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Message: <blockquote data-quote="thedungeondelver" data-source="post: 3790109" data-attributes="member: 34865">I choose D&D for its epic simplicity.  I can sit down with a copy of original D&D or the Moldvay/Cook edits of BASIC D&D or even AD&D (1st edition, without extraneous stuff) and be up and running in no time.  Even just sticking to the core rules of the current ruleset, it isn't that hard to get up and go.I choose D&D because it's fun.  I choose it because it's about kicking down the door and taking the treasure.  Kill first, experience later.  Questions for when the DM is narrating after the fight.D&D was (and is) for me, a living, breathing step in to Howards' Hyboria (fie on you who say it doesn't do S&S well), Tolkien's Middle Earth, Vance's Dying Earth, Leiber's Lankhmar.Despite drawing from all of those things, it is its own.  It never aimed at being a simulator for a specific fantasy literature.  It took the best tropes from each and combined them in a way that no other game has really captured since then.There has been a myriad of products that seem to me were created by folks who said "Oho!  I can do better than this!" (and I think that's a good thing in the general sense) but ultimately fell flat because they felt compelled to make their D&D Heartbreaker (to steal a phrase from RPG.net) the one that Did It Right.  Well, did what right?  D&D is the generic fantasy game that GURPS Fantasy and FANTASY HERO and a load of other "generic fantasy games" wish they were.  Don't like Vance-inspired memorized spell systems?  Don't use it.  The D&D ruleset as we know it does not break down if you don't.  Use something you prefer.  Same for just about any other elements of the game.(Hell, I was told repeatedly in various fora years ago that "3rd edition" was the way folks had "actually been playing D&D all along".  I find it anathema, but ultimately it apparently worked well enough to make it in to print and still be D&D, my own personal feelings aside.)D&D may not please all of the people all of the time, but I think Gary and Frank and Rob and Dave and Tim and Steve and ... well, about anyone who has ever had their hands on the rules and been given the task of making them official in some way are smart enough to know that if they're writing for a million fans of D&D and 999,999 of them are fans of CONAN stories, if that one guy prefers THE LORD OF THE RINGS then there had better be enough balance between the two to bring that guy in to the fold as well.That's what they did.  That's why I love D&D and that's why I'll continue to play it until I drop.</blockquote>

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