Supposedly, they've banned
all discussion of newer editions, positive or negative, but a quick read of the forums tells a different story. Essentially, all they've done is forbid
positive discussion of newer editions.
Here's a good example of the Edition War over there. That stuff goes on all the time:
I'm only checking out that first thread on the 4e version of T1, and yeah, the mods should have locked it right on the first page if post 2e discussion is against the rules.
A few posters over there (such as Casey 777), to their credit, have tried to point out how unappealing this makes the place to potential newcomers (and how it drove off former participants) but, so far as I can tell, their efforts have largely fallen on deaf ears. Ah well. . . c'est la vie.
Whatever floats their boat I guess. The white books, 1e and the Basic sets were all before my time. I didn't start playing until 2e was well underway, and I prefer using the 3e rules. So that leaves me with little to talk about over there unless there's some good 2e discussions.
Oddly enough, some might say, I've found that one of the most inclusive sites for *all* editions of D&D -
and its various relatives and offshoots - is. . .
EN World.
There have been some rough times (e.g., new edition), and you get the odd display of aberrant behaviour (it's people, after all). But still. I've checked out most (if not all, perhaps) of the alternatives, and yep, this one compares pretty well on that front.
That's what I said above. There are posters here that also post at RPGnet, WotC, Dragonsfoot, and/or other smaller forums. And some people like myself are largely exclusive to ENWorld. There's also a decent amount of posting from various writers and designers here as well, so that gives us some insight into why various products are the way they are. There's decent moderation here, which keeps things civil and on-topic which certainly helps.
But I found that to be false - People mostly resist change they have no control over. I base that on my years of work experience implementing quality systems based on crap good stuff like ISO-9000.
I think that's about right. We all have to deal with changes we don't like and have no real control over in our everyday lives and we have to deal with it. Things like recreation and entertainment are partially an escape from that, and a lot of change there can be annoying. That's one reason I watch little TV any more, too many show I like get cancelled and get replaced by stuff I can't stand, schedules get moved around every which way, and sometimes (not much any more) two shows I want to watch are put in the exact same time slot forcing me to choose (TiVo is a luxury, not an option).
My biggest complaint about 4.0E is all the new books that will need to be bought. If I or someone else complains because you can't do X anymore, an edition sage will proudly proclaim that Yes You Can!, it's in the Forgotten Compendium of Martial Control semi-core handbook that just came out. To keep up with the edition sages, I will need to buy a dozen books for three to four years, until 4.5E comes out to fix the problems in 4.0E.
Oddly, implementing new rules means needing to buy new rule books. It was true with every older edition of D&D, as well.
I have to agree with Hereticus on this one; it's not a matter of new optional material that's getting released later, it's stuff that was always a part of D&D or part of D&D for many years getting saved for a second or third book to help boost sales. Stuff like druids and frost giants. So if you want to convert something, you have to wait if you know an update is coming because if you do a conversion that's nothing like what gets released later, it can screw up your game.
I understand why they're doing it, it's to help boost sales of splats because stuff past core doesn't usualy sell as much. But I don't have the money to keep up with this marketing strategy right now, and I find it irritating. So I need to choose between either buying some of it and playing what feels like half a game, or playing with older rules which may make it harder to pull in new players. It's been a while too since I've been actively invovled in a game, and there's anxiety over what people will be playing in the future that's bothering me as well.
Well I have about every rulebook since AD&D and I am inclined to agree with jdrakeh. Many of the broad rules stayed same between 3E and 4E while few if any did between 2E and 3E. The one thing that AD&D and 3E had in common that 4E does not have is vancian magic and the massive number of spells that one could convert from one system to an other, and though they are a subset of the system one could argue they are by far the greatest part. Still the base rules, like high rolls and high numbers win, feats, the structure of combat and combat options, ability scores all granting similar modifiers; all these are similar if not identical between 3E and 4E while were entirely different between AD&D and 3E.
In short I think that while converting spells from 2E to 3E is certainly easier, converting most anything else is easier now, and the gameplay is also more similar on its core aspects.
Well the drop of Vancian magic could make conversion of a good chunk of material difficult. And it might affect gameplay as well with the spells being divided among class powers and rituals.
I didn't find conversions between 2e and 3e to be overly difficult myself, the biggest difference was monsters, and magic items were somewhat different as well. That was never a huge problem with monsters because nearly all the classic monsters were right there in the 3e MM, and all the stuff I needed to convert was more obscure material anyway. The conversions I did do was done on an "as-needed" basis, and there was a lot of fan conversions around of the more popular stuff that didn't make the cut.
With magic items, the hardest part was figuring out the market price, because that's needed if a PC is going to construct one. It has nothing to do with selling it in Thaymarts or something like that, you still need the price if no magic is sold at all to determine the XP costs. A caster level needs to be set for stuff like dispelling and such. It also helps to classify it as a minor, medium, or major item. The actual powers aren't to hard to port over, though some of the really weird stuff didn't work well at all in 3e.
RPGnet is interesting in that there doesn't seem to be much edition warring most of the time, primarily because the readership seems to be overwhelmingly pro-4e. When an occasional 3e-related thread comes up (say, the recent ones about the Pathfinder previews), they're absolutely dogpiled by pre-4e/anti-3e posts.
That's strange, I thought there'd be stronger warring there, but then RPGnet is RPGs in general and not just D&D, so I guess there's less focus on any edition.
