Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

[Micah Sweet]

Well, the extent that you care isn't really the prime mover here. But yeah, sure, suggest that WotC should have called 4E something other than D&D. It's still silly. Would you feel less excluded if they'd called it Feelings and Miniatures?

Yes (although that name doesn't make much sense), because it wouldn't be the current D&D designed to replace the previous play culture and community with a different game.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yes (although that name doesn't make much sense), because it wouldn't be the current D&D designed to replace the previous play culture and community with a different game.

Good lord. OK. Let's just move on here, I think we've beaten this horse to death a couple of times over now.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Good lord. OK. Let's just move on here, I think we've beaten this horse to death a couple of times over now.

Ok. One last question. Do you believe all versions of D&D are basically the same game?

 

[soviet]

Regarding the notion of being excluded or drowned out by bigger, noisier new things:

This is supposed to be a thread about story, plot, and playing to find out.

 

[Fenris-77]

Ok. One last question. Do you believe all versions of D&D are basically the same game?

I think they are iterations of the same game. Some I like better than others, but yes, 4E is D&D in my opinion even if I don't much care for it.

 

[Lanefan]

Further, when you apply the above analogy to D&D editions, we can see that prior editions(older threads) don't die away. People are still playing Basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e, and 5e.

The raw numbers would beg to differ. With the possible exception of 5e which is still shifting to 5.5, none of those editions today have anywhere near (as in, not even close!) the player-base they did when they were the "current" edition.

They don't outright die, but once the next edition comes out the prior one is forever confined to the long-term care home.

 

[Lanefan]

So are we all agreed then, editions shouldn't exclude people who liked the previous edition, so we're insisting Wizards goes back to 4e?

I think they should be supporting all the prior editions, so sure, why not?

 

[Thomas Shey]

They're closer to the original as designed than 4e, but all three would have made more creative sense to be called something different. From an IP holder's perspective, of course, all of them are D&D because the IP holder gets to make that decision.

That's the problem though; how different a game needs to be to be called something different is in the eye of the beholder. I'd say even 4e was clearly D&D to my view--too many structural or mechanical elements were either nearly identical or recognizably derived and updated to be otherwise--and I wasn't exactly a massive fan of it. To you it apparently wasn't. So which of us has the more appropriate perception? After all, someone buying a game they think "Isn't D&D" and hitting 4e from where I come from on it would be pretty annoyed too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ok. One last question. Do you believe all versions of D&D are basically the same game?

You didn't ask me, but I do. Same as I believe about all the editions of RuneQuest, even though there were some serious variations in some areas to them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think they are iterations of the same game. Some I like better than others, but yes, 4E is D&D in my opinion even if I don't much care for it.

Fair enough. To me, any game that incompatible with another without major work is a different game, no matter what name it carries.