It's a joke.  Technically, at least.

As in, "NCC-1701, no bloody A, B, C, or D."  There is only one edition of D&D.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1027403It's a joke.  Technically, at least.

As in, "NCC-1701, no bloody A, B, C, or D."  There is only one edition of D&D.

Probably a better analogy is "there's only one Star Trek, and it doesn't have ': TOS' after it.

As far as I'm concerned, that's a fine concept. We clearly do not do so consistently in our society--for example, there clearly isn't 'only one' Apollo mission, with the rest being Apollo 2, 3,4, etc., the first one became Apollo 1, even if retroactively (I don't know for sure, perhaps it was always planned as Apollo 1). For D&D, that'd be fine, the other ones are AD&D, AD&D2e, D&D 3e, D&D 4e, D&D 5e, etc. Except that leaves the casual players (who wouldn't know who Holmes or Moldvay or Mentzer were if the tripped over them) who played boxed set TSR D&D post LBB era without a thing to call what they played. What I mean is that TSR of that era deliberately wanted to conflate these new versions of D&D to be the same thing (even though they clearly have significant differences).

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027408Probably a better analogy is "there's only one Star Trek, and it doesn't have ': TOS' after it.

No the other one is better because I automatically read it in Scotty's voice.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1027382My core gaming group from the late 70's on has always called all table top rpg's D&D, as in 'Do you want to play D&D saturday?...Sure; let's get back into that Runequest mess we were playing last week!'

You guys were weird. Like people who use the word "Coke"* for any flavor of soda.


* Cue Hemlock Stones: "I'll have coke please, I understand it comes in bottles in this country."

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1027408What I mean is that TSR of that era deliberately wanted to conflate these new versions of D&D to be the same thing (even though they clearly have significant differences).

Totally about the marketing. Nowadays I think that falls under brand management.

Quote from: Bren;1027431* Cue Hemlock Stones: "I'll have coke please, I understand it comes in bottles in this country."

"The inspiration's almost gone from this jar."

Quote from: RPGPundit;1027314The proportional popularity of D&D as a cultural phenomenon, rather than a hobby.
Surely, most people who are such serious gamers as to write in this forum have played something other than D&D (probably a lot of other things), but the normies haven't.  

In fact, with D&D5e's huge resurgence, you can go on Twitter (or, I presume, other social media) and see shitloads of newbies who don't even realize there are other games than D&D.

"D&D" as a generic name for the hobby is very old. Only one GM I played OD&D with in the early Eighties played Rules as Written. OD&D seemed a framework upon which you could build. In that sense, the players in my campaigns were _not_ playing D&D because I had already diverged much further than Lion & Dragon has. The players in Jon's campaign were not playing D&D because he didn't use the RaW for much at all. The other three DMs I remember were closer to RaW than not until Andy switched completely to my rules (and told me he thought it should be called a different game) But we all called what we were playing D&D back then.

There was one guy trying to promote a game, I think it was "Chivalry and Sorcery," and he referred to at as a way to play D&D.

It wasn't until AD&D1 told us that we weren't playing D&D if we didn't use RaW that we knew better.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1027523"D&D" as a generic name for the hobby is very old. Only one GM I played OD&D with in the early Eighties played Rules as Written. OD&D seemed a framework upon which you could build. In that sense, the players in my campaigns were _not_ playing D&D because I had already diverged much further than Lion & Dragon has. The players in Jon's campaign were not playing D&D because he didn't use the RaW for much at all. The other three DMs I remember were closer to RaW than not until Andy switched completely to my rules (and told me he thought it should be called a different game) But we all called what we were playing D&D back then.

There was one guy trying to promote a game, I think it was "Chivalry and Sorcery," and he referred to at as a way to play D&D.

It wasn't until AD&D1 told us that we weren't playing D&D if we didn't use RaW that we knew better.

Cool story. This jives with my experience in the late 70's as well. I feel like the relationship between the OSR and 'official' D&D today is the best model for understanding the relationship between D&D and other game systems in that era. Yes, strictly speaking, Swords and Wizardry (or whatever) is its own game. But no one who plays it thinks of it as fundamentally different from D&D - it is just a variant. That is how C&S, Tunnels and Trolls, etc. were interpreted by the groups I gamed with during the period when other game systems first emerged.

Quote from: Krimson;1027385Don't worry, the Grognards are there to enlighten them.

Well, I'm certainly trying to do my part.