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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 7664980" data-attributes="member: 59082">Certainly all of these are within the broader D&D umbrella, family, tradition, or genus - however you want to put it. But none are "the" official D&D game, but variants on it.I remember those ads...those were the days. I remember scrambling through boxes a different game stores, looking for rare issues of Dragon. Now you can get anything you want on Ebay, but for some reason the loss of the hunt makes it less desirable...but that's another matter altogether.Anyhow, interest stuff on Rolemaster. I am familiar with it, of course, but have never played and growing up in the 80s always viewed it as the "more complex fantasy game." But again, Rolemaster isn't claiming to be D&D, isn't even part of the genus - but more a related line. An offshoot, certainly, but if we're looking at it as an evolutionary tree, it broke away early on and differentiated itself substantially. Like bears and wolves, not like wolves and coyotes or foxes (the various D&D retro-clones and d20 games).But again, I don't see the relevance. Or rather, the edition wars are not relevant to other RPGs and even "alternative versions" of D&D. This narrows down what people have gotten upset about - the core game itself, the flagship, what is considered "official D&D." People become attached to what they identify with the core brand.This isn't only true for RPGs. I'm rather ambivalent about the band U2, but I remember when they came out with Achtung Baby many people were upset because it was so different from "true U2" - that is, the U2 they had identified with. This is the case with authors, with fashion brands, even with personal relationships ("why are you acting this way? It isn't you").Pemerton, for better or worse you require very clear, sharp parameters - far more clear and sharp than I do. So we're going to always have these areas of impasse with our conversations. In a way its like you're realist photographer and I'm an impressionist painter - we approach "art" in a very different way, with different needs and goals. So I think as long as we realize that, and as long as we don't try to make the other play by our rules, then I think there's some room for fruitful dialogue."Breaking from tradition" isn't a particularly exotic or difficult concept. Traditions exist in all fields and domains and invariably some new idea or take comes forward that "breaks" from it, which of course rarely is so dramatic and is usually more a matter of divergence. Let me put it this way. Let's say we start with OD&D as "0". Holmes was just a half-step away, a refinement - so "0.5." Moldvay was another half-step, so "1," with BECMI being another full step, or "2." AD&D, on the other hand, was a larger divergence, say three steps away from OD&D - so "3." 2E was another full step away from 1E, so "4." 3E came in and was another solid divergence, say two more steps away, so "6." And then we come to 4E, which was probably at least (or only, depending up on how you look at it), a full three steps away from 3E, so "9." People became upset, not only because it was three steps away from 3E, but also because it had diverged so far from early versions of D&D. 5E came in and dialed it back a bit, even to something less divergent from 3E, so maybe a "5."Don't take the numbers too literally - I'm just trying to illustrate the point. The above works for both long-timers who established a baseline identification in the 70s and 80s, but also the wave that came in with 3E. For the latter, while they didn't have the identification with early D&D, 3E was a "0" so 4E jumping three steps was huge.That's how history is written, pemerton.  But seemingly you don't remember when 4E came out, and many had a huge issue with how different 4E was from 3E. I remember this clearly because it took awhile for me to see it. I remember thinking, "what do you mean? It is still d20, still the same basic game - now we've just got powers and such." The more I got to know the rules, the more I saw how sharply it diverged from "traditional D&D." But I think the mistake you make here, if I may, is by focusing on specific rules. Sure, they matter, but it is more the sum total, even the "space in-between" the rules - the vibe and feeling - that makes 4E different. This is why I think the issues many had with 4E were more emotional than intellectual (or rather, it was a combination of both - but I'm highlighting the emotional part because it gets brushed aside a bit, imo). Sure, many didn't like powers or healing surge, and so forth, but there were just as many complaints about the art, or the feeling of the game, or how it facilitated imaginative experience - stuff that can't easily be quantified with specific rules.The question I have is whither the 4E diehards? When 4E came out, over the next year or two we saw three distinct communities emerge: the d20/Pathfinder/3.5 hold-outs, the retro-clones, and the 4E players. Now we can't know this for sure, but presumably some of each group have "returned to the fold" - but the first two groups still seem in place, still vibrant. But what about the 4E community? Is it surviving, will it survive, without official support? Is there a faithful core following that could form the nucleus of either a strong cult following of the edition, or even something akin to a 4E-version of Pathfinder (not that WotC would allow that)? I'm honestly curious.</blockquote>

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