NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BlackMoria" data-source="post: 5602517" data-attributes="member: 424">Steering back from a lengthy discussion of 'hit points', I don't believe a 'Unification theory' or 'Theory of Everything' is even possible to apply to D&D.Ask 10 people what the essentials of D&D are to them and you will get 10 different answers.  Until the answers to the question can be distilled to points most can agree on, the search for the 'soul' of what makes D&D 'D&D' is like the quest for the holy grail.  Many take up the quest but no one finds it (Indiana Jones not withstanding).If Mearls is looking for 'common ground' to to unify the editions, he is going to fail.  Sure, he could try but the real question is not one of 'Could we?'.  The real question is 'Should we?' and therein lies the rub.  People have stayed with their favorite edition for a reason and that being principally it 'works for them' and it is how they quantify 'what is D&D' to them.Regardless how philosphical Mearls gets and how much navel gazing goes on in the hallowed halls of WOTC, most people stay with what they know and like and few bail to embrace the new shiny unless the new shiny provides the tools and means for the user to 'tell their stories' and appeal to their inner muse.Which means, despite the best efforts, if and when 5E comes, it is going to leave people behind to become the latest generation of 'old D&D grognard'.  As it has for every version of the game.Frankly, I am amused by the ideal that some people in WOTC believe that common ground can be found and it will lead to the Mecca of the best version of D&D ever and that the 'infidels and apostates' for the past versions will set aside their tools of heresy and flock to the promised land offered by 5E or the DDI or whatever form the next version of D&D takes.What Mearls fails to appreciate is that to many, that ship sailed some time ago and there is no going back - because unless 5E is somewhat like 'their' favorite version of the game they play right now, they are NOT interested,  else they would have adopted the current version of the game.  And given the differences between versions, most notably the 3.x and 4, getting to some common ground that both the 3.x fans and 4.x fans can get together and sing kum ba yah about is never likely to happen.Leave unification theory to the scientists trying to explain the universe because that is more likely to happen that for D&D fans to agree on what D&D is.</blockquote>

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