Quote Originally Posted by 1337 b4k4 View Post
The fact of the matter is a completely new game with all new mechanics and all new classes and skills and backgrounds that no one has seen before is not, will not and can not be D&D. You can put a D&D name on it, but it's no more D&D than it would be Vampire or Burning Wheel or Traveler. And there is nothing wrong with this. There is nothing wrong with WotC recognizing the D&D is made up of certain tropes and concepts that permeate the system and that a lot of people who play D&D play it because of those tropes. Heck, I'd argue that for almost all the people who play D&D, they play it for those tropes, because lets face it, if you wanted different tropes, there are thousands of alternatives out there in the RPG world.
I cannot agree with this.

Mechanics are not tropes; D&D is no less "D&D" in 3.x because they got rid of THAC0 than 5e would be less D&D because it has Fighters who don't suck or a Diplomacy mechanic that made sense.

Notwithstanding the fact that I am not personally hung up on whether or not a given game "is D&D" I refuse to believe it is good for WotC or the pen & paper industry as a whole if they largely turn over game design to The Internet instead of exercising some direction in designing the system before playtesting it.

Look at the first playtest packet. Look at this current one. What sort of game is WotC designing? What goals are they moving towards? What is motivating their design choices?

All I can see is a mish-mash of old ideas with tweaks to appeal to fans of previous editions (i.e. 3rd Edition and earlier). I see none of the exciting ideas from 4th or even ideas that are descended from their most recent experience at building a roleplaying game. Where's the vision?