D&D 4E So all these wacky arguments are still about 4e, right?

[Raith5]

So Next just a proxy battle for the same damn Edition War that's been crapping up forums for about the past 6 years, right? It's not about the game mechanics; it's about the heart and soul of D&D and making sure the edition fits whatever personal vision of the game you hold. Or, that the arguer was "right all along" and that 4e was either (a) awesome with great and innovative stuff that needs to be kept, regardless of their compatibility with the game's overall design goals or (b) a terrible betrayal and all elements from it must be purged, even if those elements work well mechanically.

Yep. I reckon it is based upon radically different sets of imagination: one vested in the well developed history of the D&D game and the other which innovatively attempts to match high fantasy with heavy mechanics. Both have merit but are not easy to reconcile.

 

[Obryn]

That being said, there were ten people complaining about knight's challenge and goad being mind control (sound familiar?) for every one that had anything to say in the realm of high-level spellcasters being overpowered. Conversely, you'd be right to suggest that no one was really complaining that building monsters as PCs was too hard.

If, like you're saying, it wasn't a 3e/4e thing, why are you making this a 3e/4e thing? I think it's an illustration of my point.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If, like you're saying, it wasn't a 3e/4e thing, why are you making this a 3e/4e thing? I think it's an illustration of my point.

I'm not. I'm saying that a nonmagical ability that forces an enemy to attack you even against his will is mind control, regardless of the edition number. It might have even been a bigger issue in 3e because there were at least two examples of it and the Goad feat I think was reprinted in multiple books. The requisite message board wars you asked for definitely happened over that issue here and elsewhere. That they continued with 4e is hardly a surprise. If we see it in 5e, it'll be the same firestorm again.

 

[billd91]

So Next just a proxy battle for the same damn Edition War that's been crapping up forums for about the past 6 years, right? It's not about the game mechanics; it's about the heart and soul of D&D and making sure the edition fits whatever personal vision of the game you hold. Or, that the arguer was "right all along" and that 4e was either (a) awesome with great and innovative stuff that needs to be kept, regardless of their compatibility with the game's overall design goals or (b) a terrible betrayal and all elements from it must be purged, even if those elements work well mechanically.

I mean, the particulars are somewhat different now - there's no way many of these would have ever been arguments during 4e's run, because 4e itself was the forest and its game elements were just individual trees - but I can only think of one giant debate that isn't about a 4e element, even novel ones like the exploration rules.

Am I missing something here, or just spelling out the bleedingly obvious? What, if anything, can be done about it? Or should it?

The divides are pretty tribal. I can pretty much predict who will align with who over most of these topics based on whether they were fans of 4e or not. There are a few topic that allow some drift and shading, but the sides are largely the same.

And I think the reason we didn't see fights over things like the dragon shaman, marshal, and other topics that started in 3e but blew up in 4e was because they were clearly supplemental in 3e, not the new face of the core of the game. If that is true, the 5e modular approach might give the edition the clearance it needs to penetrate both player markets.

That said, there were definitely sparks that flew over some of the directions D&D was going that clearly led into 4e's design (in hindsight, at least). Spells being nerfed in 3.5 to limit durations to combat-focused timeframe came up, as I recall. So it's not just a fight over 4e, even if that's still the biggest fracture in the ENworld community.

 

[Obryn]

I'm not. I'm saying that a nonmagical ability that forces an enemy to attack you even against his will is mind control, regardless of the edition number. It might have even been a bigger issue in 3e because there were at least two examples of it and the Goad feat I think was reprinted in multiple books. The requisite message board wars you asked for definitely happened over that issue here and elsewhere. That they continued with 4e is hardly a surprise. If we see it in 5e, it'll be the same firestorm again.

It was more the bolded bits...

That being said, there were ten people complaining about knight's challenge and goad being mind control (sound familiar?) for every one that had anything to say in the realm of high-level spellcasters being overpowered. Conversely, you'd be right to suggest that no one was really complaining that building monsters as PCs was too hard, since anyone who didn't want to do that could simply not do it.

...that I found remarkable, and in keeping with my thesis statement.

And if you can find any of those "knight wars" I'd love to see 'em. I love digging into what's now the prehistory of all this stuff.

 

[keterys]

That being said, there were ten people complaining about knight's challenge and goad being mind control (sound familiar?) for every one that had anything to say in the realm of high-level spellcasters being overpowered. Conversely, you'd be right to suggest that no one was really complaining that building monsters as PCs was too hard, since anyone who didn't want to do that could simply not do it.

I remember things differently.

Then again, that's the trick of forum bias. You read the threads you care about.

 

[Abraxas]

Am I missing something here, or just spelling out the bleedingly obvious? What, if anything, can be done about it? Or should it?

I think it's confirmation bias. Of your major kerfluffles, Only 1 has been major enough to generate it's own temporary off shoot forum. All the rest came and went pretty fast. Plus your missing the kerfluffles from previous play test packets about skills, feats, which option for class x is obviously better than all the others for class x, scaling spells, domains vs deities, why X shouldn't be a subclass of Y, Monster math sucking, etc, etc. In all of them there are people who can't seem to help but compare 5E in a negative way to their preferred editon - but there are planty of people who just want to talk about how this new fangled edition works. In other words, it's no different than what has been going on since these boards started.

Of course, soon Next will be released and the 5E supporters be able to tell all the other edition fans that WoTC didn't take away the books so just go and play your edition of choice.

Just as an aside - I'm currently playing in a PF game, a 4E game and a 5E game and having fun in all of them.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, all of the above topics are automatically Edition War stuff?

I do think that a chunk of it is still 4e fall-out. Every new e is kind of partially a reaction to what came before, and 5e's not going to be an exception, so that's fairly normal -- many of 4e's own changes were ushered in by what people hated most about 3e. A lot of 5e's changes are going to be attempts to fix problems that people had with 4e. Heck, some of the most strident critics of 5e are already warming up the engine on the "4e did it better, we should have never changed it" bandwagon. If the designers are smart, and want 4e fans to try the game too, they won't be monolithic about solving things that aren't a problem for everyone, but "fixes" are likely going to appear.

In other words, it is a time for folks with axes to grind to grind those axes and continue to express their bitterness.

I'm not sure it's all just Edition Wars, though. A new edition is a time to hope the next game will fit your needs better than the last one did (which is part of why the e's are reactions). There's nothing wrong with hoping that you will be able to play full-on option-rich 5e without those elements, or with disliking 4e because it included or lacked those elements. Those things aren't automatically Edition War material. They're just things that can cause people's passions to eclipse their capacity for constructive conversation. It's totally possible to talk about 5e having or not having, say, OGL compatibility, WITHOUT talking about how 4e shot your dog and how 3e gave everyone free cookies forever. It's possible to talk about The Mechanic Which Cannot Be Named without imagining that 4e was an unfairly maligned martyr for D&D perfection that the ignorant masses just couldn't appreciate and that 3e is only for people who hate puppies and fighters.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Then again, that's the trick of forum bias. You read the threads you care about.

True enough. Back in those days, I read quite a lot of them though. Better than doing homework.

 

[Obryn]

So, all of the above topics are automatically Edition War stuff?.

In theory? No.

In practice, on ENWorld in 2014? Well...