4e/WotC: Pro- or Anti- why do you care?

[Aldarc]

People expect different things from the game and then expect everyone else to share those expectations.

 

[Crothian]

Uh, ok.

I care about Pathfinder, Fantasycraft, & Trailblazer. Don't care about 4e. If someone's happy with 4e it doesn't really impact me. I'm not suggesting people abandon their passion for their hobby, I just don't know why people are trying to "convince" the "other side" in 2010.

The Edition Wars are not about trying to convince people. I think you are looking at the War and seeing things that are not there.

 

[DaveMage]

Or until we kill everyone who still harbours thoughts of hatred and revenge...

(And take their stuff!)

 

[Henry]

I participate in pro- or anti- 4ed threads for three reasons, mainly:

1) To remind people that blanket statements like, "You can or can't do X or Y with this or that system" aren't wise statements to make.

2) To genuinely see what some people's beefs are with various game systems. You can learn as much about WHY people like 4E as you can about why they dislike it.

3) People sometimes love to debate for the sake of the debate itself, and occasionally I'm one of 'em. I go out of my way to avoid name-calling, I use myself as the qualifier on all my statements whenever possible, and then I hop into the noise for the fun of it.

 

[Anselyn]

For me, it's a case of I've sunk close to 30 years into this game; I wanted to be writer/designer for TSR/WotC and be on the inside track to game design. Somewhere along the way, the game took a turn and left me on a side road.

And of course, ironically, it was the designers' designs (cos that's what they do) took the game into a new millennium. If you'd got the job, you'd have to have done it becasue it would have been your job to kill the thing you love.

 

[DragonLancer]

People care because they see something they enjoy (whatever edition that may be) being cast to the wayside and something else taking its place. It's also about how you view the game in general.

I had only been playing 1st AD&D for about 6 month to a year before 2nd edition game out. I took a look at it and loved what I saw. It vastly improved the complexity of 1st ed. Took to it like a duck to water even though I had spent shedloads on 1st ed material.

Had many wonderful years of gaming with 2nd edition but was horrified when I read in Dragon about the proposed changes to the system for 3rd edition. Felt like too big a change to the system, but I tried it and found that for me 3.X was the perfect expression of D&D. Thankfully I have a group of players who share the same point of view.

Now, I really disliked the idea of 4th ed way before we ever learnt the changes to the system because 3.X had not been out long enough IMO (even though 2nd ed was out only 10-11 years). Then 4E was published and I sat down with the books and read them. I found them to be a complete travesty. This was not D&D but an attempt to translate MMORPG's to the tabletop arena. The system was too different that anything that had gone before it. IMO it was a step in the wrong direction.

I have decided to go with Pathfinder because it takes 3.X and sorts it's issues and allows me to keep playing the version of D&D that I find best.

Now I don't care what edition you play so long as you play and the hobby continues to exist and grow. However, I know that if someone comes to me and asks my opinion and thoughts on D&D which version of the game I would direct them to.

 

[Azgulor]

The Edition Wars are not about trying to convince people. I think you are looking at the War and seeing things that are not there.

If someone asks "What could WotC do to win you back?" or "what changes to 4e would bring you back", how is that not trying to bring someone back into 'the D&D fold'. (Conversely, "What PF changes would get you to try it?" is the same idea.)

People absolutely are trying to recruit or sway when they weigh in on the Edition Wars. Not everyone, certainly, but many are.

Clearly, I should have picked a better title for this thread as it seems several people think I'm asking "why do you care about your RPG of choice". I'm not.

What I'm saying is that we're at a point in the industry that most couldn't envision when 4e was announced. For the D&D fan, one can pretty readily find an active, in-print RPG to suit their tastes. Given that reality, I see little point in trying to "recruit" a gamer who has "lapsed" from your game of choice. If you've got your RPG of choice and you can find active publisher, gaming, & community support - why bother?

For me, other than skimming a few threads about the Essentials line just to see what people were talking about, I've pretty much ignored 4e for over a year. I've weighed in on a few threads about WotC but those are largely in relation to pre-4e or the handling of the 4e launch. I'm not interested in evangelizing Pathfinder or any other game to the 4e crowd.

However, some folks do like to do that sort of thing. When a company does it, they're shooting for new customers. However, as I stated earlier, for the average ENWorlder unless you're recruiting for your local game -- why bother?

If you're telling me no one is doing this and it's all about "Less Filling/Tastes Great" then move along citizen, I guess there's nothing to see here. That hasn't been my experience, however.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Because someone is wrong on the internet. That's basically what it boils down to. I don't like people being wrong and want to try to correct them.

Yes, I'm an idiot like that. And for believing it might work (although it occasionally does).

 

[Dausuul]

You know, for all the heat the edition wars generate and all the bile that gets spewed, I've learned a lot from reading and participating in them.

Not everyone is a dyed-in-the-wool true believer. I'm a 4E player and DM, but the way I argue in some of the edition war threads, you wouldn't know it. While the system as a whole works for me, there are a number of places where I disagree vehemently with 4E's designers and I'm not shy about saying so. It's nice to find other people who have the same problems with the system I do, even if we disagree on whether those problems are deal-breakers.

And threads like "What did 4E get right?" encourage cross-pollination of ideas between the various camps. D&D has a long tradition of house-ruling and kit-bashing, and I believe every edition has something to offer almost everyone--some mechanic or concept that's worth yoinking for your own game.

Then, too, people's minds change. For example, I used to take it for granted that 3E was just an all-around better game than 1E or 2E. But there are some very persuasive posters on this board arguing for the merits of TSR-era D&D, and they've reminded me of some of the things those older systems did well--to the point that I would now be quite open to playing in an AD&D or BECMI campaign, and maybe even running one (heavily house-ruled of course).

Finally, there's this simple fact: The more people play my edition of choice, the bigger and more diverse that edition's community becomes, and the easier it is to find new players. So there's a definite incentive to recruit.

These are some legitimate reasons for starting this sort of thread. Of course, we all know the real force driving edition wars is nothing so high-minded. When you put a bunch of intelligent, articulate, and opinionated people together in one place*, it's inevitable that half of them will immediately set out to explain to the other half in great detail why Everything You Know Is Wrong.

[size=-2]*Dumb, incoherent, opinionated people will do this too, but they won't be nearly as entertaining.[/size]

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

The Edition Wars are not about trying to convince people. I think you are looking at the War and seeing things that are not there.

If someone asks "What could WotC do to win you back?" or "what changes to 4e would bring you back", how is that not trying to bring someone back into 'the D&D fold'.

But those threads aren't an attempt to start an edition war, IMO. The questions seem to stem from the mutability of 4E. And I see it as a legitimate question whether there are certain changes WotC could make that would change your mind about 4E.