When is D&D not D&D?

[JRR_Talking]

To me D&D is, in a rambling sort of way

Its sword and sorcery with fine lines dividing the roles in a party.
Its a 'thief' checking for traps, and a cleric healing him when it goes wrong
There are classes.
There are levels.
People trudging through a dungeon having fairly non-dynamic slugging it out battles.
Its pre-industrial, there is magic so theres no need for machines.
Its not cinematic, its not eberron, its not wushu.
It has dragons that can be fought.
It has spellbooks that contain eldritch power that wizards need to 'pour over and study' and not power points, mana or recharging talents. Its not warlocks, its not BO9S.
Wizards have staffs and spellbooks. They really shouldnt have crossbows.
Its cleric turning undead without it being a magical ability or spell.
Its characters starting off pretty weak and vulnerable and over time getting mighty
Its not character starting off fairly powerful and not developing in 'stats' over time.
Its a DM's guide and a players handbook.
Its not WHFRP, Its not RQ,
Its races that are pretty much human, with plastic ears or beards causing a light change in stats..
Its everybody speaking common.
Its XP
Its setting pretty rich in magic items and spellcasters.
Its OD&D, 1st ed, 2nd ed and 3.5
It might not be 4th ed.

John

 

[Kesh]

And above all, the kitchen sink has to be thrown in, the serial-numbers-filed-off amalgam of the best, and often the worst, that fantasy has produced to date; jotuns and trolls living down the lane from titans and centaurs, with kirin and hopping vampires their neighbors in the next celestial county; not Conan OR Gandalf OR Hercules OR Cloud Strife, but the four of them teaming up to kick ass and chew bubblegum, possibly with Batman's help. Crashed spaceships give our heroes rayguns with which to shoot balrogs (er, balORS), dinosaurs live on lost plateaus overlooking quaint medievalesque villages, worg-riding goblins fight Stygians, and the Argonauts compete with the Knights of the Round Table for the Holy Grail - until the PCs show up and steal it away from both because they need it to kill Cthulhu.

Thread over. You win.

 

[Gwathlas]

If fluff changes can make the game "not D&D", then maybe I've never played D&D, 'cause I generally stay far away from the published fluff.

Honestly, I'm not really concerned with whether or not 4e is "really" Dungeons & Dragons. All I care about is that it's a mechanically deep and balanced fantasy RPG with huge publisher support. I just want a set of tools to do my own thing with. If it ends up being a bit less hassle than 3e, that's awesome.

Huge publisher support... until the next over kill change for profit... the adventutr continues for me but not as a 4e mutant...

 

[Gwathlas]

you won't be taking their stuff

As long as you are fighting things and taking their stuff, it is D&D to me.

I am not even saying that has to be focus or a significant part of your own game, it just has to be there in some form. . . if so, it is D&D.

One of the starwars designer geeks was quick to point out stuff doesn't matter in starwars, the indication being it won't matter in 4e much either... powers will replace magic items so you won't be finding +1 swords and such... not D&D to me!

 

[Gwathlas]

hmmmm nope

I rather like this phrasing of things.

To put it simply, D&D is D&D so long as you can express 50-90% of your character's capabilities, potential, and flavor with the expression: my character is a [insert ordinal number] level [insert race] [insert class]. Having a fifth level human paladin is the very core of D&D. Rolling a d20 to achieve either total failure or total success, with a small chance of critical success (as opposed to Alternity-style degrees of success), is also essential. If you pay attention, whenever D&D shows up in a pop cuture reference, it is always going to involve one of those two elements.

As a more rigorous definition:

D&D is a tabletop game based around a group of players, one of whom is desginated the DM, who controls the game, with the rest acting as players who each control one character (usually). There is no pre-set board to play on, and no standards for miniatures or playing pieces. All actions are resolved with the throw of dice, most commonly the d20. d20 rolls are absolute binary rolls for success or failure, and most other rolls are done to assign a "damage" number. Characters are constructed by choosing ability scores, a race, and assigning levels to classes. Levels are gained through the gathering of XP, primarily from defeating monsters controlled by the DM and overcoming other challenges. The game is most often set is a generic fantasy setting (with several options to choose from), though variants exist to place it in other settings (like d20 Modern, which I would say is a mere variant on D&D, not something seperate). Many common assumptions are that there are a pantheon of gods, angels, demons, dragons, various intelligent species, magic which can be controlled by learned individuals, magical items, and a wide variety of creatures and concepts taken from myth, fiction, and random inspiration (or the lack thereof). There is a wide range of IP associated with the game, such as creatures called Mind Flayers and Beholders, though this gets robbed by Japanese videogame companies on a daily basis. There are certain cosmological assumptions of "other planes of existence", though interpetations vary. All is subject to DM reinterpretation, and house rules.

Whew... I hope that covers it.

It is a minor point, but there are a number of minor flavor and mechaical assumptions that are pretty distinctly D&D, but they are far more fundamental than what most people are complaining about. Stuff like Clerics being able to cast spells, the arbitrary distinction between demons and devils as different kinds of being (why not just call the mooks demons and the rulers devils? it is an equally valid and arbitrary choice, but 4E not doing that, it is sticking with the clsssic assumption), different size categories, restricting weapon and armor choices based on class, restricting magic use based on class (rather than giving magic to specific races, or giving it to everyone), etc. There are a lot of fundamental flavor and mechanical changes they could make that would make it "not D&D", but nothing announced so far even hints that they will do so. As a whole, the changes people are griping about are things that are not fundamental assumptions, they are just specific details and implementations.

Well, I admit the death of Vancian magic is somewhat major, but 3E had been eroding away at that one for years, so it lost its importance long ago.

Sorry my erudite friend but everything they say makes me think starwars and dragons or wow and dragons but not the real Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[Gwathlas]

When your playing 4e.

Your playing starwars and dragons.

 

[Lorthanoth]

I thought it was rather well put, myself. Ah well , no accounting for taste. I'm looking forward to 4e. It will be Dungeons and Dragons AND it will be different. I'm excited to see what the future holds. If it isn't quite what people want.. then hey, we have over 30 years worth of stuff we can still use! It's all good.

 

[Gwathlas]

A few weeks back, TerraDave posted a poll where he asked people "What must D&D have?", and I found the responses interesting, and they gave me a pretty good definition of D&D.

With classes, Fighter, Cleric, Wizard and Rogue all had 75%+, and then a big drop to Paladin as the next most popular at 38%(Ranger was omitted by mistake).

With races, Human, Elf, Dwarf at over 80%, Halflings at 64%, then another big drop to Half-Elves at 35%. In fact, all of the monster choices listed were considered a more important element of the game than the Half-elves and the less popular PC races, with the exception of dinosaurs at 29%.

Polearms rated as a more important element of D&D than Half-Elves or Paladins.



Now this poll had only 301 respondents and obviously couldn't list all possible options, so too much shouldn't be read into it. Planar questions are obviously missing. If I choose 60% as a threshold for inclusion in "ENWorld Poll D&D", I see that D&D is a game:

Where there are six abilities, all the platonic solids are used as dice, but the d20 is most important.

Where the PCs are chosen from the races of Humans, Dwarves, Elves and Halflings and take on the classes of Fighter, Cleric, Wizard and Rogue.

Characters have hit points, AC and saving throws. The classes have levels, some have spells. They win gems, gold, magic items and experience points.

Dungeon, city and wilderness adventures are all important. Characters battle a whole list of iconic monsters, with only drow, giant/dire animals, dinosaurs and the tarrasque failing to reach 60%.


If Wizards produces a game that satisfies these criteria and calls it D&D, then they'll satisfy at least 60% of the respondents. I'm one of them - I'd look at that game and call it D&D as well.

And from the previews I've seen this seems to be exactly what they're doing, with one exception: saving throws. And I'm guessing they think that replacing saving throws with defenses will be for 4e what cyclic initiative was for 3e. Hated until people use it.

Wizards must have better survey data than this little poll, so they they must have a better idea of what the D&D consumers tend to consider essential elements of D&D. They look like they're going to provide those elements but they're willing to alter everything else.

You assume they care about any opinions other then their own.

 

[Wormwood]

You assume they care about any opinions other then their own.

This is the internet. The only opinion that matter is your own.

 

[Lorthanoth]

They probably care a great deal about others' opinions, if (as some say) the bottom line is money. I like to think there's more passion and commitment there than that.