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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bumbles" data-source="post: 4766567" data-attributes="member: 83457">I don't know what's in the minority or not, sorry, but I have no idea what the sales are.  I can only speak for *my* enjoyment, which is increased by the changes and the availability of options.  As far as the passage of time goes, and Chess...well, Chess is far far older than D&D, and has actually evolved considerably over that period of time.  And heck, even in modern times, there are folks (including Bobby Fischer) who have advocated changes. Maybe in a couple hundred years D&D will be as relatively static as Chess may appear to you now, but then again, maybe not.  D&D is relatively wider in its rule set than Chess is.  A lot more room for changes...though if you've looked at all the Chess variants in the world, you might see a lot of variety.Even Checkers manages quite a lot really.  Do you know about the must-jump rule?  I didn't till High School.  We just didn't play that way.  Things like Flying Kings?  Even more different.Of course, if you think about Competitive Chess you might think there's something static going on there.  I can see why they keep the rules more fixed for that, but I don't see that happening in D&D so there's really no reason or expectation of it.  I haven't yet heard of any game of D&D where they didn't have some sort of house rule, even if they didn't represent it that way.And some competitive sports ARE full of change.  I'm watching Speed right now, and they just showed Richard Petty's old car...the ones today are QUITE different.Oh sure, they're still trying to race for the win, so that hasn't changed, but a lot of other things have.Perhaps they didn't need to do so?  All of those games which I'm familiar with have a bit of an advantage as they were made with the lessons of D&D from the beginning.  Maybe they even need a change, who knows?  I don't play them enough to offer much input on them.I agree that 4E is a radical change, but I don't think it went beyond the acceptable, and as far as most of the changes go, well I like them.  The game is just so much smoother now, and the game seems to be based on an understanding of mechanics, and themes, not just stuff bolted on because it seems cool.  The best example I can give of this is fighters, who aren't just a bland class that wears armor, but can now *do* meaningful things in combat.  Now I may not agree with all the details, mind you, but the reasoning?  The design plan?  That I can get behind.While I'm not quite comfortable with any of the ideas I've come up for describing the "core" of D&D, I would hold it to be something more substantial than just fantasy.  And considering the examples of the old Buck Rogers game, Gamma World, and even d20 Modern, obviously the mechanics of D&D have been transplanted into a few different places.  I'll leave aside the question of what such things as the movie, television shows and Atari game which bore the D&D name aside.  OTOH if you don't rock the boat at all, then maybe you end up losing out to the other games which don't have the legacy of design mistakes and complications to get over.  Or who just offer something new.   There's a reason why Wizards AND TSR before that add to the game.  Ain't going to get nowhere just selling the core books all the time, and there's a limit to how many adventures you're going to sell.If I didn't have the option of playing Transformers Risk, or Risk Godstorm, I know I wouldn't be passing it along to anyone.  Just wouldn't be interesting.Probably one reason why I haven't played Monopoly in over a dozen years.  Maybe there's folks out there doing something interesting with Monopoly?  I don't know, I've heard there's a competitive Scrabble league, but never paid attention to Monopoly.  I do know though, that in its origins, Monopoly did have quite a few revisions going on, and thinking back on it, I remember playing the NES version of Monopoly...it has a variety of variations built into it.Apparently there's some appeal to it.That's ok, neither do I.  However, I do recognize that the game had enough of a legacy that it benefited from being rebuilt almost from scratch and I'm glad Wizards did such a good job with it.  All?  Well, I don't know about all of their boardgames, for some it might not be viable, but they do it enough that I would say it does have some validity.  Risk, as I already mentioned, and also Axis and Allies, and probably some others.  Not to mention all the variety that pops up in their toy lines.  GI Joe and Barbie have gone through quite a few phases, y'know?To a certain extent yes.  But what is the core?  I don't think 4e, 3e, 2e, even 1e messed with the core of the game...though I have heard from people who think they did.  Then again, I'm not quite sure how I'd define the core myself yet, so who knows?And yet they sell a whole lot of Expansions and other varieties.  Obviously they see value in doing that.  I never quite understood Cities and Knights of Cataan, but it and a bunch of others have shown up.And shoot, sorry for being so long-winded, hope I'm at least making sense.</blockquote>

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