D&D 5E Edition Wars, WHY?

Rygar · Jan 21, 2015

was said:
...I have seen several 4th ed. threads pop up in the 5th ed. forum in the last week or so. I think that they have brought out some old grudges from folks on both sides of the 4th ed. issue. I agree that it has become annoying. People need to get over it.

...Fans of 4th ed. have every right to bring what they liked into their 5th ed. games.

...Those who disliked 4th ed. have every right to exclude 4th ed. components from their 5th ed. games.

...Let's cut out the petty nonsense and show some respect for our fellow gamers. As a community, we're better than this.

I agree with you in theory.

The problem is the larger community. If you enter Wizard's forums you'll find that daring to not allow something from 4th edition leads to a large amount of attacks, and people posting about how they PM'd the community manager a list of people that should be banned for being "Bad community members". All of this after all of the 4th edition fans spent years telling everyone that if they didn't like a 4th edition feature they could just ignore it in 5th edition.

It leaves me with a choice, support 4th edition in 5th edition and spend years taking abuse for daring to exclude a 4th edition feature in my games, or oppose 4th edition in 5th edition and eventually that group will no longer be around to toss out abuse. It's a no brainer.

So basically, where I'm going with this is: This won't work until forums start shutting down those who feel not using something from 4th edition is cause to attack. I really don't think there's anyone who cares if WOTC releases a book designed to approximate 4th edition with 5th, I think all of the friction starts with the insistence that we use it or we're horrible people who should never be allowed to play D&D. Which is pretty much what the official Dungeons and Dragons forums consist of today.

Werebat · Jan 21, 2015

Rygar said:
I think all of the friction starts with the insistence that we use it or we're horrible people who should never be allowed to play D&D. Which is pretty much what the official Dungeons and Dragons forums consist of today.

It's... not like the Paizo forums are much better, though, is it?

I find this forum quite accepting compared to the Paizo one, which I've largely chosen to just not participate in or even browse. And hey, now that 5E is out, it seems like there's very little reason left for me to bother anyway.

Morrus · Jan 21, 2015

Werebat said:
It's... not like the Paizo forums are much better, though, is it?
.

It's not gamers, or WotC, or Paizo. It's the Internet. Macrumors is bad; video game forums are horrible; Twitter can be downright nasty; and there are places I don't even dare to look.

I don't think any one venue or subject is responsible for it. It's just what people on the Internet do.

Werebat · Jan 21, 2015

Morrus said:
It's not gamers, or WotC, or Paizo. It's the Internet. Macrumors is bad; video game forums are horrible; Twitter can be downright nasty; and there are places I don't even dare to look.

I don't think any one venue or subject is responsible for it. It's just what people on the Internet do.

www.bbtactics.com is one of the nicest, most polite sets of forums you could ever hope to participate in. I recently had to ask if it was moderated, because I honestly had no idea. And it's a place for people to discuss a game where you regularly gangfoul our opponents' characters to death.

Well, you hope to, anyway.

dd.stevenson · Jan 21, 2015

I believe the "comment on the comments" format exacerbates the problem too. For example, I'm pretty sure a lot of people see this when they look at the thread UI.

(Can't say I'm without guilt myself, here.)

Morrus · Jan 21, 2015

Werebat said:
www.bbtactics.com is one of the nicest, most polite sets of forums you could ever hope to participate in. I recently had to ask if it was moderated, because I honestly had no idea. And it's a place for people to discuss a game where you regularly gangfoul our opponents' characters to death.

Well, you hope to, anyway.

That's the other rule - it's proportional to size. That site has 2000 members. Twitter has millions. That site is friendlier than Twitter.

There's always exceptions, and moderation can make a difference, but there's definitely correlation.

Small forums are easy to keep a friendly little community in, and that tends to be self policing. People notice outsiders, and the outsiders have to fit into the culture. Above a certain size, you start stumbling across people who have been posting for years who you never saw before.

Mark CMG · Jan 21, 2015

Morrus said:
Above a certain size, you start stumbling across people who have been posting for years who you never saw before.

And you are . . ?

Ridley's Cohort · Jan 21, 2015

dd.stevenson said:
I believe the "comment on the comments" format exacerbates the problem too. For example, I'm pretty sure a lot of people see this when they look at the thread UI.

(Can't say I'm without guilt myself, here.)

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It is as if Randall Munroe peeked into my window late one night.