When does D&D stop becoming D&D?

[johan_seraphim]

darn, I had already scheduled the afternoon of June 7 so that I could be home between the hours of 1-4 pm for them to come take my stuff.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

darn, I had already scheduled the afternoon of June 7 so that I could be home between the hours of 1-4 pm for them to come take my stuff.

WotC is hiring guys to do this kind of stuff:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=218792
[/shameless plug]

 

[JDJblatherings]

D&D is a game that lets you kill monsters and take their stuff.

This pretty much mandates that D&D must have monsters, stuff and hit points. Nothing enables killing as a routine pursuit as much as ablative hit points.

Oh, it must also have katanae.

since we talkd so much about techaers and spellign errors...that's katanas or simply katana.

 

[Bregh]

1977, when the first book aimed at standardising forms and systems for all campaigns appears.

AD&D and its linear descendants (including the one about to be born) share the name, and a lot of the tropes. I've enjoyed (and still do) playing them.

The Basic/Expert line and Mentzer's and the Rules Compendium also share the name and a lot of the tropes. I've enjoyed (and still do) playing them.

But, as dialgo is so fond of saying, they aren't what D&D was, either.

Which is perfectly alright.

Now, an argument can be made that D&D stopped being D&D with the publication of Greyhawk, the first supplement (and the rest that followed), but the rules and guidelines suggested therein were less explicit about being the standard form by which the game ought to be played.

The moment we became an audience more interested in what designers were doing with the rules than where we could take it on our own, D&D was no longer D&D.

So, AD&D is D&D with Gary's house rules, Second Edition is Zeb Cook's and Steve Winter's, Basic is D&D filtred through Eric Holmes' eyes, or Tom Moldvay's, or Frank Mentzer's, Third Edition is how Monte Cook and Jon Tweet and Skip Williams chose to run with the ball, and Fourth will be the result of how Mike Mearls, Andy Collins, Richard Baker, and others choose to interpret things. Everybody's got a different take, and none of them are necessarily bad, or better, or worse.

But none of them is D&D the way I see it, all the time, either. D&D used to be about pointing you in some general direction and saying "there, go to it".

There're a lot of reasons why that stopped. None of them are evil. IP protection issues, general enthusiasm, companies (with peoples' livelihoods attached to them) needing to see expanding profit margins in order to continue, players and Dungeon Masters who were harried for time or who just outright liked what designers were publishing are some of those reasons, and as I said, none of these is a bad reason.

But, as I see it, when the game started to become largely standardised overall, it stopped being D&D and instead became "x's" D&D, which is quite similar in a lot of respects, but not enough to be entirely the same.

So, with a to show it's not Gospel, or even true, just my opinion, I'll let it go at that.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

It's been said already, but what defines DnD for me is what's at the core of the game (in no particular order)

1) Roleplaying
2) Gathering in a social context
3) Imagination

Those terms are sufficiently open that, for me, "Dungeons and Dragons" falls within a wide margin. Which works out for me because when the designers do something unexpected, I don't get too stressed or bent out of shape about it.

 

[Vempyre]

So, AD&D is D&D with Gary's house rules, Second Edition is Zeb Cook's and Steve Winter's, Basic is D&D filtred through Eric Holmes' eyes, or Tom Moldvay's, or Frank Mentzer's, Third Edition is how Monte Cook and Jon Tweet and Skip Williams chose to run with the ball, and Fourth will be the result of how Mike Mearls, Andy Collins, Richard Baker, and others choose to interpret things. Everybody's got a different take, and none of them are necessarily bad, or better, or worse.

I think pretty much the same way.

Throughout all of DnD's history, each version has been different enough to be called a different game. Hell at times there was even two different versions being published at the same time. Yet all of them were DnD. All of them felt as DnD.

So will 4E. It's DnD, just different.

Ppl had these arguments when 2E came out, and then when 3E came out. In the end, we all called the results DnD when we stoped feeling insecure and opened our eyes to the truth that it was still DnD, just different and most often better (though the latter is what most ppl disagree about).

 

[Umbran]

This is more of a theoretical discussion, but at what point of re-designing a game system AND setting, does it become completely a new system/setting?

Well, consider that the Jeep of WWII isn't the Jeep of today. But they are still recognizably Jeeps. And the laptop computers of today aren't the desktop computers of the 1980s, but they're still recognizably of the same lineage. And ostriches sure aren't finches, but they are both birds...

That, to me, is the telling question - it is still D&D if it is recognizably of the D&D lineage.

 

[Wolfspider]

Well, consider that the Jeep of WWII isn't the Jeep of today. But they are still recognizably Jeeps. And the laptop computers of today aren't the desktop computers of the 1980s, but they're still recognizably of the same lineage. And ostriches sure aren't finches, but they are both birds...

That, to me, is the telling question - it is still D&D if it is recognizably of the D&D lineage.

And how can you tell that?

 

[mlund]

Setting, Tropes, Stats, and Implements

Those are the core selling points for D&D for me:

Setting: Heroic Medieval Fantasy
Tropes: Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, Humanoid Monsters, Dragons, Arcane Magic, Divine Magic
Stats: STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHA, HP, AC
Implements: Character sheets, dice, over-active imagination

These things don't define D&D for me:
Vancian casting
Melee characters with no super-powers
Hit dice
THACO
Grid / No-grid
Miniatures / No-minatures
Saving Throws vs. X (Will / Reflex / Fort or Breath Weapon, Magic, Poison, Paralysis, etc. for us older players)

I mean, those things are all stuff about D&D I remember, but they aren't core to the game experience for me. A lot of them were just impediments and restrictions.

- Marty Lund

 

[The Little Raven]

And how can you tell that?

It's like the legal definition of obscene... I know it when I see it.