In biology, a speciation event occurs when a segment of an animal population changes so much that it constitutes a separate species. Well games evolve too, albeit for different reasons; and it occurs to me that D&D just might have undergone a speciation event in the late 90s with TSR's acquisition by Wizards of the Coast. And for those lamenting D&D's changing ways, take heart: it might not even be D&D anymore! Luckily, that's not a bad thing either, since the earlier games still exist. But first, a history lesson...
OD&D (the three digests) was a game unto itself, although each supplement (especially Greyhawk) substantially changed things. Greyhawk stands out because it added more than mere content, altering bedrock mechanics such as ability scores and even the sort of dice employed, with downstream impacts to everything from attack damage to what was possible with random tables. But for all of this we're still talking incremental changes.*
Change within a species, for AD&D was basically a just better organized, better produced OD&D, which would have come as no surprise to anyone following Dragon Magazine through the late 1970s. It was still classic D&D right through Unearthed Arcana, although here's where things start to become a bit more complicated. The Survival Guides introduced non-weapon proficiencies, a natural extension of the existing rules; only now we begin to see the seeds of Second Edition AD&D, which was its next incremental step...
Still, incremental. Like AD&D, Second Edition reorganized (and repackaged) AD&D to consolidate and refine its disparate innovations, by then spread across multiple sourcebooks, into a new, coherent form. It's necessary work as a system grows and sprawls out like a dragon stretching across a gleaming hoard. It was still D&D, only increasingly consolidated, if not simplified. There were the aforementioned proficiencies, but also THAC0, seriously maligned, but really just a mathematical manipulation of the original combat tables.
Bottom line, Second Edition felt like the original game or rather, the house rules of an industrious DM who really, really had their shit together. It might have been my imagination, but Dragon Magazine actually felt more like its 1970s iteration - and despite the period's greatest liability: TSR's new management. Yes, Gygax was a shrewd marketer. But D&D was also his baby. He loved it even when he thought it would only sell 1,000 copies, no small feat in the small press of the time. Lorraine Williams saw only a cash cow...
This stuff matters because while in nature, natural selection and random mutation drive evolution, intellectual properties evolve under the powers of creative impulse, cultural and demographic change, and the almighty dollar. Right through Second Edition, D&D was undergoing a gradual refinement. Williams didn't care; but her creative staff did, something that countered her tyranny for a few years. Sadly, an extinction event came calling.
A meteor ended the Late Cretaceous with a devastating fury that toppled the dinosaur dominion. But it wasn't the end of all life. Birds, who arose from a shared ancestor with the theropod dinosaurs, carried on. D&D's meteor was named Lorraine Williams, who had a sneering disdain for her product's core audience and no respect for the work it took to fashion quality material. Overextended and creatively spent, D&D was acquired by Wizards of the Coast and underwent its first speciation event from the ashes of extinction...
Enter Third Edition. I call this a speciation event because it was. William's TSR had the benefit of staff continuity, at least for a while; but Third Edition could only ever be a dramatic shift from its ancestry. Some of its DNA remained, whether ability scores (and a method imported from AD&D's Dungeon Master's Guide) or d20, which, like THAC0, amounted to an inversion of some long-standing mechanics. But the game's underlying philosophy was radically changed, which overshadowed nearly every choice its designers made.
It became something else. Maybe a new species. And its new management seems to have stopped evolving the game in favor of radical transformations between editions driven by marketing data, real or imagined. Fourth Edition channelled computer games because that's what someone thought the kids liked (and a battle game would sell miniatures). Its current form pivoted back to something more traditional; but it's a slave to trends, trading on its past while simultaneously rejecting it and riding an ever-changing fleet of bandwagons.
D&D has always been a product. Gary knew it and was happy to milk that cash cow with both hands. But he also had a personal love for his creation. I'm sure Wizards does too, but they're even more aware of the game as a product, to the point of substantial reinventions whenever the demographic winds change. This might seem disingenuous to older eyes, but it's inevitable. We're on the way out. The kids (and their cash) are the future.
These radical shifts between versions just might constitute speciation events (as I rather suspect Fifth Edition is). D&D was remarkably stable for around 20 years, but its acquisition by Wizards of the Coast changed so much that it just might be an entirely different game these days. Fortunately for any grognards out there, the older editions are still available from a company that shrewdly panders to the young and old alike. And don't forget the assorted retro-clones, great (and sometimes free) stuff that keeps the past alive in TSR style...
*B/X, BECMI, and The Rules Cyclopedia also diverged. Call it a parallel evolution or whatever. This is a debate for another post and not really addressed here.
