The fragmentation of the D&D community... was it inevitable?

[BryonD]

Anyone who thinks you can seamlessly convert older editions to 3e never encountered a multiclass character.

Which is funny because that's all I encountered in 2e.

I agree.

I'm not in the camp that thinks 3E was all that true to older editions. A lot of the sacred cows were certainly still there. But it went its own way. Just looking at 1E -> 4E I see three distinct groups 1E/2E, 3E, and 4E. There are points that can be made for each pair having clear similarities that the other lacks, but all in all, they are distinct.

I'm also not in the camp that thinks devotion to tradition is the key. Certainly there are elements that are tradition precisely because they were very good. But that isn't tradition for traditions sake.

As with a lot of other people, I had moved on from D&D in the 2E era. There were better games out there. 3E brought me in DESPITE the legacy, not in part because of it.

 

[BryonD]

As to the 3E/4E schism, I'm curious as to opinions: did the change in flavor or mechanics cause the major split?

Good question. Because I think a lot of the issue is buried in there.

For me, it is very much mechanics.
I don't really like dragonborn, for example, but I was reskinning good mechanics long before I ever heard of 4E. So having a core race that I don't care for didn't make me blink.
I also have no great devotion to the classic D&D "Vancian" magic. I don't have any problem with it, but I don't require it.

I know there are a lot of people who are much more concerned about these types of things.

It seems they may have constructed a gauntlet of preference changes. Each step lost more players.

Not that it is really that black and white, but the effect is present.

And that certainly isn't to say that you should never make changes. But you have to think them through more.

 

[Momeeche]

I thought the break up happened when 2nd edition came out.

And I'm only partly joking.

 

[billd91]

Anyone who thinks you can seamlessly convert older editions to 3e never encountered a multiclass character.

Which is funny because that's all I encountered in 2e.

I haven't seen so many people say that PCs translated over seamlessly. There are a few structural changes scattered about. That said, beyond multiclassing, 1e/2e does convert over to 3e fairly easily and with published advice from WotC to do so. I've found that adventures generally translate over quite well, particularly in the mid levels. The A series works very well without significantly revising encounters.

 

[Imaro]

Hell hath no fury as a geek scorned.

Any change causes a minor split; there will always be at least a minority who reject a schange and splinter.

As to the 3E/4E schism, I'm curious as to opinions: did the change in flavor or mechanics cause the major split?

3E significantly shifted the mechanics of the game, but the underlying flavor (race roles, and world structure, for example) remained fairly consistent with prior editions. 4E changed both mechanics and underlying flavor assumptions significantly. I wonder which change turned off more of the fan base.

For me personally the flavor changes were more jarring than the mechanics changes, but neither was enough to have me reject the edition -- though I would say I still prefer 3.X due to its greater consistency with the D&D I grew up with.

First, let me say... good points. IMO, it was the combination of both that created such a gigantic rift in those who play 4e and those who play 3.x. I think instead of just loosing those who didn't like the mechanical changes or just those who didn't like the flavor changes... 4e actually managed to loose players in both subsets. I also think this was further complicated by the fact that older edition material in PDF form (which could have been used by those who liked 4e's mechanics but not flavor) was pulled and made unavaialble.

 

[rounser]

For me personally the flavor changes were more jarring than the mechanics changes, but neither was enough to have me reject the edition -- though I would say I still prefer 3.X due to its greater consistency with the D&D I grew up with.

Flavour, for me. I won't wilfully suspend disbelief for an implied setting that specific, quirky and lame for use in my own worlds, or even see get retconned into established D&D worlds. I've mentally quarantined 4E to the same place in my mind as Eberron - not part of the "canon" D&D multiverse as I accept it. It's more like someone's kind of out-there, over-house ruled homebrew incorporating some odd thematic choices which I'd leave confined to their table.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

As to the 3E/4E schism, I'm curious as to opinions: did the change in flavor or mechanics cause the major split?

As Imaro said, I think 4e managed to lose players in both subsets.

For me, it was both, but the biggest single thing was the way the mechanics dictated the flavor. The new interpretations of trip, grab, diagonal movement, square fireballs, etc. made me feel like the game world was entirely a facade. I had absolutely no belief that the world meant anything and no interest in exploring it. Who wants to explore a facade?

 

[Rel]

I wasn't expecting to have this reaction, but this thread has me very excited and pleased.

First because it has been conducted so thoughtfully and respectfully at a time when those things seem to be in short supply. As a member of this community and a moderator of the site, I want to say thanks to all of you for that. I'd like to think that, no matter how fragmented the community is over playstyle difference and opinions on what makes for good games, it's a time for us to sort of regroup by recognizing that we're all lovers of TTRPG's and that's a pretty rare thing.

As for the questions posed by the OP, I'm not sure I have good answers. My personal perspective comes from the fact that I've always been a sort of "serial monogamist" gamer, never all that married to D&D. I played it a lot as a kid, then went a long time without playing it. I got back into it when 3e came out but I ran a lot of other systems since then. It took me a while to try 4e because I was simply busy with other games. I liked 4e and ran a great campaign with it. But now I've kind of moved on to other stuff since and, especially now, I'm not looking to dive back into 4e anytime soon.

I guess I'm trying to say that I was already internally fragmented over my gaming preferences before, during and after the introduction of 4e.

But the thing that has me most excited right now is that I think there are lots and lots of us standing around, not sure what we're going to play and where we're going to put these gaming dollars that are burning a hole in our wallets. And that is going to spur some really cool game design for the next few years. Companies, including hopefully WotC, are going to seek to fill that need and I'm excited to see what they come up with.

Meanwhile I've got TONS of cool games sitting on the shelf waiting to be used until I see what the next big thing is. In fact I'm starting a new Savage Worlds campaign on Monday night and I've rarely been more excited about kicking off a game. I can afford to let the industry sort itself out a bit while I go have fun.

 

[Ulrick]

The D&D community has always been splintered, right from 1974. I doubt Gygax and Arneson saw completely eye-to-eye (but that's neither here nor there). But the rules were open to interpretation. Each referee/DM had, and still has his or her own style of play. Each player has his or her own preferences.

The corebooks for 1e and 2e contained suggestions and encouragement to make the game your own. All the rules were optional.

3.0/3.5e finally made it clear: "This is the 'official' way to play D&D" with the corebooks. And people complained about that.

But, I think 4e caused a greater rift. WotC felt the need to adapt to a changing demographic. This meant focusing on a younger demographic and making an almost completely new game the younger demographic might like.

No. 4e didn't start the fire...

 

[shadzar]

I think it all comes back to not just the killing of D&D sacred cows in 4e, but doing so with literal glee and pride. It was both the content of the changes, and the way in which they were presented that caused an even deeper fracture.

As to the 3E/4E schism, I'm curious as to opinions: did the change in flavor or mechanics cause the major split?

The problem is twofold. Biggest is the problem of rivalry.

The advertising BEFORE 4th edition came out and the "blurbs" on what was in and out and what was "wrongbadfun" about 3rd in the marketing probably caused the most damage. (cont...)

I thought the break up happened when 2nd edition came out.

And I'm only partly joking.

(...cont) Each new edition caused some split, 2nd had more players than 1st because after a while support for 1st ended and people could only get 2nd. While they were mostly interchangeable, getting the rulebooks for 1st became impossible for a while. The internet wasn't that big, but had it been there would be the same arguements today about the two of some points, but overall many people would agree on many things in both additions and disagree with other things in both editions. So they could cohabitate.

Many of the 3rd edition changed caused the system to not be interchangeable, dropped the word "Advanced" from the game, and pretty much showed signs of saying "AD&D sucked so stop playing it". 3rd gained a mountain of players unlike before, and the internet gaining ground there were more places to discuss things. Since 3rd was presented in a, less nice way than 4th; it caused the first major split with the larger number of players ocming in and the internet.

While AD&D may have had separate communities, they were still not fighting as loudly all over the place that the ripples could be seen. The fighting was there on FIDOnet, USENET, Prodigy, AOL, and CompuServe about some things, but not the attempt to say your edition sucks so stop playing it cause of this and that.

4th just came out and said 3rd edition sucked so stop playing it, and that, again since there were more player for it than previous editions, and because the internet was nearly in every home, pretty much did the final damage.

Fluff changes to some settings to retcon them caused people to get upset, mechanics weren't in a fashion to anything like they had been before, and MANY saw the 4th edition to be a game with D&D elements, but wasn't D&D, while it tried to say everything before it was not D&D. Then you also had forums around for years that people had made friendships and homes at and D&D was stabilizing around a game/edition finally when BAM here comes 4th to shake things up, and that it did.

When there is that much force and the load causes that much stress, something is going to break. Well the dam broke, and not to demean the Australian situation right now, but we are all in a flood caused from that damage waiting for it to dry up a bit when the levels go down.