On the brand VS the game...

[Dannyalcatraz]

Instead of "Edition X isn't really D&D to me", why not just say, "I don't like edition X"? It means EXACTLY the same thing and carries none of the negative connotations

Because it ISN'T the exact same thing.

For example, I will tell you right now that 4Ed isn't D&D to me.

I will also tell you right now that I don't hate 4Ed. In fact, I'm in a 4Ed game and having a good time. However, the feel I get from the game is not the sam as my connection to previous editions of the game; I feel like I'm playing another FRPG entirely.

It is not simply that I don't like the game as much as other editions- because there are things I consider a definite improvement- but that the system does not let me do things as a player that I've been doing for 33 years.

Which, BTW, is why I think that 4Ed (or a 5Ed based on revising the game down the road) would be better served without the D&D name & legacy issues, instead carving out its own niche without having to try satisfying any expectations except being a good FRPG.

 

[Hussar]

Well, take Mr. Mearls's statement: "OD&D and D&D 4 are such different games that they cater to very different needs." That's the same thing I'm saying: I think they're different games (substantially, as in "such different games," not just minor differences).

Do you think Mr. Mearls is claiming that 4e is not D&D? Is he laying flamebait?

No, I think you're taking Mearl's statements far beyond what he actually stated. He said that they were different games. That's pretty much a given. I don't think anyone would seriously try to claim that OD&D and 4e are the same.

That doesn't make one D&D and the other not D&D though.

The exact statement can be made about 3e as well. 3e is pretty much completely unrelated to OD&D mechanically. I would rather hope so since there's twenty or so years of game development between the two. Yet, just as was mention that one version of Street Fighter and another version will not work on the same machine, that doesn't mean that later editions are different games.

------------

I look at it like trying to define "forest". You can't define forest by the edges - it doesn't work. Trees per square foot? Nope. But, if you're standing somewhere completely surrounded by trees, then you're likely in a forest. ((Even if it's sometimes hard to see the trees ))

D&D is the same thing to me. Earlier in the thread someone claimed that my half dragon githyanki monstrocity wasn't really playing D&D because it wasn't core. But, that's a pretty difficult thing to justify. If I'm playing Oriental Adventures (1e), am I playing D&D? If I make an adventure using nothing but Fiend Folio (1e) monsters, am I playing D&D?

Most people would say yes.

So, there has to be something a bit more quintessential to D&D than mechanics. After all, it's a mark of honor for most DM's that they kit bashed the crap out of the game for years. Yet, if you asked them, I'll bet that every one of them would say they were playing D&D, despite the filing cabinet full of stuff they've crammed into their game.

If you are playing a level based fantasy game where the players (generally) cooperate to resolve some sort of scenario presented and refereed by a DM, and, after that resolution, they gain power based on the amount of things they defeated and how much treasure they gained, and then go on to more difficult scenarios, ad infinitum, you're probably playing D&D.

Just as I have no problems with someone playing Pathfinder saying they're playing D&D, or Castles and Crusades, or pretty much whatever, I got zero problem with someone playing 4e and saying they're playing D&D.

Like I said before, if you claim that D&D is only D&D up to OD&D, then at least it's consistent. However, if you try to include 3e in D&D but then exclude 4e, I'm going to call shenanigans. It's ludicrous to think that I can play with fifteen different splats, both WOTC and 3pp and be playing D&D, but, my Dragonborn Warlord suddenly isn't.

Are they different games? Oh, of course they are. Every edition is different. The idea that OD&D and AD&D are very similar games ignores significant portions of the AD&D books. And it only gets more different the further you get.

 

[Mark CMG]

D&D has always run in cycles where it either sells better because of its brand or sells better because of its game. When the brand isn't strong, the game needs to attract the customers and when the game isn't strong, the brand needs to attract them.

 

[Doug McCrae]

FWIW, while I do prefer the older editions, my take on it isn't really about preference. For example, even if I preferred 4e over OD&D, I'd still think that 4e is a different game from original D&D. (Heck, even Mike Mearls had said as much: "OD&D and D&D 4 are such different games that they cater to very different needs.")

Gary Gygax said that OD&D and AD&D are different games.

ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a different game. Readers please take note! It is neither an expansion nor a revision of the old game, it is a new game. A number of letters have come to me, the writers expressing their surprise at or voicing their disapproval of this fact. John Mansfield, in SIGNAL, cautions his readers to be aware that an ongoing D&D campaign cannot be switched to AD&D without major work or actual scrapping of the old game and beginning a fresh effort. To prevent any further misunderstandings, it is necessary that all adventure gaming fans be absolutely aware that there is no similarity (perhaps even less) between D&D and AD&D than there is between D&D and its various imitators produced by competing publishers.

- Dragon #26

 

[Wicht]

Ahh, I see, we're going to go with, it's all in Hussar's head. No one ever claims that X Edition isn't D&D.

Its pretty bad if you have to go to a whole different website to make your argument about how people are attacking you or your ideas.

I will grant there are people who don't like 4e and I will grant there are people who will say that it is not D&D period, and I will even grant that they might visit ENWorld and post.

But that has nothing to do with this thread or the posts in THIS thread. All of this started because I made, what was to me, a semi-sentimental post about what D&D meant to me and you got your feathers ruffled. I can not be held responsible for what other people have said to you in the past nor is it fair for you to drag your emotional baggage on the issue into every conversation which might, peripherally, touch on a topic sensitive to you.

Dungeons and Dragons is different things to different people and I think, personally, it is instructive to know what a person considers to be D&D and why. I stated above both what D&D meant to me and why. I am cognizant of the fact that others have different backgrounds, different opinions and different playstyles. And you know what? I am fine with that. You should be too.

 

[Umbran]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This discussion is getting awful snippy. There's nothing in here so important that it should supersede common courtesy. So, tone it down a notch or two, please.

Thanks, all.

 

[Hussar]

Let's go back a second to the Ford F150 example that was used upthread.

Compare a 1975 Ford F150 to a 2009 Ford F150. Other than the fact that they are both pick-up trucks, they share pretty much nothing in common. The 2009 is actually so different from the 1975 that if you had a time machine and brought a Ford mechanic forward in time from 1975 to now, he couldn't so much as change the timing on the engine as the timing is controlled by a microchip that hadn't even been invented in 1975. That mechanic could no more fix the modern truck than he could fix the space shuttle.

Yet, I'm pretty sure that anyone who sees a Ford F150 pickup probably recognizes that truck, regardless of year (presuming of course they actually know what a Ford F150 looks like in the first place, which excludes most of our European cousins. )

Considering that D&D and RPG's in general have always venerated changes to the rules, I'm really not sure why two versions of the same game, thirty years apart, would even have similar rules. There is a definite chain of development that you can follow from OD&D to 4e D&D, but, at one end to the other, those are two very different games.

Why wouldn't they be? I would rather hope that they would be radically different. Thirty years of game play, millions of hours at the table, I'm thinking that some trends that might have been true in 1975 might not be true in 2010. The audience has changed as well. A 15 year old gamer in 1980 is not the same consumer as a 15 year old gamer in 2010. They've had pretty significantly different experiences.

Is every edition of D&D different? IMO, of course they are. I would expect them to be. But, does being different make them not D&D? IMO, no. Not at all. They appeal to different people. 2e appealed to different people than 1e. Does that mean 2e is no longer D&D?

D&D is constantly changing and evolving. When 5e comes it, it will be different from everything that came before it, but it, like every edition of the game, will reflect a partcular set of views of the hobby at that point in time.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Raven Crowking, who has posted in this thread has a house rules binder several hundred pages long. Is he playing D&D?

RC's binder for 2e? That was D&D.

RC's binder for 3e? Iffy. My players called them "The Good Rules".

RC's current game? Not D&D -- It's RCFG! D&D should be so lucky!



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

RC - considering the massive amounts of time you've spent on me mis-quoting, it would be nice if you'd follow your own advice. Show me in that thread where I said ANYTHING about it being bad that DM's change the rules.

Glad to know that I'm wrong, Hussar, and that you are perfectly fine with GMs changing the rules. I had somehow gathered rather the opposite impression.


RC

 

[billd91]

Gary Gygax said that OD&D and AD&D are different games.

And he was correct. They were different in many rules and in much of their design philosophy. They were part of the same general family, but diverging in intent and destiny.

Based on a similar look at 4e, I don't see it as being what it says it is - the 4th edition on the same branch of the D&D family as AD&D. It's too different, plays too differently. Same general family, another divergent branch. Pathfinder, I would put squarely on the same branch as AD&D like 3e before it. That's why PF is my D&D replacement, rather than 4e being my D&D game.