Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

[Lanefan]

But what all these forum and restaurant analogies miss, is that with RPGs your old books don't vanish and you can just keep playing that. Like I was not so keen on 5.5 changes, so we just kept playing 5.0.

I get that "current edition" matters for wargames where you ideally want a large pool of opponents, but with RPGs it is quite different. You need just handful of people who want to play the same game, and if you already had your existing group that liked the old edition, it should not be hard to just keep playing it if the new one is not to your liking.

Like @Lanefan my understanding is that you run some frankenpaleo-D&D, and that seems to have been going strong for quite a while.

That's in no small part due to my being both able and willing to tell "social pressure" to go jump in a lake.

I've never cared about being one of the cool kids. For many people, however, conformity, "fitting in", and following the latest trends is highly important; and marketers - given that it's their job - are very good at setting trends and reinforcing this behavior.

 

[soviet]

Sure, but social pressue is sometimes a difficult thing to resist, and all too often that social pressure supports the New Shiny just on principle because that's what both the current marketing and long-term conditioning tell it to do.

We've been pressured all our lives to simply assume [newer = better] and [old = bad], whether or not such is true in any given case. That's what keeps the economy going.

Then, as 5e fans have long said to 4e fans, I guess The Market Has Spoken

 

[Lanefan]

But suspending the D&D part of the forums would stop you talking about D&D.

It would stop me talking about it here. I'd find somewhere else to talk about it, directly analagous to choosing a different store if-when the store I currently patronize stops carrying what I want from it.

Publishing a new edition doesn't do anything to stop you continuing to play or talk about the old edition. The equivalent situation would be if ENWorld kept all the D&D forums but added a new PbtA only forum in a prominent position, and lots of people started only posting there.

Not quite. If lots of people started only posting there solely by their own choice without promotion or outside encouragement, your analogy holds up.

But if those lots of people start posting there because that forum and associated game system are actively promoted as being the New Shiny while the other forums and games are dismissed or even denigrated, which hews much closer to the 3e-4e history, then it becomes a case of trend-following: people to some extent are having their choices made for them by social pressure and marketing.

 

[Lanefan]

Then, as 5e fans have long said to 4e fans, I guess The Market Has Spoken

The Market has, to a very large extent, said what it's been told to say.

EDIT to add: the thread is about "play to find out" but has really become "post to find out", as I've no idea where this discussion is going next!

 

[Micah Sweet]

But suspending the D&D part of the forums would stop you talking about D&D. Publishing a new edition doesn't do anything to stop you continuing to play or talk about the old edition. The equivalent situation would be if ENWorld kept all the D&D forums but added a new PbtA only forum in a prominent position, and lots of people started only posting there.

It stops you from talking about D&D here, in the main community of EN World. Sure, you can talk about D&D elsewhere, if you can find people elsewhere to talk to about it, but the main community is no longer available for the activity you previously enjoyed.

 

[soviet]

It stops you from talking about D&D here, in the main community of EN World. Sure, you can talk about D&D elsewhere, if you can find people elsewhere to talk to about it, but the main community is no longer available for the activity you previously enjoyed.

You either misunderstood what I said or repeated what I said, I'm not sure which.

 

[soviet]

It would stop me talking about it here. I'd find somewhere else to talk about it, directly analagous to choosing a different store if-when the store I currently patronize stops carrying what I want from it.

Not quite. If lots of people started only posting there solely by their own choice without promotion or outside encouragement, your analogy holds up.

But if those lots of people start posting there because that forum and associated game system are actively promoted as being the New Shiny while the other forums and games are dismissed or even denigrated, which hews much closer to the 3e-4e history, then it becomes a case of trend-following: people to some extent are having their choices made for them by social pressure and marketing.

So when people select an RPG to play they are not making an informed choice, but are tricked by social pressure and marketing? Is marketing that powerful?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So when people select an RPG to play they are not making an informed choice, but are tricked by social pressure and marketing? Is marketing that powerful?

Sometime I think so, yeah.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I do not like what this thread has become to be about!

STOP EXCLUDING ME!!!

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do not like what this thread has become to be about!

STOP EXCLUDING ME!!!

I can reiterate my opinion about story elements in RPGs and narrative-based mechanics from earlier in the thread if you like.