Balesir
Adventurer
I don't really care about the "D&D Definers" - they seem to have some sort of irrational investment in the (one and only, I suspect, in many cases) RPG they play being called D&D that I lack.I'd buy this more if the people always trying to don the mantle of "High Priest of What D&D Is" were not universally set on telling me that what I did with D&D in the early days did not happen. It smacks more of agenda than any real interest in the health of the hobby.
Many vociferous commentators also seem to conflate "D&D" with "roleplaying games", leading to a situation where they expect - or demand - that it fulfill all of their personal desires for what a roleplaying game should be capable of doing. I have no such desire; I play D&D 4E to satisfy a very limited element of what I love RPGs for. For the myriad other satisfactions that RPGs can bring, I look to other titles that are designed more appropriately to fulfill the relevant roles (currently mainly HârnMaster). Systems that try to mix all of the various aims together, I find, present what [MENTION=717]JRRNeiklot[/MENTION] amusingly dubs a "football bat".
It's not so much the branding; vibrant and diverse brands can be built via judicious licensing and collaboration. It's the mindset that says IP must be "leveraged" - in other words customers must be bullied and manipulated without consideration of their aims or range of tastes. The power of control over IP must be seized and used, rather than shared for mutual benefit. And then they wonder why there are pirates of whom the "mostly law abiding" public have ambiguous views.And of course, D&D didn't invent branding.
Last edited: