The Feel of D&D

[jrients]

I have pretty broad tastes when it comes to the many editions of Dungeons & Dragons, but everyone has their own boundaries that can be crossed and suddenly a game no longer has the feel of D&D. Maybe the campaign is still fun, but somewhere along the way the DM made one houserule too many and you now feel like you're playing a totally different game. Or maybe a procedural issue suddenly squelched the D&D feeling for you. I'm looking for examples of that sort of transition, where subjectively you felt a game had crossed the line from D&D to something else not quite the same.

I'll go first. One of the local grognards has been running the same campaign world on and off for years. I'm not sure if his setting goes back to the intial release of OD&D, but his gaming does. He was a hex-and-chit man before OD&D came out and he and a buddy still play Europa in his basement. He founded our local gaming convention, which he has helped organize for over three decades. A true pillar of the local gaming community.

But two things drove me nuts about his D&D campaign, such that I bowed out after a handful of sessions. The first issue were his multiclass houserules. Everybody was obligated to be in two or three classes and we had to declare in advance how we would divvy up experience for each class. So my guy was a 50% Bard/25% Ranger/25% Thief or something like that. That was weird, and unwieldly for people who didn't want to minmax class selection but instead preferred to whip up a quick character and play the game. (Some days I'd just as soon the DM handed me an index card with stats rolled, class/race selected, and initial equipment purchased. But that's a different post for a different day, I think.)

But I got by. He was using the class rules from 2nd edition Advanced at the time and having access to the class abilities of both the ranger and the bard was kinda fun. But after a level or two of messing around near our starting home base, we began tracking over his wilderness hexmap. That's when the trouble really started for me. He rolled wandering monsters, but sometimes we didn't game out the fight. He'd just say "10 hobgoblins, eh? You clearly defeat them with minimal casualties." He'd then deny us any chance to parlay with the critters and hand us free xp and loot! Something in my brain snapped and I felt like I was no longer playing D&D. It wasn't a Monty Haul campaign by any means, the actual fights we played were tough and the rewards commensurate with our level. But free xp and loot from a monster we never actually fought was no longer a D&D game to me. So I quit.

No obviously, my hot buttons aren't the same as everyone else's. Hence this thread. When have you been in a game that clearly was no longer D&D by your own idiosyncratic standards?

[Falconer]

Well, sure. One thing that really got me was a referee who awarded XP at the end of the session on the following basis: he ranked the players by how well they role-played their characters, and give like 1000 XP to the best role-player, 500 to the next, 250 the next, and 125 to the last. The biggest bullshirt was that the guy that got 1000 was totally worthless in terms of actually contributing anything to the game; he just stayed "in character" with his worthless character and so the rest of us lucked out.

The other things that bugged me about his campaign was the railroady storyline (you didn't see that one coming, did you?). Although it wasn't as if we had no say on the direction of the story. Instead of feeling like puppets in his story, it was more like we were hamsters in his mad experiment.

Finally, he tended to turn up his nose at AD&D's combat system, preferring more "realistic" games like Rolemaster. Luckily, neither Arms Law nor Player's Option: Combat & Tactics nor even The Complete Fighter's Handbook were at hand, so it was just AD&D with some pretty harmless house rules thrown in. Phew!

[Finarvyn]

The game I play most often is a blend of OD&D, Moldvay B/X, C&C and bits and pieces from other places as well. However, I still think it's basically OD&D because of the philosophy of the rules and the fact that it's rooted in the LBB.

In other words, since the LBB say I can make stuff up, it doesn't bother me much that the "made up" parts might have actually come from some other rulebook for another edition.

Multi-classing never bothered me, and I never seemed to have problems with special rules for it. In one campaign I actually did require everyone to take half of his/her levels in thief, but that was for an urban setting and I wanted to bring about a certain mood. In general, I prefer to let the players pick their character style and then I figure out how to make the rules work to let them play it. Getting hung up in the rules is what kills a game, IMO, and that's where the game loses "that OD&D feel".

Just my two coppers. :-)

[philotomy]

Vancian magic is a big one, for me; if that goes, I start losing that D&D feeling.

Rolling a d20 to attack, and a combat system with AC and HP seem pretty essential.

Class-based PCs. Once that starts getting diluted by skill systems being grafted on, it starts feeling less like D&D, to me.

[coffee]

philotomy said:

Vancian magic is a big one, for me; if that goes, I start losing that D&D feeling.

Rolling a d20 to attack, and a combat system with AC and HP seem pretty essential.

Class-based PCs. Once that starts getting diluted by skill systems being grafted on, it starts feeling less like D&D, to me.

I agree with everything you say here. The last point especially.

One of the things that really bugs me about 3d ed/3.5 is the way you can just multiclass any character at any time. The last game I was in, I had the highest class-level in the party, because I only played a single-classed character. That gave me the illusion that I was still playing D&D, but the reality was that I just could not compete with the other characters, because a single-classed character is somewhat crippled compared to the type of combat-monster min/maxed freak that the system encourages.

I can handle a lot of variation and still be playing D&D, but for my money Philotomy's got it right.

[thorswulf]

Yeah, the devil of 3E, or whatever else it calls itself stinks. One of the basic ideas about the game is that it is one of illusory risk. Random dice rolls determine all outcomes. Experience teaches players when to stand or run. Newbies learn the hard way. Sounds a little hard assed, but it is the truth. Not being able to control the process by stacking the odds in your favor is part of the fun for me.

Here's an experiment to try, or maybe you have played around with it already. When characters roll for money only multiply the roll by 3. All of a sudden the worth of a suit of chainmail liteerally becomes it's weight in gold to any survivors!

I should say that the only D20 thing I have found to be of any worth is the Conan game. Mostly for it's interpretation on combat, and how little value is placed on possessions in the game. Characters seldom have more than their wits and a good piece of steel. I like this approach as it gets the gritty feel of the atmosphere right.

[Falconer]

thorswulf said:

Here's an experiment to try, or maybe you have played around with it already. When characters roll for money only multiply the roll by 3. All of a sudden the worth of a suit of chainmail literally becomes it's weight in gold to any survivors!

Yeah, reduce starting money and treasure drastically, and/or increase prices drastically. It's really not right when adventurers, even at low level, laugh at the price list and just buy whatever they want. They should have to really work hard and count their coppers for every piece of upgraded equipment.

As a corollary, but also a very common sense concept: they should not be able to fight someone with superior armor and win, like, ever. They need to learn early on--the hard way, if need be--to size up their opponents before engaging! Regards.

[Stonegiant]

Over on DF one person posted the idea of increasing the xp value of a gold piece from 1gp=1xp to 1gp=5xp and divide the treasure amounts from the tables by 10 but keep all the costs in the game the same and their by increases the value of any coins collected, reduces the number of coins floating around but still allows the characters to advance at the correct rate for the game. Combine this with Thorswulf's idea of the lower starting funds and you have a much more coin controlled campaign.

[thorswulf]

Who knew? D&D does teach accounting! Seriously though, I think OD&D or the Basic later editions are a good way for newcomers to learn the game. Elaborations for a more realistic environment works well for players who are looking for that sort of thing.

I have some of the early issues of Different Worlds where the bios of most of the early rpg creators were printed. It is interesting to me to see how each of them saw the brilliance of the idea, and put their own spin on things. I guess no matter how you slice it OD&D was the pandora's box for what has happened over the last 30+ years. And despite all the bickering and prejudices of the multitude of gamers, designers, artists and writers, we all agree on one thing: our love of the fantastic. Maybe Gary Gygax hit the head of the nail square on in his introduction to the game about those who love fantasy will find something of value to share with others of a like mind. Thanks for sharing!

[calithena]

I'll cop to having done the thing jreints disliked with the 10 hobgoblins as DM a few times. High level adventure, low level monsters, why bother rolling it out one more time? But I understand feeling a little robbed by it too.

I won't play in a railroady game, but that doesn't make it not-D&D for me, just not-fun.

Too much detail in the skills system (much more than TFT or MSPE, frex) starts to make it feel like not-D&D to me. But I'm not sure even that's essential.

[crimhthanthegreat]

This is not an issue that I have ever run into, but then the number of refs that I have played under are all our original guys or those that we raised ourselves.

[Deleted]

I agreee with philotomy whole-heartedly on this one. A vancian magic-system is a big one, at least for M-U's; (I've always allowed Clerics in my games to cast as many spells that their able while abiding by level & progression limits--they meditate daily for the ability, & then channel the power of their god when neccessary). Solid class-based PC's are second (I don't mind skill based/driven game systems, but not with my D & D please ). Finally, I suppose Race as Class is big for me. I know I'm pretty much on my own on that one, but I've always liked it, & will always favor it (it keeps the game more focused on Humans, as fas I'm concerned).

[James Maliszewski]

jrients said:

When have you been in a game that clearly was no longer D&D by your own idiosyncratic standards?

It's taken me years of fumbling around in the darkness to realize it, but I've eventually come to realize what are the non-negotiables for me when it comes to defining a D&D game. They are:

1. "Pulp fantasy" inspirations: I say "pulp fantasy" rather than "sword & sorcery," because my personal take is that D&D's "genre" is in fact very broad yet still with boundaries. Those boundaries, while fuzzy, more or less encompass the types of fantasy/science fiction authors who graced the pages of pulp magazines in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. There's a lot of fuzziness, as I say, but I'd argue that, once a putative game of "D&D" strays too far beyond this style of fantasy, it loses its essential "D&D-ness" and becomes something else.

2. Strong archetypal character classes: Again, this is fuzzy, because I'm quite happy to have a paladin work side by side with a cleric, even though, by many reasonable definitions, they're insufficiently distinct. In general, though, I think D&D must have distinctive character classes whose concepts are broader than mere professions. Character classes are perhaps best called vocations (in addition to archetypes). They say more than what your character does; they say who he is. Consequently, the addition of skill/feat systems as add-ons to the class system is, in general, something I consider to be contrary to the feel of D&D.

3. Strategy as well as tactics: Combat is important in D&D, no question, so tactical options are also important but they aren't the only options nor should they outshine strategy. It's for this reason that "Vancian" magic is vital to the feel of D&D. Having to decide in advance what spells to memorize/pray for without knowing precisely what dangers await you is strategic thinking and, without it, D&D simply becomes a tactical combat simulator and little else.

4. Humanocentrism: Like its pulp fantasy inspirations, D&D is about the world of Men -- a fantasy world, of course, but a world in which human beings decide the course of history, for good or ill. Demihumans, as their very name suggests, are secondary and understood only in relation to human beings. For whatever reason, history has passed them by and they exist on the margins, giving rise to great heroes and villains far less often and with far less power than the more "limited" human race. Start making demihumans more common and/or the equals of human beings and it ceases to be D&D for me.

Those four cover a lot of ground and are the elements that most scream D&D to me. There are some other things, like the role of the DM, group vs. individual "balance," and a few specific mechanics that are important to me too, but these are the big ones for me.

[crimhthanthegreat]

Have an Exalt! jamesm, I think you have made some excellent points and covered it quite well. However, I would love to see everyone post here.

[badger2305]

jamesm said:

jrients said:

When have you been in a game that clearly was no longer D&D by your own idiosyncratic standards?

It's taken me years of fumbling around in the darkness to realize it, but I've eventually come to realize what are the non-negotiables for me when it comes to defining a D&D game. They are:

1. "Pulp fantasy" inspirations: I say "pulp fantasy" rather than "sword & sorcery," because my personal take is that D&D's "genre" is in fact very broad yet still with boundaries. Those boundaries, while fuzzy, more or less encompass the types of fantasy/science fiction authors who graced the pages of pulp magazines in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. There's a lot of fuzziness, as I say, but I'd argue that, once a putative game of "D&D" strays too far beyond this style of fantasy, it loses its essential "D&D-ness" and becomes something else.

This makes sense to me. As I've said elsewhere here, high fantasy definitely has a place in D&D, for me.

Consequently, the addition of skill/feat systems as add-ons to the class system is, in general, something I consider to be contrary to the feel of D&D.

I definitely agree with that. The addition of non-combat proficiencies in AD&D 1e felt tacked on, and I never really liked it.

3. Strategy as well as tactics: Combat is important in D&D, no question, so tactical options are also important but they aren't the only options nor should they outshine strategy. It's for this reason that "Vancian" magic is vital to the feel of D&D. Having to decide in advance what spells to memorize/pray for without knowing precisely what dangers await you is strategic thinking and, without it, D&D simply becomes a tactical combat simulator and little else.

Ahh, now we part company. I started playing D&D before Gary published the Vancian magic explanation in SR#7, as did my other gaming friends, and our inspirations were The Incomplete Enchanter and The Broken Sword and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, with Ningauble and Sheelba, and others. So the Vancian explanation was interesting, but never had any primacy with a lot of us. Not too surprisingly, C&S and Runequest and Tekumel all seemed pretty cool when they came along. Your mileage may vary.

4. Humanocentrism: Like its pulp fantasy inspirations, D&D is about the world of Men -- a fantasy world, of course, but a world in which human beings decide the course of history, for good or ill. Demihumans, as their very name suggests, are secondary and understood only in relation to human beings. For whatever reason, history has passed them by and they exist on the margins, giving rise to great heroes and villains far less often and with far less power than the more "limited" human race. Start making demihumans more common and/or the equals of human beings and it ceases to be D&D for me.

What an interesting perspective! The worlds I played in ranged all over the map on this issue. One was set in England during the reign of Edward III, and you were human. That was it. Another had fairly complete equality between humans and demi-humans; going somewhere that was racially homogeneous was weird. Those were probably the extremes, but the emphasis on humanity was never consistently an issue, so far as I can recall from my early days of gaming.

This is a great discussion! I really appreciate seeing all these different viewpoints and recollections and reactions.

[James Maliszewski]

badger2305 said:

This makes sense to me. As I've said elsewhere here, high fantasy definitely has a place in D&D, for me.

It does for me as well, but it's generally a secondary influence, as it was for the early creators and players of the game. Nowadays, it's hard to "forget" high fantasy, because it's the pre-dominant form of the genre. It's frankly one of the reasons that many, if not most, players of a more recent vintage see older editions of the game as somehow "old fashioned" -- they don't map well on to their notions of what "fantasy" is or should be.

I definitely agree with that. The addition of non-combat proficiencies in AD&D 1e felt tacked on, and I never really liked it.

I never even like weapon proficiencies and can't recall using them. My own approach was and remains that such skills/knowledge/knacks are best derived from a combination of class and background rather than through actual game mechanics.

Ahh, now we part company. I started playing D&D before Gary published the Vancian magic explanation in SR#7, as did my other gaming friends, and our inspirations were The Incomplete Enchanter and The Broken Sword and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, with Ningauble and Sheelba, and others. So the Vancian explanation was interesting, but never had any primacy with a lot of us. Not too surprisingly, C&S and Runequest and Tekumel all seemed pretty cool when they came along. Your mileage may vary.

Fair enough. SR#7 is before my time. You must remember I never played D&D with the LBBs but began with Holmes and eventually moved on to AD&D, albeit an oddly house ruled AD&D that retained a number of Holmes elements. Perhaps unsurprisingly, "Vancian" magic is essential to my conception of D&D and contributes strongly to its unique feel. Remove it and you may have a very fine game -- such as EPT or RuneQuest -- but one that is decidedly not D&D.

[crimhthanthegreat]

I really like Vancian magic but I can understand other approaches still being OD&D, I think there are a number of ways to do magic that still keep the right "flavor".

[Finarvyn]

The game designer part of me likes Vancian magic simply because it helps keep the classes somewhat balanced.

Every other part of my essence screams at me that this is totally wrong. Why would a person memorize and then forget something? (Of course, I swear that many of my students do this for the test.) In general, if you know something you know it the next day as well. The idea that magic is a skill to be mastered (or a pile of mana to be manipulated) just makes sense in ways that memorize-forget doesn't.

Now, I understand that lots of gamers don't want to play the "but is it realistic" card since fantasy settings clearly aren't reality. On the other hand, the scientist in my brain tells me that there must somehow be some form of logic in a fantasy setting and that magic should operate along laws that somehow make sense. While memorize-forget may make sense to a person in a fantasy setting, it sure doesn't make sense to me.

Just my two cents.

[korgoth]

admin said:

The game designer part of me likes Vancian magic simply because it helps keep the classes somewhat balanced.

Every other part of my essence screams at me that this is totally wrong. Why would a person memorize and then forget something? (Of course, I swear that many of my students do this for the test.) In general, if you know something you know it the next day as well. The idea that magic is a skill to be mastered (or a pile of mana to be manipulated) just makes sense in ways that memorize-forget doesn't.

Now, I understand that lots of gamers don't want to play the "but is it realistic" card since fantasy settings clearly aren't reality. On the other hand, the scientist in my brain tells me that there must somehow be some form of logic in a fantasy setting and that magic should operate along laws that somehow make sense. While memorize-forget may make sense to a person in a fantasy setting, it sure doesn't make sense to me.

Just my two cents.

I assume that you've read Vance on the subject? In the stories, magical formulae were like an alien force that could only be contained ("encompassed") at great effort... the mind was merely the vessel for the energy. So it wasn't really a matter of remembering and forgetting.

[coffee]

I've never read Vance (more's the pity) but I did read Zelazny's Amber series, both of them. In the second one, Merlin (son of Corwin) describes 'hanging' a spell. He basically casts the whole spell, but leaves out a couple of words. This keeps it there, but not entirely cast. When he completes the spell (adds the missing words) the spell goes off. But that's it; it's gone until he recasts it (a procedure that takes a while, I gathered).

So that made things make more sense to me.

[Finarvyn]

Duh. (slaps own forehead) I should have thought of Amber since it's one of my favorite series of all time. "Hanging" a spell is more logical to me than memorize-forget, but you have to admit that it's sort of a special world that Zelazny is describing.

I suppose there must be some "mundane" equivalent for generic fantasy worlds. Hmmm, must ponder this....

[Finarvyn]

korgoth said:

I assume that you've read Vance on the subject? In the stories, magical formulae were like an alien force that could only be contained ("encompassed") at great effort... the mind was merely the vessel for the energy. So it wasn't really a matter of remembering and forgetting.

I have read several of his Dying Earth books. I'm mainly pointing out that the way D&D presents spellcasting, the mage has to sit to memorize spells which are forgotten later. Although the system is called "Vancian" no reference to Jack Vance exists in the OD&D books that I can find.

[James Maliszewski]

admin said:

Although the system is called "Vancian" no reference to Jack Vance exists in the OD&D books that I can find.

It's only "Vancian" by metaphor, in that Gygax has repeatedly explained that The Dying Earth's take on magic served as the inspiration for D&D magic system, even though there are many differences, both large and subtle.

D&D's "Vancian" system is mostly, as others have pointed out, a game artifact. There's been no coherent explanation for it in-game and, truth be told, I like that. In my campaigns over the years, I've supplied my own explanations when necessary. I think the lack of an explanation in the books themselves, as well the stark oddity of the system, are boons rather than banes. They encourage you to think about this stuff and come up with your own answers -- the heart of old school gaming for me.

[crimhthanthegreat]

jamesm said:

admin said:

Although the system is called "Vancian" no reference to Jack Vance exists in the OD&D books that I can find.

It's only "Vancian" by metaphor, in that Gygax has repeatedly explained that The Dying Earth's take on magic served as the inspiration for D&D magic system, even though there are many differences, both large and subtle.

D&D's "Vancian" system is mostly, as others have pointed out, a game artifact. There's been no coherent explanation for it in-game and, truth be told, I like that. In my campaigns over the years, I've supplied my own explanations when necessary. I think the lack of an explanation in the books themselves, as well the stark oddity of the system, are boons rather than banes. They encourage you to think about this stuff and come up with your own answers -- the heart of old school gaming for me.

I think you quite clearly get it. I am confident that the lack of explanation in the books is completely intentional. There a lots of things that I don't think have to be explained, they are part of the fabric and just are.

[James Maliszewski]

crimhthanthegreat said:

I am confident that the lack of explanation in the books is completely intentional. There a lots of things that I don't think have to be explained, they are part of the fabric and just are.

For me, it doesn't matter whether Gygax & Arneson didn't explain many things intentionally or not. That they didn't is a fact, just as it's a fact that, for years, D&D players came up with their own explanations to plug the holes as their own campaigns required them. That's something I'd like to see more of. As Volume 3 of OD&D concludes:

In this light, we urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way! On the other hand, we are not loath to answer your questions, but why have us do any more of your imagining for you?

That pretty well sums it for me on this question and many others.

[coffee]

jamesm said:

In this light, we urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way! On the other hand, we are not loath to answer your questions, but why have us do any more of your imagining for you?

That pretty well sums it for me on this question and many others.

Ya got that right!