Lol. I was really just trying to say that it is definitely not a board game because it can be played completely without a board. I know you can play with a board, but it is totally not dependent upon a board.
...
So Solasta DM is more like a board game. Larian DM is more like a choose your own adventure DM who isn't so much about the board.
But there is a board. The visuals of the game is board and that is why it is ridiculous to see jump to backstab. So the latter if your example does not work in a game like this. If this was a text game, sure it would work.
If you took the board away from monopoly, could you still play? Checkers or chess? D&D isn't sold with a board, it's optional. If I go to barnes & nobles, I could get one of the books by it self. Are you going to ever buy checkers with no board?
I really shouldn't have to type that.
You could play monopoly without a board, yes. Keeping track of where players are on the "board" mentally is not very difficult and if you need a visual aid you could easily abstract parts of the board using pen and paper. There are far more things to keep track of in D&D than in monopoly, if you can play D&D without a board, you can also play monopoly without a board. This isn't just me being a pedant, when I was a kid I actually used to do things like play monopoly with friends using a pen and paper to keep track, because it wasn't easy to smuggle a board between lessons to play but it was very easy to hide scraps of paper.
The difference between the 2 lies solely in how they are sold, monopoly is sold as a board with rules, D&D is sold as a set of rules, of which you can optionally add visual aids, some of which include a board. Neither game actually requires a board, all you need to know is the rules.
