No 5e threads for now, please

[billd91]

Here's the thing - that may be true, but is there anything worng with not having these discussions "for now", and reopening them in a month or two when tempers cool again?

They're never going to cool. Or, more accurately, if we suppress a topic until "tempers cool" we're leaving board moderation up to the group who raises a snit over a topic, whether reasonable or not. All you have to do is get your temper up to exert a veto on the discussion.

 

[La Bete]

Actually we have seen two recent sucessfull interventions:

(1) The "no edition wars" around the time of the 4e launch. This kept the worst of the edition warriors from each others throats for a while, and allowed discussion on more useful areas to flourish.

(2) PDF/WotC is teh suxxorz threads moved to the sewer. Pulling all those threads into a temp forum allowed them to be moderated more easily, and made them "out of sight, out of mind" for many.

There has been a number of comments on a number of forums that the "edition wars" are back - it strikes me as perfectly reasonable that the volunteer moderators of a site like ENWorld choose to temporarily restrict some contentious topics for a limited period.

As I think has been said by the mods: they're here to keep the peace - so if they think that their job would be made easier by this, then fine. And hey - PCat may be changing his mind on this one!

 

[TwinBahamut]

Actually we have seen two recent sucessfull interventions:

(1) The "no edition wars" around the time of the 4e launch. This kept the worst of the edition warriors from each others throats for a while, and allowed discussion on more useful areas to flourish.

(2) PDF/WotC is teh suxxorz threads moved to the sewer. Pulling all those threads into a temp forum allowed them to be moderated more easily, and made them "out of sight, out of mind" for many.

There has been a number of comments on a number of forums that the "edition wars" are back - it strikes me as perfectly reasonable that the volunteer moderators of a site like ENWorld choose to temporarily restrict some contentious topics for a limited period.

As I think has been said by the mods: they're here to keep the peace - so if they think that their job would be made easier by this, then fine. And hey - PCat may be changing his mind on this one!

You know, people keep comparing the 5E threads to edition wars and such, but I am not really seeing it. There were only really a handful of them for a few days, and of all the different ones I read, none seemed particularly full of flames or hurt feelings. The various threads about the Forgotten Realms and Elminster were far more full of flames and hot tempers, and the 5E threads were fairly civil.

The truth is, while people here are arguing that 5E threads are doomed to failure and edition warring, I think the actual threads prove that it is not the case. Sure, there may be one or two mean-spirited posts, but that is the case no matter what is the subject of discussion, and nothing about the topic itself seemed to actually aggravate it.

Comparing this to the threads discussing 4E after the original 4E announcement and close to the 4E launch is flawed, I think, simply because the situation is totally different. Those discussions were talking about a new edition that was concrete and real, and was clearly going to be something that some people didn't exactly want. 5E, though, is little more than a dream, and it little more than a name to give to what people want to see in an "ideal edition". After all, what we talk about in those threads doesn't have to resemble the eventual 5E in order to be relevant.

Overall, I think I would be happier if the ban was merely on speculation regarding what WotC would do with 5E, rather than the discussion of what people want to see in 5E or what would work in 5E. If that makes any sense...

On a side note, I'm getting a little annoyed at all the people equating the discussion of 5E with people who hate 4E. I love 4E, and prefer it to all previous editions, but I really enjoy talking about the future of the game and the ways in which the game could be improved even further. You don't need to hate the current edition in order to want to see a better new edition.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If we followed this guideline, how would WotC or anybody else potentially involved in the next step in the development of D&D (5e) know what it was that lost us from their market or how they could get us back? Or what supplemental materials might appeal to use from third party publishers?

The guideline seemed to contain something like "constructive criticism". If that was everyone was doing, there was no "moratorium".

Personally I think it wouldn't even be wrong when someone started a thread. "I don't like anything about 4E. Recommend a good game system to me that I can play instead." But this kind of thread would most likely go up in flaming between edition warriors. The thing is not that "reasonable" debate is impossible, it's just that unreasonable debate is more likely. That is the same reason why religion and politics are not discussed - they incite peoples emotion and even if there are hundreds of posters that could do so reasonably, there are dozens of posters that won't and those will stick out and make the thread difficult to the other hundreds.

Besides, we may not like it, but we may actually still be playing it. Why should we be prevented from talking about a game we're playing?

Well, we are definitely not playing 5E yet, right?

 

[avin]

Maybe we could have a single topic for every 5E speculation (who doesn't like speculation?) and other topics to be deleted.

Even 4E DMs such as me would like to speculate and express what changed they would made.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Could you please reduce your broad statement to yourself, instead of everyone, or even all 4E DMs, because I disagree on both points.

 

[fanboy2000]

If you removed speculation from the conversations at ENWorld, you would probably halve the number of posts on the site.

Probably.

Speculation is also useful because it lets people tune into what they might view as "D&D." It helps expand and change your own games, and the core game, since WotC does pay pretty close attention to what the fans say (I'm sure filtered through a lot of layers of knowledge, but still).

You are right. Speculation is useful, in general.

It's only harmful to speculate when snark is thrown in.

I disagree, for reasons I'll get into in just a moment.

Implying that 5e might have no to-hit mechanic isn't edition wars:

True.

there's a lot of discussion about D&D history, the benefits and drawbacks, feel and goals, to be had there. Snarking that 5e will have no to-hit mechanic because players today are coddled and spoiled by constant rewards like in 3e and 4e is getting closer to edition warring, but even then, there's a valid point to be made. Saying just that 5e might come and that you are glad that 4e dies kicking and screaming is pretty blatant edition warring, and the 5e threads do attract that kind of poster, so I think I can see why the mods decided to make this taboo, but rampant speculation threads are part and parcel of talking about the game we all love (perhaps in different versions ) and where it might wind up in the next six or so years.

Good points.

Speculation is harmful when there is not enough data to speculate from. The reason is that speculating from to little data attracts the kind of bad posts you just described. Without actual evidence, the speculation is more emotional than factual and is less accurate. Yes, as someone else pointed out, we have more than 4 editions of D&D, but generally speaking, we're talking about the direction Wizards of the Coast of is taking Dungeons and Dragons, not Williams' TSR, not Gygax's TSR, WotC. And for that, we have 2 and half (or 3).

When 4e was announced, speculation was more grounded in reality. We had Book of Nine Swords and Star Wars Saga Edition to base projections on. Eventually, WotC started leaking information and ENWorld even hosted a PDF of what 4e might look like based on everything we knew. That kind of speculation is useful because it helps people make decisions and start making intelligent decisions. At this point, we don't know have a lot of information about what they might have in store for 5e. For one thing, new mechanics in 4e may be discarded in favor of older mechanics or replaced with older mechanics. 3e introduced new mechanics with regards to a PC's or NPC's power lever: level adjustment and effective character level. These mechanics simply don't exist in 4e.

So any argument that says "well, this is a new mechanic in 4e and it was introduced to solve this problem, so we can assume they will continue to go into this direction in future editions and therefore..." is flawed because it assumes that the designers will want to continue in that direction. An assumption that is demonstrably flawed and simply doesn't have enough data to support it.

 

[fanboy2000]

If we followed this guideline, how would WotC or anybody else potentially involved in the next step in the development of D&D (5e) know what it was that lost us from their market or how they could get us back? Or what supplemental materials might appeal to use from third party publishers?

Well, you could write them a letter.

Or you could post to Usenet.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Speculation is harmful when there is not enough data to speculate from.

There's never "enough data" to speculate from. That's kind of what makes it speculation. It's theoretical discussion about pie-in-the-sky "what may be." Some things are more realistic than others (I'd say the "no to-hit mechanic" is in the middle), but even the most outlandish speculation is at least of some interest, because, well, if someone seriously thinks 5e might be about Space Aliens, it's interesting to see what kind of D&D they're envisioning.

So any argument that says "well, this is a new mechanic in 4e and it was introduced to solve this problem, so we can assume they will continue to go into this direction in future editions and therefore..." is flawed because it assumes that the designers will want to continue in that direction. An assumption that is demonstrably flawed and simply doesn't have enough data to support it.

It's not an argument, it's speculation. It's rampant hypothesis. It's futurism. Maybe in 10 years we'll have flying electric cars. Maybe in 10 years D&D will be mostly online with books considered "loss leaders." Maybe in 10 years, the music industry as we know it will be dead.

This is fun conversation to have, even if there's scads of contradictory evidence, or no real evidence whatsoever, because it involves people's hopes and dreams and nightmares and visions for what may and could possibly happen.

I don't think a conversation has to be entirely factual to be interesting and relevant, really.

 

[Lanefan]

Another thought just occurred to me:

We all know the current game owners (WotC, of late) watch this site and others as a gauge on how the more loyal fans of the game see said game in its past, present, and future. Well, if we can't discuss its future and by extension tell them what we'd like to see (and thus become/remain loyal to), are we not doing them a dis-service?

By the same token, this also validates expression of the opinion "No 5e at all, please", along with "Things are fine as they are now" and "Things were fine as they were at time x and since then have deteriorated".

And, FWIW, while someone earlier suggested framing discussions in non-D+D terms, I - and I'll go out on a limb here and say I expect many others - assume any and all discussions here are about D+D specifically (whatever editions) unless clearly labelled otherwise; as this is a D+D forum. Thus, when discussing new ideas, changes, developments, or whatever, we are talking about the future of *D+D*. And if the game *is* to change and develop (a safe assumption, I think), then that future lies either in significant refinements to 4e, or in some sort of 5e.

Well, we are definitely not playing 5E yet, right?

You sure about that?



Lan-"I've lost count of what edition my game is up to"-efan