D&D 5E 5E, The Edition Wars, and Shooting Ourselves in the Foot.

[FireLance]

One of the stated design goals of 5e was to put together the best of each edition, not to exclude the worst (after all, since one man's "worst" could be another man's "best").

A second design goal, modularity, is to enable you to easily exclude elements which others think are the best, but which you, personally, think are the worst.

From this perspective, telling WotC what you think is the worst of any edition does not seem to me to be productive.

 

[BryonD]

However, saying that the 4e skill system is stupid or not D&D for that reason is slightly problematic, and should be discouraged.

See, you just attacked me.

I have expectations of what will happen when I sit down to play "D&D".
The 4E skill system directly undermines that and causes the experience to NOT meet the standards of what I consider to be "D&D". You have challenged my right to express that opinion. Therefore you have ATTACKED me.


OR

I can grow up and realize that you are simply expressing YOUR OPINION and that is fine. I can argue with you without getting hung up on parsing every word you said and finding a way to be offended. I can allow you to presume that you are talking to adults with an ability to reasonably understand that not wasting time typing "In my opinion" every time doesn't mean you are claiming your statements are anything other than that.

And by the exact same token, it IS fair for me to say "4E isn't D&D" without automatically inferring that no one who does love 4E doesn't love it for exactly the same reasons they loved some prior version of D&D. Those statements are treated as incompatible when they are completely compatible.

As long as people can't grasp the difference between "you said something I disagree with" and "you are being offensive" then the "edition wars" will persist.




4E isn't D&D.

Now can we talk about how to make a game that works for more people? Or is the bar already too high for that?

 

[BryonD]

I don't like the binary and judgemental positions put forth in the poll, frankly. (The frowny face was particularly unhelpful.)

Agreed. I'm actually encouraged to see that even 30% are seeing past the implicit bias.

 

[Bedrockgames]

From this perspective, telling WotC what you think is the worst of any edition does not seem to me to be productive.

It helps them determine what shoild be optional. The really hated elements are ones they might want to exclude from the core.

 

[Rechan]

Yeah, I don't think any sort of un-enforcible pledge is going to fix anything. And part of the edition war that is ignored is, well, defense.

There's a thread on the first page of this forum where the tenor is basically, if you don't like level drain you're a PC-coddling nancy that doesn't like challenging players or games where loss is possible (like 4e which is exemplary of this play), and if you Do like levely drain than... well people don't find them fun. But defending against the first stance would be edition-warry and fighting.

But what gets me is that nothing we say on this forum matters. People are acting like WotC has their eyes glued to every pixel of every thread on this forum. You know what feedback they're paying attention to? Their playtest feedback and the reactions to their specific articles. Beyond that, I'd wager 90% of what is talked about on this forum has already been decided upon. I guarantee you that WotC has heard your complaints twelve times over, especially considering how they have been looking at 5e since a year and a half after 4e came out; I'm sure they know exactly how much people hate 4e and all the myriad reasons why.

Therefore all of this speculation and arguing is for our "benefit", and it boils down to wheel spinning and fighting because we have nothing else to do.

 

[Mark CMG]

I don't want to accuse this edition of the pledge of doing it wrong but why can't we stick with the traditional pledge?

 

[Oni]

I don't like the binary and judgemental positions put forth in the poll, frankly. (The frowny face was particularly unhelpful.)

Agreed. I'm actually encouraged to see that even 30% are seeing past the implicit bias.

The poll only has the second option because two options were required, it was meant solely as a way to publicly opt in to a concerted effort to go above and beyond the basic level of civility required for a reasonable exchange. That is probably my fault for not making that clear. My apologies if it somehow made you feel judged, it wasn't the intent.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, I

But what gets me is that nothing we say on this forum matters. People are acting like WotC has their eyes glued to every pixel of every thread on this forum. You know what feedback they're paying attention to? Their playtest feedback and the reactions to their specific articles. Beyond that, I'd wager 90% of what is talked about on this forum has already been decided upon. I guarantee you that WotC has heard your complaints twelve times over, especially considering how they have been looking at 5e since a year and a half after 4e came out; I'm sure they know exactly how much people hate 4e and all the myriad reasons why.

Therefore all of this speculation and arguing is for our "benefit", and it boils down to wheel spinning and fighting because we have nothing else to do.

I actually think you are wrong here. Playtests are a good measure, but they need a wide net and places like ENworld, Therpgsite and rpgnet are where many edition connverstaions are taking place. If they have enough staff to manage these large playtests, I am guessing they have enough people to comb through threads like these to get some data.

 

[Mark CMG]

A new edition is coming and I think it's fair to say that most of us want two things, we want it to accommodate our preferences and we want it to be it to be as popular with as many gamers as possible so we have lots and lots of people to play with. I do not think either of those are unreasonable desires.

I didn't vote because I am not convinced that a design goal necessarily should be trying to get as many players as possible if it comes at the cost of making the best possible game. I like that a potential by-product of producing a great game is that there will be a large player pool, but putting the goal of drawing the most players out front is a good business goal not necessaily a good design goal.

 

[BryonD]

The poll only has the second option because two options were required, it was meant solely as a way to publicly opt in to a concerted effort to go above and beyond the basic level of civility required for a reasonable exchange. That is probably my fault for not making that clear. My apologies if it somehow made you feel judged, it wasn't the intent.

I hope you found it enlightening how easy it is to go from thinking you are promoting civility to contributing to the opposite.

Which isn't to say I'm complaining about your post.
I'm just saying that if everyone would read other people's with the spirit you *intended* yours to be read with, then there probably wouldn't be a need for your post.