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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Trickster Spirit" data-source="post: 6176945" data-attributes="member: 6701829">I'm not sure I agree. I mean, players absolutely can be just as much edition warriors as any DM; but the emphasis is definitely on can. Realistically, the vast majority of D&D players out there are casual players. They don't have the same commitment to the hobby that us forumites have - they probably don't have much if any experience with any tabletop game other than D&D, and might not even be aware of the differences between editions if they haven't undergone a transition between them under their DM. They might have preferences for one edition or another if they have played multiple editions, and sure, some might feel strongly enough about it that they won't play a particular edition, but the average player? The average player shows up to hang out, drink and eat table snacks while make-believing that they're dragon-slaying elves with friends, and will likely acquiesce to their DM when it comes to such unimportant things as the rules of the game.Now, you can argue that it's not the average player who's participating in the playtest, that it's those of us who do care about stuff like the rules... but honestly, at this point, I think if you're still participating in the playtest after everything we've seen so far, it's because you're onboard with - or want to be onboard with - the central conceit of Next, which is that this is the Unity Edition. This is the compromise edition that'll reunite 4E and Pathfinder and OSR players with heaps and heaps of new casual players who joined the hobby after seeing the Basic Boxed Set next to Monopoly in the toy aisle while they were at Walmart or Target. Pipe dream? Probably. But that's what I think most playtesters want, and combined with the apathy of the silent majority casual player base, this whole "edition war" thing probably really is relegated to a few hardcore forumites who probably take their make-pretend game hobby a little too seriously.I think more DMs fall on that side of the line than players. I agree with Jester here - Next will rise or fall on the grounds of how many DMs it will convince to transition their groups. As the DM goes, so go the casual players.</blockquote>

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