthulhu" means the BRP game.

 

[WayneLigon]

On the other hand, I think that 3e is a quite radical departure from previous editions (and I realized how radical only after playing it extensively) so that it becomes almost a different game.

As it should be, and a nessesary one. 3E is what 2E should have been, and it needed to have happened around 1984/1985 rather than 1990; it's a crying shame we had to wait until 2000 to get the advances we did. It's a baby step designed to gradually lift and drag the massive player base out of the 70's with the least amount of loss and shock as people get retrained to a better mechanical system; you can (hopefully) count on the next two editions pulling it further from OD&D/1E until we finally have a decent 21st century D&D game.

 

[teitan]

Don't know anything about them, I'm afraid.

I don't call the d20 horror product "Call of Cthulhu." I call it d20 Horror.

To me, "Call of Cthulhu" means the BRP game.

Actually, it would be accurate to call it D20 Cthulhu because that is what it is, Call of Cthulhu converted to D20. It also isn't a generic horror game as D20 Horror would suggest because it is very much designed to impart the experience of Lovecraftian horror. But I digress, I am not asking you about experiences with the games, it is a hypothetical question. If you did not like Star Wars and instead chose the WEG version would you call it Space D20? That would be analogous to calling D&D3 D20 Fantasy even though it doesn't emulate a generic genre as broad as fantasy though it does a darn fine job of emulating D&D...