[forked thread] What constitutes an edition war?

[Imaro]

I'm not suggesting other designs, even other editions of D&D in the future could not serve those goals better- but the previous editions of D&D certainly do not do so, that's just one of the rationalisations people make for hating 4e.

There are any number of games that take a fair crack at putting roleplaying and story concetps into a space with more mechanics support. I don't agree that they all work, but they at least have a valid argument to make in favour of them trying.

The previous editions of D&D did nothing of the sort, and 4e is certainly better than them in that respect, due to the quality of it's DM advice about story, campaign, play styles, ect.

You know, after going back and re-reading the 3.5 DMG 1 & 2 along with the PHB 1 & 2 and Unearthed Arcana for 3.5... I'm going to call bull on this... There's tons of advice on roleplaying, story concepts, structuring campaigns, DM'ing styles, player traits, backgrounds, etc. In fact I'd even argue that 3.5 also (whether you like the implementation or not) provided more rules suppport for implementing alot of this stuff in your game. So no, I don't think 4e was a better edition at touching on this than 3.5 was... the only thing I might give 4e is that it was touched on in more depth earlier in the edition lifecycle... and even then I'm not so sure it's as in depth as what we got out of those five books above for 3.5.

 

[catastrophic]

I must say i'm shocked by this turn of events. You're saying there's a part of fourth edition or, indeed, any part, which you consider inferior to pervious editions? How long did it take for you to come to that determination?

It does not suprise me to see people reject this argument.
But the DMG's for 4e have been fantastic and blow the advice in the previous game's books out of the water. It's not just about depth of breadth, but quality. The quality of the advice is better, and makes for better play.

It's discussion of play types comes straight from the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject. It touches on issues like shared narrative, which have only been managed in a remidial fashion in the past. Those are just two examples.

I say this as somebody who considers the campaign sourcebook and catacomb guide one of my favorite books from the old days, but each edition has been better than the one before it in this respect, and 4e is miles ahead of it's predecessors.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I must say i'm shocked by this turn of events. You're saying there's a part of fourth edition or, indeed, any part, which you consider inferior to pervious editions? How long did it take for you to come to that determination?

It does not suprise me to see people reject this argument.
But the DMG's for 4e have been fantastic and blow the advice in the previous game's books out of the water. It's not just about depth of breadth, but quality. The quality of the advice is better, and makes for better play.

It's discussion of play types comes straight from the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject. It touches on issues like shared narrative, which have only been managed in a remidial fashion in the past. Those are just two examples.

I say this as somebody who considers the campaign sourcebook and catacomb guide one of my favorite books from the old days, but each edition has been better than the one before it in this respect, and 4e is miles ahead of it's predecessors.

This is all subjectively true.

To someone such as myself, who despises narrative play styles in a long term game, advocating such things is much, much worse (again, subjectively). I think 4e is much more narrative than 3.X is (I'm pretty hazy on anything earlier, so I won't comment), while also being much more obviously gamist. I prefer both of these be muted (especially the narrative portion of the game) much more so than 4e has revealed itself to be (to me). To me, these aspects make the game much worse than 3.X was (again, hazy on earlier editions).

And my statements are also subjectively true.

At any rate, I think if everyone used a lot more "in my opinion" and "YMMV" in their posts, we'd see edition warring drop significantly. Disagreements, sure, but a lot less "I need to correct that guy, because he doesn't speak for me!" going on in these threads.

Anyways, play what you like

 

[Imaro]

I must say i'm shocked by this turn of events. You're saying there's a part of fourth edition or, indeed, any part, which you consider inferior to pervious editions? How long did it take for you to come to that determination?

Honestly? Quite a bit of money (I wish I hadn't spent on books and DDI)... and quite a bit of play time (I wish I could get back) over the past year.

It does not suprise me to see people reject this argument.
But the DMG's for 4e have been fantastic and blow the advice in the previous game's books out of the water. It's not just about depth of breadth, but quality. The quality of the advice is better, and makes for better play.

Please enlighten us... since it's an argument could you give some concrete examples where 4e gives objectively better advice on roleplaying and such... Here's a question for you... have you even read the advice in the 3.5 books I listed?

It's discussion of play types comes straight from the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject. It touches on issues like shared narrative, which have only been managed in a remidial fashion in the past. Those are just two examples.

Just two examples of what... subjective opinion is... subjective opinion.

I say this as somebody who considers the campaign sourcebook and catacomb guide one of my favorite books from the old days, but each edition has been better than the one before it in this respect, and 4e is miles ahead of it's predecessors.

Again please give some concrete "objective" examples and perhaps your arguments would hold more weight... right now it just sonds like... "I like the way 4e said it better..." Which honestly has already shifted goalposts of your earlier claim that no editions "did nothing of the sort" ... which I've already proven is false.

 

[pawsplay]

Admittedly, I don't have a lot of breadth in my reading, but from what exposure I've had to 4e GMing advice, it seems to range from obvious to bad.

 

[Lanefan]

Admittedly, I don't have a lot of breadth in my reading, but from what exposure I've had to 4e GMing advice, it seems to range from obvious to bad.

In fairness, some of what I've seen there does seem to vaguely get the point across; but that's about it.

Still gets beaten sideways by the 1e DMG: required reading for all DMs of any edition.

Lan-"assigning homework, giving out required reading - next thing I know I'll be a teacher"-efan

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Admittedly, I don't have a lot of breadth in my reading, but from what exposure I've had to 4e GMing advice, it seems to range from obvious to bad.

Actually, a lot of fresh young DM's need the 'obvious' advice. That part don't bother me.

The Auld Grump

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Honestly? Quite a bit of money (I wish I hadn't spent on books and DDI)... and quite a bit of play time (I wish I could get back) over the past year.



Please enlighten us... since it's an argument could you give some concrete examples where 4e gives objectively better advice on roleplaying and such... Here's a question for you... have you even read the advice in the 3.5 books I listed?



Just two examples of what... subjective opinion is... subjective opinion.



Again please give some concrete "objective" examples and perhaps your arguments would hold more weight... right now it just sonds like... "I like the way 4e said it better..." Which honestly has already shifted goalposts of your earlier claim that no editions "did nothing of the sort" ... which I've already proven is false.

Well, catastrophic is doing a good job of defining an edition war with an in thread example at any rate. More politely than many I will grant, but not accepting that not everyone agrees with him. Heck, not everyone agrees with me, and I am always right!

The Auld Grump, hmm... the term '4e - the Catastrophic Edition' does have a certain ironic validity....

*EDIT* This last was intended purely for humorous effect - a chance alignment of my opinion with the screen name of a poster. I don't currently think that 4e is 'catastrophic', I do know that it is a game that I do not want to play or run. The existence of Pathfinder has mellowed me a good deal.

 

[pawsplay]

Actually, a lot of fresh young DM's need the 'obvious' advice. That part don't bother me.

The Auld Grump

It doesn't bother me. I've just never seen any DMing advice out of 4e that made me say, "Oh, hell yeah, that's how you do it."

 

[catastrophic]

This is all subjectively true.

To someone such as myself, who despises narrative play styles in a long term game, advocating such things is much, much worse (again, subjectively). I think 4e is much more narrative than 3.X is (I'm pretty hazy on anything earlier, so I won't comment), while also being much more obviously gamist. I prefer both of these be muted (especially the narrative portion of the game) much more so than 4e has revealed itself to be (to me). To me, these aspects make the game much worse than 3.X was (again, hazy on earlier editions).

And my statements are also subjectively true.

You completly missed the point of the conversation. We were talking about wether or not a given edition provided better support for the playstyle you don't like. You don't like that playstyle? Fine, that has nothing to do with what we're discussing.

Also as noted earlier, it's easy to act like everything is just a matter of opinion- but that doesn't lead to good game design. Sooner or later if you want good games, and you want games to be better, you have to get down to brass tacks instead of indulging in easy platitudes.

Just two examples of what... subjective opinion is... subjective opinion.

Just because people refuse to accept any proof of an argument contrary to their own, doesn't mean none exists- it also doesn't mean somebody should go through the time and effort of providing such proof when it's so clear that you aren't interested in that kind of discussion. You want to act like everything is subjective? You go right ahead. That doesn't mean other people have to think about things the same way.

And you can pretend this applies to me as much as you like, but i'm not the one who sits on this forum day after day beating the edition war drums. And yes I know- you guys also insist that it's the mean old 4e fans who keep the wars going, but that's just another side of the argument.