Quote from: SettembriniWhat are the core concepts of D&D in your book?

Class and level based system for generic fantasy RPG. Mechanic where you roll a dice to hit, whether you hit depends on how good you are and how hard he is to hit. You then roll a dice to take 'hit points' from him, those hit points being an abstract representation of how much damage a creature can take. Vancian magic. Core character classes representing archetypes that could be named 'fighter' or 'warrior', 'mage' or 'magic user', 'cleric' or 'priest', and 'rogue' or 'thief'. Others may be in the game too of course. Racial choices for character should include elf, dward and halfling, perhaps also including other races too.

Change any of those and I would find it hard to call the game D&D.

Quote from: CabBut there comes a point where you have to ask whether revolutionary change in a product line (or even radical evolutionary change) benefits the hobby, or even whether it is good for sales. I don't have the answer to that, I'd need to see numbers.

Yeah, it's a good question but I believe it is too vague. That purely depends on context.

What game line?
How functional is it before the change?
How currently in use is it?
How functional is it after the changes?

Now, all those questions are subjective, depending on who you talk to. Some new editions tank, others thrive. Take Blue Planet, for instance. It was going nowhere with a system few people liked. Then it had a more successful relaunch with a completely new (revolution) system. A great majority of people were just happy with the new.

But other games didn't fare so well. For instance, it seems people were often dissatisfied with new incarnations of Lo5R. New editions were never hailed by a majority as "better".

I guess what I'm saying is, there's no universal formula that says whether you should stick with the basics (smooth evolution) or try new things (revolution).

It's like music bands. Some renew themselves successfully, some do not. Some stick with what they've done all along successfully, others don't.

The universal formula is not: How little or how much should you change?

The real universal formula is as follow: How good and/or popular is it before and how good/popular is it after the changes?

In my opinion, of course.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadSpeaking from the homebrewer perspective, I WANT "a little structure". I never had a problem with the 1e and 2e cosmology because I could put my own dark gods in and give them their own schemes. So structure was there I could use, but it was toolkit style structure that I could fill in the blanks about.

This is not how the article comes across to me. It seems less like what I expect of D&D authors and more what I expect of authors of games like (yes) WoD. (Funny, I didn't get what someone meant by "WoDdy above, until that came up as the first example I thought of as too specific.)

I find it funny that you find this chunk of metaplot related to Asmodeus to be an outrageous WoDism, when there's metaplot relating to Asmodeus and the politics of hell going way back to 1st edition.

Seriously, look at the articles on devils in the 1E Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual 2. There's a civil war in hell brewing, with the structure of each side clearly laid out, and that's all core material.

Quote from: SettembriniWhat are the core concepts of D&D in your book?
Right now, it looks like Palladium Fantasy would be more like D&D than 4e.

It is true that Palladium follows many of the core concepts of D&D, down to the aesthetic surface level of how many things work. Too bad the game sucked when it was released and is now an outdated pile of giant suck.

But at its core, D&D's main drive is dungeoncrawling (missions) and, most importantly, powering up. All of this with a mish-mash of elements of sword & sorcery, heroic and high fantasy as a backdrop.

You need to get the players thinking of tactics and strategies before their characters are even built, with things such as niche roles and optimization. Then after that you need ressource management and rule mastery, with some tactical decisions in play. And lots of levelling so you can kill more things and take their stuff.

By this generic description, one might think that a lot of games do that but surprisingly, few do. Not in that focused, effective way.

The rest of the differences between editions is mostly cosmetic, although it still needs to be done effectively.

Whether the game has skills or not. Whether demons wear pink skirts or shoot fireballs from their asses. Whether there are one, two or three axis of alignments. Whether there is one (Class) or two (class+race) or an infinite number (race +multiclass) number of niches to fill. It doesn't really matter if it's well done.

How do you do it well? That's pretty subjective and even among the D&D community, open for debate quite often. But it seems like each edition so far has kept enough of the engine to drive the core ideas home and remain the most popular game out there. Judging by the very mild changes that are suggested by the new design team, it doesn't look like they will mess too much. They'll add some things here, remove some things there. It should allow D&D to remain D&D.

Of course, I don't know yet if I'll like it better than 3rd but I'm keeping an open mind.

Quote from: Consonant DudeYeah, it's a good question but I believe it is too vague. That purely depends on context.

What game line?
How functional is it before the change?
How currently in use is it?
How functional is it after the changes?

I agree with that. It would be foolish to assert that all 'evolutionary' change is good but 'revolutionary' change is not, its rather too dependent on other factors as you rightly point out. I'd stick my neck out and say that evolutionary is safer, and revolutionary is riskier.

(cut for brevity)

QuoteI guess what I'm saying is, there's no universal formula that says whether you should stick with the basics (smooth evolution) or try new things (revolution).

It's like music bands. Some renew themselves successfully, some do not. Some stick with what they've done all along successfully, others don't.

The universal formula is not: How little or how much should you change?

The real universal formula is as follow: How good and/or popular is it before and how good/popular is it after the changes?

In my opinion, of course.

I can't disagree with any of that. Hence the point I made about needing to see the numbers before evaluating how successful edition switches have been in D&D.

Quote from: Consonant DudeIt is true that Palladium follows many of the core concepts of D&D, down to the aesthetic surface level of how many things work. Too bad the game sucked when it was released and is now an outdated pile of giant suck.

But at its core, D&D's main drive is dungeoncrawling (missions) and, most importantly, powering up. All of this with a mish-mash of elements of sword & sorcery, heroic and high fantasy as a backdrop.

You need to get the players thinking of tactics and strategies before their characters are even built, with things such as niche roles and optimization. Then after that you need ressource management and rule mastery, with some tactical decisions in play. And lots of levelling so you can kill more things and take their stuff.

I think you're massively misunderstanding what makes D&D the game that it is. It isn't just about combat, levelling up, powers, more levelling, killing things and dungeon crawling. It isn't a mechanical procession of murdering monsters from character generation onwards, at its heart its a roleplaying game; thats what separated it from Chainmail. Now there has been rather a return to that kind of gaming in 3rd ed, and if 4th ed continues that its moving further and further away from being an RPG and back towards being a miniatures combat game.

He who says D&D is a minis game, doesn´t know much about minis games.
Mini Wargaming is more related ro RPGing than D&D Miniature battles is.

Quote from: SettembriniMini Wargaming is more related ro RPGing than D&D Miniature battles is.

And a mini combat game based around individual combatants slugging it out is not a miniatures wargame.

Okay, point for you.

Quote from: CabI think you're massively misunderstanding what makes D&D the game that it is. It isn't just about combat, levelling up, powers, more levelling, killing things and dungeon crawling. It isn't a mechanical procession of murdering monsters from character generation onwards, at its heart its a roleplaying game;

Cab, this seems interesting. We may just be disagreeing because of semantics, or maybe not. So I'd like you to clarify. What do you mean by that?

Just so you know, yeah. D&D is of course a roleplaying. I can't see where I implied the contrary. Maybe you're using a different terminology.

What I read about is: D&D isn't about X, Y, or Z. It's a roleplaying game. That doesn't tell me much. Most of the mechanics are about X, Y and Z.  Sor are the various adventure published.

Are you saying that people who played through various adventures and campaigns like Undermountain, Temple of Elemental Evil, etc... were not roleplaying?

I'm not sure I follow what you are trying to say. What are the core concepts of D&D in your opinion?

D&D is about Gygaxian building blocks (As Cthulu is about Lovecraftian-Petersonian ones.), most of them haven´t changed fundamentally since the start.
It seems to me, that 4e throws out A LOT of those and replaces them with Mearlsian building blocks. 3.x gave us new blocks in supplements, but they were optional. Now they are destryoing at least the spells.
The resulting game can be fun, but it might not actually be really D&D. Not more than Palladium or Runequest or Arcana Evolved is D&D.

Quote from: Consonant DudeCab, this seems interesting. We may just be disagreeing because of semantics, or maybe not. So I'd like you to clarify. What do you mean by that?

Just so you know, yeah. D&D is of course a roleplaying. I can't see where I implied the contrary. Maybe you're using a different terminology.

What I read about is: D&D isn't about X, Y, or Z. It's a roleplaying game. That doesn't tell me much. Most of the mechanics are about X, Y and Z.  Sor are the various adventure published.

Are you saying that people who played through various adventures and campaigns like Undermountain, Temple of Elemental Evil, etc... were not roleplaying?

I'm saying that if you think Undermountain, Temple of Elemental Evil etc. are primarily about bashing foes and grabbing loot for the purpose of gaming levels, you're missing the point of what D&D is about. That kind of thing can be accomplished more than adequately with miniatures combat rules, with a board game if you will. What differentiated D&D from the other games early on was that it was an RPG, and it adopted more and more trappings associated with roleplaying and less of the sheer tactical elements.

You discussed levelling up and gaining power as if that was an end unto itself, and I think thats where we're disagreeing (are we?). Thats the kind of approach successfully parodied by such games as Munchkin, and while D&D can be played in such a way as that is the goal, it isn't key to what D&D is. You can play D&D without that, and many do, whereas the more of the RPG part is replaced with tactical miniatures play the less D&D the game becomes.

One thing to add about adventures, especially the older style ones, is that the published work is only intended to be the bare bones. Take B2 as perhaps the best known example. Yeah, sure, you can run Keep on the Borderlands as first some cave monsters to beat up before turning evil and trying to storm the keep, but thats certainly not the intention of the module; read through it and you'll see that all sorts of intrigues and sub-plots are alluded to but left hanging to give the inexperienced DM something to work with, to get his teeth into. Hence many DMs eventually realise that B2 is less about the caves of chaos and more about the Keep.

QuoteI'm not sure I follow what you are trying to say. What are the core concepts of D&D in your opinion?

I've posted my thoughts on that already in this discussion; the only thing I'd add is that it all exists within a roleplaying context rather than a miniatures boardgaming context. Thats what makes it D&D and an RPG rather than a tactical minitatures combat game.

Quote from: CabYeah, sure, you can run Keep on the Borderlands as first some cave monsters to beat up before turning evil and trying to storm the keep, but thats certainly not the intention of the module; read through it and you'll see that all sorts of intrigues and sub-plots are alluded to but left hanging to give the inexperienced DM something to work with, to get his teeth into. Hence many DMs eventually realise that B2 is less about the caves of chaos and more about the Keep.

I think that's a strange way to look at it.

If that was the case, then B@ would simply sketch the caves and flesh out the keep. I'm not saying you can't further

Quote from: CabI've posted my thoughts on that already in this discussion; the only thing I'd add is that it all exists within a roleplaying context rather than a miniatures boardgaming context. Thats what makes it D&D and an RPG rather than a tactical minitatures combat game.

I've read the thread entirely and couldn't find where your thoughts would be explained.

You keep on saying that D&D is about "roleplaying" but you're not actually telling me what that is. What do you see on the character sheet? What kind of mechanics are there? Why do more people play that RPG instead of another? I stand by what I said. When I look at the three corebooks, that's pretty much what I see and in play, that's what I get:

At its core, D&D's main drive is dungeoncrawling (missions) and, most importantly, powering up. All of this with a mish-mash of elements of sword & sorcery, heroic and high fantasy as a backdrop.

You need to get the players thinking of tactics and strategies before their characters are even built, with things such as niche roles and optimization. Then after that you need ressource management and rule mastery, with some tactical decisions in play. And lots of levelling so you can kill more things and take their stuff.

I don't see how that falls outside of the definition of a roleplaying game.

Consonant Dude: What you say is the Arnesonian element. Many  RPGs have it. Most Fantasy ones do.
Even WoW has it.
But only D&D has Arnesonian Dungeon+Gygaxian building Blocks.

Changing that makes it into something difference.

Quote from: SettembriniConsonant Dude: What you say is the Arnesonian element. Many  RPGs have it. Most Fantasy ones do.
Even WoW has it.
But only D&D has Arnesonian Dungeon+Gygaxian building Blocks.

Changing that makes it into something difference.

What are the Gygax building blocks? I'm honestly curious!