When do D&D houserules and derivations comprise a new rpg?

[calithena]

Ynas Midgard - 5 and 8 are the only ones on your list that seem questionable - the others are all obviously D&D to me. I think 5 and 8 get to be D&D in my private world too, but it's a bit more discussion, especially for 8.

[calithena]

(They might be _bad_ D&D in some cases, but they wouldn't be not-D&D to me.)

[calithena]

Loosely, anything that a moderately bright grade school kid might have come up with to make RPGing with the original brown books fun for him and his friends gets to be D&D in my book. Doesn't mean I'd play it, but I wouldn't deny the label.

[calithena]

So that's why 8 is OK with me, even though, blech. "Fighting is boring, let's get to the politics and romance" is a valid imperative confronted with the possibility of fantasy roleplaying with the brown books.

[skars]

Jul 25, 2013 7:58:48 GMT -6 Random said:

It seems that D&D is about as difficult to define as hardcore porn.

The way I see it, at minimum, D&D requires: ability scores, hit dice, character classes, character levels, saving throws, Vance-styled magic, small-group focus (as opposed to mainly large battles), and a referee as final authority for all matters other than player character intentions.

If one of those isn't present in some form, I'd want to call it something else. I'll admit that I consider Vance-styled magic a sacred cow though, at least for the more powerful spells available, as well as saving throws (as those are just exciting and classic).

I always thought penetration was the catalyst for porn becoming hardcore or "XXX".

Anyways, I think that the event resolution mechanism is ultimately what defines the game. We have some core branches, D&D, Traveller, WoD, RQ(BRP), WFRP, Fudge, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Roleplaying Party Game... Take that core mechanic and add a theme with some special modifications to suit the flavor and presto!

The same thing happens in board games constantly and since you cant patent game mechanics...you get a lot of "campaign settings"

[Random]

Visible penetration is an okay definition, but not good enough. I've seen some non-penetrative stuff I'd definitely consider hardcore.

(I'm not trying to talk all dirty on the D&D board. I brought that up to illustrate the thread's point by making a reference.)

[kent]

I think crustydaddy may be on to something. The difference between houserules for D&D and the so-called rpg arising from those houserules is largely in an uninteresting act of completion for an audience whom it is expected might learn D&D from this new rpg rather than the older rulesets. The act of completion covers all those rules inherited or implicit in the private game that must be spelled out for potentially novice readers.

This puzzles me though because I imagine novices make up a negligible proportion of the audience in reality. And so I ask the question why would someone rewrite subject matter with trite repetition for a knowledgeable audience so that they can close the gap from possibly interesting houserules or a possibly interesting setting to a full not-really-new rpg? You know when you listen to a lecturer or professor and rewrite what he says in your own words that is not being creative and you wouldn't have much joy trying to publish your notes and yet this is what these close-to-D&D-but-new rpgs are beyond any innovative houserules they also contain.

Perhaps the best people to ask are those knowledgeable D&D gamers who buy all these new rpgs. Why do you buy them? Do you really read them or scan them for original ideas?

[Random]

Jul 26, 2013 12:11:26 GMT -6 kent said:

Perhaps the best people to ask are those knowledgeable D&D gamers who buy all these new rpgs. Why do you buy them? Do you really read them or scan them for original ideas?

I bought a Labyrinth Lord book (the one with the purple cover) some time ago because I had a Moldvay basic set (but not the Expert one to go with it), liked it, and wanted that particular flavor of the game in hardcover. I didn't get it for new ideas at all.

If I were to gift a ten year old one D&D item, it would be that book (and some dice). You could absolutely go to town with it.

[jcstephens]

I'm of the opinion that when the word count of the house rules exceeds the word count of the rules as written, you have a new game. By this definition, when the supplements to the D&D rules exceeded the word count of the original rules themselves, a new game was created which became 1st Edition AD&D.

[Ynas Midgard]

Jul 26, 2013 13:14:25 GMT -6 jcstephens said:

I'm of the opinion that when the word count of the house rules exceeds the word count of the rules as written, you have a new game. By this definition, when the supplements to the D&D rules exceeded the word count of the original rules themselves, a new game was created which became 1st Edition AD&D.

Although this seems like an objective measure of determining whether something is a new game or not, I don't think it serves the purpose well. For instance, rules, both original and house rules, can be explained both verbosely and concisely; verbosely written house rules added to briefly explained originals would result in a new game, not taking into account how drastically (or in our case, how not) gameplay is changed.

[bexley]

To me, It's a deeper question of reproduction. I would have to answer the question of originality. How much originality does the game have? Derivatives by nature don't lend themselves to much originality and so I wouldn't call them a new game.

In the sense of rpgs, I think originality could be described best as a change in perspective. Early games, like RQ, may not have re-invented the wheel but it did change perspectives on an existing structure.

D&D has an existing structure and with it comes certain experiential expectations. If the house-rules present that structure in a way which muddies those expectations or changes them completely then I would consider that to be a new game.

[geoffrey]

Jul 26, 2013 12:11:26 GMT -6 kent said:

Perhaps the best people to ask are those knowledgeable D&D gamers who buy all these new rpgs. Why do you buy them? Do you really read them or scan them for original ideas?

I own three versions of Ye Olde Game:

1. OD&D + Supplement I: GREYHAWK
2. Castles & Crusades Flipbook (containing both the Players Handbook and Monsters & Treasure)
3. Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Why I own all three (instead of only one):

1. OD&D for its simplicity and ease of house-ruling, and GREYHAWK for the best version of Gygaxian D&D
2. C&C for use with Necromancer's Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set
3. LotFP doesn't include much of the stuff that I ignore in OD&D (monster lists and magic item lists), so it's a handy and concise volume.

I don't use any of the above three versions of the game for original ideas. I typically get my fantasy inspiration from old fantasy literature.

[Finarvyn]

I think a large reason why folks wrote these games early on was to support the idea that we wanted to keep out-of-print games active and alive, and I imagine that we bought them for the same reason.

After a while I think that folks just liked having their house rules in print. I know that I have a half dozen or more clones of essentially the same games and they are nearly identical except for a few little tweaks.

I know that I have supported quite a few clone games, but at the end I usually either play the original or a house-ruled version of the original. I like C&C in part because it has been so well supported and formed a great bridge between my AD&D players and my 3E players.

[calithena]

Jul 26, 2013 12:11:26 GMT -6 kent said:

This puzzles me though because I imagine novices make up a negligible proportion of the audience in reality.

This is surely true now, but it wasn't true in say 1977. And one thing I learned after years of all kinds of gaming was that the mindset of the novice trying to make D&D and AD&D and some of the other early games into a system that did what s/he wanted a fantasy RPG to do was actually my favorite mindset in gaming. "Make it your own." And there was a whole culture of this kind of gaming that I was privileged to be part of.

[Deleted]

"If your referee has made changes in the rules and/or tables, simply note them in pencil (for who knows when some flux of the cosmos will make things shift once again!),"

"Dungeons and Dragons," Volume 1, "Men and Magic," page 4.

Thus, provided your starting point was D&D, it is impossible to houserule the game so much it is no longer D&D. The rules clearly expect houseruling.

[Stormcrow]

Jul 30, 2013 13:44:04 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

"If your referee has made changes in the rules and/or tables, simply note them in pencil..."
it is impossible to houserule the game so much it is no longer D&D

What if I write rules-changes in crayon?

[Falconer]

Don’t! for who knows when some flux of the cosmos will make things shift once again!