The Bastardization of the Game: Edition Purity versus Edition Innovation

[coyote6]

I vote (c), all of the above. That is, not every game or campaign is the same. I've swiped ideas from one game to add to another (i.e., hero/karma/luck points for GURPS), and I've ran things as the rules say. Depends on the game.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Nothing's pure, least of all D&D. I answered Yes because it's a ridiculous answer to a ridiculous question.

 

[Desdichado]

I thought the question was pretty clear up in the first paragraph. Is there anything in the intervening impenetrable wall of text that muddles it up? Because in the words of that famous Colin Powell macro that's all over the internet, "I ain't readin' all that ."

Also: do we really need those images?

 

[Doug McCrae]

I thought the question was pretty clear up in the first paragraph. Is there anything in the intervening impenetrable wall of text that muddles it up?

Dunno, I didn't read it. I never read any of Jack7's opening posts, they're always far too long for a message board.

 

[Shemeska]

I don't think the heated arguments about editions are based on "purity," however, but are more about genuine loves and loathes of mechanics and fluff that vary across the editions.

This.

Purity or innovation has little to do with it. I find a lot of innovation and new ideas in 2e and in 4e, yet I adore much of the 2e innovation (on the fluff side) while at the same time finding many of the 4e (fluff) innovations to be contrived and uninspired.

As much as a Planescape purist as I've been called at times (not always undeserving), my own campaigns in the setting should never be used as an example of a purist use of that setting. I break the setting and make it my own, progressively deviating from the canon as the campaigns go on. Purity has very little meaning to me, nor does innovation (especially when it's less innovation and more change for the sake of change).

 

[gamerprinter]

It depends...

It depends really. When I went from 2e to 3e, I tried to be a purist for a campaign to get the feel of the new edition, especially in order to see what I deemed "broken" or otherwise ineffective.

After that first campaign, house rules were created, tweaks made and then borrowing from other systems became possible.

When a DM ,right away, while playing a new edition, wants to start house ruling away, I fear, that without knowing the possibilities or impossibilities of a given edition - what we'd house rule might take a balanced game and make it broken. I need to view the core rules in a playable game for a long enough while to really know it, before I am ready to convert it into my own.

Beyond the startup purist, once we know the system, it always gets changed to our style of play.

GP

 

[Greg K]

My DND games are never pure. I use Unearthed Arcana, many third party products, some 2e material and ideas from other games. Heck, there are even some elements of 4e that I really like and have adapted.

The real issue for me with 4e is that, while their are aspects that I really like, I dislike several of the mechanical changes and disagree with some of the design assumptions and implementation of solutions to problems with 3e.

Now to be fair, there were several things that stopped me from running 3e until I discovered Unearthed Arcana and the three Green Ronin Master Class books written by Steve Kenson and I still won't run the game above 10-12th level.

The difference is that, for myself, it takes far less work for me to alter 3e to my liking or just grab either True20 or Mutants and Masterminds's Warriors and Warlocks (which also gives me a system for power creation), than it is for me to alter 4e to something I would like.

 

[Greg K]

I voted for "impurity"- considering how I've tried to use HERO's martial arts system with virtually every version of D&D, how could I not?.

I luv's me Ultimate Martial Artist (While playtesting it I sent a lot of notes and articles on various styles from various books and magazines in my personal library at the time including curriculum handouts from the son of one style's Grandmaster).

I also really love Blood and Fists for d20M.

 

[Umbran]

The question of how "pure" you game is can be interesting. However, I think putting it as "purity vs innovation" is phrasing it inaccurately. Having an impurity does not imply you are being innovative.

Innovation implies that you're doing something new and different. Most of the impurities you'll see in games are not innovations, they are reapplications of known materials and concepts, in ways that have been done before.

My games are rarely pure, but I'd not go so far as to lay claim to being innovative.

 

[Jack7]

The question of how "pure" you game is can be interesting. However, I think putting it as "purity vs innovation" is phrasing it inaccurately. Having an impurity does not imply you are being innovative.

I'll agree with that to an extent. But I had to sorta call it something to imply my point. Some of the things I've done are recyclings in different ways, some I invented on my own.

Can I get a tl;dr version?

Writing is what I do for a living. Or, to be more accurate, it's one of the things I do for a living.

A piece like this may take half an hour to write, if that long, then another twenty minutes or so to edit, if that long, usually at a later time.

Something like this is entertaining and fun for me to write. It's an enjoyable diversion from my usual work load.

Nevertheless, I know that in the modern world, especially on the internet, attention spans are short and people are anxious to move on to the next big thing as soon as possible. Someone suggested (I can't recall who, sorry about that, a lady I think) I put up a synopsis or briefing for my longer pieces so people can skim along to the point and get to the next thing, and so I did. Trying to make it habit.

But it doesn't bother me to write things like this. I do it for leisure and distraction.
So I'm sure I'll do more of it.

Well, I gotta Cyberwarfare class and exercise this evening, and I gotta get my kid to a fundraiser.
Sorry, all I got time to reply to now. Gotta bug.
Carry on folks...enjoy yourselves.

See ya.