What Ten Things?

[Amechra]

If you, yes you, had to come up with a list of ten things necessary for you to consider a game D&D... what would they be?

My list would be something like (in order of "when I come up with them"):

1. Alignment - you gotta have it in there somewhere.
2. The core skeleton - HD, HP, AC, saves, attack rolls, and damage rolls.
3. A class & race system. With levels and XP.
4. Treasure. Shit-tons of treasure.
5. Back to races and classes: it stops feeling... right if you don't have the Tolkein Rip-Off races somewhere.
6. Fighting Man, Thief, Magic-User, and Cleric (Fine, we'll go with Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric). You can have more classes, you just need those ones.
7. The Paladin - they don't need to be a class, they just need to be there.
8. The doofy monsters - even though I've never used them, you can pry the Bulette and Owlbear from my cold, dead fingers.
9. The game is hands-off when it comes to stuff other than exploring cool places, avoiding traps, and killing shit.
10. The Big Three sources of powers: Psionics, Vancian Magic, and Praying To The Gods For Powah.

Everything else is negotiable.

[Necrosnoop110]

9. The game is hands-off when it comes to stuff other than exploring cool places, avoiding traps, and killing shit.

Love your list! Number 9 confused me though, could you unpack that one for me.

[Amechra]

9. The game is hands-off when it comes to stuff other than exploring cool places, avoiding traps, and killing shit.

Love your list! Number 9 confused me though, could you unpack that one for me.

I feel D&D stops feeling like D&D if you add stuff like detailed social rules that abstract past "how do these people we just met feel about us". Stuff like that.

[Samwise]

It could lose psionics and I wouldn't get upset.

It has to have the funky dice, especially the d20 as the primary system die.

Other than that you've generally covered it, except . . .

You've more defined a base level fantasy RPG for me than D&D specifically.
D&D is really the Gygax (and Arneson, and Mentzer) rules sets. Anything significantly beyond that is really just using the name without having the game.
Doesn't make them bad; just makes them other kinds of base level FRPGs.

[Amechra]

There's a reason that I mentioned that these are my ten things.

I want to see your list! I want to see what other people think are important for the "authentic D&D experience."

[kitep]

3 things pop immediately into mind

1) Leveling Up.  I've played games with skill systems where each game you become slightly better, but D&D levels tend to make a big impact on my characters.

2) Sword & Sorcery.  I've played other d20 games - Star Wars, d20 Modern - but for D&D, I need sword & sorcery.

3) Multi-sided Dice.  It's not D&D without d20s!

[Samwise]

There's a reason that I mentioned that these are my ten things.

I want to see your list! I want to see what other people think are important for the "authentic D&D experience."

To clarify:

Your list is identical to my list  except for swapping out psionics for the funky dice, and the caveat regarding whether it is a FRPG list or a trademark list.
To put that in list form:

1. Alignment - you gotta have it in there somewhere.
2. The core skeleton - HD, HP, AC, saves, attack rolls, and damage rolls.
3. A class & race system. With levels and XP. And those Tolkien Rip-Off races somewhere.
4. Treasure. Shit-tons of treasure.
5. The funky dice, especially the d20 as the primary system mechanic.
6. Fighting Man, Thief, Magic-User, and Cleric (Fine, we'll go with Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric). You can have more classes, you just need those ones.
7. The Paladin - they don't need to be a class, they just need to be there.
8. The doofy monsters - even though I've never used them, you can pry the Bulette and Owlbear from my cold, dead fingers.
9. The game is hands-off when it comes to stuff other than exploring cool places, avoiding traps, and killing shit.
10. The Two Key sources of powers: Vancian Magic, and Praying To The Gods For Powah.

[SorO_Lost]

1. Fun for everyone at the tabletop and good enough to tell stories about later.
2. Uses a d20 with 99.9% less THAC0 than Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
3. Open fantasy world with an unfeasible amount of dungeons, evils, and horrors.
4. Mix-and-match classes to optimize without being overly complicated.
5. Caster supremacy, intended to be campaign altering spells, and more magical items than you'd ever care to buy.
6. Straight faced serious tone, it's my job to parody it not reread the same boring joke over and over again.
7. Dragons, and not some crappy wyverns pretending to be dragons or the less than impressive drakes.
8. Hot naked women under the table performing deeds I'm not allowed to mention outside of the adult section.
9. An elven race to blame everything on.
10. The game can't be turned into an MMO without cutting most of the content out.

[Keldar]

Elves are always to blame.  Even when there aren't any elves.  There aren't any elves, because elves.

For me I think what makes D&D are the sum total of its Sacred Cows in recognizable format, if not the same mechanics.  Magic Missile manage to stay recognizable in 4E, despite every other ability becoming some refluffed variant on "I swing my sword."  And in 3E Fighters somehow managed to still seem like Fighters, even if they were needlessly garbage.  Not that that particular is a tough task.

1) D20 to succeed.
2) 1d12 types of die for damage.
3) An abundance of recognizable magic spells.  Adjusted to the needs of the system.  That's still vaguely Vancian, damn it.  Even if I hate that shit.
4) Loot whoring.
5) Far too many types of monsters for our own good.
6) Hit Points and hit die.
7) Classes and levels.
8) Dorktacular pop culture references 40+ years out of date.
9) Nonsensical dungeons and far too many dragons for the ecosystem to support.
10) "Straight faced serious tone, it's my job to parody it not reread the same boring joke over and over again."  Damn skippy.  The parody is for the April issue.
11) Stuck up Elves.  Whom are to blame for everything.  Excepting when the Gnomes did it.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Alignment needs some filtering.

Down Time needs something other than Crafting
overpowered ka-boom for Wiz, Sorc + CoDzilla.
Here's where you put Mafia Wars and Farmville.

Caster A is called "Vance".
Caster B is called "Magic-User".
Caster C is called "Mage".
Only after that, is something called a Wizard or some such.

There's the 3'Lock , the 4'Lock , and the 5'Lock
and only after all that, is something called a 2'Lock
where you put all the new interesting stuff.
etc

[bhu]

1) flexibility
2) flexibility
3) flexibility
4) flexibility
5) flexibility
6) flexibility
7) flexibility
8) flexibility
9) flexibility
10) flexibility

[Nifft]

1 - Funky Dice. Lots of different kinds of dice.

2 - Classes. Sneaky-guy, swordy-guy, spelly-guy, and the singer is a girl.

3 - Levels. Lots of 'em.

4 - Spells. Holy shit, pages of spells.

5 - Shopping. Holy shit, pages of gear, it costs money and encumbrance.

6 - Monsters. One of the primary challenges must be killing people monsters and taking their stuff.

7 - Specific Types of monsters. Dragons, Demons, Devils; Oozes, Puddings, Jellies; Golems, Giants, Gryphons; Goblins, Gnolls, Gargoyles; Dryads, Displacer Beasts, Drow.

8 - Magic Items. Not just some rusty sword, either, we're talking Artifacts and Relics.

9 - Behavior Matters. This encompasses both the Alignment system and the idea that certain D&D-ish behaviors get rewarded with advancement in levels (i.e. some things get you XP and other things do not, and the things that get you XP are D&D-ish things).

10 - TPK. With great risk comes great recreation. Death must be one valid outcome of every encounter, however slight the chance may be.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Oh right Dice crazy dice.


I think enough ground has been furrowed,
to insist upon some Asian themed stuff
preferably with the completely ridiculous
stereotypes as the weakest of PC options.
(options none the less)


There also needs to be an "internal party drama generator"
the kind that hollywood pulls on every sitcom.
Your obsession with trophy fingers violates my everybeing ...
but  I'm'n'a try to be open minded and not kill your whole family.

^{(and they all lived happily ever after killing orcs)}

[kitep]

There also has to be some role-playing and not just roll-playing.  I like 'em both, but I don't want just combat, and especially not just combat without verbally jousting with your opponents.

[Maelphaxerazz]

I do not think it takes much for a game to be "D&D", at least in my eyes and the eyes of most people I know. Talk about a tabletop RPG, and after a few puzzled looks their eyes will open up and they'll say "Oh, you mean like D&D! I get it."

Dark Heresy is Warhammer 40k D&D. RuneQuest is low-powered gritty D&D with talking ducks. Eclipse Phase? Transhumanism D&D. Edge of the Empire? D&D in Star Wars. 4e? D&D except it is shit. You get the picture.

If it came to distinguishing the main D&D from the other D&Ds, my list would come down to this:

1) Funky dice.
2) Classes
3) Levels
4) There must be wizards in it.
5) Silly pseudo-medieval fantasy setting.
6) Treasure
7) Monster Manuals full of bizarre strange things to kill
8) Dungeons
9) Dragons
10) Dragon-related accessories