Saving Throes # 68: Pages Through the Ages: After 50 Years, What Elements of D&D Make it D&D?

Red Rooster's Gaming Coop

Welcome to the Saving Throes podcast! This is my Tabletop role-playing game podcast, part of the Red Rooster's Gaming Coop network where I talk gaming and gaming culture every week. Each episode will feature a topic or theme along with my take on current happenings in the world of tabletop role-playing games and semi regular updates on the games I am currently involved with, or new games or products I have come across.
This week I am pondering about D&D after 50 years of the game's existence. What exactly makes this game D&D? Over several editions, many different authors, different publishers, through tough times and bountiful times, what elements define this game? I look through each edition over the game's long and storied history, and try to find what the connective tissue is. It is more than I first thought, and I wanted to set the record straight. I see a lot of discourse online, and have been through a number of "edition wars" myself, but at the end of the day, aren't we all fighting over flavours of the same game more or less? I list the consistent elements that are necessary for D&D and dispel some of the myths that are mostly just nice-to-haves. Tune in to hear if your thoughts on what make this game what it is match with my own!

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