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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Akrasia" data-source="post: 1905808" data-attributes="member: 23012">As usual Henry, you make a good point.  Although there are disputes between some adherents of 1e versus 2e (and the 1E bard unquestionably kicks the 2E bard's arse <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> ) , the two systems are quite similar --as similar to each other as 3.0 is to 3.5.Still, the 1E books by Gygax were written in a very distinctive style, and encouraged a certain kind of play.  (Whether people like this 'Gygaxian' style is a different question -- but that it is there is beyond question.)  In recent years I've mainly played RC D&D and 3E, but I recently joined an occasional 1E group, and was surprised at how much the rules of OAD&D have a very distinctive feel (and how they structure the game in certain ways).  Again, I am sure that many people dislike that feel, but it is certainly ingrained in the playing habits of many people who started role-playing in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s, and partially explains the loyalty that some 'grognards' have to 1E.  D20 might have longevity -- but it will it in the same way that GURPS does, not in the way that OAD&D does.  It is a toolkit that can be deployed for different purposes (fantasy, modern, etc.), but that lacks any distinctive character itself.  I am sure that d20 will be revised and reworked over time -- and that if WotC ever dumped it for some other system, it would survive in the hands of other publishers and players -- just as GURPS has been reworked and revised over time (and continues to be, with the new 4th edition).  This could very well be a good thing for most people.  Some people will want to run games in which the players play traditional dwarven fighters and elven mages working together despite their cultural antipathies, while other people will want to run games inwhich everyone is a half-drow, half-mindflayer sorcerer/barbarian.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />   But I suspect 20 years from now, people will feel nostalgia for certain campaign settings (e.g. "Man, Midnight really rocked"), and not the details of the d20 incarnation of D&D.</blockquote>

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