The moment of fragmentation

[Graf]

...the popular majority tend to retain a single standard despite fragmentation, and occasionally (and slowly) incorporate the best elements of the creative fringe. Of course, that's my point of view from the fringe - to someone in the mainstream who feels like he's about to fall into the fringe, it may not look so good .

sound of hammer hitting nail on the head
That's it, basically, in a nutshell.

Not that I'm afraid that -I'll- fall one way or another. Like I said I play lots of non-D&D games, and some computer games have gotten good enough to hold my interest in the same way that roleplaying does.
But the possibilty of the disappearance of a wisely used standard does bother me.

I'm irked at the idea that D&D is going to fragment badly (again) and if/when I start a new campaign I'll have to waste lots of time gluing together different mechanics. Or that ever conversation about any topic on the boards is going to involve sifting though lots of "well you should play my version" type comments.

 

[Wombat]

I've never seen a single game, any rpg system, where anyone played by all the rules. Every group comes up with its own variations, either particular to the campaign or to the group.

My group, for example, does not like the miniatures-like combat of D&D3e, so we tend to do things pretty free-form -- I've seen other groups that create sets for their combats and run them out, turn by turn, rule by rule, as if it was an old miniatures wargame.

I've run D&D (the three original books -- Cleric, Magic User, Fighter only), RuneQuest, Pendragon, Over the Edge, Ars Magica, Champions, FASA Star Trek and a few other games in my time. Never once did I use all the rules as printed, but also I tended to add rules to fit the situation.

This is what drew me away from my miniatures gaming (early/mid 1970s) to rpgs (latter 70s) -- I could ignore rules and retailor things to my own needs.

D&D3e took the horrible hodgepodge of AD&D2 and streamlined it. Then all the third parties started tinkering with the system, within the guidelines of the OGL. Now there are at least a dozen major and hundreds of minor variations on D&D3e (and 3.5 by now). That's not a bad thing. If I want 100% portability of rules from place to place, I'd play Monopoly. RPGs are about creativity and refashioning to the group, not about following every rule.

Personal opinions, expressed only by the ex-management