Edition wars...a GOOD thing? or if not, an APPROPRIATE thing?

[Hussar]

If it has, if the aggregate 3.X market is a continued real force in the overall RPG market, WotC will not simply ignore that. Just like past revisionists of D&D at least examined their strongest competition when doing their design work, so, too will the designers of 5Ed consider what other near competitors (or, in econ-speak, substitutes) exist in the market and why they exist as competitive threats at all

All fair enough. But, one has any idea if its true. Proceeding as if its true doesn't actually accomplish anything. If it's true, then you are exactly right, however, after this long, I'm pretty sure they have realized what they should do in 5e.

If it's not true though, all you are doing is whistling in the wind. Endlessly repeating the same message over and over again to an audience that already agrees with you.

And the whole problem is, none of us have any real idea of how true it is. It could be that 3e and Pathfinder are serious competition for 4e. It could also be true that 3e and Pathfinder are a blip on the radar or even lower. No one knows.

Doesn't stop people from making claims though.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

No, that's not a given. Somethings are mutually exclusive. Like a player that really wants a point-buy-based system, and a player that really wants a class system. You can't please both. Maybe you can get them to accept your system, but that's not the same as pleasing them. These players would still "complain", or try to come up with house rules.

What you could try is create two systems. And now you have the guy that really wants everyone to be balanced in combat, and the guy that wants clear non-combat types of characters. Oops, now you need 4 systems... And of course, once you have the two or four or bazillion systems to please more people than before, you have to support them all... Because some of the players really want support and don't have time to create adventures. Or really need more character build options. Or both. Or prefered a good campaign setting with flavor-supporting rules. Or hate rules based on flavor, but still want campaign setting material...

Naturally, it is. It just requires some changes to be more inclusive to the tastes of those currently displeased and marketing toward those who are yet unreached.





These are all separate issues and hypotheticals fashioned to prove your point in isolated extreme cases rather than continuing the discussion in the general vein in which is was proffered. I'd imagine we could both come up with additional examples of possible scenarios where the general premise might not work but we'd only need come up with one where it would work for the original statement to be true. You are also lacing a great deal of hyperbole and negativity in your post that seems counter to spirit of finding common ground. EN World seems to be finding some new territory lately where people can discuss their opinions of the various rules and rules sets without the discussions necessarily erupting into the sort of contentious behavior that is counter productive to useful debate. BryonD made a statement that struck a chord for more inclusivity and I agreed that was a worthy and possible goal, again requiring no more than bringing a single person on board to make it true, but your post seems to be against the very idea of bringing more people to the table. I cannot agree with that stance.

Not necessarily. I can point to conflicting priorities in 3E that bear out Mustrum_Ridcully's statement. Here's 3:

1. Class system vs. Point Buy--3E tried to do both, with a system based on classes which through multiclassing ended up in addition being a point buy system where you spent the levels you gained on a varied choice of classes to get the abilities you wanted. Now, the two didn't really work well together, as the Point Buy aspect of multiclassing weakened class archetypes while the class structure of the game made the results of multiclassing far more wonky than what you would see in a real point buy. As a person who likes a strong class based system(fan of archetypal fantasy) with little love for point buy RPGs, I found the hybrid character building system of 3E very unsatisfactory.

2. Cinematic vs. "Realistic"--Especially as the game progressed into the supplements, 3E tried to do both of these at the same time, and they are clearly contradictory.

3. Tolkien vs. Kewl Powers--Again, the supplements were more at fault with this than the core rules, but when you look at things like the Ranger, Rogue and Fighter which are mostly grounded in real world physics, PHB races, and the spellcasting core classes which start out weak as kittens before evolving into gods(whose powers have a long history in D&D), and then look at what 3E involved into, with permanently flying Warlocks who shot laser beams all day long, Psychic Warrior and Book of 9 Swords giving us physical characters who do comic book/anime type things, and ever more exotic races and templates leaving the Tolkien racial pantheon in the dust.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It doesn't matter how loud restaurant goers yell, they aren't likely to get their local vegetarian restaurant to start carrying steak, or a McDonald's restaurant to replace Big Macs with Veggie Burgers.

Point of fact: McDonalds in India do serve veggie burgers. McDonalds is an industry leader in adjusting its menus to fit local dietary considerations and preferences.

Customer demands are why there are things like the McFish, McRib and McLobster.

All fair enough. But, one has any idea if its true. Proceeding as if its true doesn't actually accomplish anything.

Proceeding as if it is not true concedes the battle.

If it's true, then you are exactly right, however, after this long, I'm pretty sure they have realized what they should do in 5e.

I doubt that- like I said- when the actually start the 5Ed design process is when they'll take the first serious look at the market (assuming 4Ed sales don't start to drop precipitously, thus fueling demands from higher-ups in Hasbro to "do something").

At any rate, when that time comes, that will be the acid test for the 3.X/4Ex dichotomy. For all we know, by the time that rolls around, Monte Cook could have designed an entirely new system that simply rocks so much its chewing up market share from both games, making its design the one that must be addressed.

And the whole problem is, none of us have any real idea of how true it is. It could be that 3e and Pathfinder are serious competition for 4e. It could also be true that 3e and Pathfinder are a blip on the radar or even lower. No one knows.

Only time will tell. Even if the 3.X games are a serious challenge now, that doesn't mean they will be when 5Ed is in development.

But as stated before, there is no reason for those of us who prefer 3.X RPGs to 4Ed concede the future.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Proceeding as if it is not true concedes the battle.

Only time will tell. Even if the 3.X games are a serious challenge now, that doesn't mean they will be when 5Ed is in development.

But as stated before, there is no reason for those of us who prefer 3.X RPGs to 4Ed concede the future.

I'm sorry, but I have to say that this is the edition war right here in a nutshell.

Does it accomplish something to fight against the tyranny of 4E, or could embracing 3E/PF/OGL in its current state and letting the chips fall where they may be the right thing to do? If 4E runs 6-8 years, 3E slowly fades into the past with a few diehards(or settles into a stable, modestly sized indie group), and 5E is released as the next step in the direction 4E laid out, moving even farther away from the game's history, what has all the bitterness acomplished?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

The way to "win" an Edition War isn't to crap all over the other person's game on the internet. The way to win is to build a community playing the game you prefer that takes the mantle of what D&D has meant to the hobby. If that community can't be built, or isn't built fast enough for some people's taste, then people fall back on hate and bitterness.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm sorry, but I have to say that this is the edition war right here in a nutshell.

Does it accomplish something to fight against the tyranny of 4E, or could embracing 3E/PF/OGL in its current state and letting the chips fall where they may be the right thing to do? If 4E runs 6-8 years, 3E slowly fades into the past with a few diehards, and 5E is released as the next step in the direction 4E laid out, what as all the bitterness acomplished?

I'm a vocal supporter of 3.5 and games like Midnight, SpyCraft/FantasyCraft, True20, Pathfinder, AU/AE, M&M/W&W, and I back that up with my $$$.

But I'm not bitter, and I'm not really an Edition Warrior- I can honestly say that I've never insulted anyone over their love of the game.

Put my statement back in its context. Hussar thinks we should quit being vocal supporters. I disagreed.

Unless and until there is proof in the marketplace that 3.X is not viable, the logical thing to do is be a vocal supporter- otherwise, 3.X's failure becomes a self-fufilling prophesy.

Remember, 3.5 was, at the time of its replacement, the dominant game in the market. The existence of the Edition Wars- unfortunately marred by extreme comments on both sides- shows that there was significant dissatisfaction with that.

Whether its major enough to affect WotC remains to be seen. We won't know until we see the form 5Ed starts to take shape.

 

[Hussar]

Proceeding as if it is not true concedes the battle.

What battle though? There's only a battle if you presume that there are two roughly even sides. If there isn't, then you're wasting a bunch of your own time whistling in the wind and annoying the crap out of others all the while.

OTOH, if it IS true, then you don't need to bring it up because the Powers What Is already know that it's true and will have to react to it. As you say, if someone pulls a White Wolf in the early 90's and yoinks a large chunk of the market from D&D, then you can bet that the next iteration of D&D will make some pretty strong changes, even if those changes aren't so much mechanical as simply business model changes - like say going to an online subscription model.

Either way, there is no battle to concede at all.

 

[N0Man]

Point of fact: McDonalds in India do serve veggie burgers. McDonalds is an industry leader in adjusting its menus to fit local dietary considerations and preferences.

Customer demands are why there are things like the McFish, McRib and McLobster.

Whether McDonalds sells veggie burgers in a country that mostly does not eat eat beef is an absurd counter argument, and completely and blatantly ignores the idea of my statement. Burger King sells a Veggie Burger in the US, and we're not even a majority vegetarian, of course McDonalds is going to sell a veggie burger in a non-beef eating country.

However, that has absolutely nothing to do with the point. Let me restate the examples that I gave and how they fit into what I said previously.

1) A vocal minority that would not convince McDonalds to stop selling their BigMac that a majority wanted and start selling Veggie Burgers because the minority thought it was a wrong. It's part of their identity (in the US) and the majority like it. Additionally, they'd likely realize that those that most want to stop it aren't aren't going to be regular customers anyway, even if they did cave.

2) A vocal minority would not convince a vegetarian restaurant to start selling steak. It's not only part of their identity to be vegetarian, it's part of their business model, and even their core philosophies, and they would be catering to a group that really aren't that interested in their style of restaurant in the first place.

So when a bunch of people constantly bash WotC, claim they feel insulted, betrayed, say they will never buy another WotC product again, insult the designers and their game design philosophies, and either demand they go back to the way things were or constantly complain about the way things are, those criticisms frankly don't carry a lot of weight. They are from a group that have alienated themselves from the company (not the other way around), have bias against them, and likely still aren't going to buy from them. Why should WotC listen to folks with such venom and chips on their shoulders that have turned their back on the company anyway?

Should they change horses midstream to coddle a vocal and hostile minority when they've gained success and acceptance from a fairly wide audience (which might be lost if they turn around and go back)?

Also, comparing customers asking for McRibs and such is very different. This is a company meeting a request for a product that doesn't require them dumping or changing their core product, changing their business model, or changing their core philosophies. This is more like asking WotC to bring back Betrayal at House on the Hill into publication again (which they have), as opposed to asking McDonalds to drop the clown as a mascot because they are creepy or asking to dump their popular flagship product Big Mac.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Put my statement back in its context. Hussar thinks we should quit being vocal supporters. I disagreed.
/snip

Not quite what I meant. Look at my sig and you'll see that I have no problems with people cheerleading the game they like. I LOVE it when people tell me how excellent the game they are playing is, even if its a game I don't care for.

And, if that's as far as it ever went, I'd be a happy camper.

But, unfortunately, it almost never stops there. Suddenly someone can't tell me how great Game X is without telling me how Game Y is not.

I guess for me, wide eyed happy cheerleader fanboys are a lot more positive than people piddling on other games. Don't tell me what 4e needs when you don't like 4e, tell me how 3e scratches your itch.

Which doesn't mean never criticise, that's a different kettle of fish. The "How to Improve WOTC's Modules" thread is full of people who love 4e but would like to see the modules improved and have lots of ideas on how that can be done. I have no problems listening to people who like a system talk about how a system can be better, because, for the most part, they aren't complaining. They're engaged in a positive feedback loop which gets results, not simply going around and around in circles in a negative feedback loop that only pisses people off.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I'm a vocal supporter of 3.5 and games like Midnight, SpyCraft/FantasyCraft, True20, Pathfinder, AU/AE, M&M/W&W, and I back that up with my $$$.

But I'm not bitter, and I'm not really an Edition Warrior- I can honestly say that I've never insulted anyone over their love of the game.

Put my statement back in its context. Hussar thinks we should quit being vocal supporters. I disagreed.

Unless and until there is proof in the marketplace that 3.X is not viable, the logical thing to do is be a vocal supporter- otherwise, 3.X's failure becomes a self-fufilling prophesy.

Remember, 3.5 was, at the time of its replacement, the dominant game in the market. The existence of the Edition Wars- unfortunately marred by extreme comments on both sides- shows that there was significant dissatisfaction with that.

Whether its major enough to affect WotC remains to be seen. We won't know until we see the form 5Ed starts to take shape.

The thing is, the future of 3E/4E/5E isn't going to be decided by people arguing with each other on message boards. They are going to be decided by demographics, and D&D's owners reading of those demographics. Color me wrong, but I don't think all the "arguments" between people on the internet have much effect on the demographics of the RPG community. If I am right that we are all mostly just spewing hot air this will be decided by people playing and buying games and not by people talking about them, nothing good can come from any of this. Nothing aside from the perverse satisfaction we might derive from arguing with people on the internet.

You talk about conceding the battle or argument. There is no battle or argument, or at the very least, the real battle has nothing to do with what we do here.