Dragon Con: A Sight of the Schism in action

[TheAuldGrump]

It's one thing to do say stuff like that on a messageboard, you see the topics right there and discussion is normal. But to go up to someone and tell them the game they're running is horrible, to actively seek that out is so amazingly rude I can't even fathom it.

Anything that I am willing to say on a message board I am willing to say in public.

Then again, I try not to be overly rude on message boards, so it amounts to the same thing: being rude is rude, no matter where you are being rude.

The Auld Grump, rudely speaking....

 

[Banshee16]

I believe the schism exists. It exists online, and it exists in real life. But it barely registers on the radar of your average tabletop gamer. For instance, I'd put money on most D&D players not even knowing what Pathfinder is. The edition wars are being carried out in the fringes of what is already itself a fringe.

Even calling it a schism might be overdoing it. A moderate crack, perhaps.

Maybe it varies by region. I can't say that everyone around me knows what it is......but I can say most gamers I know do know Pathfinder, and when I talk to the local shopkeepers, they express that they have their 4E gamers, and then they have their Pathfinder gamers. They've definitely experienced a schism. The Pafhfinder stuff is apparently selling pretty well.

But, as others have pointed out, many of the gamers, even those who've picked a side, are probably more busy playing (something), rather than complaining.

Banshee

 

[Jack99]

I believe the schism exists. It exists online, and it exists in real life. But it barely registers on the radar of your average tabletop gamer. For instance, I'd put money on most D&D players not even knowing what Pathfinder is. The edition wars are being carried out in the fringes of what is already itself a fringe.

Even calling it a schism might be overdoing it. A moderate crack, perhaps.

This can't be repeated enough.

Most D&D players I know haven't been to a gaming store since the early 90's, they never visit a D&D website and they don't know Paizo and certainly not Pathfinder.

But yet, they play D&D once a week, just like they have for 20 years.

 

[FireLance]

I believe the schism exists. It exists online, and it exists in real life. But it barely registers on the radar of your average tabletop gamer. For instance, I'd put money on most D&D players not even knowing what Pathfinder is. The edition wars are being carried out in the fringes of what is already itself a fringe.

Even calling it a schism might be overdoing it. A moderate crack, perhaps.

The D&D schism is like our sun going nova. It makes very little difference to the galaxy as a whole, but it's a real pain if you happen to be affected.

 

[BryonD]

This can't be repeated enough.

That's true.
No matter how many times you repeat it, it won't change the schism.

Funny, you praise DDI for evidence of 10,000 subscribers (and I agree, praiseworthy), yet 50,000 unique downloads gets dismissed as something not even heard of by most gamers.

And the far more significant fraction of gamers who have heard of PF than you give credit for really isn't even relevant. Knowing that PF exists is not a requirement for thinking that 4E is an inferior edition.

 

[Imban]

There are a lot more D&D players than go to conventions or post on the internet about it - I know this because I have 10 players in my 3e D&D game and a whopping one of them posts on gaming boards.

That doesn't mean that they all like 4e, though - the neutral majority tends to have an opinion, and I know in my group two don't like it very much (i.e. they've expressed to me that they would much rather play 3e than 4e, given the choice), two hate it like fire (i.e. they've expressed to me that 4e is, er, poopy and the designers are poopyheads), and the remainder are apathetic or never played 4e. Uh, or are the guy who wandered into the chatroom one day and said he was signing up for my game who none of us really know. He's cool, but I dunno if he likes 4e or not.

So in conclusion, there's not that much reason to think that the people who Jack99 described:

Most D&D players I know haven't been to a gaming store since the early 90's, they never visit a D&D website and they don't know Paizo and certainly not Pathfinder.

But yet, they play D&D once a week, just like they have for 20 years.

play 4e as opposed to whatever edition they've been playing for 20 years.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Anything that I am willing to say on a message board I am willing to say in public.

Then again, I try not to be overly rude on message boards, so it amounts to the same thing: being rude is rude, no matter where you are being rude.

The Auld Grump, rudely speaking....

Same here. It is sad that so many people cannot simply disagree without hate.

 

[billd91]

Mark,

I might be mistaken here, but I actually believe that convention goers, message board posters, and even game store customers aren't representative of the entire D&D community for a simple reason - most people who play D&D don't go to conventions, spend a good deal of time discussing D&D on the interwebs, or even go to game stores. Those are fringe activities of the hardcore.

I disagree that any of this is the fringe activity of the hardcore. From what I see of gamers, these are all pretty normal activities of the moderate to hard core gamer\fanboy. So while they may not be respresentative of all gamers, since a lot of gamers are pretty casual, they're not unrepresentative of the core of the hobby, particularly going to some kind of convention, perhaps not annually but every few years or so.

 

[Phaezen]

Anything that I am willing to say on a message board I am willing to say in public.

Then again, I try not to be overly rude on message boards, so it amounts to the same thing: being rude is rude, no matter where you are being rude.

The Auld Grump, rudely speaking....

This.

Which is why I have taken to putting my name into my sig here and other place. If I say something it comes from me, I am not going to hide behind some annonymous forum name.

 

[Rechan]

Anything that I am willing to say on a message board I am willing to say in public.

Then again, I try not to be overly rude on message boards, so it amounts to the same thing: being rude is rude, no matter where you are being rude.

For me, it's not just about rudeness in and of itself.

I generally try to avoid negativity for the sake of being negative. Just because I have an opinion does not mean that I should share it. Badmouthing another edition accomplishes nothing but offending other people. This is why I avoid threads that I know are going to be negative in the first place.