D&D General D&D may be a DELTA, not a TTRPG!

[Remathilis]

But at least "SHIELD" reflects what the org does. DELTA as a word does not say anything about what a TTRPG is.

I think the fact it uses Dungeon Master, the brand -specific term for game master/referee, makes it a useless bit of jargon which insists upon itself.

 

[Reynard]

PLAY: Procedural Laughter Among Yourselves

 

[sevenbastard]

B/X described itself as a Fantasy Adventure Game. I think Adventure Game is a more engaging description than role-playing and probably better for marketing.

Now maybe you add Cooperative to help better describe how its works?

 

[Umbran]

If the term DELTA bests describes your brand of D&D, feel free to start using it! Still prefer TTRPG?? Okay. If you agree or disagree, why not post and tell me why??

Good, useful jargon doesn't generally come about by someone saying, "Hey, I want to accentuate this, so let's make a backronym for it!"

 

[bedir than]

B/X described itself as a Fantasy Adventure Game. I think Adventure Game is a more engaging description than role-playing and probably better for marketing.

Now maybe you add Cooperative to help better describe how its works?

I feel "Adventure Game" is too confining to a style of play. When the post popular D&D experiences are powered by shopping episodes (Critical Role, etc) and dating sessions (BG3, CR, etc) it's clear that that the fascination with play goes beyond adventuring.

 

[Reynard]

ROLE: Recreation Objectives Leveling Exploration

 

[Desdichado]

This is an improvement in many ways over using the term TTRPG.

That is NOT an improvement in any way over using the term RPG.

 

[Desdichado]

I think we should use the phrase TTRPG: Tortuous Twisting and Rearranging to Produce a Gloss.

 

[Willie the Duck]

If you agree or disagree, why not post and tell me why??

Will do.

D&D is too many things to just be a TTRPG, or Table Top Role Playing Game. It could be other things.

I think you are putting the cart before the horse on this. You say that D&D is too many things to just be a TTRPG, but don't really justify it. 'It could be other things' -- well, yes. Most things can be described in multiple ways, yet rarely do we use that as justification for calling one of their descriptors insufficient. My shoes are 'footwear,' but they are also 'leather goods,' and yet I wouldn't use that as justification for the statement 'shoes are too many things to just be footwear. They could be other things.' Is there something specific about D&D and TTRPGs that makes you consider the term insufficient?

For example, I believe D&D can also be described as a DELTA. What does that stand for? Let me explain! It stands for

Dungeon Master's
Experience
Lead
Through
Adjudication

This is an improvement in many ways over using the term TTRPG.

for example, it starts off with Dungeon Master. The dungeon master is the most vital component of D&D, so putting that first should help signal the importance of that role.

Again, this is something you are stating, but do not really justify. For D&D and most traditional TTRPGs, a DM* us an established component -- one the removal of which would cause significant change in the final result. But is it the most vital component? Even the most influential? Moreso than the dice/RNG? The taking on of roles? The presence of non-DM adjudication mechanics? The adventuring? Character type (class, species) selection mechanics? XP, advancement, and incentivization structures?
*or equivalent role with a different name.

It also uses the term experience over game. A game implies things like rules, play, and winning or losing.

Okay. We've had in another thread a very interesting discussion about the term game. It has revolved* around a specific definition of game, win-conditions (D&D famously not having a singular win- or loss-state), and diving headlong into the weeds as to whether D&D is a game or a system for making games. All hair-splitting aside, though, D&D is a game -- certainly the broad definition version of 'activity engaged in for diversion or amusement.' We participate in it to have fun; doing so is a form of play; it has rules, processes, and procedures.
*vast simplification for brevity, no insult intended to the greater nuance.

I believe D&D is much to board to be just a game. By using the term experience, it signals that D&D can be used for all sorts of stuff! You could spend all session shopping, play villains as they spiral towards self destruction, or just have the characters sit around and do nothing.

These are things that can happen in 'a game' just as well as it can in 'an experience' (highlighting how open-ended and broad both terms are). More-over, they are things that can happen when one plays and when one takes on a role (the other parts of RPG*).
*I guess two of the other three parts of TTRPG (actual term in comparison), but I don't think there's much we need to say about the Table-top aspect.

But I do think this opens up a good point. The named facet missing from RPG, IMO, is that in addition to taking on and Playing a Role, you are Exploring a World. Perhaps that's integral to playing a role (all roles are entities living in, and thus exploring at least part of, their world), but it seems sufficiently distinct to potentially merit its own mention. I don't think TTRPWEG (Table-Top Role-Playing and World-Exploring Game) really enhances the term much, but I would understand the justification of such a proposal.

Lastly, there's adjudication, which is basically making judgement calls. The DM deciding things is the core lever that moves the game forward, so its importance should be signaled.

That* is the defining feature of the DM. If we mention that, we don't need to mention the DM separately. If these are the points we're trying to communicate, couldn't we truncate the term from DELTA to simply AE (Adjudicated Experience)?
*along with the creation of and communication of the game world, but I guess we're not focusing on that aspect for this discussion.

If the term DELTA bests describes your brand of D&D, feel free to start using it!

I mean, I know you are just trying to spur discussion. However, no, ot it is not the best description of what D&D is. It is selectively focusing on the DM (one of, but only one of, the major qualities the game has), that they adjudicate (only part of their role), and uses the cumbersome noun Experience (multiple definitions, including verb uses, make its in-context meaning only clear* once you read through the whole term). Role Playing Game, while not capturing every nuance of what an RPG can include (that ought to take a sentence, paragraph, thesis, or heck series of essays**), does capture each of the major components of what they activity is -- a game (broad definition) one plays by taking on a role.
*It's not unlike LASER-- Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation -- it really takes a while for your brain to register that the noun in question is '(an) Amplification,' and so, although we're all super-used to the term now, it really would not be a good way to convey what the thing is to someone who really didn't know what the term meant.
**perhaps mixed with non sequiturs and jabs at bards.

As the first TTRPG, doesn't D&D define what a TTRPG is?

Probably depends on ones theory on how words acquire meaning. A social constructionist might argue that if the first TTRPG deviated from how people use the term, that it might have coined the term but not reflect its eventual meaning.

We've certainly seen that in other genres. Even ignoring its non-music uses (such as William S. Burroughs novels) the term 'heavy metal' was used to describe bands such as Humble Pie and Sir Lord Baltimore, which have only passing similarity to the music genre the term ended up being associated with.

Likewise, a lot of innovations that are strongly associated with a thing often don't show up in the first iteration of the thing -- much of what defines Star Wars or Mad Max movies don't show up in the first movie, much of 'the 80s' wasn't present in 1980-81 (which honestly felt very 70s-ish in many ways). I guess a facet being strongly associated with a thing is significantly different from being definitional to the thing. I'll have to think on this part...

Within RPG discussion space, I know we've had discussion about things like "what happens if the originally posited meaning of terms like 'heartbreaker' does not match how people use it today?"

 

[Reynard]

LOOT: Location Oriented Objective Trials