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="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5458329" data-attributes="member: 59082">Hold it right there, Danny. I would actually include the retro-clones and Pathfinder within a broad D&D definition, but I didn't realize that we were actually going for a definition. I wasn't trying to be comprehensive with that 1-2, just illustrative.Actually, if we are going to try to define D&D I would suggest that it would include multiple definitions (like most words in the dictionary), yet that relate with eachother as nested spheres - one definition is embraced by the next, and so on. So it could be something like this:1. A fantasy roleplaying game bearing the brand-name "Dungeons & Dragons."2. A family of fantasy roleplaying games that are based upon the original Dungeons & Dragons game and share broad themes and mechanical similarities.3. A family of fantasy products thematically related to the fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons.4. Common vernacular for any roleplaying game.Or something like that. Obviously the fourth definition isn't that useful but would exist in a dictionary entry, if one existed. WotC has co-opted the third usage for its board games and perhaps other products. Some controversy exists around the second definition. But all four are "correct," just in different ways and, perhaps, to varying degrees. I'm not sure how I could reasonably adjust those definitions to make the phrase "4E isn't D&D to me" make any kind of sense, in the same way that saying "clay-court tennis isn't tennis to me." It is purely a statement of affectation, which I am not invalidating, but has no, shall I say, "ontological merit."And I would agree with Aldarc that taken beyond mere affectation, it has a feeling of "obstinate defiance," like saying "Daniel Craig isn't James Bond to me."</blockquote>

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