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

[Fanaelialae]

One obvious question becomes, why doesn't WotC want to support a larger fan base? I don't need them, but the question remains.

Presumably, they judged the profitability either too risky or insufficient. WotC is a business when all is said and done, after all. If they believed that continuing the 3e line would be suitably profitable, they'd no doubt do so. It's even possible that they did desire to support a larger fan base as you say, but could not come up with an acceptable business model (though that's pure conjecture).

 

[thecasualoblivion]

That was never the case, either within fandom, or outside of it. Within the hobby, plenty of people played D&D but never payed 3e, having moved on to other games. Many even came back for 4e.

Dungeons and Dragons isn't just a game. Its a community, its a brand, and its the face of RPG hobby. While 3E hasn't stopped being D&D, it has stopped being the flagship edition of D&D, which thanks to things like community, brand, publishing, advertising and whatnot leaves it in a diminished state compared to when it was the established official and current version.

So you are claiming that the old versions of D&D are not the same D&D as 4E?

In a de facto sense yes. Older editions are not being printed, not having new books published, not being supported by the RPGA, ect. While I would agree that 3E and previous editions are as much D&D as 4E is in a spiritual sense, they are not in a practical sense.

Of course you can't please everyone. But you can please more than you are right now.

I would have to disagree there. One of my main complaints about 3.5E was that it tried to be too many things to too many people, and since many of these goals conflicted with each other you ended up with a sloppy and conflicted game. For example, 3E didn't know whether it wanted to be a strong class based system, or an infinitely customized building block system, and as such it didn't do a terribly good job at being either. It certainly isn't as strong a class based system as 4E is, and its not as good of a toolbox system as most point buy systems.

 

[Mistwell]

I do not think people who complain about things on the internet tend to be representative examples of the audience for that thing as a whole.

Indeed, I think often it's the very fact that such people are in the overwhelming vast minority of opinions on the topic that causes them to be such vocal critics on the internet. It's the outlet they use to shout to be heard in reaction to the feeling that few actually think like them about the topic at hand.

When people like something, usually they just enjoy the thing they like and do not feel much of a need to repeatedly tell others. It's when they have a complaint that they are more likely to seek a place to be heard.

 

[Mark]

It is just as likely that people who complain about something are the tip of an iceberg. The shelves and junk drawers of the world are littered with things that people have purchased, dismissed, and didn't bother to raise a stink over. It's why ebay exists.

Of course you can't please everyone. But you can please more than you are right now.

That is a given, since there are both people who are displeased and people who are unreached. Since there are people who remain with older editions with each change, there seems to be a growing number of those who feel displeased.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just completed a class on Ethics today...my umpteenth one, FWIW...and the final exercise was working as a team to draft a set of model rules to govern a profession.

And then defend and/or revise our formulations in open class in a mock legislative session.

Then we did the same for the other teams in the class.

From 9AM to 5PM yesterday, the 12 people in that class debated what boiled down to 6 pages of material...often over minutia like the meaning of a single word, or whether the language of a section should be "less than" or "no more than" and so forth. The discussions were, at times, quite heated. It gave me a new perspective and real respect for the difficulties in the legislative process.

I bring this up because the Edition Wars are much the same.

Like the process described above, discussions can get quite heated. However, ALSO like the process described above, all but the most heated discussions may provide some real and valuable data on what WotC needs to consider for future editions of their IP. They'll see what worked, what some found annoying but not ultimately a barrier to game play, and what really ticked people off.

In both 3.X AND 4Ed.

That kind of info could lead to a 5Ed that is a hybrid of the 2 systems. Or it could lead to WotC supporting 2 different RPG systems, one an iteration of 3.X, the other an iteration of 4Ed.

Or 5Ed could be yet another beast entirely...

 

[Ariosto]

minutia like the meaning of a single war

Freudian slip?

Or 5Ed could be yet another beast entirely...

bidding and set collecting
custom dice and cards
networked electronics
miniatures with 3-D terrain

(just taking a stab in the dark)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah- I had Amanpour on in the background, talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I'll be correcting that in a jiffy!

 

[Mistwell]

all but the most heated discussions may provide some real and valuable data on what WotC needs to consider for future editions of their IP. They'll see what worked, what some found annoying but not ultimately a barrier to game play, and what really ticked people off.

There may have been that kind of value earlier in the edition wars.

But, whatever ever value there was, it's already out there. We are repeating debates, over and over again.

Take, for example, the videogamey debate. It's a debate that was engaged in actively when 4e came out, and just about every month since then. Nothing new is being said - it's just the same opinions, said in a different way (and sometimes even said in the same way, with some people even quoting themselves from other message board or even this message board from an earlier post).

And, if nothing else, I'd guess WOTC is no longer reading the edition war stuff. I wouldn't, were I them. I would have read the initial stuff, but I wouldn't continue reading it after months and months and months of the same things being said in different ways. Message received, or not, but either way, the repetition teaches nothing new.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There may have been that kind of value earlier in the edition wars.

But, whatever ever value there was, it's already out there. We are repeating debates, over and over again.

Take, for example, the videogamey debate. It's a debate that was engaged in actively when 4e came out, and just about every month since then. Nothing new is being said - it's just the same opinions, said in a different way (and sometimes even said in the same way, with some people even quoting themselves from other message board or even this message board from an earlier post).

And, if nothing else, I'd guess WOTC is no longer reading the edition war stuff. I wouldn't, were I them. I would have read the initial stuff, but I wouldn't continue reading it after months and months and months of the same things being said in different ways. Message received, or not, but either way, the repetition teaches nothing new.

I can't really agree with the "videogamey" debate being an example of a dead end- the more it goes on, the more variant definitions and nuances come out.

Recent posts in that thread point out that "videogamey" was a term applied to Eberron when it came out (complete with a thread link), and others simply saying that the word simply means "it bases the fun on things I may find in video games"- note that neither is an attack on those who enjoy 4Ed.

Yeah, there is some repetition, as well as some repetition and repetition, but more often than not, its easy to skim over those posts to find fresher ideas, even in the oldest of debates on the various Edition War topics.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Thoughts? Let me have it.

I believe that there are few actual beneifts to Edition Wars. One benefit is that they can elicit feedback (of a sort) from people who otherwise would not say much. Another benefit is that the debate can force some people to examine their own views critically and make a complaint more specific; A statement for 'This new edition sucks' does not help. A statement of 'the new rules feel too mechanical and break my suspension of disbelief' is a bit better. A statement of 'Warforged, Tieflings, and Dragonborn do not belong in my game' is actually helpful feedback.

The problem with Edition Wars as I see it is that it is a rather bad term. Entertainment is a highly subjective topic, and people tend to promote personal views as being 'the right view'. People are also capable of liking the same form of entertainment for entirely different reasons while also disliking what the other person likes about it.

I have played since 2nd Edition, and I happen to be a fan of 4th Edition. I like that a great deal of effort was put into making the game mechanically balanced. I enjoy playing D&D as a whole because I enjoy the responses to the various decisions and problems that the PC's face, and the free form options open to the players. I enjoy the tactical combat, and allowing for the posibility of the players failing. I like using minis for combat as they automatically prevent confusion about line of sight or who is adjacent to whom, or how many orcs are caught in a fireball. I disliked the idea of magic users being in practice a great deal more powerful and effective then non magic users. I hated super fragile low level characters. I am indifferent to historical accuracy, and simulationism. I am also indifferent to the character races.

However, there are people who enjoy D&D, who have played the exact same editions I have, that cannot stand the elements I like. Some people run game worlds that are very much like Toilken and have no place for Dragonborn. Some people are convinced that melee types must be limited to what a person could accomplish in the real world, and find the concept of daily exploits for fighters to be utter nonsense. They are bothered by the idea of magic users not having unrestrained magic. There are those who love the game but hate the idea of hit points for tracking injuries. There are those who love the storytelling above all else and get annoyed when the DM creates encounters that are too time consuming. There are those who find mini's cumbersome and annoying, and hate the dependence on them. There are those who hate the idea of 'super powered' PC's being so much more powerful then regular NPC's at the start of their adventuring career. Some just cannot accept the notion of a level 1 Kobold that wont die in one hit.

On top of that there are people who will dislike a particular edition for reasons entirely unrelated to the actual gameplay. Some people hate a new edition because the previous edition was not that old, and see the new edition as a cash grab. Some dislike powercreep and the constant stream of splat books. Some dislike the use of a software tie in because they do not want to bother with a computer at the game table. Some people will dislike a new edition simply because they are convinced that a previous edition already got everything right the first time. Some people just hate the 'flavor text / fluff' provided for the new edition.

Regardless of what causes someone to like or dislike any particular game, the basic fact is that every one of the elements I mentioned above are perfectly legitimate reasons for someone to like or dislike a game. There is no right or wrong, only that which affects your ability to enjoy a game. But because everyone who plays D&D tends to take the game more seriously then they ought to, the edition wars tend to outlast any amount of reasonable benefit they could have.

I think that arguing the merits of 3rd Edition vs 4th Edition is about as productive and reasonable as arguing the merits of a Corvette vs a Porshe. Both are fine cars, and in practice anyone who likes nice cars would probably be happy driving either. There are people who would prefer the Porshe, and those who would prefer the Corvette. And among those, there are some who would consider people who insist that one of the cars is crap and the other is awesome to have their head on backwards.

What I wonder is why the hell one guy would give a damn what the other guy thinks of his favorite car? Peo[le in general are not good at accepting that someone will disagree with them about a topic that they feel passionate about.

END COMMUNICATION