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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 8783077" data-attributes="member: 6801252">That's kind of the issue though isn't it? The brand problem doesn't just obfuscate the idea of DND being popular due to its design, it actively undermines the idea that DND is popular due to its design. It can be very easy to be like "wow, 5e must be such an amazing game because its so popular" but if that popularity comes from something else entirely, it might not actually be an amazing game. So suddenly the momentum of that brand, reduces incentives to create more engaging material because the brand can coast or build itself up in other ways. The more you focus on all of those other things, the less you're discussing the game itself.But arguably, that all can form around anything, and usually does, in reality its just a fandom-- 3.5 was more complex than 5e and has plenty of homebrew/3pp, it had video games, all of that stuff. But at that point, there's a reason people not in the weeds tend to refer to playing Pathfinder as 'playing DND' or refer to playing Vampire as 'playing DND' or whatever, its because that cultural history is shared throughout the TTRPG space. Final Fantasy is a part of that, but its certainly not DND per se, Konosuba is part of that but its not DND per se, World of Warcraft is part of that but its not DND per se, its the Zelda almost every damn kid in suburban America allowed to play video games for the past 40 years grew up with... and the numbers who have, have only increased.DND read that way, is a genre of flavor rather than a game or even a genre of game-- its halflings and wizards and fighters, and the idea of a natural 20 making an absurd situation work in a greentext, and Sturm standing on the wall in a desperate last stand, and Artix of Adventure Quest, and its your Blood Elf Warlock from WoW, its the Chronicles of Mystara beat em up, and the upcoming marvel inspired Honor Among Thieves Movie, and well a LOT of other stuff both in and out of WOTC's branding. You can talk about that, but at that point you can also talk about DND as 13th Age, or DND as Pathfinder 2e, or DND as Dungeon World. They exist within that same space, and are intertextual with each other and DND in the same way all editions of DND are inter-textual with each other.Any of those could have been what the designers who are legally allowed to call their game DND built, in some cases literally if the politics of WOTC had worked out differently over time. But they all have different playstyles to some degree or another, so part of this conversation then, is whether the idea of DND as this game matters to the popularity of DND, and if it matters postively or negatively to the game's ability to satisfy and stimulate its players.</blockquote>

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