The Great D&D Schism: The End of an age and the scattering of gamers

[Desdichado]

Emmmmm no.

I would recommend reading the beginning of the 3.5 PHB. The answer is there in black and white.

I have. The answer there is wrong. It is, in fact, propagandistic.

Although why that's an issue is beyond me. What significant aspect of anybody's gaming is impacted by whether or not it's a "revision" or a "new edition?" And what's the criteria for interpreting which it is, anyway? As has been said already here, the differences between BD&D, 1e and 2e were on a similar scale. And 1e and 2e are considered different editions, and BD&D is considered a completely separate game.

But that's all rather arbitrary, because those labels are defined by the company trying to market their product in a certain way, not by anything substantial.

I refer to 3e, 3.5, and Pathfinder as seperate editions (or a completely different game entirely in the case of Pathfinder) while acknowledging their relatively high level of mutual compatability. Some claim in the beginning of the 3.5 PHB isn't going to change my mind on that.

You know, we removed the rolleyes smilie for a reason - sarcasm is generally a communication failure.

That's not correct. Sarcasm is not a failure of communication, unless you a priori decide that sarcastic communication is failed communication. You've stated that as if it were a truism, when in fact all it is a circular statement.

But really, the point is valid - the differences between 3e and 3.5e are not nearly so great as the differences between the languages you mention. The form of the analogy is sound enough, but the degree is hyperbole, which also often leads to failed communication.

You cannot sit down at a table for a discussion with an someone who is Italian, someone who is Portuguese, and a Spaniard, and not know instantly that they are not speaking the same language.

You *can* sit down to play with three players, who have made characters using 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder, and play for quite some time before someone goes, "Wait a minute, what rules did you make that character under?"

In this you are completely wrong. I've been in many conversations that were hybrid Spanish/Portuguese or Spanish/Italian, and which changed throughout the conversation to shades of one or the other. It was never clear exactly which language we were speaking (well, I was only speaking Spanish, because I don't really speak Portuguese or Italian, but the folks I was conversing with were slipping in and out of two languages in the same conversation. Sometimes in the same sentence.)

Likewise, Asturian speakers, when surveyed, didn't even realize that Asturian was a separate language in depressingly large numbers; they thought they just spoke really bad hillbilly Spanish. Valencia has been the subject of bitter linguistic debates about whether or not speakers are speaking Valencian or Catalan. The same kind of debates characterize Gascons vs. speakers of Provençal or other Occitan dialects.

Contrary to your assertion, the degree of difference between them is not a hyperbolic misstatement on my part. You're simply (it seems) uninformed on the linguistic issues that I referred to in my analogy.

And I also disagree that you can get very far mixing 3e, 3.5 and Pathfinder characters in the same game without realizing it. As soon as there's any combat, as soon as there's skill checks, as soon as a spell is cast--in other words, as soon as there's any meaningful interaction with the rules at all--there's going to be major discrepancies. "What do you mean, what's my CMD? What's a CMD?"

 

[D'karr]

You cannot sit down at a table for a discussion with an someone who is Italian, someone who is Portuguese, and a Spaniard, and not know instantly that they are not speaking the same language.

You *can* sit down to play with three players, who have made characters using 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder, and play for quite some time before someone goes, "Wait a minute, what rules did you make that character under?"

That right there is the problem. When you sit down with a Spaniard, an Italian, and a Portuguese from the get-go you expect that you will be speaking a different language.

However, when you sit down to play a game, you expect that everyone will be speaking the same language. The changes from 3.0 to 3.5 were insidious - not because they made big changes but because they made so many little changes. For our group it forced us to look everything up, again.

 

[Ahnehnois]

However, when you sit down to play a game, you expect that everyone will be speaking the same language. The changes from 3.0 to 3.5 were insidious - not because they made big changes but because they made so many little changes. For our group it forced us to look everything up, again.

Insidious, maybe, but not important. Say you're porting over some 3.0 characters to 3.5 and you forget to switch around skills, and someone decides to roll an Innuendo check. No big deal. The underlying math means the same thing; it's just a skill that got folded up in 3.5. If you forget that your new 3.5 ranger has fewer hit points and more skills, it's not a big deal. If you don't understand the new weapon size rules, it doesn't matter, most of them work the same in practice. If the DM uses some monster stats from 3.0, no one's likely to notice that the number of feats is wrong.

The big things: the meaning of DCs, the basic rates of numerical advancement, and most of the terminology are the same.

The number of differences that really matter is pretty small. There's really nothing that would stop you from bringing a 3.0 character sheet to a 3.5 or even PF session. Whether one wants to call it a new edition or not is a matter of what definition one assigns to that word in this context, but I don't see that any of the 3.X games are really that different.

Another thing, while we're on this. Now that there are all these versions of 3e out there, what percentage of groups ostensibly playing one of those games use significant rules from another? Every week we get a new thread about "can I use this 3.5 thing in Pathfinder?" There have been a few threads specifically on this topic, and as I recall people seem to mix 3e and PF pretty liberally. Which is certainly what the writers intended.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

The devs at the time made perfectly clear that it wasn't a new edition. Some of you can shiut it until the cows come home but it still remains a fact that 3.5 was a revision.

Doesn't matter how much your group may have struggled with the revision. My group had no trouble what so ever.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Curious.

What were all these supposed radical changes that threw some of you for a loop and needed to keep referencing the books to solve?

 

[D'karr]

Insidious, maybe, but not important.<snip>
No big deal.
<snip>
The number of differences that really matter is pretty small.

In the big scheme of things RPGs are not important.

However, the fact that almost every spell had to be rechecked for accuracy makes the change quite important. It made it so that you had to go look up everything again. Because you could not be sure of what had changed or not. To me and my group that was a pretty big time waster, a big deal, even if the differences were as you say "small".

If I'm running the game that is quite important.

 

[D'karr]

. My group had no trouble what so ever.

Good for you, obviously there was no problem for anyone then.

 

[Ahnehnois]

However, the fact that almost every spell had to be rechecked for accuracy makes the change quite important. It made it so that you had to go look up everything again. Because you could not be sure of what had changed or not. To me and my group that was a pretty big time waster, a big deal, even if the differences were as you say "small".

If I'm running the game that is quite important.

Did you not have to check spell text under other circumstances? It seems de rigeur to me that except for a few ubiquitous ones, the sheer number of spells makes it impossible to memorize how they all work, regardless of edition differences. And indeed, those few that changed big time are the ones that are easy to remember (Haste #1, obviously).

It's also very easy when the stuff is available online for people who swing that way. I'm not saying that looking up spells isn't a time waster, but I can't say that revisions really matter.

I DMed 3.5 for years with 3.0 books; didn't buy the 3.5 versions until 4e came out. I don't recall it being an issue.

 

[D'karr]

I'm not saying that looking up spells isn't a time waster, but I can't say that revisions really matter.

I DMed 3.5 for years with 3.0 books; didn't buy the 3.5 versions until 4e came out. I don't recall it being an issue.

And because you don't recall it being an issue it obviously means that there wasn't one. Got it. Thanks for the input.

 

[Ahnehnois]

And because you don't recall it being an issue it obviously means that there wasn't one. Got it. Thanks for the input.

And because you experienced a bookkeeping challenge means that all that stuff that the 3.5 books themselves say about not being a new edition is a lie. Got it.