Upset about another edition!

[Consonant Dude]

This whole thing has made me wonder if it's time for a new breakout all-encompassing fantasy system that isn't tied so to the D&D legacy. I understand countries outside of the US - especially those who WotC hasn't bothered translating for - have their own major fantasy RPGs.

Something that is strongly contemporary, designed to evolve, and without reservations and traditions to worry about. Certainly, it's impossible to escape inspiration, but the handlers (and certain fans) of D&D keep saying that some people just don't get to have D&D work the way they want it to... so someone needs to give us something else.

Legend isn't a bad example of this sort of thing, though it has a long way to go.

Well, there is a truckload of fantasy RPGs out there, some slightly inspired by traditional DnD mechanics, some more or less distant cousins and some completely different takes.

 

[Incenjucar]

There are, but they tend to be very narrowly focused and often built into some novel series. Mouseguard or Burning Wheel or Dresden Files.

 

[Dannager]

I really hope WotC announces a 6E a few years down the road just so the 5E fans get a taste of the "lol wotc won't come into your house and steal ur books lololol" train that every old edition gets.

Seriously?

Is it your assertion that we've never experienced an edition change, and thus have no idea what it feels like to buy into a new edition and leave the old one behind?

Because it certainly sounds like that's your assertion. And, if it is, you're flat out wrong.

It's never been funny guys,

It's not supposed to be. It's supposed to drive home how ridiculous it is to complain about someone publishing more books. You are not forced to buy into anything. Your old books work fine. Your game can continue uninterrupted.

and it really sucks when it's pulled out.

Why?

No WotC will not come into your house and take your books. That isn't an issue here. What is really getting people down about WotC is that with every article they produce they are continually ridiculing and socially segregating the 4E fans more and more.

No they aren't.

I'm a 4e fan (a really big 4e fan), and I'm not feeling ridiculed or segregated at all. I was also a 3.5 fan, and similarly I didn't feel ridiculed or segregated when 4e was announced? You know why? Because I don't go looking for new and exciting ways to be insulted.

I've seen precious few 4e fans whining about 5e. I think, if anything, 4e fans tend to be excited about new cool things in the hobby.

For **** sakes we've been compared to the McDonalds eaters of the gaming world and that just ain't cool. They aren't burning any of our books. They are just making it so that current 4E fans will never be able to get a game together because the game that they produced material for four years is suddenly badwrongfun.

To whom, exactly?

To make matters worse this isn't the first time they've done it in order to launch a new edition and it won't be the first time that it has backfired on them.

If it backfires on them, it will be difficult to not place the blame squarely at the feet of the whiners, for actually managing to find something to be enraged and incensed over in their utterly saccharine and kumbaya-like marketing campaign. It's like they're doing everything in their power to avoid offending anyone because of how hideously the community reacted last time. And you're still finding ways to act appalled.

Furthermore it's even less relevant with 4E because eventually WotC WILL be coming to take away the 4E DDI content.

You know this, of course, because of your time travel skills.

So can we please just stow the "LOL WOTC NOT BURNING YOUR BOOKS" comments?

No.

They are condescending and don't accomplish anything but creating edition war hostility

No, what creates edition war hostility is fans of the old edition hunting for new ways to be offended by the new edition coming out, and going nuclear with vitriol. The "they're not burning your books" lines are an effort to get those people to calm down.

and are simply untrue because in a worst case scenario WotC could very well cut us off from a lot of the material that we have paid for.

First, you haven't paid for the material, in the same sense that you might pay for a book. You've purchased access to it on a recurring basis. Second, if you're so concerned about losing it, dump the PDF files to a local disk (or, if you're concerned about losing access to that somehow, a cloud archive). Ta-da! You now have it forever.

Until the WotC ninjas show up and burn Google's cloud servers to the ground.

 

[Dannager]

Remember when WoTC said during the initial 4E launch that there would be no further editions? That its exception-based design made it so generic that all future development could be done as add-ons?

CITATION NEEDED

Seriously, can we avoid spreading rumors like this? I would be flabbergasted if this turned out to be true. If you're going to say something like this, give us a source to read.

I am not interested in seeing internet rumor telephone cause the same kinds of stupid falsehoods popping up years after release that we've heard about 4e for the past couple years. This stuff needs to be killed in its infancy.

 

[trancejeremy]

There are, but they tend to be very narrowly focused and often built into some novel series. Mouseguard or Burning Wheel or Dresden Files.

Yeah, but over the years, there have been a lot of D&D alternatives.

Runequest, Chivalry & Sorcery, Tunnels & Trolls, DragonQuest, The Fantasy Trip (which became Gurps), Rolemaster all were more or less setting neutral games (yeah, Runequest had the setting with the ducks, but it also had a lot of setting neutral stuff).

Heck, EGG had two tries at it himself, with Mythus/Dangerous Journeys and his later Lejendary Adventures (neither very much like D&D, one far more complex, the other much simpler) and even Arneson had his Adventures in Fantasy

And stuff with well developed worlds, like Empire of the Petal Throne, HarnMaster, Earthdawn, Jorrune, Talislanta...

 

[Incenjucar]

Well-developed worlds usually just means a narrow concept focus. GURPs is certainly a good example, though. Thing is, something needs to actually break out, not just linger calmly in the background. If 5E does (and I'm not claiming it will) leave behind a substantial number of 4E players because it clings to the 70s, what system today would actually be set to absorb that audience?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

In many ways the opening salvo of the 3.X/4e Edition War (2008-2011) was from WotC, in their lead up to the release of 4e. They did go out of their way to downplay 3.X. (Or at least Wyatt did, but they didn't try to shut him up.)

4e fans caught the brunt of the ire from 3.X fans, but it was WotC that decided to fire on Ft. Sumter.

Which, I am happy to see, is not a mistake that WotC is making this time.

So, whether I end up liking 5e, hating 5e, or being kind of 'meh' about 5e, I will not be offended. WotC screwed up with their approach, has admitted that they screwed up, time to let go. They aren't trying to make me play thrash metal this time.

My hopes for 5e are low, but I really wish that WotC had taken this approach when unveiling 4e - a lot of anger could have been avoided, mine as much as others.

I will at least wait and see what the license looks like.

The Auld Grump, kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya....

 

[Dannager]

In many ways the opening salvo of the 3.X/4e Edition War (2008-2011) was from WotC, in their lead up to the release of 4e. They did go out of their way to downplay 3.X. (Or at least Wyatt did, but they didn't try to shut him up.)

4e fans caught the brunt of the ire from 3.X fans, but it was WotC that decided to fire on Ft. Sumter.

Except that, in this case, they were Ft. Sumter. They weren't doing anything more than explaining what they thought the flaws were with their own game. The idea that it is somehow appropriate to be upset over someone constructively criticizing something they themselves made is just totally bananas.

 

[Sunseeker]

Well-developed worlds usually just means a narrow concept focus. GURPs is certainly a good example, though. Thing is, something needs to actually break out, not just linger calmly in the background. If 5E does (and I'm not claiming it will) leave behind a substantial number of 4E players because it clings to the 70s, what system today would actually be set to absorb that audience?

Probably video gaming. Lets face it, technology is advancing even while Wizards tries to cling to the past. Games are diversifying, there's more choice on the market, there's more choice within games, and we can't deny that more players will come to D&D from the younger audiences(say, under 30), than from the older audiences.

I'm not going to say that this edition of D&D is going to make or break the genre, but the alternative to D&D is essentially splintering the community into a million sub-genres that while close, won't have enough overlap to get someone to be willing to switch between systems on a regular basis.

Modern players will see modern alternatives. Classic players will stick with what they've got. No single system(besides D&D and a select few others) is wide-spread enough to collect enough people to make something bigger.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Except that, in this case, they were Ft. Sumter. They weren't doing anything more than explaining what they thought the flaws were with their own game. The idea that it is somehow appropriate to be upset over someone constructively criticizing something they themselves made is just totally bananas.

When someone tells me that the way I run my game 'isn't fun' then they are going way past constructively criticizing.

Sorry, I dislike 4e, would even without those comments, trying to tell me that 'D&D is a game about combat' not about 'traipsing through the fairy rings'.

And no, they were not Ft. Sumter - Ft. Sumter, in this instance, is the 3.X/OGL community. The game that they had helped established, much like R. H. Lee had helped establish the Union that had built the fort that his descendant helped attack. (Mangled Metaphors 101....)

WotC deserved to lose that war.... And if they are lucky then they will have the opportunity to have a more fruitful peace than they did when they decided that the way to go forward was to declare war on the older game, the 3PP, and the games adherents.

WotC has admitted to those mistakes. No need to defend them now - they are acknowledged, so let it go. Yelling 'no they didn't' is not as effective with WotC saying 'yes, we did'.

I am not going to produce a long list of grievances, at this point the OGL/GSL War (2008-2011) is over. If you try to say that they didn't make mistakes the somebody will bring along that list. The war is only now ending, let it go so it does not flare up again.

The Auld Grump