Dungeons and Dragons editions matter?




Recently, I watched a video where someone asserted that Dungeons and Dragons (and d20 system variants) editions don't really matter.

I think there is something lost in his definition of what Dungeons and Dragons is because his definition is very broad. This person says that Dungeons and Dragons, any edition, including Pathfinder, ICRPG, Dungeon Crawl Classics, the OSR, etc., are all compatible with each other. From the point of view of this person, what matters is the roleplaying part of the TTRPG and rules and mechanics should be adapted to his style; therefore, he uses a very basic version of Dungeons and Dragons.

Under that premise, you actually don't even need rules.

But there is another kind of player, myself and people I know who like rules, who like to play by the rules, and play the rules, meaning finding combinations, min-maxing, etc., which of course doesn't stop us from roleplay.

Also when I go to a public event and there is a game of Pathfinder 1E I expect to play Pathfinder 1E not a simplified version of Dungeons and dragons. Is like being invited to play Monopoly and once on the table dicover they are actually playing Monopoly Jr.

And everything is compatible if you are not using those systems' rules but your simplified homebrew d20 system. But for those who like systems and the "game" part of roleplaying games, it is complicated to adapt stuff from one edition to another. Therefore, if by compatible you mean spending hours adapting the material, we could say Dungeons and Dragons and World of Darkness or Warhammer RPG are compatible too.

In conclusion, it's easy to say editions don't matter if you don't actually use the mechanics of those editions.