D&D General What elements does D&D need to keep?

[JEB]

Following from this poll, and as suggested by @Charlaquin in this follow-up thread...

The previous poll asked, "what makes D&D feel like D&D"? This poll takes the same general elements from that poll, but asks a different question - what elements should D&D carry forward into future editions? Vote only for things that you definitely want to see stay in the game; don't vote for the things you could live without, don't care about, or actively want to go away. And remember that this is your opinion; don't vote for what you think will stay, but what you think should stay.

As with the previous poll, you are welcome to elaborate, but please refrain from arguing. Everyone should feel free to share here without criticism.

 

[Zardnaar]

Voted but it's a lot.

Voted first 6 options, multiclassing, levels through to saving throws.

Initiative plus lists of specific spells.

Probably needs some form of great wheel as core but not in specific world's eg Darksun, Eberron, Mystara, Nerath etc.

 

[Uta-napishti]

I think D&D could get by with 3 Character Classes, Mystic, Martial and Expert being focused on Magic, Fighting and Skills respectively. Or INT/WIS, STR/CON, and DEX,CHA more loosely. Combined concepts, half casters, holy warriors, etc would be all just created by Multiclassing a level or two to pick up your artificer tech, or your magical smites for instance. Let's call it "Low Class D&D". I also think spell slots should definitely be replaced with more flexible spell points (simply 1 per spell level, not the WoTC spell points tables), and spell preparation should ultimately be replaced by your familiarity with the spell that would set a DC for a Spellcasting check.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think D&D could get by with 3 Character Classes, Mystic, Martial and Expert being focused on Magic, Fighting and Skills respectively. Or INT/WIS, STR/CON, and DEX,CHA more loosely. Combined concepts, half casters, holy warriors, etc would be all just created by Multiclassing. Let's call it "Low Class D&D". I also think spell slots should definitely be replaced with more flexible spell points (just 1 per level, not the WoTC spell points scheme), and spell preparation should ultimately be replaced by your familiarity with the spell that would set a DC for a Spellcasting check.

If you were starting from scratch I think you could reduce the classes to 3 and feats or pick your own class feature and multiclassing.

But it's not gonna happen.

 

[Uta-napishti]

None of this is likely to happen, have you read the thread concept?

 

[Zardnaar]

None of this is likely to happen, have you read the thread concept?

I agreed with you.

If I designed D&D tomorrow 3 classes, 3 saves, 10 levels, fireball deals 6d6 damage and meteor Swarm is something like 4 meteors at 4d6 and monsters have a lot less hit points.

But if I wanted to sell D&D 12 classes, 20 levels etc.

 

[MarkB]

I voted "other" because there wasn't a "none" option. I expect a future version of D&D to keep a smattering of these features, but there's no single item on that list which, if it were dropped or changed, would trigger my "that's not D&D!" reaction.

 

[Lanefan]

My "other" vote is that there's one more thing it needs to keep - or more accurately, return to - that being a sense of open-endedness: that the game/campaign can and-or will last as long as people want to play in it and the DM wants to keep running it. 3e-4e-5e kinda killed this in two ways: by introducing upper level limits (20-30-20 respectively), and by building in more of an expectation that campaigns would not only get to those capstone levels but get there rather quickly.

Let other games limit themselves with capstone levels. D&D goes on forever.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As usual, questions of what's important to D&D bring out the calls for reductionism uber alles.

Just once it'd be nice if people didn't immediately leap from "what do you think is important" to "tell us exactly how all the stuff at least some people like should be removed because it's totally unnecessary."

You'd think more people would appreciate The Obsolete Man.

 

[Stormonu]

Other: DM.

That actually should be on the list because there are a growing number of games where the storytelling is left in the hands of the players with no centralized figure "running" the game.