What defines the "edition war" and why are participants / moderators opposed to them?

[Raven Crowking]

One problem is that "edition" here is rather a euphemism.

People of a certain age might recall the days when the Atari ST (put out by Jack Tramiel, ousted founder of Commodore Business Machines) was in competition with Commodore's Amiga (designed by a team of former Atari employees).

The designs had enough in common that Atari and Amiga users could share some valuations of the relatively less colorful IBM PC and starkly monochrome Macintosh. However, the platforms were very clearly fighting for commercial survival not only against those but -- and indeed most keenly, in the market for what only they could deliver -- against each other.

The business of D&D 'editions' has turned into a matter of quite different games sharing the same trademarked name. The Open Game License opened the way for different 'D&Ds' (albeit not all by that name) to be in competition with each other in a way that goes beyond what was the case with Amiga versus Commodore 64, or Macintosh versus Apple][.

This is complicated by the reality that it's not such a clear-cut matter of "technological superiority". TSR-D&D, 3E-D&D and 4E-D&D are not linear developments of increasing power and sophistication -- they are simply different, as much as RuneQuest or Tunnels & Trolls is different from any of them. One is "better" than another only in the thoroughly subjective sense of coincidence with one's personal preference.

This.


RC

 

[diaglo]

no good can come of it.

partly because everyone already knows

OD&D(1974) is the one true game. All the other editions are just poor imitations of the real thing.

 

[Mercurius]

I agree with the original poster, although as an academic he should be well familiar with the semantic minefield of the postmodern era ;-). A lot of it has to do with phrasing; as one poster said, people get upset when they feel that you are confusing your own subjective opinion with objective truth. This leads to the ridiculous need to disclaim everything with "IMHO" and other stool softeners, and leads to a kind doublespeak, bogging down meaningful conversation (IMHO, of course!).

The other aspect of this that is hugely problematic (imo) is the common knee-jerk assumption of trolling. I mean, I'm honestly surprised that no one has accused you of trolling (yet), even though you obviously are not. If someone expresses a negative or critical opinion on something, or even just brings up a controversial topic, they are immediately assumed to be trolling and attacked for it. Actually, EN World is relatively tame in this regard. RPGNet, a site I otherwise like, is much worse; I have witnessed numerous cases where someone voices an unpopular opinion and gets piled on with ad hominems and moderation stands by and does nothing, except maybe to chastise the OP for voicing said unpopular opinion.

On the other hand, I can also understand and appreciate why moderators put out sparks before they fan into fires. My own personal approach would be much more liberal, however, because I think we lose a lot of interesting conversation in the name of keeping the peace (and status quo), but I can also see how feelings get hurt and the community fabric begins to unravel if things get too out of hand. But then it becomes a matter of treading softly and knowing how to play the semantic game. In general, I have found EN World moderators to be a reasonable bunch and pretty adept at discerning nuances; I have seen many instances where someone posted something similar to the OP and got attacked, and a moderator (rightly) stepped in and warned the attacker, not the OP.

But yeah, let's talk about the merits and demerits of different editions. We just have to do it skillfully.

 

[DanFor]

My perspective: In the current environment, the editions war has evolved into a form political correctness where any negative criticism of 3.5, 4E, or Pathfinder is automatically denounced--as perpetuation of the editions war--by mini-mods (and in some forums by the actual moderators) that have no tolerance for opposing viewpoints.

My opinion: I would rather "listen" to the repetitive, illogical rants of the disgruntled and enraged nerds, than to the constant "no more editions wars threads" chanting coming from the "stop-rocking-my-boat" mini-mods.

 

[maddman75]

Because 99.99% of the time it gets argumentative, moving into aggression an insults. And the moderators have to spend time dealing with it - which we don't want to do. One learns what types of threads are going to result in lots of work for us.

This.

Edition war threads tend to have about half a page of interesting discussion, then start to resemble this

"Your favorite game sucks"
"No, YOUR favorite game sucks!"
"I think you'll find its your game that is horrible"
"Only a cretin would think that your game was fit for anything but toilet paper"

Continue for 80 pages, or until everyone's banned.

 

[Umbran]

Coming from a humanities academic background, arguing and persuading others using sound logic and rhetoric is essential to promoting progress.

The key here is "sound logic and rhetoric". The basic characteristic of what we call "edition wars" is that the combatants have left sound logic and rhetoric behind. Dialectic processes are useful (not essential - there are other modes of exploration that work well), but not when those involved become more invested in being right than they are in exploring reality.

Putting myself in the shoes of a moderator, I realize that they're probably just sick of these types of threads, they feel they're not productive, they're not adding anything to overall community.

As one of those moderators, I think we have more than just a 'feeling" that warring is not productive, and not adding thing to the community. I think we have sufficient experience to claim they are outright destructive to our community.

But at the same time, the need to have real discourse on the subject is not something to be taken lightly.

The moderating staff here take that very seriously. We would love nothing more to see real, civil discourse on the topics. We would all like to take part in it. We feel it's loss.

But again, my experience tells me that the reality is that an argument of one rule set being better than another is not totally subjective. There can be hard and fast, provable ways that one rule system is superior to another...

With respect, not as often as you might think. Let me ask you - are the rules of American football superior to the rules of baseball? Well, surely, if you are trying to play a game with a pitcher and a batter, yes. But in general, it is a meaningless statement. Apples and oranges.

So, let's instead focus down a bit - pick a specific measure. You can then say that Ruleset A is superior to Ruleset B in terms of that measure, in theory. In practice, however, we don't have good data sets - most of our data is highly anecdotal, based on individual experience, rather than properly conducted testing. Different people in the discussion have different experiences, and thus will not agree on which is superior.

And, then you hit the question about whether being superior in a given measure is actually superior for particular users, or people in general. Here's where subjectivity really enters the fray - different people want different things from a game, and cannot necessarily agree that being better in a particular measure actually makes the game more fun.

If everyone wanted the same thing from a game, then, yes, you might be able to crown one winner. But just as we all like different genres of literature, and different authors within a genre, we are going to find different games fitting our needs.

Failure to recognize that fact (sometimes referred to as "One True Wayism", has been a major source of friction in discussing editions. People conflate "I like this better" to "This is objectively better", which is simply poor reasoning.

 

[Reigan]

I follow the Guardian CiF pages, people behave exactly the same there arguing over politics etc. I think the anonymity of the internet encourages people to be rude.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

One problem is that "edition" here is rather a euphemism.

People of a certain age might recall the days when the Atari ST (put out by Jack Tramiel, ousted founder of Commodore Business Machines) was in competition with Commodore's Amiga (designed by a team of former Atari employees).

The designs had enough in common that Atari and Amiga users could share some valuations of the relatively less colorful IBM PC and starkly monochrome Macintosh. However, the platforms were very clearly fighting for commercial survival not only against those but -- and indeed most keenly, in the market for what only they could deliver -- against each other.

The business of D&D 'editions' has turned into a matter of quite different games sharing the same trademarked name. The Open Game License opened the way for different 'D&Ds' (albeit not all by that name) to be in competition with each other in a way that goes beyond what was the case with Amiga versus Commodore 64, or Macintosh versus Apple][.

This is complicated by the reality that it's not such a clear-cut matter of "technological superiority". TSR-D&D, 3E-D&D and 4E-D&D are not linear developments of increasing power and sophistication -- they are simply different, as much as RuneQuest or Tunnels & Trolls is different from any of them. One is "better" than another only in the thoroughly subjective sense of coincidence with one's personal preference.

Most edition war posts are not about loving or hating a game. They try to redefine reality. Look at Ariostos post above, because it is the best example. In this post he has used your OP to shovel deep pits between both different editions and different D&D-playing groups AND labeled these pits as undeniable fact.

Others have already said it: edition wars are bad NOT because they create discussions and flames but because they try to isolate YOURS from MINE, fracturing the community in the process, and labelling this fracture as natural and inevitable.

 

[Bluenose]

Plenty of people have entrenched their opinions on the subject of the better edition, and absolutely refuse to change them. So even if the thread starts of with sensible reasoned debate, anything that forces them to think their side may not be entirely right has to be prevented from continuing. So the regular standby arguments get brought out, and another thread degenerates into the same old arguments that have been seen before.

It's all oddly reminiscent of the debates over the relative merits of Greyhawk/Forgotten Realms/Dragonlance/whatever. There seems to be a view in this hobby that it's not just sufficient to say how awesome the things you like are, but you must show how the things other people like are terrible. Actually it's probably something that isn't restricted to this hobby, considering how people act elsewhere. I'm sure anonymity and lack of physical proximity helps.

 

[renau1g]

no good can come of it.

partly because everyone already knows

OD&D(1974) is the one true game. All the other editions are just poor imitations of the real thing.

Agreed that no good can come of it, nor can the assertion that ended this post. It is baiting to those who feel that 4e is the best edition, or that 2e is the best edition.