Should the [grab] tag be merged with the [grapple] tag?

Question

I just noticed that the grab tag existed recently because I saw it added to a Pathfinder question. It seems very similar in scope to the grapple tag.

The grapple tag info/wiki says:

For questions about grappling — wrestling, or engaging in unarmed, nonlethal combat where the goal is often to incapacitate, restrain, or pin rather than kill one's opponent.

Roleplaying games often have intricate, confusing grapple rules — this tag endeavors to gather rules and rulings concerning this commonplace yet disproportionately complex activity.

The grab tag info/wiki (recently added, after I pointed it out in chat) says:

Grabbing something means taking hold of it so it only moves where you want it to, more or less. The concept appears in many RPGs under various names; grappling, seizing, wrestling, grasping, etc. Most rules for it involve grabbing something capable of moving under its own power and restricting its movement.

Specifically in 4th edition D&D, the grab condition can be applied as the result of an attack, either from the basic grab power or from player or monster powers that represent a grappling fighting style. A grabbed creature cannot move on its own, but can attempt a skill check (athletics vs. fortitude or acrobatics vs. reflex) to escape on its turn, or be moved around as an opposed action by the creature grabbing it, which must also dedicate a hand to maintaining the grab. Grabs can be broken from outside by rendering the grabber unable to take actions, such as by stunning it, or by using forced movement powers to push, pull, slide, or teleport either creature involved in the grab such that the grabber can no longer reach what it was grabbing.

For more general usage involving holding creatures or grappling them, use the grapple tag.

These seem very similar, except that "grab" apparently refers to a different/special thing in D&D 4e (and maybe Pathfinder, judging from the questions tagged with it). Since I'm not familiar with previous editions, I'm not sure if they actually refer to different fundamental concepts (rather than being the same concept with a different name).

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Should the grapple and grab tags be synonymized? If so, which should be the target tag that the other is merged into? If not, why?

Answer 1

Yes, since we don’t need both. We don’t actually care that some systems implement wrestling with various specific named actions and we don’t need tags for them. We tag for topics, to gather together questions on the same topic.

We don’t need tags for grabs, nor for pins, piledrivers, headlocks, or submission holds. Those aren’t separate topics that need their questions separated. Those are all elements under the topic of wrestling or grappling, and fall under the topic that grapple denotes. We don’t need all kinds of questions about different words for wrestling or wrestling moves spread out among multiple tags and not collected together.

grab should be made a synonym of grapple. Askers who know “grab” from their system can still use it, and the site will automatically recognise that as meaning their question fits into our bucket for questions about grappling.

Answer 2

The only reason to not merge them is specifically for the 4e clarification. That said however, the blurb says (emphasis mine):

the grab condition can be applied as the result of an attack, either from the basic grab power or from player or monster powers that represent a grappling fighting style.

This (to me) implies that grab and grapple are synonymous.

However, after doing a little bit of research on the tags, there is quite a bit of variation between the amount of questions tagged alongside dnd-4e:

• 11 out of 18 "grab" questions tagged alongside "dnd-4e"*
• 3 out of 271 "grapple" questions tagged alongside "dnd-4e"*

This implies to me that those playing 4e require the "grab" tag, potentially for the reason they don't recognise the term "grapple". For those of us that have played other systems, "grapple" would be the more generic term, but for those playing 4e, "grab" would be the only term they could potentially know. And following that logic, other systems could also use the "grab" phrase.

If anything, the tags should co-exist, but maybe just reference one another.

^{* At time of posting}