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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 9612213" data-attributes="member: 6801845">As analogies go, this is probably better than "She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef."*  Both surprisingly specific analogies that do indeed provide evocative and specific imagery that doesn't necessarily apply but can still spark conversation.I think it's impossible to talk about this topic without discussing the history of D&D.  I've been with D&D since it's earliest days when men were fighting men, halflings were hobbits and the rules were just barely coherent enough to play a game.  From those early days we saw multiple iterations (and multiple versions for a while), which had some innovations, more cohesive rules and of course questionable changes to burnish the games image in the sight of a Satanic Panic afflicted public.  Eventually TSR went bankrupt and the game may have landed in the dustheap of forgotten games except for a white knight that came along and saved the game.  They knew the mechanics needed an update and they kind of missed the target with 3 and 4 (this despite the fact that I'd rank 3.5 as my secondish favorite version of D&D) . Change, for a game like D&D, is an odd thing. Is it change for change sake to boost sales?  Is it just an evolution of the game as the target market shifts and changes while the issues with the old become more and more apparent?  Because some editions (3.5, 4) didn't really seem to have been done because they were necessary from an evolution of the rules POV but because management wasn't happy with the sales.Then along game 5E, that took a new approach to development using broad based public feedback but was still the Hail Mary version that had low expectations. Then it succeeded far beyond expectations** and just continued to be successful where most versions had seen a quick boom and bust cycle.  But with the 50th anniversary and a decade of real world feedback ... it hardly came as a surprise we were due for a tune-up.  Whether that tune-up worked or not is of course and always will be personal opinion.  From a business POV we'll see in a few years.In the long evolution of D&D the only time they really upset the apple cart to me was with 4E. It is not a slight against 4E to say that the nature of the game simply changed in the way that didn't result in the same gameplay feel as traditional D&D for many people.  It's not that it was inherently bad design (although it was obviously rushed), it just didn't hit the same notes.  Meanwhile I also understand why people can't stand soft drinks that use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar (I can't drink Mountain Dew any more) even when most people don't care where their sweetness come from.I guess my takeaway if there is one to my rambling is that the game has been evolving over the past half century and will continue to do so if it is going to survive as a commercial product.  I can't point to a single thing that says "this feels like D&D", but the new versions for the most part do still evoke the same feel for me. *From "56 worst analogies in high school papers". Thank you internet.** No, I don't think Stranger Things or Critical Role were solely responsible for 5E's success.  There have been allusions to D&D in popular media for quite some time. I watched a 4E stream introducing the game that never gained popularity.  But that's a complex topic for which no one has answers.</blockquote>

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