D&D 5E After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon

[Shasarak]

Be honest, you're trolling me, right? This is you trolling me. Because otherwise that argument is so ridiculous...

Wait, you are suggesting that Star Wars is closer to "DnD" then Pathfinder and somehow my argument is ridiculous?

 

[Jester David]

Wait, you are suggesting that Star Wars is closer to "DnD" then Pathfinder and somehow my argument is ridiculous?

Okay, I'll assume you're serious and give you the benefit of the doubt.

First, I said that WotC's Star Wars game was more compatible to 3e than Pathfinder. Which is true, as Pathfinder reworked all the classes and monster math.

Second, you seem to be labouring under some misconceptions. I'll see what I can do with those.



Starting off, the Open Game Licence has nothing to do with D&D.
The OGL is a contract. A legal document that allows you to release games with open source mechanics. Several games make use of the OGL and have nothing in common with D&D, such as FATE (which doesn't even look in the general direction of either a d20 or an owlbear).

What you alluded to earlier is the System Reference Document (or SRD), which is a summary of rules text used by the d20 system and includes the classes and monsters common in D&D. In conjunction with the OGL, the SRD allows publishers to release material that makes use of d20 game mechanics, or WotC Intellectual Property that is labeled as Open Content, or some combination of both.

OGL games that use the SRD include Pathfinder, but also include games that use the monsters of the SRD (like 13th Age) or just rules (like the Babylon 5 RPG).

However… you could make products compatible with D&D prior. This is because you cannot copyright mechanics. So you've always been able to make D&D-compatible games and accessories.


As a matter of fact, one of the first products every released by Wizards of the Coast (if not the first product) was a game product compatible with multiple other RPGs (including Palladium Fantasy and D&D) that allowed you to play gods and demigods.
The catch is you cannot reproduce text (which is copyrighted) and have to rewrite all the mechanics in a way that does not even accidentally violate copyright. And you cannot use any trademarks (such as "Dungeons & Dragons") which makes it hard to advertise, since it's hard to tell people it's compatible. (Which is still an issue, hence the usable of the phrase "compatible with the 5th Edition of the world's oldest role-playing game" in many 3rd Party Products).

Added into this mix are licensed products and other games.
The former include Star Wars, which uses the d20 ruleset and was published by Wizards of the Coast. The latter would include something like Gamma World, which was 100% compatible with 4th Edition D&D rules. These use the same rules as D&D but make use of none of the other content.
There's also D&D board games, some published by WotC and some released by partners. These include such games which just make use of the IP but not the d20 rules - such as Lords of Waterdeep and Tyrants of the Underdark - and games that are a variation of the tabletop games - such as Castle Ravenloft or Temple of Elemental Evil.
And there are official D&D video games, with some - like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights - making use of the full RPG ruleset.


Now, getting back to my question, what is D&D?

The definition you posited earlier is essentially "it's D&D if it's compatible with D&D and has clerics". Which is a little like saying "it's an Apple iPad product if it fits into the lightning port and is white". Yes, it includes a lot of Apple products and good products that might as well be Apple products, but also includes a bunch of gas station charging cords that might brick your device.

It's also an incredibly arbitrary definition. Why the cleric? And it doesn't consider D&D settings where clerics are minimized, such the aforementioned Dark Sun or Dragonlance following the Cataclysm or during the Saga era. Also, D&D often isn't compatible with itself. The editions are not backwards compatible after all. Did ever edition following 1st Edition cease to be D&D as it was no longer compatible?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Okay, I'll assume you're serious and give you the benefit of the doubt.

First, I said that WotC's Star Wars game was more compatible to 3e than Pathfinder. Which is true, as Pathfinder reworked all the classes and monster math.

Second, you seem to be labouring under some misconceptions. I'll see what I can do with those.



Starting off, the Open Game Licence has nothing to do with D&D.
The OGL is a contract. A legal document that allows you to release games with open source mechanics. Several games make use of the OGL and have nothing in common with D&D, such as FATE (which doesn't even look in the general direction of either a d20 or an owlbear).

What you alluded to earlier is the System Reference Document (or SRD), which is a summary of rules text used by the d20 system and includes the classes and monsters common in D&D. In conjunction with the OGL, the SRD allows publishers to release material that makes use of d20 game mechanics, or WotC Intellectual Property that is labeled as Open Content, or some combination of both.

OGL games that use the SRD include Pathfinder, but also include games that use the monsters of the SRD (like 13th Age) or just rules (like the Babylon 5 RPG).

However… you could make products compatible with D&D prior. This is because you cannot copyright mechanics. So you've always been able to make D&D-compatible games and accessories.


As a matter of fact, one of the first products every released by Wizards of the Coast (if not the first product) was a game product compatible with multiple other RPGs (including Palladium Fantasy and D&D) that allowed you to play gods and demigods.
The catch is you cannot reproduce text (which is copyrighted) and have to rewrite all the mechanics in a way that does not even accidentally violate copyright. And you cannot use any trademarks (such as "Dungeons & Dragons") which makes it hard to advertise, since it's hard to tell people it's compatible. (Which is still an issue, hence the usable of the phrase "compatible with the 5th Edition of the world's oldest role-playing game" in many 3rd Party Products).

Added into this mix are licensed products and other games.
The former include Star Wars, which uses the d20 ruleset and was published by Wizards of the Coast. The latter would include something like Gamma World, which was 100% compatible with 4th Edition D&D rules. These use the same rules as D&D but make use of none of the other content.
There's also D&D board games, some published by WotC and some released by partners. These include such games which just make use of the IP but not the d20 rules - such as Lords of Waterdeep and Tyrants of the Underdark - and games that are a variation of the tabletop games - such as Castle Ravenloft or Temple of Elemental Evil.
And there are official D&D video games, with some - like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights - making use of the full RPG ruleset.


Now, getting back to my question, what is D&D?

The definition you posited earlier is essentially "it's D&D if it's compatible with D&D and has clerics". Which is a little like saying "it's an Apple iPad product if it fits into the lightning port and is white". Yes, it includes a lot of Apple products and good products that might as well be Apple products, but also includes a bunch of gas station charging cords that might brick your device.

It's also an incredibly arbitrary definition. Why the cleric? And it doesn't consider D&D settings where clerics are minimized, such the aforementioned Dark Sun or Dragonlance following the Cataclysm or during the Saga era. Also, D&D often isn't compatible with itself. The editions are not backwards compatible after all. Did ever edition following 1st Edition cease to be D&D as it was no longer compatible?

You really think SAGA is more compatible to 3.x than Pathfinder because Pathfinder changed some math , not mechanics but math, behind some of its custom monsters?

 

[Jester David]

You really think SAGA is more compatible to 3.x than Pathfinder because Pathfinder changed some math , not mechanics but math, behind some of its custom monsters?

I was thinking of the two versions of Star Wars published by WotC prior to SAGA (in 2000 and 2002). I agree SAGA is slightly less compatible than Pathfinder.

There were some changes in in the first two (they use some rules that were optional in 3e, such as defense bonus, Vitality and Wound Points, and reputation) but are otherwise almost identical in terms of rules.
You could take the Force skills and feats and drop them right into a 3e game with probably zero modification. Most of the feats would also work. With super minor tweaking (dropping the optional rules, which is likely less work than converting CMB/CMD from Pathfinder) the classes would all work in a 3.0 Edition game, as would the races. And the monsters would all work as well.

 

[Parmandur]

So, in the Linux example, D&D = Linux; D20 is a term of art that only a subset of people know, really.



However, for talking about marketing approaches, what Paizo does with the off-brand D&D is fairly irrelevant, as is indeed the entire discussion of the two paragraphs in question.

 

[evileeyore]

1. Do you think the majority of people in this discussion share your outlook?

I have no idea. Most of my direct gaming peers do.

And does considering anything (does this also include boardgames like Descent... it has a campaign mode now) that can be run in a dungeon crawl style as "D&D" (in other words trying to use everyone's personal opinion of what constitutes D&D) facilitate understanding in any way for this discussion? If not why would we use it?

Because roleplaying, and the greater conversation of D&D, is bigger than the mere brand of D&D. I've often overheard conversations in which people playing any sit-down rpg were described as "playing D&D" even when they were playing anything but. because D&D is what the general non-roleplaying public thinks when they think of roleplaying games. They don't think "oh those kids are roleplaying", they think "they're playing D&D"... for good or ill.

2. Do you think games which can be played in your style from #2 are on the whole generally inclusive/diverse in so far as artwork, alternate cultures presented, language, etc.?

It's not exclusive, which is the only benchmark that matters to me.

I don't pay attention to "diversity", as I generally consider that not worth pursuing.

 

[seebs]

It's not exclusive, which is the only benchmark that matters to me.

I don't pay attention to "diversity", as I generally consider that not worth pursuing.

In my experience, people who do not pay attention to "diversity" are usually functionally exclusive even when they are very sure they are not being exclusive. If you have the option of not paying attention to diversity, then you are probably not going to notice the ways in which people are usually excluded.

 

[eayres33]

That is an experience I have not shared. In my experience those that are looking to pay attention to "diversity" have created a false world where they artificially exclude players in the name of diversity. They create a world whose % of diversity does not come close to matching the real world, and the game suffers.
My general principle is to let every player play whatever they want, and the chips then seem to play themselves.

 

[seebs]

That is an experience I have not shared. In my experience those that are looking to pay attention to "diversity" have created a false world where they artificially exclude players in the name of diversity. They create a world whose % of diversity does not come close to matching the real world, and the game suffers.
My general principle is to let every player play whatever they want, and the chips then seem to play themselves.

It seems to me that "pay attention to diversity" is an exceedingly vague phrase.

Consider the difference between "GM decides that the tavern owner in this small town is gay, because why not" and "GM declares that at least three PCs must be gay". One of these is "including some diversity in the game", the other is "pushing players around for no real reason".

Basically, if you're excluding people, that sounds definitionally antidiverse to me.

 

[Jester David]

That is an experience I have not shared. In my experience those that are looking to pay attention to "diversity" have created a false world where they artificially exclude players in the name of diversity. They create a world whose % of diversity does not come close to matching the real world, and the game suffers.
My general principle is to let every player play whatever they want, and the chips then seem to play themselves.

Um... in "the real world" 1/6th of the population in Chinese, 1/6th is Indian, and another 1/6th is African. Less than 1/5th of the world is white/Caucasian, spread out over three continents.
How often is only 20% of the people in game art white?