Confirm or Deny: D&D4e would be going strong had it not been titled D&D

[Bedrockgames]

There were criticism of 3.0 and 3.5 ongoing at the time, and there are, again, about 5e. None rose (or sank) to the level of the edition war, though. It wasn't just incorporated into the ongoing dialogue (or noise) surrounding the hobby. Outside the context of the edition war, someone makes some invalid or contrived criticism, it gets ripped apart, and he slinks off. In contrast, the edition war was relentless.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing that the tone of the 4E edition war went beyond the stuff that came before (though those debates over optimization could get very hostile too). My point is how the debate evolved wasn't this thing where it happened at a specific moment when 4E was released. It gathered steam over time and a lot of the points being debated were prior to release based on what folks were hearing. Me, I didn't encounter the article by Justin Alexander until well after I played the thing. But I found it somewhat helpful at the time for wrapping my head around the things I didn't enjoy.

But the impression I am gathering from your language is you still want to have the debate or something. Some people liked 4E, some people didn't. Most had their reasons for either liking it or not. I don't really see the value any more in either side trying to convince the other.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That is clearly a subjective opinion.

What's subjective about a $15 million industry being small? CCGs pull down hundreds of millions. MMOs are a billion-dollar industry. Paper clips are bigger business than D&D.

I think Zak is making a lot of sense that this stuff isn't helping.

The edition war only hurt the game and the hobby. If it hadn't happened, both would likely be doing better. And, no, trying to answer the 'why' of the edition war - essentially what the question [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] asked was getting at - probably isn't helping anything either.

Its a bit of a non-starter when you take the #1 or #2 most popular role-playing game and manage to define it as being very unpopular.

By your definition there has never been a popular role playing game in the history of role-playing

Exactly. And there's not likely ever to be one unless the status-quo in the hobby changes, whether by D&D becoming a more accessible game, and staying that way for goodly number of years, or by the community becoming more generally welcoming, or .... well, the future is full of possibilities, we can always hope something will go right...

I don't think anyone is disagreeing that the tone of the 4E edition war went beyond the stuff that came before (though those debates over optimization could get very hostile too). My point is how the debate evolved wasn't this thing where it happened at a specific moment when 4E was released. It gathered steam over time and a lot of the points being debated were prior to release based on what folks were hearing.

There was a sort of 'rush to judgement,' yes. Maybe the stunts WotC had pulled starting with the 3.5 release had just earned them a lot of animosity...

But the impression I am gathering from your language is you still want to have the debate or something.

Heavens no. I was just answering a question that probably seemed innocent to the person asking it: that there wasn't anything special about 4e that inspired the kind of defense it received, rather, it was the vehemence of the edition war that provoked such a spirited defense.

 

[Wicht]

Exactly.

So, just using your logic for a minute (which I think is highly flawed, but we will go with it), and you can ridicule and mock an edition you didn't like, because in the grand scheme of things it is "very unpopular," why exactly were your feelings hurt when other individuals didn't like your game of choice?

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, just using your logic for a minute (which I think is highly flawed, but we will go with it), and you can ridicule and mock an edition you didn't like, because in the grand scheme of things it is "very unpopular,"

The mocking and ridiculing is your interpretation, not my intent. So, that's your ... 'logic.' But, hey, we'll go with it...

why exactly were your feelings hurt when other individuals didn't like your game of choice?

My feelings weren't hurt. At worst, you might say my sensibilities were offended when people made false, misleading, exaggerated, and/or invalid criticisms of my game of choice (D&D, obviously), and I felt the need to set the record straight. That just happened a lot more during the edition war than before (though the UseNet roll v role debate came pretty close in the 90s) or (happily) in the short time since.

 

[Bedrockgames]

What's subjective about a $15 million industry being small? CCGs pull down hundreds of millions. MMOs are a billion-dollar industry. Paper clips are bigger business than D&D.

Nothing. The industry being small is a fact most would agree upon. All the other stuff is the subjective opinion. I don't want to get into a heavy discussion on industry here after all this, but I think it is pretty debatable how much the industry can grow and the best way for it do so (whether something in the direction of 4E or something in the direction of 5E would be the best way to achieve that).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Nothing. The industry being small is a fact most would agree upon. All the other stuff is the subjective opinion.

The edition war seemed objectively real to me. Likewise, there weren't many h4ters lambasting 4e for not being different enough from the status quo. So, I think it's pretty fair to conclude that the edition war was evidence of meaningful resistance to change. The industry had stayed small ever since the initial fad died away, so there's a clear correlation between that status quo and the lack of growth. Not conclusive proof by any stretch of the imagination, but not just subjective, either.

I don't want to get into a heavy discussion on industry here after all this, but I think it is pretty debatable how much the industry can grow and the best way for it do so (whether something in the direction of 4E or something in the direction of 5E would be the best way to achieve that).

Like I mentioned in passing, the most vitriolic discussions these days do seem to be the ones about the business side. So, yeah, not too heavy, if that's OK. Suffice to say that the 4e direction failed to turn around the industry in the 2 years it was tried, and, similarly, the 5e direction - fundamentally the classic D&D direction - failed to sustain the success of the initial 80s fad. Achieving some meaningful fraction of the fad's peak, though, seems like a fair thing to hope for from 5e and the OSR phenomenon, in general.

Growth beyond that would require bringing in hordes of new players, which D&D has consistently failed to do for the last 30 years. Clearly, something significant would have to change - and probably stay changed for a while - and, to loop back around, there's been demonstrable resistance to change.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Believe what you want. I don't think anyone objected to growth or change in a direction they liked. 3E was a pretty significant change from 2E and people embraced it (also brought in a lot of new blood).

 

[Tony Vargas]

I can think of plenty of positive changes 3e made, certainly. Not as dramatic as 4e, and often not really changes, so much as making optional rules and common house rules official. But, it did, correspondingly, have some detractors and hold-outs, though never to the level of virulence achieved in the edition war.

And, the changes it made didn't make it any more accessible, rather, it was more complex (but for greater payoff), and emphasized RAW and system-mastery (or, rather, the community around it did).

5e, conversely, moves back in the direction of classic D&D, and faces very little backlash (indeed, even AD&D hold-outs often like it). It didn't challenge the status quo, if anything it's re-building it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I had a whole response typed, but I am not going to try to change your mind about the nature of changes to D&D and 5E in particular. I'm not seeing the value in going down that road. What I will say is if you want to see the hobby grow, well you can contribute by bringing people into the hobby to play the games you think would appeal to folks or by creating a new system yourself.

In the end we don't really need to put this all on D&D's shoulders either way. There are plenty of games out there that are accessible and interesting and would likely appeal to people outside the hobby. Introduce folks to those. I've been trying to make games myself that would appeal to folks who might not find D&D to their liking. When people choose D&D over my games though, I don't attribute it to fear of change or a desire to reinforce some vague status quo (I just see it as people playing a game they enjoy). Sure D&D is the name people recognize but it is a small step from someone playing D&D for the first time to them learning to play another RPG. That is a much more helpful step to grow the hobby than insulting people because they like a version of D&D you don't.

 

[Wicht]

The mocking and ridiculing is your interpretation, not my intent. .

Taking you at your word that it is not your intent, let me politely note that for future reference, telling people that the game they like is nothing less than a bad game, with egregious flaws, that it is less than halfway decent, an albatross, irredeemably flawed, and that the only reason they like it is because they are too stubborn to try new things,... that comes across as just a tad hostile. Its like telling a man his wife is ugly and then trying to justify it by claiming that you didn't actually mean anything by it, except that it was true and your sorry he can't just admit it. There's no good way to redeem such a statement...