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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExploderWizard" data-source="post: 5599967" data-attributes="member: 66434">A laundry list of mechanics is all well and good but the D&D experience that all early editions shared (yes even AD&D) was the sense of incompleteness that invited the players to make the game what they wanted it to be. AD&D was supposed to be some kind of standardized platform for tournament play but in home campaigns, the variety of house rules in use was just as broad as that of the other editions still being played.  Building a campaign from the basic rules with bits and pieces from The Dragon, other games, and the twisted imaginations of you and your friends is what made the game different from all the others and the reason it provided the kind of unpredictable fun that a standard board game could not.  A more exhaustive tighter knit rules set may be more readily playable out of the box but then again so is monopoly. The most engaging and rewarding activities are not always the smoothest and easiest to participate in.  Point to any item on that list and the odds are that someone, somewhere has changed or tweaked that facet of the mechanics in a home campaign at some time yet the game would most certainly feel like D&D to that group.  So to me at least, the core of D&D involves the distinct lack of a prepackaged experience.</blockquote>