[forked thread] What constitutes an edition war?

[Elf Witch]

I think it becomes an edition war when people start making personal attacks.

Or they take any criticism of their preferred system as a personal attack.

 

[AeroDm]

A prodrome to an edition war is when somebody starts a thread that says:

"I'm not trying to start an edition war, but . . ."

That and when people start pulling out falsity arguments that they haven't been able to use since college Psych.

"My brother once told me, nothing a man says before the word but, really counts."

 

[billd91]

Or they take any criticism of their preferred system as a personal attack.

I would add a caveat "... and then post based on that."

It's OK to take criticism of something you like as a personal attack and not do anything about it because you recognize that the offense you've taken is largely under your own control. It's not OK to flame back about it.

 

[Votan]

Don't kid yourself in thinking it is just D&D (not that you are I'm just using your post as a springboard to this point). Vampire, Paranoia, Shadowrun... it seems that almost any game that issues a new edition causes some kind a strife among the fans.

I do not know; did this debate happen with Traveller or Call of Cthuluu?

I also remember the BECMI/1st Edition AD&D debate as being a matter of preference rather than something that got personal. So I think that people can have a positive and constructive attitude towards multiple editions.

 

[Vespucci]

Edition Wars are the inevitable result of the tyranny of the RPG Tome. In a digital age there is no need for top-down, arbitrary design.

I vote for the democratisation of RPG design, i.e. a move to co-design.

So, that's a vote for going from Edition War to Edition Revolution? Rally to the Palace of the Silver Princess, comrades!

 

[Crothian]

I do not know; did this debate happen with Traveller or Call of Cthuluu?

I don't play Traveler so I have no idea there but I've seen it from CoC fans. We saw it some here when d20 Call of Cthulhu came out.

 

[Jimlock]

"My brother once told me, nothing a man says before the word but, really counts."

Somebody 's been watching game of thrones....

 

[DoctorNick]

While I understand the desire to have a discussion regarding the relative merits of various versions of Dungeons and Dragons (or whatever), I think there's a very, very thin line between "criticisms levied in edition wars" and "edition war posts".

Here's an example from the thread posted in the OP: I'm genuinely curious what the intent of the poster that compared 4e to WoW was exactly. Is there really any new ground to tread in that area of discussion that hasn't been hashed over a million times before in the last four years (in edition wars, no less)? Seriously, is there really anything interesting or new to discuss there? How about that 4e is for babies and simultaneously too complex? All of these things were implied in that thread very strongly by the images presented.

It seems to me the only possible purpose of the thread is to show the poster's preferred edition in a positive light while implying that the worst of the complaints levied against the non preferred edition are actually true. Only the poster doesn't have to explain anything or back up any arguments because it's only a picture and it's only "my opinion, man!"

Well, guess what? Opinions can be (and often are) wrong and posting this stuff as an image might give you plausible deniability but don't have a hissy fit in a forked thread when people call you out on your shenanigans.

 

[Stormonu]

It's an edition war once the thread lasts beyond ten pages.

 

[Elf Witch]

I have a peeve about people who take things so personally that you can't have a discussion with them.

When 4E came out my group tried it and found that there were things that we didn't like. So I went on boards looking for ways to tweak 4E to make it more playable for our group.

I gave up because of the outright hostility I encountered from people who just love 4E and can't see why anyone else would have issues with it.

In the end mainly from that attitude I basically said screw 4E I will stick to 3E or Pathfinder.

It seems to me that the main cause of edition wars is people going into with the attitude that they have a sacred duty to defend their edition.