D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Minigiant]

THERE'S ONE BEHIND YOU RIGHT NOW!

Aaaaaah!

Good thing I picked Lesser Kryptonian.

my problem with 2024 is that they didn't change enough.

why bother with making new books if you are going to change maybe 5% of the game?
only new thing is weapon mastery and that is a half miss-half hit feature. It could have been done better

Sunken cost

Old fans want everyone to play the old ways.
New fans want to continue using splat books
Game updates slowly until new supplementary books stop selling

 

[NN]

“progress” in rpg design does not come from twiddling dials, but from harmonizing them.

Eg less resource management is not design progress. Resolving inconsistencies and contradictions is.

 

[Hussar]

Other have already addressed your post here but I would also like to do this by telling you about refrigerators.

Once upon a time buying a refrigerator was a long time purchase. You could get warranty for 15-20 years on a new fridge and they would often last a lot longer than this. I've seen older models as old as 25-30 years still going strong.

Nowadays warranty is seldom longer than 5 years and getting a 10 year warranty will cost extra. Also the new models tend to brake down or need some sort of repair within this span of time.

Why is this?

Well the companies that build and sell refrigerators decided to cut cost on production so they could make more money from each sale. And with a fridge breaking down faster people need to buy new ones more often making the companies even more money.

This is why someone would intend to make an inferior product and why new is not associated with improved.

NOTE: I do in fact know that refrigerators are not roleplaying games.

Except that it's more complicated than that. Obviously, an Ice Box never breaks. So, by your metric, that would make an Ice Box the ultimate refrigerator. But, it's not. Because an Ice Box comes with its own problems - it's messy, mold, small, needs to have ice delivery, etc. An older refrigerator may last longer, but, it also uses FAR more electricity, is far noisier, MUCH heavier, and lacks many of the features that a new refrigerator will have. For example, the mess of an old refrigerator in that it needs to be manually defrosted regularly, potentially resulting in water damage to your floors. Your old refrigerator will likely be much, much smaller, and the freezer compartment will be much smaller, requiring the family to purchase a second freezer chest, which adds to the electrical bill.

See, because that refrigerator you bought in the 1970's for about 500 dollars is the equivalent of 4 THOUSAND dollars today. For 4 grand, I can buy three pretty decent refrigerators that are going to last me 15 years or so each.

So, sure, that fridge may have been a one time purchase. But, it wasn't a better refrigerator. In virtually every measurable metric it performs worse than a new refrigerator. And, given that the electrical costs of an old refrigerator will be astronomically higher than a new one, overall, the new refrigerator, because it is cheaper, will actually be more economical over time.

Which rolls us back around to game design. See, this is exactly the same issue we see in game design. "Oh, but this old rule works just fine, we don't need to change anything" ignores the fact that over time, innovations in game design results in better play experience. There's a reason that OSR games don't actually retain a lot of the older mechanics. They either strip out a lot of those older mechanics, or they overhaul them. Because, believe it or not, we actually manage to learn a thing or two about how games are played over the decades and it's possible to apply that experience to game design.

 

[Li Shenron]

I mean "conservatism" as in resistance to change.

There are several potentially exhausting things in RPGing.

While you might find resistance to change exhausting, someone else might find it exhausting to be socially pressured into change.

Personally I find it exhausting to keep hearing people constantly unsatisfied by what they have to play with, and giving me the impression that they never really play.

 

[Lanefan]

Except that it's more complicated than that. Obviously, an Ice Box never breaks. So, by your metric, that would make an Ice Box the ultimate refrigerator. But, it's not. Because an Ice Box comes with its own problems - it's messy, mold, small, needs to have ice delivery, etc. An older refrigerator may last longer, but, it also uses FAR more electricity, is far noisier, MUCH heavier, and lacks many of the features that a new refrigerator will have. For example, the mess of an old refrigerator in that it needs to be manually defrosted regularly, potentially resulting in water damage to your floors. Your old refrigerator will likely be much, much smaller, and the freezer compartment will be much smaller, requiring the family to purchase a second freezer chest, which adds to the electrical bill.

See, because that refrigerator you bought in the 1970's for about 500 dollars is the equivalent of 4 THOUSAND dollars today. For 4 grand, I can buy three pretty decent refrigerators that are going to last me 15 years or so each.

While all of what you say here is fair play, I'd still rather buy one that'll last 45 years so I can install it once and then forget about it.

And "planned obsolecence" is very much a thing. Long-lasting products can often be economically-enough made that they'd not cost all that much more than the fall-apart stuff, but with rare exceptions the manufacturers (and retailers) don't want that; they'd rather things wear out or break sooner so as to keep the end consumer on the treadmill.

And don't even get me started on the whole right-to-repair question.....

Which rolls us back around to game design. See, this is exactly the same issue we see in game design.

As does this: there's a sense that we're starting to see the equivalent of planned obsolecence in game design, where a game is expected to last x-number of years after which a new version will come out whether needed or not, all to keep that treadmill going.

Yes 5e was touted as being evergreen, and thus far - to its credit - has at least kept most of its leaves. But the new version still smells of "treadmill".

"Oh, but this old rule works just fine, we don't need to change anything" ignores the fact that over time, innovations in game design results in better play experience. There's a reason that OSR games don't actually retain a lot of the older mechanics. They either strip out a lot of those older mechanics, or they overhaul them. Because, believe it or not, we actually manage to learn a thing or two about how games are played over the decades and it's possible to apply that experience to game design.

While I don't disagree with this, too often the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. Sure, some elements of TSR-era design weren't that great and needed to be overhauled, changed, or stripped out...but some elements of TSR design were great, and we've largely lost those too.

 

[Kromanjon]

Except that it's more complicated than that. Obviously, an Ice Box never breaks. So, by your metric, that would make an Ice Box the ultimate refrigerator. But, it's not. Because an Ice Box comes with its own problems - it's messy, mold, small, needs to have ice delivery, etc. An older refrigerator may last longer, but, it also uses FAR more electricity, is far noisier, MUCH heavier, and lacks many of the features that a new refrigerator will have. For example, the mess of an old refrigerator in that it needs to be manually defrosted regularly, potentially resulting in water damage to your floors. Your old refrigerator will likely be much, much smaller, and the freezer compartment will be much smaller, requiring the family to purchase a second freezer chest, which adds to the electrical bill.

See, because that refrigerator you bought in the 1970's for about 500 dollars is the equivalent of 4 THOUSAND dollars today. For 4 grand, I can buy three pretty decent refrigerators that are going to last me 15 years or so each.

So, sure, that fridge may have been a one time purchase. But, it wasn't a better refrigerator. In virtually every measurable metric it performs worse than a new refrigerator. And, given that the electrical costs of an old refrigerator will be astronomically higher than a new one, overall, the new refrigerator, because it is cheaper, will actually be more economical over time.

Which rolls us back around to game design. See, this is exactly the same issue we see in game design. "Oh, but this old rule works just fine, we don't need to change anything" ignores the fact that over time, innovations in game design results in better play experience. There's a reason that OSR games don't actually retain a lot of the older mechanics. They either strip out a lot of those older mechanics, or they overhaul them. Because, believe it or not, we actually manage to learn a thing or two about how games are played over the decades and it's possible to apply that experience to game design.

Hard disagree on both accounts.

Having worked with refrigerators I know quite well that none of what you claimed about old fridges are true. Buying a new fridge will not save you any money at all, these things are made up by the companies selling you the products. Also I'm not sure what kind of features you want on your fridges, I'd like mine to keep food cold.

When it comes to game design, sure, I'll give you that we have learned a thing or two about it over the years. However, a lot of RPGs are reinventing the wheel over and over again and a lot of the time they add new problems while trying to solve old ones.

 

[Retros_x]

I'd rather the market adapt to the game, but whatever.

Which sounds nice until the reality of pop culture kicks in, that people will follow the shiny newness wherever it leads them even if that ends up being off a cliff.

Thats just not true. I could think of tons of things that a new D&D edition could introduce where there would be not a big following just because its shiny and new. And it did already happen - 4e.

Yes, new editions come out to sell to new audiences and resell to old audiences. Thats capitalism. But contrary to fridges an old edition doesn't decline and fail at some point, you can just keep playing it. You just have to deal with your own feelings that everybody is talking about the new edition.

People need to accept when their own preferences do not align with zeitgeist anymore. Current pop culture is driven by Gen Z and their preferences. But don't worry give it a few years and the older Gen Z will agree with you and moan about the new shiny stuff that is driven by Gen Alpha.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Note: I DO NOT MEAN POLITICAL CONSERVATISM. This is not a thread about politics.

I mean "conservatism" as in resistance to change. You see it all the time -- people complaining about the new art or aesthetics, literally saying things like "if they used the old art I would be in." It is so mind boggling to me.

D&D is a living game. OF COURSE the new books etc are going to adapt to the new market. If you literally won't play a newer version because tieflings or whatever, then it isn't for you. Don't demand it regress to the era you discovered D&D because that is what makes you feel good; play the version you discovered.

I don't liek every artistic or design choice either, but it isn't up to me to demand D&D coddle my unchanging preferences. If I want to re-experience BECMI (the edition I grew up with) I can just play that. And so can you.

/rant

You are--let me check--more than 10 years too late on this.

Player-culture conservativism objectively won the Edition War. Folks with such attitudes know they can force WotC to dance to their tune if they desire. You're never, ever going to overcome that hurdle, unless and until the new fans brought in by 5e (for whom there can't yet be any such attachments to prior ways) stick around enough to outweigh the old hands.

Welcome to the post-Edition War world. It's just so swell, ain't it?

 

[NN]

riddle me…

why are OSR games mostly closer to Moldvay Basic than bells-and-whistles 2E?

why is 5E closer to 3E than 4E?

 

[Azzy]

riddle me…

why are OSR games mostly closer to Moldvay Basic than bells-and-whistles 2E?

Because an older cohort has nostalgia for that edition.

why is 5E closer to 3E than 4E?

Because a bunch of older players were salty about 4e and were very vocal about it.