When is D&D not D&D?

[Nifft]

It's a matter of conjugation.

I play D&D as it was intended.

You have some half-way reasonable house rules.

They are ruining the game forever.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Tharen the Damned]

It's like that old Supreme Court ruling on pornography. I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

Let me take Monte Cooks Arcana Evolved as an example. AE is a D20 game and uses a lot of the D&D mechanics. AE has some slightly modified skills, a lot of different Feats and a similiar but slightly different magic system. AE has no alignemnts. AE has all new Core Classes. These Core Classes fit the same niches as do the "Core D&D" Core Classes. AE also has all new Races -apart from Human. These Races do fit the same Niches as do the "Core D&D" Races.
You can play an AE PC with a AE Race and Class in a Core D&D Setting and vice versa without balance problems (if you use only AE for AE and Core for Core).

So, is AE D&D?

Nope, not for me. AE is a brilliant game and I love the Races and Classes and the Magic system (especially the Magic system). But it does not feel D&D playing a Giant Acashic or a Verric Greenbond.

It is not the different mechanics or the different Races or different Classes. It is all this together that makes me feel that I play AE and not D&D.
It would be different if I played an AE PC in a Core D&D Campaign. That would simply be one exotic PC.

Looking at 4th and what we know so far I see a lot of changes. Lots of new and different crunch and lots of new fluff.

So will 4th be still D&D?
I don't know it yet. The Tiefling as PC is just an exotic fluff element that can be ignored. But the many other changes may add up and in the end it may not feel like D&D.

But what about the Designers? They claim that it is still D&D?
Sure, for them it is, they build the new edition. For them everything gradually evolved. The rules and the fluff. The ported ideas from their own houserules and had long design meetings to talk about it. After all, they are working on if for 2-3 years already.

But we Gamers will be hit with all changes at once. For us there is no evolution of rules and fluff because we see everything at once, condensed into the Core Books (and of course the sneak peaks and Blog entries)

So for the Designers it might feel and play like D&D but for us Gamers it might feel like a different game.

 

[JDJblatherings]

So True20 is also D&D?

nope...PCs and NPCs don't have Hit Points in True20.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

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.

 

[Desdichado]

I wonder. If Arcana Unearthed had called it's warmain a fighter, the unfettered a thief, whatever the mage character was a wizard or cleric depending on the spell choice, and instead of having giants, verrick, dog and lion men it had elves, dwarves and halflings---and it called itself D&D; would people be up in arms about that, or not?

I tend to think they wouldn't. What makes D&D D&D to most people, I'd wager, is extremely superficial.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I wonder. If Arcana Unearthed had called it's warmain a fighter, the unfettered a thief, whatever the mage character was a wizard or cleric depending on the spell choice, and instead of having giants, verrick, dog and lion men it had elves, dwarves and halflings---and it called itself D&D; would people be up in arms about that, or not?

I tend to think they wouldn't. What makes D&D D&D to most people, I'd wager, is extremely superficial.

Yep...that is why people have long, drawn-out and heated discussions about the things that make D&D. Because we all love to discuss superficial stuff to death.

 

[Desdichado]

Yep...that is why people have long, drawn-out and heated discussions about the things that make D&D. Because we all love to discuss superficial stuff to death.

Welcome to the Internet.

 

[Kapture]

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.

I like that one. It has some rigor.

As far as I can tell, DND is no longer DND if you don't like the fluff. Which I've never quite gotten... because I always, always, always make my own fluff.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

...when I hear some 3E maven shrieking about how 4E "isn't D&D" (not that the poster I quote is doing that!), because of X, Y and Z changes. 3E already "wasn't AD&D" for me. Hell, it wasn't even called AD&D.

A kindred spirit!

 

[Sundragon2012]

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.

QFT

This is the most accurate definition I have yet seen. And thankfully it doesn't include the long-ago jumped the shark phrase "killing things and taking their stuff."



Sundragon