D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?

[Micah Sweet]

I don't disagree with the latter--but I still maintain there's a price for the former when you're playing with anyone but an insular local group.

A price I'm ok with, frankly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Bluntly? Often badly. If you don't think people who knew errata and those who didn't didn't cause problems, I have to wonder if you were actually there.

(And the lack of errata often caused plenty of problems, too).

Oh please. Now you're casting dispersion on the entire gaming community pre-internet? Not everyone shares your point of view.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, but I think it's best to use the same rules for the whole campaign, unless the group can come to a decision between sessions regarding amendments.

I agree, but that'll be impossible if the rules morph during the campaign and the old versions are no longer accessible.

For example, if Spell XYZ has duration "concentration" at the start of the campaign but three months later it gets stealth-changed to a duration of "two minutes", then you've immediately got a breeding ground for that horrible sort of argument where both sides are in fact correct.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Really, the biggest issue I'm suggesting is that if you're sticking to an earlier version and playing frequently (or even intermittently) with people who normally play with the most current one, not only are you are liable to be using different rules (and in some areas you may not even realize it--how many GMs are going to know the entire spell list in all its exception based glory enough to notice that a player is using a different version than he is?) but over time there may be more and more of them, creating some serious dissonance, not necessarily deliberately on anyone's part.

Are you talking about organized play? I really don't believe the game should be designed around that, or any assumption that everyone is playing with rotating masses of strangers who only know WotC's "cutting edge" rules updates.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I agree, but that'll be impossible if the rules morph during the campaign and the old versions are no longer accessible.

For example, if Spell XYZ has duration "concentration" at the start of the campaign but three months later it gets stealth-changed to a duration of "two minutes", then you've immediately got a breeding ground for that horrible sort of argument where both sides are in fact correct.

Which is why I am solidly against stealth changes, and indeed any rule set that is only available online under someone else's control.

 

[Thomas Shey]

A price I'm ok with, frankly.

Yeah, but you're not the only one in a given game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh please. Now you're casting dispersion on the entire gaming community pre-internet? Not everyone shares your point of view.

I think you mean "Casting aspersions", and I don't think suggesting that people being stuck with bad versions of rules because there was no good and easy way to get them updated, and that bad rules cause bad outcomes is insulting to anyone, and yes, for those who think it is, I don't have a huge amount of sympathy.

(By the way, I think getting irate because I have a point of view that I stick to is something you in particular might want to think about if its what you want to do here.).

 

[haakon1]

They've made it illegal, in Canada anyway, for gift cards to have expiry dates.

Not sure how/if it applies to virtual gift cards, that's for the courts to decide someday.

Canada's government isn't "quite so interested" in what the MBA's tell it to do. Some US states are trying to stop this too.

 

[haakon1]

They'll realize it fast enough when the DM thinks a rule says one thing (because it did say that last week) and a player logs on to DDB and shows it saying another thing today.

Seen that even with printed books. Different printings of the "same" title sometimes have errata included or not, we discovered accidentally.

 

[haakon1]

casters had slots in the TSR system too, didn’t they?

They had to choose specific spells at the start of the day.

I believe 3e, with the sorcerer, introduced the concept of spell slots (choose from any known spell on the fly) instead of pre-deciding how many copies of each spell you had at the start. The tradeoff was sorcerers had access to fewer spells, and got each spell level at one character level later.

In 3e, clerics could flip any non-domain spell for a Cure spell (like CLW for 1st level spells) and druids could flip any spell for Summon Animal, so it was a beginning of spell slots for them as well.