On the brand VS the game...

[Umbran]

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.

The question, however, should be largely academic. Honestly, who cares exactly which branch it sits on? You like it or not, you play it or not. For practical use, whether it qualifies as "real D&D" does not matter.

Some years ago, a friend of ours called my wife, asking if we'd like to join a bunch of folks who were gong to see a movie. My wife asked what movie, but had never heard of the title. Our friend told her, "It's based on a comic book." My wife thought of Batman, Spider Man, and X-movies, and said sure!

Turned out, the movie was Sin City. My wife does surgery on a regular basis, is no stranger to real blood and guts, but she really can't stand fake gore. The movie was way too violent and messy for her, and she spent almost the entire time with her face buried in my shoulder, and her hands over her ears (because the sound effects were graphic, too).

You'd have to expend some serious cash to get her to sit through that movie again - for her, it was a horrible experience, and left her feeling physically nauseous. But does she revile the movie? No. Try to classify it somewhere out of the way, like it was really a horror flick and not a comic book movie? No.

In fact, she is one of the first to tell you that, technically, it is an excellent film. It sets out with certain goals, and it meets them all, pulling the strings it intends to pull, pushes the buttons it intends to push, and takes the audience for quite a ride in the process. It just happens to be a ride she would rather not take. It's exact classification is not relevant.

You don't like 4e? Fine. Great. By all means, play games that you actually like. But the "It isn't D&D to me" is like drawing territorial lines to separate Us from Them, Real D&D from Fake D&D. It isn't constructive.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The question, however, should be largely academic.

Obviously, some folks care very much exactly which branch it sits on. For practical use, which branch it sits on may well have a direct impact on which branch 5e, or 6e, sits on. For practical use, just being quiet might seem like tacit approval, and encourage design of a game which moves farther and farther from what one would like to see.

let's stop trying to draw territorial lines to separate Us from Them, Real D&D from Fake D&D.

Saying "I do not grant X identity Y" doesn't seperate Us from Them. Insisting that I do not dispute identity Y for object X, however........Well, that seems sort of antagonistic, to me.

I am perfectly fine with accepting 4e as D&D. I can understand why some others might not, though. And understanding -- not trying to force agreement -- is what unites Us and Them.

IMHO. YMMV.


RC

 

[billd91]

In fact, she is one of the first to tell you that, technically, it is an excellent film. It sets out with certain goals, and it meets them all, pulling the strings it intends to pull, pushes the buttons it intends to push, and takes the audience for quite a ride in the process. It just happens to be a ride she would rather not take. It's exact classification is not relevant.

You don't like 4e? Fine. Great. By all means, play games that you actually like. But the "It isn't D&D to me" is like drawing territorial lines to separate Us from Them, Real D&D from Fake D&D. It isn't constructive.

It depends on who you're talking to. If I'm talking about my hobbies to people I randomly encounter, they aren't going to care about how specifically I self-identify. Saying I play role-playing games and war games is probably quite enough and may be over many of their heads. But if I'm in a conversation with people into RPGs, like here on ENWorld where we seem to be so thick you couldn't swing a dead kobold without hitting one (oddly enough), then a bit of specificity makes a difference. Someone asks "What do you play?" Suddenly, the specifics of what I say start to matter. We'll be able to better determine what sort of common experiences or knowledge we might have, similar tastes, stuff like that.

Frankly, saying Sin City was based on a comic book served your wife poorly. A more exact classification would have served her better, preparing her expectations or giving her the criteria she needed to ditch out on the whole affair. And if I've learned anything in this life, one thing I've learned is there's little disappointment so bitter as having expectations, particularly high ones, dashed. Set expectations properly, and you gain a lot more tolerance for the situation.

 

[Mercurius]

Maybe an even more apt analogy than Sin City would be a music band, say something like King Crimson that has changed greatly from 1969 to the present with five or more different versions, from the '69-71 group, to the '73-'75 version to the early 80s, early to mid 90s, the early 00s, and a few "sub-versions" and spinoff groups inbetween. Personally speaking I like the earlier stuff from 1969 to the early 80s, not so much the stuff later on. But it is still King Crimson and I can see how it all part of the same musical lineage. And I am not going to say that The Power to Believe is not King Crimson, just because my favorite version was the '73-'75 iteration. I might even be critical of later King Crimson, and say that it lost something crucial, but that is different than saying that it is not King Crimson.

(I would even go so far as to say that 1969 King Crimson and 2003 King Crimson are far more different than OD&D and 4E, but it is hard to compare).

If nothing else, it is a kinder, gentler, and more inclusive gesture to invite everyone to the table. I really see no reason not to. Grognards can still have their private little "D&D died with Dragonlance" parties, and Gen-Y 4E players can still play their fire-breathing, katana-wielding dragonborn swordmages, but at least we can all extend each other the courtesy of saying that what we are doing is part of the same family, the same game.

It is all Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

If nothing else, it is a kinder, gentler, and more inclusive gesture to invite everyone to the table. I really see no reason not to. Grognards can still have their private little "D&D died with Dragonlance" parties, and Gen-Y 4E players can still play their fire-breathing, katana-wielding dragonborn swordmages, but at least we can all extend each other the courtesy of saying that what we are doing is part of the same family, the same game.

It is all Dungeons & Dragons.

Obviously, the brand is Dungeon & Dragons so that's never in dispute.

But as far as kinder and gentler and inclusive it's a pity that there are too many people who are content to crap all over what other people like. The wounds from the edition wars are very deep for me at least and I'm not even someone who has a hatred for 4E. It's just not my game of choice and NO it doesn't feel like D&D to me. I dont think that it's a terrible or antagonistic thing to say. I'm not even saying "I dont consider it D&D" or "It's not D&D". I'm saying TO ME "It doesn't feel like the game that I've been playing off and on since red box basic" Even 3E felt like it had a connection to the games that came prior to it. 4E FOR ME didn't feel like it had that connection. It does for it's fans. GREAT. For me it didn't. And I dont see why that makes me a bad person or some kind of jerk for saying it.

 

[Umbran]

Obviously, some folks care very much exactly which branch it sits on.

Thus my use of the word, "should". Not, "it is academic," but, "it should be academic".

For practical use, which branch it sits on may well have a direct impact on which branch 5e, or 6e, sits on. For practical use, just being quiet might seem like tacit approval, and encourage design of a game which moves farther and farther from what one would like to see.

You can level strong, effective critique without ever using the words, "it isn't D&D." When you consider the audience here, it is reasonable to expect that your critique would be given more serious and level-headed consideration if you avoid such phrasing. We'll get to why momentarily.

Saying "I do not grant X identity Y" doesn't seperate Us from Them.

Here, sir, you're just flat out, empirically wrong. We've got a year and more of vitriolic arguments backing me up on this. I'm a tad surprised you missed it. What I'm about to describe has played out time and again on these boards, and in other forums.

Whenever you* speak (say, to deliver criticism) you ought to consider your audience. The audience on EN World is gamers; role playing gamers - specifically, people who self-identify as D&D players - the identity of the game and of the players are linked!.

As soon as you say, "That's not D&D," whether you intend to or not, you also say, "Your self identification is wrong," to all who feel it is D&D. That is most certainly drawing a line between Us and Them - those that play Real D&D, and those that play Fake D&D. You're effectively saying that you don't think they are part of your tribe any more.

For humans, maybe geeks more than others, being part of the tribe is very important.

Deny that identity, and the audience's emotions are in operation, rather than their analytical mind. What other critique you have tends to get lost in the fact that you've cast them out. Ill feelings show, argument begins, and intelligent discussion of merits and flaws goes out the window.

Frankly, saying Sin City was based on a comic book served your wife poorly. A more exact classification would have served her better, preparing her expectations or giving her the criteria she needed to ditch out on the whole affair.

Yes, and that's exactly my point here.

It can take a lot of verbiage to describe a movie. But it takes very little effort to be specific about which published rules variant you're talking about. There are only a handful of them, after all. If you try to lump some of them together, you run exactly the risk that guy did. The more you generalize, the less specific information you give, and the more likely you are to run into issues.

If you were inviting a person to play a game, you'd probably not say "We're playing D&D." You'd say, "We're playing 3e D&D," because that extra information holds all the important bits to someone who understands the differences. The dividing line between "D&D" and "not-D&D" for this audience is academic. In practice, you'd use the specific.


*Generic "you" not "you, RC personally"

 

[Jack Daniel]

Another way to frame the discussion then, academic though it may be, is in terms of a proposition that might (if only hypothetically) be falsified.

Imagine a hypothetical 5th edition, 6th edition, 7th edition, ad infinitum into the future. Perhaps published by WotC, perhaps published by some other company to whom the torch has been passed. Imagine significant overhauls to the rules of each game. But they all carry the brand name, "Dungeons & Dragons."

Is it reasonable, although we have no knowledge of these games and know nothing of what they'll be like, to declare that they are, de facto, D&D? And for those of you who say that the answer is an unequivocal "yes," at what point would such a game not be D&D anymore? Or doesn't such a line exist?

The sense I get so far about the majority opinion around here is this: "D&D is definitionally any role-playing game that carries the D&D brand name." Not that there's anything wrong with that per se, but I think intellectual honesty demands an answer to the fundamental question: at what hypothetical point does the plausibility of that opinion break down? Where would a game branded as "D&D" cease to actually be D&D?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Thus my use of the word, "should". Not, "it is academic," but, "it should be academic".

I understood your word; it is a subjective opinion. I disagree, and obviously I am not alone.

You can level strong, effective critique without ever using the words, "it isn't D&D."

Sure you can. And, IMHO and IME, the problem of "Us vs. Them" is related to the acceptance of that criticism as valid far more than "It isn't D&D". Indeed, one can go through all of those Edition Wars threads you mention and see quite clearly that it the criticism draws the same response, overall, even when the person making it likes and plays the edition criticized and considers it D&D.

Therefore, when you say

Here, sir, you're just flat out, empirically wrong. We've got a year and more of vitriolic arguments backing me up on this.

you are empirically wrong. The vitriolic arguments we've had for a year or more consist, largely, of attempts to force others to view things the same way the poster does.

Simply accepting other views -- what being a "big tent kind of guy" is actually about -- would have ended them, or prevented them outright.

It is not, as you say,

As soon as you say, "That's not D&D," whether you intend to or not, you also say, "Your self identification is wrong," to all who feel it is D&D. That is most certainly drawing a line between Us and Them - those that play Real D&D, and those that play Fake D&D. You're effectively saying that you don't think they are part of your tribe any more.

But rather,

Faced with a statement, "That's not D&D," "I don't consider that D&D", or "That's not D&D to me", some people will be unwilling to accept that you have a different identification than they do, and will draw a line between Us and Them. It is that unwillingness to accept others think differently than you, and extrapolating that small difference to an "Us vs. Them" mentality, that is the problem. Especially when moderators on a site seem to endorse that view!

And it is shocking to me that you can say

As soon as you say, "That's not D&D," whether you intend to or not, you also say, "Your self identification is wrong," to all who feel it is D&D. That is most certainly drawing a line between Us and Them - those that play Real D&D, and those that play Fake D&D. You're effectively saying that you don't think they are part of your tribe any more.

For humans, maybe geeks more than others, being part of the tribe is very important.

Deny that identity, and the audience's emotions are in operation, rather than their analytical mind. What other critique you have tends to get lost in the fact that you've cast them out. Ill feelings show, argument begins, and intelligent discussion of merits and flaws goes out the window.

without also realizing that the opposite must also be true -- As soon as you say, "That's is D&D," whether you intend to or not, you also say, "Your self identification is wrong," to all who feel it is not D&D.

What you are, basically, asking is really "Please do not bother me with that opinion which I do not share", whether you realize it or not.

The proper response to "That's not D&D to me" is not "You are dividing Us and Them!" but exactly the same response as "That is D&D to me" -- acceptance of the other person's opinion as their opinion. Acceptance is the only non-divisive response possible, and it is certainly the mature response.

It is the response I would expect most of us to endorse. I certainly hope that, in our better moments at least, most of us do!


RC

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Faced with a statement, "That's not D&D," "I don't consider that D&D", or "That's not D&D to me", some people will be unwilling to accept that you have a different identification than they do, and will draw a line between Us and Them. It is that unwillingness to accept others think differently than you, and extrapolating that small difference to an "Us vs. Them" mentality, that is the problem. Especially when moderators on a site seem to endorse that view!

I wish I hadn't given you XP before so that I could give it to you now.

 

[Doug McCrae]

As soon as you say, "That's not D&D," whether you intend to or not, you also say, "Your self identification is wrong," to all who feel it is D&D. That is most certainly drawing a line between Us and Them - those that play Real D&D, and those that play Fake D&D. You're effectively saying that you don't think they are part of your tribe any more.

Yeah, I agree.

It's perfectly reasonable to have one's own definition of D&D. I do. I think we all do. Mine is very minimal - My D&D - and includes every rpg so far published under the name. (This publishing itself has an effect, a big one, on the definition, which, like all definitions is in constant flux.) Nonetheless it's possible WotC could publish something called D&D which wasn't D&D to me. Therefore I think this view, that 3e or 4e aren't D&D, is not unreasonable.

However, expressing views that are divisive, rather than inclusive, is not good for the health of the message board. Although the view can be honestly held, and its expression is not intended to be divisive, it cannot be anything else. When expressing such views one must be extremely careful, just as one must be careful when expressing a negative view of d20 D&D, given the site's origins.