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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5470140" data-attributes="member: 59082">No, I'm not saying that rules changes don't "affect the way one personally interacts with the game," but the core, essential experience of D&D is not dependent upon specific rules, so that any specific rules change is not enough to necessarily change that essential quality of "D&Dness."Danny, you are misunderstanding what I've been saying. I am not saying that 4E is archetypally D&D, but that D&D is itself an archetype, with a kind of universal quality to it that requires no specific form or set of rules (or edition) to experience it. Furthermore, the means by which we experience that archetype are different and quite personal, but there is also a shared, universal experience. In other words, you could be playing 2E and I could be playing 4E and we could both be partaking in the archetype of D&D, even if the details were quite different. How does this differ from RPGs in general? Well again, I would say that it isn't any specific factor but a combination of factors. In a similar fashion that we could ask, "Why say fantasy? Why not just call it fiction?" Fantasy has certain qualities; there are many kinds of fantasy, but there is are certain qualities that set it apart from other forms of fiction. But again, this isn't about defining what D&D is and isn't but looking at it as an archetypal experience or, as Mike Mearls put it, the "core essence" of it. And, for the love of all that's holy, I am not saying that 4E should or does get you to that core experience. Although it certainly does get some to that core experience. What is that core experience? Well, let's just call it "D&D" and leave it at that.   I'm not demanding anything, Raven. I would say, however, that you are looking to rationally define something that you may not be able to define in a definitive way. We can define D&D as a game and talk about it in technical, factual terms. This is where I posited the "threefold model" of primary, secondary, and tertiary (your game would be secondary, no?). But what I've been talking about as the "D&D experience" or, I think, what Mearls has been talking about as the "core essence" of D&D doesn't fall under the purview of that sort of model. It is more of a feeling, an experience, a quality of "D&Dness."I have no doubt that different people require different cues or mediums or vehicles to get to that "undefined core experience," but I am saying that no specific rules set or thing is part of the core experience. In other words, I would say that what I am talking about as the core essence of D&D is not made up of any specific parts, it is more of a feeling quality (as I've said). One might need Vancian magic as part of their game to experience that quality, but Vancian magic itself is not part of that quality (as I am using the concept). In some ways I am talking about D&D in a Taoist fashion: "The Tao that can be talked about is not the Eternal Tao." The D&D that can be talked about, defined, and codified is not the Core Essence of D&D. The core essence has no inherent form or specific content; different content may enable different people to experience the essence of D&D, but the essence itself is formless, that is, without inherent or specific or limited (and definable) form.</blockquote>

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