Fair enough. That's a much larger question that I don't want to get too deeply into, unless we want to go down a philosophical rabbit-hole...but maybe we do?
Hey, that's up to you. In my opinion, the "main" discussion of this thread is pretty played out, but maybe there's still life left in it?
Mercurius said:
So that is my point on our being "one big happy family" of gamers (although that being said with a subtle note of irony, given that all families are dysfunctional and unhappy in one way or another). You and I may live very different lifestyles, have different ideological perspectives, but we are "one" in the very fact that we are here, on ENWorld, participating in the same thread, and in that we both love--even if in very different ways--roleplaying games.
And that's pretty cool, imo.
Fair enough. I don't think it's particularly cool; it's the nature of the internet to bring together people who share a common interest, but it doesn't necessarily do anything else and to me, that's just a baseline for interent discussion. You can certainly argue that the concept of internet discussion at all is pretty cool (and I won't argue with you if you do) but assuming by this point that that's a baseline, what else does it accomplish that two completely different people united
only by the fact that they're fans of D&D, are talking about D&D on the internet?
Maybe I'm just not very sentimental or something, but for me, it doesn't do anything for me to know that other people around the world have the same hobby that I do--as long as I can practice my hobby myself with my group, in the way that I like, that's really about all that matters to me. I also don't see a lot of value to me personally in trying to get everyone "on the same page" in any particular way about gaming--I think rather than diversity and "multifurcation" of the game (if that's even a word) so that each individual group is much more likely to get exactly the experience that they want to out of it, is the way to go.
To me, the hobby is most satisfying when me and my group get exactly what we want to out of the hobby, and I'm largely indifferent--except maybe in an academic sense--about whatever else is going on in the hobby.
Of course, that's also why I think the premise of this thread is ultimately not important. I can certainly see the fact that Pathfinder is D&D. It's arguably less different from D&D 3.5 than 3.5 was from 3e (it's certainly less different from 3.5 than it is from any non-3.x edition of D&D.) Yet, it's also Pathfinder, and therefore not D&D. As many have pointed out, it's confusing to say otherwise, and I don't think Pathfinder's producers or fans--in general--would want to dilute their own brand name by calling their game D&D. Given that, what I'm most struggling to understand is 1) why anyone really cares overly much about whether folks insist that Pathfinder is or isn't D&D--either one, 2) why anyone would feel slighted by either insinuation, and most especially 3) why anyone else would feel the need to preemptively worry about whether or not anyone would feel slighted by either assertion.
Me personally, I'm a fan of letting folks talk about their games in whatever terminology is most comfortable and least confusing, and if they get too emotional about their terminology, telling them to lighten up. If they can't lighten up, I'm a big fan of PLONKing them and moving on.
