What's really at stake in the Edition Wars

[Desdichado]

In this talk, I describe the game and examples of its changes to argue that the reason discussions between fans/players become so heated about edition changes is not due to quibbles about rules; rather they are tied to issues regarding creative control, the means of production over a shared narrative, and how sense is made in both the game and real worlds.

I disagree with this premise. Most of the edition wars I looked at very much were about specifics of the rules.

I think that your premise proposes a false dichotomy anyway... those things that you say it's about instead of rules? Those are all products of the rules.

Perhaps it's a chicken/egg scenario: does creative control come first and players demand rules that give them the creative experience to which they're accustomed? Or do the rules come first, and people react badly to rules that they don't like? I certainly saw plenty of each.

I think it comes down to simply human dislike of change, personally.

4e has not in any way cut into my enjoyment of the game, because it hasn't made it impossible for me to play the edition I like, or to find others who like the same edition that I do.

I'd be careful with that argument though. That may be true for you, but certainly for people who are on the lookout for groups, it can be materially more difficult to find players of out of print games, or even simply "obsolete" games.

And anyone who claims ownership of the game enough to claim that their preferred version is the right one, or anything that seeks to dismantle that inclusive spirit--well, that gets my goat.

Because the game doesn't belong to any one. Its all of ours.

"The game" isn't yours, mine, or all of ours. My game belongs to me and my group. Your game belongs to you and your group. The game doesn't belong to anyone.

I don't put a lot of trust in discussions of the "D&D community" and its relationship with the game, because fundamentally the only unit that has a significant interaction with "the game" is "the group". And on that level, each group's interaction with the game can be intensely personal, and their iteration of the game could very well be significantly "proprietary", depending on how they play it and what modifications they've made to it.

EDIT: That said, those individuals seem to have the least to lose in an edition change. If they've got a version of the game that they really like, and a group that they're already playing with, then I'm not sure why it should matter so much to them what the rest of the world is doing, and if editions come and go. Certainly that's what happened with our group; we glanced at 4e, weren't really all that interested in it (from a purely rules perspective) and said, "who cares, let's keep playing what we're already playing?" and that's exactly what we've done. Then again, I've more played the part of "bemused spectactor" rather than "edition warrior."

I think the only way you can find out what edition warriors really are thinking is to talk specifically to edition warriors, not merely observers of edition wars. Several edition warriors I've seen are, for example, RPGA players, or otherwise play with on-the-fly groups in gaming stores, rather than with more firmly established groups of pre-existing friends. So, to them, what goes on in the greater gaming environment is important, whereas to me, it's just something about which I'm academically curious.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

I disagree with this premise. Most of the edition wars I looked at very much were about specifics of the rules.

I think that your premise proposes a false dichotomy anyway... those things that you say it's about instead of rules? Those are all products of the rules.

Perhaps it's a chicken/egg scenario: does creative control come first and players demand rules that give them the creative experience to which they're accustomed? Or do the rules come first, and people react badly to rules that they don't like? I certainly saw plenty of each. [/END QUOTE]

D'oh! I think I didn't come across very clearly there. I think it's very much about the rules; just not "quibbling". What I mean here isn't that it simply a matter, for example, of "I don't like cycling initiative," but rather "cycling initiative implies a parity of action economy that I don't think is mirrored in the real world" or something like that (I know it's a crumby example, but I'm trying to knock this out before I leave my office).

That said, thanks for your insights!

Curses, no checking the thread until tomorrow morning. See you all then.

 

[TerraDave]

Hmm.

There is a real edition war: WotC trying to get people to buy the current edition, and then various sources of resistance to that, for a range of reasons.

Then there is the "I like it...don't like it" war. These are linked, and the second should not be totally dismissed for the first.

Something is different this time: there does seems to be a real split in the community. To speculate, it may be the combination of starker changes, less time since the last round (3.5), and the OGL given more in-print alternatives. And of course the ubiquity of the internet itself.

 

[Umbran]

However, I think that enough of that talk (not its most egregious instances, to be sure) helps to create the conditions for change, even if it isn't necessarily going to affect the official iterations of the game (I'm thinking of the OSR, for example).

Before you make such an assertion, check your timelines.

The "Old School Reference and Index Compilation" (OSRIC) was first released in 2006. I don't know the detail, but the development of it must have begun well before the release. Meanwhile, 4th Edition D&D was announced in August 2007 - thus, OSRIC was in motion well before the Edition Wars. It is hard to see how the motivations behind creating it and it's overall form would depend on heated discussions that would not happen for a year or two after its release.

If you were going to make such an argument, you need to instead point at things that came out after the release of 4e, such that their creation could have been informed by the Edition Wars. So, you might argue that the Edition Warriors were working to influence the creation of something like Pathfinder.

P.S. Umbran, can I PM you to see about getting a gander at some of the more egregious instances to use as examples? If not, I understand. Thanks!

You can always PM the moderators to discuss things.

 

[TerraDave]

Looking at some of the above, one key point is that we are still talking about editions of the same game, and those editions still have more in common with each other (levels, classes, races, fight monsters for stuff, general "gamist" approach...) then D&D does with many other RPGs.

But there is an old saying about small stakes and big fights...

 

[Desdichado]

And of course the ubiquity of the internet itself.

Actually, I think that can't be overstated as a factor.

But to understand edition wars, I think you've somehow got to build the profile of a "typical" edition warrior, and I don't know if you can get that from observation of edition wars.

Edition warriors certainly feel that something's at stake, unless they're just people arguing because they like to argue (which, perhaps, can't be underestimated as motivation either, for that matter.) I, for example, didn't really have anything at stake. But lets envision another scenario: my group is really enthused about 4e and wants to migrate over to it. I don't want to. Could be that I don't like the rules. Could be simply that I don't want to spend the money all over again when I don't feel like I've sufficiently "amortized" the cost of 3.5 yet. It could be that I feel personally snubbed by Mike Mearls and don't want to support "his" edition. Could be any reason, really. But the bottom line is, I don't really have a horse in the race unless, for some reason, I feel like it's going to be more difficult for me to find the game I want to play in the future, or that I'm going to forced to choose the lesser of two evils: 1) break up with a group that I otherwise like playing with, or 2) play a game that I don't like as much as what we're already playing.

 

[knifie_sp00nie]

Ahh, college. The privilege to navel-gaze and over complicate things for just thousands of dollars a year. How long have you been on this here internet thing?

Your error is looking at the edition war as an isolated thing. It's one of countless "Tastes great! Less filling!" wars that happen every second of every day online, and previously in bars or the Water Buffalo's Lodge.

The DnD edition war is no different than any of these other great wars:

Mac vs. PC
Coke vs. Pepsi
Nikon vs. Canon
Edward vs. Jacob
my religion vs. your religion
Ford vs. Chevy
John Deere vs. Bobcat
Nike vs. Reebok
Democrat vs. Republican
Craftsman vs. Snap-On
sports team vs. other sports team
Beatles vs. Rolling Stones

Get the point? If the internet was united in love for an edition of DnD there would still be endless arguments about this class vs. that class. In fact those wars exist as well for every edition.

The edition war is an outgrowth of human nature. Humans enjoy arguing about everything and a subset of them enjoy being s about it.

 

[Marius Delphus]

I believe it's personal pride, mainly. The following four things in particular spring to mind. Please note the following is based only on my own thinking and opinion, and isn't meant to describe anyone in particular.

Pride in Belonging
This is the warm feeling one tends to get when one is a part of something "greater" than oneself. A new edition can fracture this feeling in a person who's uncertain where the "greatness" will lie: with the stalwart old or with the shiny new. Because, as humans, we tend to hate to feel like outcasts, we sometimes respond by reflexively trying to cast out those who don't agree with us.

Pride in Correctness
This is how I would generalize one's desire to be adjudged "Right" and "Correct" when stating one's opinion. People that like it when other people agree with them tend to seek that agreement, even when stating their opinions (with the aim being to validate the opinion as being the "Right" or "Correct" one). While we as humans often respond better to emotion than to logic, we also like having the certainty that comes with logic, so some people will seek to "prove" that what they feel is "right" is also "true."

Pride in Exclusivity
On the flip side, there are people who enjoy feeling that they're part of a small and very exclusive club. I would characterize the main difference here as being the size of the "in crowd." If (whatever is perceived as) the majority opinion can be proven "wrong," then the contrasting opinions of (what is perceived as) the small minority become "right" by default. People striving for exclusivity sometimes go so far as to adopt a "noble crusader" attitude.

Pride in Authority
More than simply being right, some people desire to teach. Teaching by showing others the error of their ways is not exactly a form of teaching I'd recommend, but it can still result in people suddenly coming around to the "correct" mode of thinking. This change of heart in others is sometimes sought by people with strongly held opinions, even when the subject matter is inextricably tied up in opinion.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

So, the question then becomes - why would a person get into a heated argument with (and lash out at) people who have no real influence on how the world around them is changing? Answer that, and you'll know the real reason for the Edition Wars.

I think Umbran is wise.

My participation in Edition Wars threads has been fairly muted. To the extent that I've participated, there are two reasons, one secondary and one primary.

The secondary reason is that I'm a bright guy, with going on three decades of gaming experience, and I think my opinion is worth putting out there.

The primary reason, though, is gonna sound odd: it's grief. I mourned the game that I feel left me behind, and I was angry and sad that I was left behind. I expressed that anger and sadness in poorly chosen ways. Honestly, I count myself lucky that I recognized what I was feeling so early in the time-line, because knowing what was going on really helped me quite a bit in toning down any lashing out.

 

[Desdichado]

Before you make such an assertion, check your timelines.

The "Old School Reference and Index Compilation" (OSRIC) was first released in 2006. I don't know the detail, but the development of it must have begun well before the release. Meanwhile, 4th Edition D&D was announced in August 2007 - thus, OSRIC was in motion well before the Edition Wars. It is hard to see how the motivations behind creating it and it's overall form would depend on heated discussions that would not happen for a year or two after its release.

If you were going to make such an argument, you need to instead point at things that came out after the release of 4e, such that their creation could have been informed by the Edition Wars. So, you might argue that the Edition Warriors were working to influence the creation of something like Pathfinder.

OSRIC was indeed out before 4e was announced, but that's completely different from saying that the OSR movement online had gathered a lot of steam and a high profile. That timing becomes a bit trickier, and it becomes more difficult to separate the announcement of 4e as a possible contributing variable. I heard about OSRIC for at least a year before I heard of the OSR acronym and discovered that there was an online "movement" associated with OSR, including other retroclones, new publications, a fairly active blogosphere, etc.

Although I obviously can't prove it, I suspect strongly that the migration to 4e by WotC greatly spurred the OSR movement like a shot of anabolic steroids. You're right that it can't be a cause of the movement existing at all, but I don't think anyone can claim that it wasn't a contributing factor to the growth of the movement into what it is today; people who were dissatisfied with the direction 4e was taking (according to previews of the edition) were turned off and went looking for something else, finding the OSR and realizing that their tastes really were along those lines all along after all, etc.. The question becomes one of degree, and how much did it contribute, but in my opinion, it's not a question of did it contribute. I think the answer to that is definitely "yes."