Edition wars...a GOOD thing? or if not, an APPROPRIATE thing?

[JoeGKushner]

So from violently opposed to wouldn't vommit if you had to play it and would encourage people to play other games?

Probably not quite the 'switch" i was personally thinking of. Starts off with open hatred, ends with muted dislike. Not seeing that 'big' change I was speaking of here.

But it could just be me.

Well, I suppose I may be a first, then......

Initially I was as violently opposed to 4th Edition as any "hater" could possibly be. Bought a 4e Player's Handbook the day of its release, and returned it 24 hours later after reading through the bulk of it. At the time, I thought it was simply something I would never want to play.

Later, I was convinced by a friend to play in a couple of one-shots. As a result, I starting looking at various forums trying to get a handle on what I should expect, whether maybe I had overreacted initially, etc.

After getting some more insight, and playing in a couple of one-shot games, I am actually pretty neutral on 4th Edition as a rules system. It's probably not what I would choose to play, given the choice, but I'm certainly not opposed to playing it. Having read many opinions/essays on the merits of 4th Edition, I have actually come to understand, at least in part, what WotC's goals were for the edition, and have a better grasp on the rationale of certain rules changes. In other words, in large part to engaging in the so called "Edition War," I actually came to understand 4th Edition a little bit better, and what WotC was trying to accomplish. Now, while I still disagree with some of the core design philosophies, I can certainly appreciate the system's merits (and flaws) as they are, and if my long-time core group of players decided tomorrow to switch to 4e, I'd shrug my shoulders and go with them.

However--The fact that I am now ambivalent to the 4th Edition rules, does not mean I am mollified towards Wizards of the Coast as a business entity.

If there's a company that's had a worse 18 months from a public relations standpoint than Wizards of the Coast, I certainly can't think of one. Even if 4th Edition ends up being the "Greatest RPG Rule System of All Time" (not likely, since I think 3.x / PF is a better system right now ), it doesn't change the fact that WotC has generally botched every opportunity they've had to generate a feeling of good will towards people like me--people who might have adopted 4th Edition wholeheartedly, but generally didn't like the entire calculated "vibe" of the company producing it. As a whole, very little of what WotC has done in the last 18 months has felt much like it was oriented to me, the consumer, but was rather done to maximize profits.

At this point, I will almost certainly never invest in more than the three core 4th Ed rulebooks, and possibly the PHB2. I certainly will not buy the "Power Source" books, I certainly will never be a DDI subscriber, and I certainly will not buy minis/maps/DM material from them. And given the chance, I will encourage any group I play with to instead play Pathfinder, because I feel that Paizo, as a company, is more deserving of gamers' hard earned money, and because their ruleset is the one I would, given the choice, prefer to play.

 

[Hussar]

Ibtl

 

[Pseudonym]

If there's a company that's had a worse 18 months from a public relations standpoint than Wizards of the Coast, I certainly can't think of one.

I'm sure the executives of Toyota, Goldman Sachs and AIG take great comfort that "Hey, at least we're not WotC."

 

[Snoweel]

No, clearly WOTC created the problem - there was no need for such a dramatic departure from what D&D was.

There was certainly no "need", but you must admit more than a few people think there was very good reason to.

A lot of people have had their interest in D&D reinvigorated by the new edition. It's just a shame that there are also a lot of people who feel left behind by it all.

 

[Barastrondo]

There was certainly no "need", but you must admit more than a few people think there was very good reason to.

A lot of people have had their interest in D&D reinvigorated by the new edition. It's just a shame that there are also a lot of people who feel left behind by it all.

This is pretty much my observation on the matter. The real tragedy is that when you get away from the edition wars, overall more people are playing the D&D they want to (with the exception of those who feel if it's out of print, you can't play it). This should technically lead to more people happy overall, but... well.

 

[xechnao]

Edition wars exist over here simply because of forum structure and forum practice. Wotc has nothing to do with it. If there was no forum such as "General RPG Discussion" but only separate 3e and 4e forums there would be no such a thing as edition wars. Interestingly the site's most traffic is on the General forum. It seems edition wars are the leading part of EnWorld and its health. That's not a nice thing to say but the numbers speak of themselves.
I guess the problem over here is that the OGL market is dead while both Wotc and Paizo manage to support their products as needed.

I think Enworld may be in need of a new forum structure.
I suggest the following threads:

"Industry Talk" news about the industry regarding policies and economy.
"General Rpg rules discussion": discussions about game design
"3e/Pathfinder"
"4e"

Any 4e news should be posted in the 4e forum and any 3e or Pfder news on the 3e/Pr forum.

I think a structure like this might help the site deal with the edition wars plague.

 

[Mark Hope]

Edition wars stink. They soured me on coming to ENWorld for an awfully long time, which is a real shame because this is normally such a great place to be. That's the main effect I've seen. Not a change in who plays what. Just a bunch of nasty crap where I'd rather not see it. Oh well. Such is life.

There are some interesting comparisons to be made with the WoD, I think. I'm an OWoD player by preference, but I love the NWoD as a source of awesome ideas, cool story-seeds, NPCs, antagonists, neat bits of crunch I can steal etc etc. Cross-pollination between OWoD and NWoD is nothing but a source of awesome, imho, and I've seen some great threads in this vein at certain other boards.

I think it's a real shame that we don't see more of this kind of thing where D&D is concerned. I'm sure that there are plenty of good ideas or rules concepts in 4e that can inform a 3e/PFRPG game and vice versa. I've always liked the 4e approach to bloodied, where a monster suddenly does something unexpected when it reaches a certain hp total. That may have originated elsewhere, but it gets great treatment in 4e from what I understand.

I don't know if this kind of mutual sharing of teh awesome can dilute the edition warring to any degree (I have the impression that it has done great things to ameliorate any OWoD/NWoD divide) but it would be cool to see it happening some more. There have been a couple of threads about it in the past, but the more the merrier, I think.

 

[Barastrondo]

Edition wars exist over here simply because of forum structure and forum practice. Wotc has nothing to do with it. If there was no forum such as "General RPG Discussion" but only separate 3e and 4e forums there would be no such a thing as edition wars. Interestingly the site's most traffic is on the General forum. It seems edition wars are the leading part of EnWorld and its health. That's not a nice thing to say but the numbers speak of themselves.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I favor the General forum because people will talk about things that go beyond edition. I like seeing dungeon design commentary from OD&D and 1e fans, setting talk from 2e fans, character concept talk from 3e fans and discussion of exciting terrain setups from 4e fans — and better yet, a mix of all of those topics, from all of those editions, and from other games besides. Talking about RPGs is more than just talking about mechanics. I like the discussions on inspiration, on roleplaying, on personal takes on given races or monster.

That's what makes the edition wars all the more disappointing to me. They are openly hostile to discussions of actual content, discussions that would greatly benefit from having aficionados of all games participating.

Everyone out there who loves a particular edition of D&D but doesn't feel offended by other people talking about a less favorite edition within your line of sight, who is interested in talking with people about their games even if you wouldn't want to personally play in those games, who sees your tribe as "gamers" rather than "3e players" or "4e players" or "Pathfinder players" — you guys are the best.

 

[xechnao]

snip

So add another forum named "adventure paths/modules/settings". Talk about these stuff there.

 

[Barastrondo]

So add another forum named "adventure paths/modules/settings". Talk about these stuff there.

I really don't think that would solve anything. It would just add more work for the moderators whenever something general like "Help me come up with new ideas for dwarves" shows up — if it stays in 3e, then you're not going to get as many neat ideas, and if it's moved to "adventure paths/modules/settings," people who don't use published adventure paths, modules or settings might never realize that this is the place for homebrew cultural or roleplaying discussion.

Splitting up the user base into edition ghettos doesn't really help the ability to talk with fans of various editions, or to promote the idea that maybe fans of various editions can talk about things other than another edition war. It's basically just saying "We expect you to always be horrible to one another, so you're going to be separated." And though there's almost certainly always going to be a few people on every website who will be continually horrible to their fellows, they shouldn't be the ones dictating policy with their actions.