TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
Screenshot + link is probably beyond my technical capabilities.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16211/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_1_3
D&D 5E Xanathar's Guide to Everything...
Screenshot + link is probably beyond my technical capabilities.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16211/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_1_3
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
I certainly remember the outcry when they went from 1E to 2E, you didn't need the internet for that. And they cry of anguish over 3E to 4E echoes to this day. 3e to 4e produced the "edition wars", there has not been anything like that for 5E.
At lot of the posts I saw seem to be more hating on WotC and the ease of saying "fail" then putting yourself out there and saying "success".
JeffB
Legend
You obviously never heard of Dragonsfoot.org then. Probably the most popular AD&D forums ever, and certainly at the time. The edition wars were so bad there, 3.x talk was banned for years and it was only allowed to be mentioned as TETSNBN (the edition that shall not be named). In fact, I'm not sure you are allowed to talk 3rd or 4th there still. I don't visit as often. 5e talk is only allowed in the "other" games (non- D&D) forum
And fwiw, this place was pretty venomous during the transition to 3e as were the TSR/WOTC forums.
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The Edition Which Shall Not Be Named is still a thing on Dragonsfoot. Fortunately, they are far more open about 5E, even if they stick it with "Other Games" instead of giving it it's own forum.
Sacrosanct
Legend
Maybe it was more localized then, and you saw it locally. There were no internet forums at the time, I don't recall any kerfuffle when it happened, and I don't recall the letters to the editor in Dragon magazine being filled with hate either. I think the reason why it may have been a fairly smooth transition was because 2e was the only "new edition" that was backwards compatible, and done so intentionally. So it was never an edition that replaced the previous one, like 3e, 4e, and 5e have done. Almost everyone I know took elements of 2e and 1e together and mashed them up. I distinctly remember everyone making 2e PCs, but still using all the 1e modules and adventures.
I think it was Skip Williams who later said in an interview, "Of course we thought about ascending AC in 2e. But we wanted everyone to still be able to use their existing material they already had."
So since nothing was "taken away" from gamers, per se, it stands to reason that the shift to 2e was less vitriolic than in later editions. That seems to jive with my experiences as well. All of the overreaction going to 2e that I did see was less about the rules of the game, and more about "TSR went too PC! They got rid of demons, devils, and assassins! Buncha pansies!" IME obviously.
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
Maybe your experience was local. Things where taken from gamers, at least in the PHB. And there where letters to Dragon, though some came early, as they had previewed the changes. In a few years there would be usenet: not much 2E love there. The AD&D (later OSR) oriented forums, when they started to show up, also tended to be negative on 2E. And of course the early and most popular retroclones where not 2E retroclones.
But, in the spirit of this thread, the most important thing we know is that the 2E PHB significantly under sold the 1E one.
Jester David
Hero
Yeah, edition wars have always been a thing. 1e to 2e wasn't too bad in comparison, but it was certainly a thing (although it feels sillier in retrospective). And 1e/2e to 3e Edition Wars were pretty bad at times, with all the talk of dumbing down D&D and making it a video game.
But the 3e to 4e Edition Wars were still probably the worst. You still can't really talk about 4e in any critical way without causing a flame war.
So it seems inevitable that there'd be some friction with 5e and complaints. But compared to the last two edition wars, complaints regarding 5e are surprisingly subdued. There's some warring, but far, far less. Even on grumpy grognard sites like ENWorld: the complaints are less edition warring and just play style differences.
But the 3e to 4e Edition Wars were still probably the worst. You still can't really talk about 4e in any critical way without causing a flame war.
So it seems inevitable that there'd be some friction with 5e and complaints. But compared to the last two edition wars, complaints regarding 5e are surprisingly subdued. There's some warring, but far, far less. Even on grumpy grognard sites like ENWorld: the complaints are less edition warring and just play style differences.
LordEntrails
Hero
They all are silly IMO.
Not critical discussions about the editions, those can be useful etc. But the deeply emotional and venomous diatribes and flame wars.
Oh Grod, yes. The switch from 1e to 2e was a full-on edition war. It only died down to a degree when 3rd edition came out and was so radically different from 2nd edition that 1e and 2e started to look more similar than different. And even then it was more of a cease-fire than an end to the fighting about the editions.
I don't think that the marketing that TSR did at the time helped things much. Actually the marketing for 4th edition reminded me a bit of the "arrogance" of the articles in Dragon magazine touting the new edition over the older one. And more than a bit of the rancor about the new edition was probably wrapped up with how TSR booted Gygax from the company and how the company was being run in general at the time. But while the mechanical differences look slight now with 30 years of distance behind us (and 3 more editions to compare them too), at the time what we would now call "tweaks" to the game engine were hotly fought over at various tables and in the Forum of Dragon magazine (when TSR allowed those letters to be published, of course). And then later on Usenet (where it often got quite ugly).
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