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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5455456" data-attributes="member: 59082">From one angle its a problem, from another it is a feature, with some interesting (if problematic) possibilities. Look, words are malleable. If you look in the dictionary, most English words have multiple meanings, depending upon not only context but how one is choosing to use the word. If we can accept this, then communication becomes more of an art than a mathematical formula. If that is unacceptable then I suppose you could learn Latin <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />.Which is one of the reasons that I'm advocating this approach: it creates a common ground to which everyone is invited. Now this doesn't mean that D&D is a jar of pickles or Vampire: The Masquerade. D&D is still D&D, but there is a distinct "signature" to the game of D&D, a feeling, a vibe, a gestalt of qualities, what I like to summarize as an experience. If we can talk about editions as different roads to get to our own personal version of the D&D experience--that is itself part of a larger, archetypal D&D experience--then we take a step away from edition wars. We don't need to say that 4E isn't D&D to me; we can say 4E isn't a road that gets me to my version of the D&D experience. At the least I think this idea is a way to discuss this issue to better understand what we are all getting at, and even open the door to a larger (and more interesting) conversation as to what exactly the D&D experience is. I mean, WTF is D&D, anyways?! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Maybe if you stepped back for a moment and realized that we're not in a court of law <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />. Seriously though, you aren't using "Rome" in the way that I was intending in my original analogy. 4E can't be the Eastern Roman Empire because it isn't Rome, neither is any edition or version of D&D. D&D transcends and includes all versions, all editions, all perceptions of what it is. It is a Platonic Form which we all participate in in different ways, through different modalities. So I think you are saying that 4E doesn't take you to Rome, which is your experience of "the" D&D Experience. Let me put it slightly differently. Let's say that a certain kind of music gives you what we could call "musical bliss". A different kind of music gives me musical bliss. If I say that your music is not musical bliss I am making a category error; your music cannot possibly be musical bliss, it can only lead one to it. The bliss itself is an internal experience, something very personal although also universal in that just about anyone can experience it. My idea reframes this notion so that we stop confusing different types of music with the bliss experience that it may or may not invoke. To say that the Rolling Stones aren't musical bliss is wrong in this framework because it is a category error, like saying Lamborghinis are not the high you experience from driving fast. Lambhorginis are a thing, the high is an experience.Specific versions of D&D are things, but they aren't the experience of D&D. I'm asking that we at least consider reframing our notion of what D&D is into primarily an experience. Sure, we can talk about it as a game with different editions, tropes, etc, but I'm saying that a kind of "uber-definition", one that is more primary to any other, is as an experience.What, are you trying to burst my balloon, Umbran? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />"Rome" is a sliding definition, it depends upon the context and in this context it is the D&D experience. What people consider the D&D experience is up to them, but as I have been saying it is both individual and universal.</blockquote>

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