A reader provided me with a link to Wizard of the Coast talking about the optional rule models of D&D Next in brief. Basically the message is that they got the feedback from the D&D Next playtest that the fighters without powers were too boring, and the combat without flanking and opportunity attacks not tactical enough; and they say: "Don't worry, all of that will be in optional rules modules". Now on the one side I think this is good news. I'd much prefer a game in which all character classes have lots of options in combat without having to ask the DM for permission for every move; and I much prefer tactical combat over a combat style in which positioning doesn't matter. But I more and more wonder how different a game can be on two tables and still be called the same game.

I am not at all interested in the rather unpractical question of what version of the game is the "true" Dungeons & Dragons. I very much recognize that 4th edition changed Dungeons & Dragons significantly. If you gave somebody who played D&D from 1st edition to 3.5 the rulebooks of both 4E and Pathfinder with the labels removed and asked him to say which of the two was "D&D", he'd most likely point to the Pathfinder rules. But the only inconvenience of that is that if somebody tells you he plays "D&D", you need to ask which edition to find out what game he is actually playing. Two groups playing 3.5 will play pretty much the same game, and so will two groups playing 4th edition. Of course there are always differences in style between different players, and different DMs. And there are house rules. But if you ever played 4th edition, you would have no problem to go into any game store that runs D&D Encounters on Wednesday night and feel right at home.

Now imagine you have a D&D Next fighter rolled with the optional fighter powers and tactical combat options module. And somebody tells you they are playing D&D Next. You arrive, and the DM tells you that you can't use your character, because their group isn't using those optional modules. Or imagine two players with two fighters wanting to play together, one with the optional modules and the other without. The difference between the two is so fundamental, that they could never play together on the same table, yet both would state that they were playing "D&D Next".

I don't know how many optional rules modules Wizards of the Coast are planning. But unless you always play with the same people, this could easily become very messy. If there are just 5 rules modules we will have 32 different variants of D&D Next. If there are 10 optional modules we have over a thousand possible combinations. I can already see the D&D roleplaying conventions with each table marked "modules 1, 4, 5, and 8 used at this table" and the like.

Dungeons & Dragons has gone from something you play without anybody noticing with friends in your basement to something which is a lot more connected via the internet. YouTube has videos of the Penny Arcade guys playing D&D in front of a camera at PAX. People play D&D with strangers on game forums or virtual tables. D&D Insider and the WotC website provide everybody with a baseline of what Dungeons & Dragons is. But all that depends on the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons at least being compatible with itself. That does not seem to be the case for D&D Next any more. By trying to please everybody at once, WotC is about to create a game without any identity at all.