Just mulling some thoughts....

D&D is everywhere, and in a lot of games it forms the cornerstone of rules for that game. I am just wondering if we shouldn't consider D&D to be a genre of tabletop RPGs all by itself.

I could see an argument for D&D fantasy being it's own genre. There is a set of stock assumptions that come with D&D that are fairly specific yet broad enough to encompass some variety.

I think Dungeons and Dragons is more than that.

From here

QuoteDungeons & Dragons is one of the Trope Codifiers of the modern era, having single-handedly mashed swords and sorcery and epic high fantasy into the fantasy genre as we know it today, and having been the source of more than a few of the Roleplaying Game Terms and RPG Elements that the influential computer RPG genre was founded on. Many, many excellent computer games (especially RPGs) have also been made directly off the D&D license.

In short Dungeons & Dragon is the central definition of fantasy in the modern era. Of course there are other types of fantasy genres and sub-genres. In most people's eyes the alternatives are defined more by how they are different than they are from the definition of fantasy set by D&D.

And drive purists and fans of other types of fantasy crazy, D&D so dominate that it is actually supplanted older definitions of fantasy. For example what Micheal Moorcock talks about in Epic Pooh. Whether you agree or disagree with Moorcock's opinions the whole argument was hijacked by the fact that Dungeons and Dragons became the very definition of fantasy.

What about Lords of the Rings? Yes LoTR was probable what most people consider to be very definition of fantasy starting in the late 60s. But in the name of fun, Dungeons & Dragon mashed up swords & sorcery into Tolkein's epic along with a bunch of other tropes, ideas, and genres. The result was something that became far more influential and widespread.

It even affected Peter Jackson's interpretation in the six LoTR films. However on the flip side the LoTR films probably restored Tolkein's preeminence as filtered through Peter Jackson, or at least made it co-equal to the influence of D&D.

That depends on how wide or narrow you define a genre. D&D is most definetely part of the fantasy genre, but it is also its own specific category of fantasy, at least. Typical, or at least frequently reoccuring) elements include a kitchen sink approach to mystical races and monsters (including as a base for player characters), a distinct division between good and evil, as well as divine and arcane magic, dungeons or similarly discrete places where adventures take place, and old men sitting in taverns granting adventuring advice to a ragtag band of "adventurers".

I tend to agree with Estar. It is more a foundation than a genre.

With D&D being the main populariser of fantasy fiction it is sometimes hard to tell what is and isn't inspired by it. In a lot of cases D&D and fantasy are probably synonymous.
I personally like the term "Dungeon Fantasy" (as coined by the GURPS supplement), because many aspects typical to modern D&D have been incorporated from other genres retroactively in an attempt to emulate them in the D&D rules context (Dragonlance for High Fantasy, Ravenloft for horror, etc.). So they are not "owned" by D&D in the same way as the dungeon milieu is.

I do think that D&D created a genre into itself. I find this interesting, especially now when there's so much talk about "emulating" a specific genre. D&D (among others) reminds us that RPGs can be a genre unto themselves and do not need to ape another media.

In a less obvious way Call of Cthulhu is a good mash-up of Lovecraft's writings with the "band of adventurers" trope which I think created at least a sub-genre into itself (and that also means that critics saying that CoC falls to "emulate" the writings of H.P.L are horsecrap, it never was the goal of this game, it's even written on the box : "Fantasy Role-playing in the Worlds of H.P Lovecraft" which isn't the same as "Reenact the stories of HPL").

Nerzenjäger post bring to mind some additional thought.

While D&D is the foundation of modern fantasy, Dungeon Fantasy is a very popular sub-genre that is strongly associated with D&D.

However despite what many of distractors say D&D strength lies in the fact it was a hybrid from the get go allowing different group to have radically different play styles. Dungeon Fantasy was and still is the most popular due to its applicability and straight forward setup. But it never defined what D&D meant.

For similar reasons is why Traveller has endured. It successfully mashed several different science fiction sub genres to allow it be used for many types of campaign. Although the Third Imperium was the dominate focus for much of Traveller's history. Traveller was never just the game to run characters through the Third Imperium.

Quote from: estar;849869However despite what many of distractors say D&D strength lies in the fact it was a hybrid from the get go allowing different group to have radically different play styles.

But wouldn't you concur, that Dave's primary intent was to create a game to model the descent into the dungeons of Castle Blackmoor? The loose and immersive gameplay of the OD&D rules of course couldn't keep players caged in that scenario for very long.

I would say that D&D created a genre, but isn't one in itself. Lest one assumes D&D is synonymous with Dungeon Fantasy. If you play Weird Horror with D&D rules, the genre is not D&D, but Weird Horror.

I'd say it's weird horror but through the D&D prism : a band of adventurers armed to the teeth with steel and magic facing weird horror.

Dragonlance, for example, is not as much high fantasy as a setting trying to tie some specific D&D tropes (alignements, classes, gods) into the world's cosmology.

Dark Sun and Ravenloft are not as much a Sword & Sorcery setting and a Gothic Horror setting as those genres modified to fit into D&D tropes.

Imho of course.

Quote from: jeff37923;849859Just mulling some thoughts....

D&D is everywhere, and in a lot of games it forms the cornerstone of rules for that game. I am just wondering if we shouldn't consider D&D to be a genre of tabletop RPGs all by itself.

D&D is Plato, all other RPGs are footnotes. I am not being snarky whatsoever: other RPGs literally depend on D&D for their existence. It set the foundation of a completely new type of game, and thus all other RPGs are outgrowths of its original conceits. It can't really be a "genre" of tabletop RPGs, as it essentially defines tabletop RPGs. When you say roleplaying game to anyone who isn't an autistic internet nerd, they know D&D and that's it. MAYBE some of the artsy kids heard of Vampire in the 90s, but that was probably more tied to LARPs. You might as well just call RPGs "Games in the style of D&D", just like Hold 'Em is a Poker variant.

For example, Tunnels and Trolls is a direct result of Ken St. Andre not liking how D&D implemented certain mechanics. So is C&S. So is Runequest. So is Traveller, because Marc Miller wanted to fly spaceships instead of killing orcs. You can extend the analogy forever. When you basically create something new AND good, people are always going to try to improve it, or change it to fit their own vision. To say there is some sort of "D&D genre" is to essentially say that other RPGs are on equal footing, which is laughable. Other RPGs are simply extensions of the D&D-type game.

Foundation of modern fantasy? Aren't people mixing up D&D with Lord of the Rings here?

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;849870But wouldn't you concur, that Dave's primary intent was to create a game to model the descent into the dungeons of Castle Blackmoor? The loose and immersive gameplay of the OD&D rules of course couldn't keep players caged in that scenario for very long.

Actually no, from Playing at the World and other accounts like Hawk & Moor, the original Blackmoor campaign started out as a fantasy miniature wargame campaign with the player playing individual characters aka Braustein defending or attacking the Castle and Town of Blackmoor.

The dungeon came later in the initial year and wildly popular to explore. However the dungeon was a source of tensions. For those trying to defend Blackmoor it was viewed as a distraction. And they were proved right when the "good" side players lost Blackmoor to the baddies and were exiled to Loch Gloomen.

Of course they didn't learn their lesson as one of the first things they did in Lock Gloomen is explore the Glendower dungeons.

It is my impression that Dave mixed it up well between outright wargaming, wilderness and dungeons.

Now the Greyhawk campaign ran by Gary Gygax started out deliberately centered on the Greyhawk Dungeon. And that was the campaign where Dungeons & Dragons was primarily playtested.

Here the thing, tabletop RPGs by their very nature are expansive. The focus of playing individual through a series of interlinked sessions means anything that a individual can do in that setting can be the focus of a campaign and interesting to the players. While a good chunk of the initial release of D&D was focused on Dungeon Fantasy, it was never about Dungeon Fantasy in the way that Ars Magica is about playing mages in a Fantasy Europe or Vampire the Masquerade is about playing angst-ridden vampires with their own society.

Some the mentions of other possibilities were very brief indeed in OD&D but they were there and when reading it you get a sense there was a helluva lot of things you could do with this game beyond that of exploring dungeons.


The genius of this started with Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign where all the elements of tabletop roleplaying were brought together for the first time.

Gygax refined this in a usable set of rules. Since Gygax along with Arneson was well read in fantasy the result was a mishmash drawing from different aspects of 60s and early 70s fantasy, science fiction and pop culture. And it is an instance of the founder getting it right from the get go. Being that good it ultimately became THE foundation for the whole fantasy genre.

Quote from: Trond;849874Foundation of modern fantasy? Aren't people mixing up D&D with Lord of the Rings here?

At some point in the late 80s or early 90s. D&D view of fantasy supplanted Tolkien as THE view of fantasy. However the Peter Jackson's films gave LoTR a huge boost.

The primary conduit of D&D to popular culture runs through computer games not the tabletop RPG. In the late 70s, people started trying to write software to allow them to play D&D on a computer. Step by step that led to things like World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, etc. At first they were only important among geeks but with the rise of computers and internet, geek culture started to have a huge impact on popular culture as well.

Not really. D&D is a continuation of a kind of fantasy that began in the pulp work of Leiber and Howard, but has also been in conversation with Tolkien. D&D Heroes don't act nor have the same values of Aragon or Gandalf, they act more like Conan, Fafrhd and the Mouser, and Elric and Moonglum. This is continued in modern incarnations in David Cook's Black Company series and in the Asprin Thieve's World anthologies. D&D characters are decidedly lower class and rather noir and pulpish. They're professional tomb robbers and rakes.