What are the basic assumptions DND assumes for a setting to work with it under the rules of DND? Assumptions like:

- paladins recieve powers
- paladins are seperate from clerics
- casters rule martials drool
- etc...

I'd start with the most basic...

- The present world is built upon the ruins of past civilizations (which provide the many dungeons/ruins/tombs that the PCs go have adventures in).

- Relatedly, there exist various monsters that inhabit these dungeons and the wild places outside the bounds of civilization that are too dangerous for typical warriors of the setting to easily overcome.

- Society has the concept of The Adventurer... a semi-nomadic individual skilled in fighting and/or magic who routinely takes on challenges in pursuit of their goals. These individuals are accepted enough that they can generally wander into a community without being seen as a strange and dangerous outsider, but instead as a business opportunity and potential problem solver.

 - Magic and magical items exist. You could drill further into types of magic (Arcane/Divine)
 - Society is roughly based on medieval Europe - this I guess isn't necessarily true anymore

Of course, there are dungeons and there are dragons. 
 

Quote from: Chainsaw Surgeon on March 26, 2025, 11:06:18 AM- Magic and magical items exist. You could drill further into types of magic (Arcane/Divine)
 - Society is roughly based on medieval Europe - this I guess isn't necessarily true anymore

Of course, there are dungeons and there are dragons.

Among official D&D settings - "Oriental Adventures" came out in 1985. Masque of the Red Death and The Gothic Earth Gazeteer came out in 1994-1995, which was gothic horror set in the 1890s. The historical sourcebooks from "The Glory of Rome" to "A Mighty Fortress" came out from 1992 to 1994.

Since the WotC takeover, there has been a push to consolidate and standardize the official settings more. The new official settings, like Eberron, are pretty much required to include all the Player's Handbook races, classes, and magic. At the same time, though, they have allowed third-party settings which stretch the assumptions even further - like Afghanistan: D20 that uses D&D rules for modern military action in Afghanistan.

Homebrew campaigns can venture in similar ways.

So there's kind of big question about what is considered D&D.

Further complicating the matter, even with respect to official D&D, different settings and editions may have different core assumptions.

Until recently an assumption was monsters are monsters, and monsters need killin.

Quote from: Ruprecht on March 26, 2025, 03:42:36 PMUntil recently an assumption was monsters are monsters, and monsters need killin.

Playing monsters as PCs has been a thing since OD&D.

AD&D cut back on playing monsters at first, but The Orcs of Thar (1989) is a full campaign of playing full-blooded orcs and other humanoids. Council of Wyrms (1994) is a campaign where the PCs are all dragons.

D&D has had a lot of variation since early on.

Indeed, the general codified assumption that adventurers were at least not evil, and that their enemies typically were, was to my knowledge more of a 2nd edition thing with the demise of assassin and the like.

That being said, kinda hard to argue that earlier editions weren't closer to war gaming, or that the rules didn't tend to emphasize combat and violence/killing as a means to resolve most published scenarios.

(Not saying faction diplomacy or outside-the-box thinking didn't matter, just that killing was almost always in there insofar as the rules and scenarios covered anything.)

For better or for worse, recent publications have moved away from that origin a fair bit. Some scenarios like wilds beyond the witchlight even seem tailored around a less wargame-y more RP and skill check focused style of play.

Quote from: KindaMeh on March 26, 2025, 04:18:08 PMThat being said, kinda hard to argue that earlier editions weren't closer to war gaming, or that the rules didn't tend to emphasize combat and violence/killing as a means to resolve most published scenarios.

(Not saying faction diplomacy or outside-the-box thinking didn't matter, just that killing was almost always in there insofar as the rules and scenarios covered anything.)

For better or for worse, recent publications have moved away from that origin a fair bit. Some scenarios like wilds beyond the witchlight even seem tailored around a less wargame-y more RP and skill check focused style of play.

Late 1980s AD&D and 2nd edition spread out a lot from wargaming. Some games had story focus like Dragonlance and Ravenloft. There were also mystery and exploration adventures, like L2 The Assassin's Knot.

Then 3rd edition and especially 4th edition had a greater focus on wargaming.

I haven't seen Wild Beyond the Witchlight, but the other 5E adventures I've seen have been pretty combat heavy - including some recent like Phandelver and Below (2023), which I got for free.

What I mean is that insofar as mechanical and rules support go, a lot of what we have now has strayed (probably starting in 3e with skill point mechanics), from solely focusing on a character's combative capabilities.

I do not mean to imply that prior adventures could not include non-combat play or RP. What I mean is that the core chassis of 2e and prior, to my knowledge, even with NWPs, would not allow for a campaign like Wilds Beyond the Witchlight. At least not without a whole lot of DM finagling, homebrewing, and specific on the fly rulings.

Similarly, a lot of what defines a character now is non-combat and utility options on the character sheet itself. Rather than challenging a player themselves or fixating on non-statted backstory or RP modern iterations seem to challenge the character sheet during non-combat scenarios in a way that simply wouldn't have worked with a war-game centric mechanical approach.

I don't always dislike that, but I feel it's the way the mechanical cookie has crumbled. And that much of what one gets in terms of game scenarios and the like for making use of those new mechanical features would not have really worked the same way in or with prior editions.

Quote from: KindaMeh on March 26, 2025, 05:48:00 PMWhat I mean is that insofar as mechanical and rules support go, a lot of what we have now has strayed (probably starting in 3e with skill point mechanics), from solely focusing on a character's combative capabilities.

I do not mean to imply that prior adventures could not include non-combat play or RP. What I mean is that the core chassis of 2e and prior, to my knowledge, would not allow for a campaign like Wilds Beyond the Witchlight. At least not with a whole lot of DM finagling, homebrewing, and specific on the fly rulings.

Again, I don't know Wild Beyond the Witchlight, so I'm not sure what cases you're talking about, but non-weapon proficiencies covered most of the space that is covered by 3E skills.

I don't really agree with that, having run them in AD&D 1e/OSRIC mishmashed Arden Vul, and skill points in 3.5e Tomb of Horrors (very different play from the original). NWPs for me seem a lot more like a binary question of narrative training, yes or no. (Even the ability to invest more for better rolls when applicable seems like a laughable investment at best unless you're just taking it for flavor.)

Meanwhile skill points are actual in-game on the character sheet numerical representations of how well you can do noncombat thing. And you get some that matter at every level. DCs will actually come up regularly in the adventures. All the damn time.

NWP, I ask if you have it or not. If you have it all that means is that your character is trained to have specialized knowledge within the narrative. But the same could be said of just having blacksmith as a backstory. I don't have to worry about DCs and penalties and synergies and all that crap.

Skill points I have to actually care what specifically is on your sheet. when running tomb of horrors for 3.5e a two point difference matters and could be the difference between life and death. I challenge the sheet, not your own knowledge of whatever or creativity as regards the training your character ostensibly has.

In the other instance I challenge the players of Arden Vul. Maybe a player can think to have their character do something special, yes or no, based on having or not having an nwp. Maybe they even roll against the set number for the nwp (not situation). But it's less about the specific number on the character sheet, and I don't assume you have no skill in fire starting, breath holding, religion, rope tying, horsemanship, and the like just because you didn't put your possibly as low as two starting NWPs (which grow in number by one like once every three levels at best) into that.

Sorry, I've been monologuing.

TLDR: Since around 3e, skill checks have mattered a lot more,and been more of a mechanical focus, with codified situational DCs in the modules and scenes themselves.

 Likewise, non-combat abilities on the character sheet get referenced pretty frequently nowadays, and can be constant parts of a campaign's gameplay.

Previously, most of what one had was either directly combat applicable or, like NWPs, primarily a narrative acknowledgement of backstory skill in some specialized task.

Nowadays it's like everything is codified. DCs everywhere and non-combat play as being supported mechanically everywhere. Not even just supported, but mechanically governed.

It's not just a war game in the mechanics, that is to say. The focus of the mechanical support and descriptions has shifted.

Bringing that back around to assumptions, I don't think D&D always requires combat within a campaign. Or even that it is always a wargame.

I think that it is maybe a vague set of mechanical systems, with each edition and setting-specific rules iteration being a different item in the set. But that we can't even say that said systems are always centered on combat. They are generally class and level based, I guess? Usually having d20 combat rules, that may or may not see use?

Likewise, maybe each edition/setting ruleset has setting assumptions. But if there's something that fits all of them I'm blanking on it.

Quote from: jhkim on March 26, 2025, 03:55:14 PM

Quote from: Ruprecht on March 26, 2025, 03:42:36 PMUntil recently an assumption was monsters are monsters, and monsters need killin.

Playing monsters as PCs has been a thing since OD&D.

AD&D cut back on playing monsters at first, but The Orcs of Thar (1989) is a full campaign of playing full-blooded orcs and other humanoids. Council of Wyrms (1994) is a campaign where the PCs are all dragons.

D&D has had a lot of variation since early on.

He said "assumption", which is correct. The notion that you can "play the monsters" subverts the baseline; it's not UNUSUAL, but even in OD&D when EGG was developing it, the assumption was you were a human of some sort. Outliers prove the default case. When AD&D came out, the DMG made it pretty clear PC monsters were horseshit as far as Gygax was concerned, probably because he knew the implications: you give the players an inch, they will destroy your campaign. Then of course the "monster PC" campaigns became a thing because it was something different, but I'd bet 95% of all D&D games were pretty cookie-cutter compared to those. I mean, I've run monster-centric campaigns before, but it's ALWAYS "hey, this is something different we're trying." It wasn't until very recently that every retard under the sun had to run some sort of half-demon, half-dragon abomination. In the last 5th edition game I played, out of 6 PCs, only 1 was a conventional race (I ran a half-elf). Everyone else had some weird crap.