Would you play D&D if it wasn't D&D

[nijineko]

i recently played a mutants and masterminds game... felt like a cross between d20 and gurps or champions. still, was quite fun.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

I still havent (yet plan to) played AFMBE. Another game that shows potential is: Arcanus, the World of Shattered Empires.

http://www.paradigmconcepts.com/boar...a1bea3ae5c71bf

[Dark]

To be honest the game's feel has to grab me if it comes off too cartoons or wow like most of the time that turns me off. Now a game that has a dark feel a gritty feel something that keeps you to the edge of your seat I like. Does it have to be D&D? No D&D was my first love and I have played many other games a few took hold of me AFMBE, Chivalry and Sorcery, Deadlands, Dark Conspiracy, Call of Cthulhu to name but a few.

[tesral]

I thought I had added this, but. If it wasn't D&D what would it be? The Lake Geneva Game We Cooked Up? Doesn't flow off the tongue very well. The question itself is imprecise.

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

[Sascha]

I thought I had added this, but. If it wasn't D&D what would it be? The Lake Geneva Game We Cooked Up? Doesn't flow off the tongue very well. The question itself is imprecise.

It's probably closer to the tradition in certain geographical areas of calling all pop "Coke," rather than coming up with lots of names for the Coca-Cola branded product. ("D&D" here being shorthand for "[fantasy] roleplaying.")

But yeah, I agree.

[tesral]

It's probably closer to the tradition in certain geographical areas of calling all pop "Coke," rather than coming up with lots of names for the Coca-Cola branded product. ("D&D" here being shorthand for "[fantasy] roleplaying.")

But yeah, I agree.

That makes it even most questionable. What would fantasy role-playing be if it wasn't fantasy role-playing?

[Sascha]

That makes it even most questionable. What would fantasy role-playing be if it wasn't fantasy role-playing?

It's the weirdly-specific usage that gives us the "fantasy" sub-forum.

(Word usage mutations, making our dictionaries inconsistent since we started writing down word usages )

[fmitchell]

I thought I had added this, but. If it wasn't D&D what would it be? The Lake Geneva Game We Cooked Up? Doesn't flow off the tongue very well. The question itself is imprecise.

Welcome to the slipperiness of vocabulary. Lest I lose my reputation as a killjoy, the original question meant "Would you play D&D {a fantasy role-playing game with elves, dwarves, magic-users, clerics, and other trappings started by Gygax and Arneson and developed by many others over the last forty years} if it wasn't D&D {the set of rules published by TSR or WotC}?"

The Logic class I just finished would call that amphiboly, one word used in two different ways. Well, the class wouldn't if by "class" I meant the syllabus, textbook, and handouts, since those are inanimate and in some cases intangible objects. For that matter, I cannot guarantee the class -- defined as the instructor and students -- would, if we gathered them together again, although inductively I would conclude that the instructor, at least, might match the term "amphiboly" to the two uses of the term "D&D" in this thread's title.

I suppose I could write a class called "Logic" in an object-oriented computer programming language whose instances would reply "amphiboly" when given the string "Would you play D&D if it wasn't D&D", but its response would be undefined if there were a question-mark at the end of the sentence. At that point I would have to decide how close an input string would have to be to the title of this thread with as few false positives as possible. That in turn leads us to the whole matter of natural language processing, which is far from trivial, and beyond the scope of this thread.

Returning to the original topic, if we constructed a class "D&D" in categorical logic, the "D&D" class could not differ from itself, so this thread's title would indeed be logically contradictory. However, if we created one class "games using D&D rules" and another class "games containing D&D trappings", there is no logical necessity for the two classes to be identical. Indeed, we could find examples to support the proposition "Some games containing D&D trappings are not games using D&D rules", e.g. the Basic Roleplaying supplement "Classic Fantasy" which ports wizards and clerics into BRP, or the proliferation of elves, dwarves, and orcs in Shadowrun, GURPS Banestorm, RuneQuest 3, etc. Thus categorical logic classes can assert that "Would you play D&D if it wasn't D&D?" uses the term "D&D" in two different ways.

The truth value of the statement "Some games using D&D rules are not games containing D&D trappings" is left as an exercise for the reader.

[Sascha]

Welcome to the slipperiness of vocabulary. Lest I lose my reputation as a killjoy, the original question meant "Would you play D&D {a fantasy role-playing game with elves, dwarves, magic-users, clerics, and other trappings started by Gygax and Arneson and developed by many others over the last forty years} if it wasn't D&D {the set of rules published by TSR or WotC}?"

Indeed.

Also, fantastic explanation.

And by "fantastic," it's in the sense of "that which came from one's imagination". Obviously.

()

[nijineko]

now, i thought you were making a new hybrid word... fan-tasti-c, perhaps meaning 'see aren't fans tasty?', such as a dragon might comment just before asking for the ketchup and after yet another gaming party failed to slay and loot said dragon. ^^

[Sascha]

Nah, former Coca-Cola product solidified and elongated: the Fanta-stic(k).

Edit: Spelling. Gah.

[MortonStromgal]

That makes it even most questionable. What would fantasy role-playing be if it wasn't fantasy role-playing?

The question came because one of my old players would only play "D&D" (that and the whole us trying to play Eberon with nwod) by this he actually means d20 games. The poll is more about seeing what "D&D" means to other people. Is it the rules? setting? or just meaning generic fantasy?

[tesral]

Brand isn't that important to me no. Heck I don't play straignt up D&D.

[Sascha]

Brand isn't that important to me no. Heck I don't play straignt up D&D.

If I'm remembering my Gygax, ownership of the game *was* the game. You were expected to change the rules as the situation warranted, and make up your own worlds. So, yeah, you could make an argument that play style is as important as rules or setting fiction, in defining what the "D&D experience" is.

[fmitchell]

The question came because one of my old players would only play "D&D" (that and the whole us trying to play Eberon with nwod) by this he actually means d20 games. The poll is more about seeing what "D&D" means to other people. Is it the rules? setting? or just meaning generic fantasy?

To me it's the rules and their underlying assumptions:

• Characters are Heroes with awesome powers (as of 3.x and especially 4e).
• Characters fit into standard "classes", sometimes a large and unruly number as in 3.5.
• Class abilities progress according to a single "level" in that class; feats and skills modify that somewhat, but add whole new layers of complexity.
• Characters gain levels primarily through killing monsters and taking their stuff.
• Magic is predictable and powerful, but somehow doesn't change the surrounding pseudo-medieval society. (Kim 2005)
• The world is full of underground structures that somehow support a large and heterogeneous populations of carnivorous monsters, heaps of coins, and otherwise unused enchanted items.
• Ye Olde Adventurer's Shop features a selection of magical arms, armor, and other accoutrements.

Breaking some or all of these while retaining the d20 mechanic is difficult, but not impossible, as demonstrated by Midnight (D&D-like but not), Iron Heroes, Call of Cthulhu d20, Mutants & Masterminds, True20, StarSIEGE: Event Horizon, Passages, and "Omega World" (Dungeon #94), to name a few. Even the Old School Renaissance, which recreates older rulesets for new generations, breaks out of tedious "character building" and bends a few other rules (notably Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role Playing which posits a less magical and more cruel world).

Then again, I always preferred the flexibility of skill-based systems like RuneQuest/BRP, D6, or Traveller, or ultra-simple systems like The Fantasy Trip or (in recent years) PDQ.