There's been three tiers of D&D:

BECMI

AD&D

3rd-5th editions

Gary said, "There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit."

So when I see people talk about 5e being like 2e, I .... No.

Approaching a "6th edition", what?

How did GURPS not win this rpg battle?

I read people who think they are rpg experts and they end up in quicksand. Because they do not know what D&D was and how it changed. It's like the language changed mid-sentence.

Game theory, is all ....

Huh? I assume English isn't your first language, so you might want to clarify your points somehow.

But to answer the thread title, yes, D&D is still relevant.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1130313Game theory, is all ....

The games are all playable as separate systems.

While Gary can say "Different games, style, and spirit," that's being disingenuous from the perspective of marketing. Each game was (until recently, with PDFs) sold for the most part, serially. They adopted and changed source material from each other, and utilized the same intellectual property from each other. They learned lessons on how not to cannibalize their own product sales.

This is the same reason why studios and other creators are hypocritical a-holes for deriding fans of canon. The product marketing leverages the good will and personal / emotional investment of those fans of canon in order to sell them on new entries into their franchises.

Why would it not be relevant?

And that's even before I mention the whole OSR movement.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1130313How did GURPS not win this rpg battle?

Because people don't want to have to design their RPG before playing a campaign. If SJ Games went the Chaosium route and had a stand-alone RPG (Runequest) alongside their toolkit (Basic Roleplaying) during the 3rd edition era, they would have in better shape when they switched to 4e. Only recently with the Dungeon Fantasy RPG they took a stab at it and while it helps it was too little too late. If they want GURPS to be more popular they need to let the fan contribute via a third party publishing program. But as it stand they are still overly concerned with branding and image.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1130313So when I see people talk about 5e being like 2e, I .... No.

People are comparing D&D 5e to AD&D 2e because both share similar characteristic despite differing on many of the mechanics.

1) Both are true to the classic D&D formula of class, level, attributes, hit points, AC, etc
2) Both were initialially designed to allow for a moderate level of character customization. D&D 5e subclasses and AD&D 2e kits. Skills (5e) and proficencies (2e). In constrast 3e character customization was pushed to a ten.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1130313Game theory, is all ....

bullshit. There that sentance is completed.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1130313Gary said, "There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit."

Translation: I can't see how use D&D 3.0 to run a campaign in the way I like to run a campaign with the time I have for my hobby.

Which is fine and why we have hundreds of RPG systems out there. It is also find to greatly prefer one system over another to run a campaign. But it is bullshit to say that a system can't be used to run a campaign. What one can say that it takes too much work to use said system to run the campaign the way I like it, which is fine as well. Maybe the system has too many extraneous elements, maybe it doesn't work with how you think certain ought to be handled.

Likely in Gygax's case, he felt 3.0 focused way too much on certain things that he felt was distracting to how he ran campaign. Which is the most common argument I find when people criticize more detailed system and editions.

What you, Gygax, and many other miss is the fact that playing a RPG campaign is about pretending to be a character having adventures. What your character can do is defined by the setting and what been described by the character. The fact I choose to handle this using GURPS, OD&D, AD&D, Runequest, or D&D 5e is incidental to why I am running a campaign in the first place.  I can run and have run my Majestic Wilderlands using forementioned systems for the past three+ decades. What differs is the amount of work I put into detailing things with mechanics, how long it takes me to adjudicate things like combat, and the level of detail that is gotten into while playing. But in the end I am running the same campaigin with the player doing similar things for similar reasons.

The reason this works for me is because I don't start with what the system allows me to do. I ask what can character do with the setting then look to see how the system handles those things. If the system doesn't cover it then I will make a ruling consistent with how the system work to cover it. But the player is still able to do the same thing with their character.

With system like GURPS/Runequest versus OD&D then something may not be covered routinely. A disarm just doesn't happen with OD&D as part of combat resoltuion. However if a character needs to disarm an opponent then I still make a ruling. And it will be about as difficult relatively to a normal weapon swing as a disarm is in GURPS or another detailed system. Which is difficult but not impossible.

Now if the system talks about milestone, balenced encounters and similar elements, then I will ignore. Those section are advice not rules like the character goes first if they have to higher speed in GURPS, or goes first if they roll the highest 1d20 initiative roll in D&D 5e. They speak to how a run a campaign and like all such advice, use them if they are useful, ignore them if they are not.

Now it not to say that all systems work equally well for my Majestic Wilderlands. Some system take considerably more work than other and thus I don't use them. Some system I don't use because I don't like them. Or I don't get how they supposed to work like Fate. However Fate isn't bad because I know other who have made it work for them and they have fun with it. And it has a community of people actively creating material for it.

Consciousness, stream of, there is.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1130313How did GURPS not win this rpg battle?

In what world would GURPS have a chance?

D&D presented a clear mode of play (the dungeon crawl) that was easy to grasp and run by newbies, even young teenagers. All you needed were a few rooms on a piece of graph paper, and the adventure was on. On top of that, there was a compelling rewards system (leveling, serendipitous magic), a kitchen sink default setting so you could bring in all your favorite bits, and like all RPGs it was infinitely expandable for those who wanted more sophisticated or just different experiences.

GURPS, by contrast, could never even figure out a default genre, much less a core premise. The core rules generally seemed to assume the default was a low-magic fantasy, but they include enough rules for a real fantasy game, and there was no setting. You could play a modern game, but you were left to your own decices, and the gun rules were kind of broken. GURPS eventually became known for historical gaming, but that was only after a huge number of historical worldbooks were released, and until Infinite Worlds coalesced they were just scattered settings with no unifying thread. And then GURPS swiveled hard in the direction of complexity for the sake of complexity, catering more to its gearhead diehards than potential new players.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1130313There's been three tiers of D&D:

BECMI

AD&D

3rd-5th editions

Gary said, "There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit."

I would probably agree.  3e pushes Player control to the front and to a certain extent replaces Player Skill with Character Skill.  3e is more Heroic Fantasy genre compared to ADnD which is more Survival Horror.

QuoteSo when I see people talk about 5e being like 2e, I .... No.

I see 5e as being closer to 4e then to 2e.

QuoteApproaching a "6th edition", what?

How did GURPS not win this rpg battle?

I read people who think they are rpg experts and they end up in quicksand. Because they do not know what D&D was and how it changed. It's like the language changed mid-sentence.

Game theory, is all ....

There definitely has been a change in game design but there are still plenty of old school Nintendo hard games out there if you look.

5E is the most mutable of all the editions.  It will vary wildly depending upon the hands on the tiller. When people say it is like 2E, or BECMI, or like 3E, or like 4E, what they are saying is some glimpse into how they would see themselves running it.  (If they haven't run it, it may not be a very accurate glimpse, but it is at least a surface impression.)  

For me, it runs most like BECMI because that it is what I want to do with it, how I tweak a few rules, what I ignore, and the style and tone of the adventures themselves.  Where it is different than BECMI is back towards the center core of 5E, which is mostly to the good for me, since I don't particularly like race as class and a few other hallmarks of that edition, even though it is by far my favorite of the early editions.  I'd prefer 5E be just a hair simpler than it is, but I get most of that by not using certain classes, discouraging feats, etc.

Frankly, I can see why someone wouldn't want to use 5e to run a mostly BECMI-style game.  After all, if you like BECMI well enough, just run that.  But if you think it can't be rather easily done, then you are speaking from ignorance.  I'd never run 5E in 2E style, since 2E is way down the list of D&D things I enjoy, but I'm not so blind that I can't see that it could be easily done.

So...GURPS has made  alot of interesting turns in its history if you believe that superceding D&D was SJG's goal, but it's not.  It's pretty clear they view the market as people who are looking to move on from D&D to something else.  Asking the Generic Universal Roleplaying System to have a 'default' genre is ludicrous though 4e did put the Infinite Worlds setting in the referee's book so one might see world hopping adventures as such.  I do think GURPS could have commanded a wider audience if they hadn't doubled down on the complexity in the nineties but in the end, they never developed a killer ap setting or a high value license.  Yes they did Hellboy but that was before the movies IRRC.  Fourth edition made GURPS less approachable and less supported but it was as much a victim of the market.  I always think GURPS could do a lot better.  SJG doesn't seem to agree but they've got the numbers and experience and they own GURPS so my opinion is largely irrelevant.

For my best shot, I think there needs to be an inexpensive lead in product for supers or Mad Max style post apocalyptic vehicle madness.  These are popular and recognizable things that are very current.  D&D style fantasy has become quite ubiquitous but it doesn't seem to have the kid's interest these days, it's not gonzo enough.  The problem is that they're also the most complex things to do in GURPS and the things GURPS does least well.  The answer, to my mind is alternate subsystems but GURPS is all about the universal application of the core rule set.

I don't even play D&D really these days, but in my view it is the most relevant RPG out there in terms of how important it is. It is the RPG most people play. I think there have been a couple of times in my memory when there was a question about it (when Vampire gave it a run for its money in the 90s, when Magic started syphoning players from local groups and TSR went under, and when Pathfinder challenged D&D's supremacy with a variation of D&D). Right now it seems to be enjoying immense popularity. It is easy to attack the biggest game in the room, because it has to appeal to the broadest possible audience. But it is the game through which most people comet to he hobby, and come to understand what RPGs are, so if you are not at least considering that, it might be hard to connect with a wide audience.

D&D is certainly more relevant than GURPS at present.

Really, D&D 5e is probably the most relevant rpg in history.  If D&D had not evolved and changed it is unlikely it would still be around.

Even so, an underground, grass roots D&D community in a world where it's not even available as a product would appeal to me far more than the current drekk.

Even the White Wolf games beat Gurps back in the day. ha  D&D is a lot more than Wizards.

D&D is relevant.  The D&D industry is not.

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Theory of Games, please explain what you mean by relevance? In what context?

And how are you defining "D&D" in this regards? AKA, the current edition, the hobby, etc?