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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5085001" data-attributes="member: 3820">I'm sorry, Ariosto, but in regards to the original example of death being, or not being, a consequence because a character is so easily replaced, you really can't get the entire story from mechanics alone. All you have is how much time it takes to assemble a new character mechanically, and zero idea of how much roleplaying attachment a player might have to said character. You have to assume some level of actual play experience to get anywhere close to accuracy.But I'm not sure what the argument to do so is, other than perhaps "I've got mine, Jack, you go get yours." Not everyone shares the same loyalty to the same aspects of D&D, particularly when you're talking about gamers who started on Basic rather than Original or Advanced. It's like those four-armed insect dudes from Battlestar Galactica. I used to have a toy of one when I was a kid. They were an aspect I liked, and Ron Moore not so much. But I don't think he had no right to make a BSG that didn't feature the buggies, or that if he created something that was 80% old-school BSG rather than 95% that he should have found another name for it. Out of curiosity, who's been claiming that the game itself was such a horrible imposition? I've always seen that RPGs are compilations of different elements, some more popular than others. Again, the example of energy drain. Particular elements might be controversial, but no one element is the sum of the game. I've never thought that earlier editions were some sort of horrible imposition on the people who didn't love every element wholeheartedly. People who hated energy drain still loved D&D, they just liked a D&D without energy drain. Of course, tastes vary, and to some people a D&D without energy drain (or a selection of elements, such as energy drain, Vancian magic and the Great Wheel) is not D&D at all. I honestly can't see that as anything other than personal bias, though. Sure, there is a point at which you can convince me that a game is no longer D&D, but I have yet to see an example given that isn't also an example of reductio ad absurdum.For the "must be called D&D" thing -- well, I'd have to agree with your premise that 4e is not D&D in some fashion to offer an explanation, but I don't, sorry. I don't think that the elements it lacks or substitutes are prerequisites to anything with the D&D name on it. I got into D&D with the Erol Otus boxed set, and reconciling that both Basic and Advanced were D&D back when I was 11 kind of makes it easy for me to reconcile that Basic, Advanced, 3e and 4e are all D&D now. For the keeping multiple editions in print: it's less Newton's Laws and more like Distributor's Laws. Right about the time of Magic: the Gathering hitting, retailers and distributors started buying games as a whole in more of a periodical business model; this was greatly exacerbated by the d20 system. Lots of retailers simply weren't interested in reordering things, even if those things sold well: they wanted to put their dollars toward something new. Even if you don't believe in the possibility of competing with yourself by having two different products with the same label on the shelves at the same time, the growing popularity of the periodical business model for RPGs makes old editions a real drain on the finances. You still pay taxes on them, you still devote inventory space to them, but fewer stores want to reorder anything that isn't The New Thing, even if it's still in print. (That's mostly the hobby store side of things; the big book chains have their own set of problems associated with them.)Keeping older editions in print is something I wish more of us publishers could do, but generally speaking you have to ask who's footing the bill. If the lines aren't selling enough on their own to do it (which is usually the defining factor in why you're doing a new edition in the first place), that money's got to come from somewhere.</blockquote>

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