Quote from: Melan;1084038Not angry about it? Just curious? Who are you and what have you done to our Delver?!

HE IS...THAT IS...I AM...FINE.  YES.  FINE.

All kidding aside, man, at this point it's like arguing who has a better aircraft carrier fleet, the US or Russia...ain't even any competition.  AD&D, OD&D are the USN and others are...well...  So I save myself some grey hairs and let other people edition war nowdays.  Don't get me wrong...if you want I can still rant.

QuoteBut I get you. These people are out there. In some cases, it is a plain desire for "I wish my game was king of the hill, and not yucky old D&D". You could see this in some parts of the 4e fanbase, e.g. on RPGNet and Something Awful (but particularly Something Awful).

Oh, God, yeah.  That crowd.  I remember the day 5e was announced and details began to leak out, the SA people were throwing ashes on their heads, rending their garments.  I distinctly recall someone (possibly Ettin, maybe not, I would like to imagine it was) saying "4E IS OBJECTIVELY THE BEST D&D EVER, WHY ARE THEY THROWING IT ALL AWAY" ... lolololol.  That's the value of 5e, to me: it hurt 4vengers.

QuoteActually, wishful thinking about completely remaking A/D&D has been a thing as long as I have followed the RPG hobby, and most certainly before that. Warlock, the soulless CalTech OD&D variant was first released February 1975 (simultaneously with Greyhawk!), under the slogan "How to Play DandD Without Playing DandD".

I was fairly insular back in the day, I knew people would house rule things but outside of other RPGs entirely I didn't really know people fought over D&D and how it was - was it Caltech that had two large, separate RPG clubs that had a hate on for each other over how they played D&D?  But yeah back then people's angst over how Old Man Gygax screwed up from the get-go was a cottage industry (see, for example, Alarums & Excursions, and any number of other APAzines), as I now understand.

QuoteI will not even mention Runequest, just watch that Lindybeige video (you know the one).

Ha, no, but now I'm going to seek it out and get my blood up.  I might even ragepost here or at K&KA just 'cause.  So if I blow a cerebral artery it's your fault

Quote"Official D&D" gets a kind of name recognition (and network externalitiesssssss) no other RPG does. Not Vampire, not Pathfinder, D&D. So D&D matters to everyone who wants to remake the hobby in their preferred image.

I'll say there's a period when Vampire had the recognition around like 1991-1994 but then WW and whomever followed it sucked up their own assholes, started believing their own hype and...well, now the "World of Darkness" thing is just kind of this tepid little puddle.  I think it speaks volumes that during the run up to Exalted 2nd edition they were offering free Exalted books to people who would send them destroyed D&D books, and that they did a 1e Players Handbook "tribute" painting for Exalted.  Why, it's almost like they were stamping their little feet saying "Pay attention to meeeeeee!"

QuoteSometimes, it is more legitimate - someone can start with D&D's basic rules framework, or even keep a lot of it, but arrive at a completely different place. Bully for them. I would say there is an enormous difference between people doing something that works for them and their friends, and people trying to stake a claim on "this is what real D&D was always supposed to be about, but those dumb people could never get it right".

Yeah, I mean, that's always been my take on 2e, 3e, 4e, 5e, etc., even if I hate it I hate it because they were screwing it up.  But people who say "No way man, we're ditching six stats, classes, levels, vancian magic, fantasy races, dungeons and if ever there is a Dragon it will be GODLIKE and UNTOUCHABLE" - like, how can you say that's D&D (even if it's your house ruled "D&D") when you've done away with D&D entirely at that point?  How can you say you're "fixing" it when there's nothing left?  Someone can say "I don't like what TSR did, fantasy games should've been started like this..." but to say "I'm going to 'fix' D&D" and then set out to only have the name D&D on...I don't know, Skyrealms of Jorune or some shit...that's just...I mean, it makes no sense!

Everybody here is clueless about people tinker with RPGs including altering D&D to the point where it is D&D in name only.

It all boils down to the fundamental rules that all RPGs share. You describe what you are doing as your character and the referee describes the results.

How a referee arrives at a description can be summed up as "How they think about it.". It is a combination of life experience, passion, knowledge, and one's skills at crafting rulings. All of which varies widely among individuals who referee tabletop roleplaying.

Lindybeige was mention in Melan's post. He didn't post a link so I couldn't figure out which one he is referring too. But I found this one.

[video=youtube;_P7iSbnd4WU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P7iSbnd4WU&t=148s[/youtube]

It about D&D initiative and how wrong it with. And it illustrates my point, his criticism rest on the foundation of his experience with studying and experience medieval combat. To him D&D 5th initiative is totally at odds with his experience. Because of that the rest of his argument follows.

On a board level I agree with him. Most turn based initiative system is not particularly realistic. GURPS kinda of gets around this by chopping things down a one second combat round. Harnmaster 5e also makes a good stab at it with their count up initiative system. (If you attack with swords with a Weapon speed of 3, you can't attack again until three second later). At the end of the video he recommends a free form initiative system and gives a few examples like if you have a bunch of people charging you can start running away well or back up before they reach you.

What he feel to realize that in order to do that one has to have some knowledge about how melee combat works. What seem initiative for him and not so for others. More so, he also forgetst that turn based initiative while not particularly realistic is a good enough mechanics that gets one into the ball park of how melee combat works. In short is gamable and possess clarity for something that is done within the time one has for a hobby.

Being in the ballpark also about the perhaps the most important elements of "How one thinks about it" Passion. Because of knowledge of history, and experience with medieval reenactment I have a good idea of which mechanics make sense and which doesn't. But when I choose to run a session of D&D (classic or new), I don't care enough to let that get in the way of enjoying the game for what it is. I admit it helps that I know the history of the game well to understand what the different mechanics resist. But I also met many referee who literally don't give a shit. Their response is a variant "That nice but are you here to game or not?"

Finally why do we see any of this being played out in the industry? Because when the above happens and the individual has the drive and talent to take their passion and knowledge to the next level and publish their work the result it what we see. Since drive and passion also varies we get the range of results, some good, some bad, most middling.

The answers to the OP is because not everybody thinks of this stuff in the same way as does the Dungeondelver. And often doesn't apply to the system as a whole only to elements of it.

Wrapping it up
Many of you know I am a strong advocate of open content. The only situation where an alternative view of a creative work are bad is where a single entity (individual or company) can decide what's presented. Not matter what the reasons were each transition to a new edition of D&D was are result of an individual or small group deciding for the rest of us this how things ought to be. The only recourse was through the long frustrating process of voting with our dollars.

That is until the release of D&D 4th edition. Because with D&D 3.X, Wizards release the guts of the system as open content. Finally the fans of a specific edition could do something about Wizard's arbitrary decision and the result was Pathfinder, and the OSR. Sure D&D 5e beat Pathfinder out but it did it on its own merits not because the dictates of a small group or individual declare that what we should buy.

With open content what the OP raised is a non-issue. So somebody makes a unholy fusion of Cepheus, Fate, D&D 5e, OSRIC, and Runequest. Fuck'em. With the open content available the original can be supported in the same way as when it was first released.

So if you want this to be a non-issue for your favorite RPG/Edition then lean on publishers to release the vital elements of their system as open content.

Quote from: Trond;1084042Oh yes, I agree. Also related; I wish people would stop asking "how do I do [ thing that does not resemble D&D that other games do better] with D&D?" Of course in some cases it might be because they like the system, but many are just extremely stuck on the name D&D.

I've seen this a lot with Traveller. (How do I play Star Wars using Traveller? How do I play Star Trek using Traveller?) Answer: You don't. You go find a game that emulates the genre best and use that one.

It is the embodiment of that old saying, "If all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail."

On a related tangent, why do so many people in the OSR want B/X to be AD&D, instead of just playing AD&D?

For instance, we've seen countless books adding things like the ranger and paladin to B/X. We've seen the addition of psionics. We've seen half-elves and gnomes. We've seen monster books that add demons & devils.

I like B/X (or rather, BECMI), in part because it's different from AD&D. Especially the monsters/planes.

It's just as easy to drop rules from AD&D than it is to add them to B/X

They want a good game and they like the name.

Maybe they even like the setting.

I assume they want AD&D's class, race and spell options without the more complex rules. Fairly sure these needs are already served by S&W Complete, and a bunch of other systems.

Quote from: Melan;1084087I assume they want AD&D's class, race and spell options without the more complex rules. Fairly sure these needs are already served by S&W Complete, and a bunch of other systems.

Good post.

Quote from: JeremyR;1084081On a related tangent, why do so many people in the OSR want B/X to be AD&D, instead of just playing AD&D?

Echoing Melan, it been my experience, back in the day and no, that most referee play AD&D using B/X combat with AD&D stuff. The reason being much of AD&D combat in the DMG was written unclearly. Along with B/X combat being more consistent with the description of combat in the PHB.

As others have said, the D&D name carries with it popularity, legitimacy, and recognition. Even people who have never played an RPG will want to play D&D because that's the game on Stranger Things and Critical Role. And in an environment where it's extremely difficulty for many people to find a group to play with, the game that's four times more popular than every other RPG put together has a tremendous network effect. Choose something other than D&D, and you've made the already difficult job of finding a GM and players dramatically more difficult.

The problem is, people who want to play D&D for those reasons may not be in love with the actual mechanics of the game.

And of course, the people who own the license to D&D want to make the game as appealing as possible to people who might buy it today. That means adapting the game and catering to today's audience, which is different in all kinds of ways from the people who played the game in 1976.

Here's another question: Why do people get upset when a new edition of D&D with different rules come out? Why do many treat it as a personal rejection?

Not everyone agrees on "what makes D&D".

For me, any traditional RPG feels like D&D. Some OSR games feel less like D&D to me than GURPS with their rules light magic systems.

Also furthermore, this is the aforementioned Lindybeige video:

[video=youtube;mdo5ErnXH3E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdo5ErnXH3E[/youtube]

Everyone wishes that their preferences would be reflected in the best selling, most published, most played RPG system.

The store shelves would then be full of great books; and it would be easy to find a good game to join, or else easy to recruit players for an even better game run by you....

I actually wish the global market size would increase and the global market share of D&D would shrink; it would make for a healthier hobby.

Quote from: Razor 007;1084124Everyone wishes that their preferences would be reflected in the best selling, most published, most played RPG system.

The store shelves would then be full of great books; and it would be easy to find a good game to join, or else easy to recruit players for an even better game run by you....

I've personally given up on D&D, but I think HP, classes, and the d20 are bad RPG mechanics, which many consider essential to D&D.

Thankfully the system I like the most also has plenty of books and new content so I do not really need it to be the most popular unless I wanted to argue with people online about it. But I also already have a group and I make more groups when I want to play even more.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1084129I've personally given up on D&D, but I think HP, classes, and the d20 are bad RPG mechanics, which many consider essential to D&D.

Thankfully the system I like the most also has plenty of books and new content so I do not really need it to be the most popular unless I wanted to argue with people online about it. But I also already have a group and I make more groups when I want to play even more.

And that's fine, I'm OK with that.  I just don't get the "let's gut everything out of D&D...but it'll still be D&D" mindset.