I'm calling it: The Edition War is over! And the winner is...

[knifie_sp00nie]

The only winners in the edition war have been the forum owners who get extra ad impressions from the increased page views generated by the endless flaming.

 

[Cadfan]

The reality is that edition wars aren't about editions, they're about people. They're about sorting people into ingroups and outgroups, and declaring ownership of social groups, identifiers, and territories. That's why so much of any given edition war takes the form of attempts at associating one's foes with disfavored outgroups.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Relique du Madde]

Even thought My Little Pony RPG was mentioned before, I think Hobo won the tread by supplying that Pony Lance image. I also wonder if that win constitutes his being the true victor of the edition war. :0

 

[Votan]

My intention was not to lump games into types, but to describe tiers of variations of D&D. The 3e variants and the retro-clones are in the same tier because they are both "one step removed" from official D&D. It has nothing to do with what "school of gaming" they are, their fanbase, vibe, etc.

I find official D&D complex to define now that most of the versions are out of print. So I don't make a major distinction between Castles and Crusades versus 4th edition, at this point.

YMMV.



But I do really agree that one of the GREAT aspects of D&D was how nicely it used to customize and how easy it was to experiment with house rules.

 

[Hairfoot]

Badwrongfun all round.

Dungeon Squad pwns all.

 

[Bluenose]

I agree with the OP.

I would suggest one extra tier, below the first and above the second, to cover the officially published 'variants'. Things like Unearthed Arcana, the Players Options series. They perhaps deserve a separate category of their own, as official variants.