Edition wars! Games other than D&D

[Andor]

I also play Shadowrun, which also has 3 editions. The interesting thing about SR is that everyone likes the newest version substantially more the others. The updated versions fixed things that the fans wanted.

I gotta say, except for the background skills (which are trivial to add in) I really prefer SR2 to 3. The egregious faults of SR 1 are fixed (Light Handguns with explosive ammo say) and the rules and flavor text are much cleaner than SR3. Tech makes more sense, the magic is more flexible (Although the decreased power of magical healing in SR3 has it's points. In SR2 I've actually argued with the GM that my character should have been too dead for the spell to save him.) I can't speak to the decking rules but I really prefer decking to take place offscreen, so who cares?

 

[T. Foster]

Traveller has edition wars every bit as angry and violent as D&D's, between fans of classic Traveller (and even within CT between those who use only the core books and those who use the core books + expansions), MegaTraveller, Traveller: The New Era, Marc Miller's Traveller (T4), GURPS Traveller, d20 Traveller, and those who are still holding out hope for Traveller5, which is supposed to be a heavily revised version of T4. I personally prefer something somewhere between Classic and MegaTraveller (I think MT has by and large better rules, but is too complicated in spots) and consider all the rest travesties to a greater or lesser degree.

RuneQuest also has had its share of edition wars. Many fans of the Chaosium editions (RQ1 and RQ2) really hated the Avalon Hill version (RQ3) which added a lot of extra complication and de-emphasized the Glorantha setting (introducing a bland "Fantasy Earth" in its place), and there was also a lot of acrimony when Hero Wars (which has a completely different system and underlying philosophy from RQ, but the same setting -- Glorantha) was released -- many RQ/Glorantha fans felt like they were being pressured to switch over. I personally prefer RQ3 (the version I started with) but can appreciate the appeal of RQ2 as well. I hated Hero Wars at the time but have recently acquired HeroQuest (substantially revised 2nd ed of HW) and am actually liking it quite a bit, but I still doubt I'd ever play it.

 

[CarlZog]

Top Secret. Most fans of the original game, myself included, loathed Top Secret/SI.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Traveller has edition wars every bit as angry and violent as D&D's,

I use this one:

As I don't have the originals. Actually, it was a present to the wife, as she's
the Traveller nut in our house.

 

[Wombat]

Ars Magica, for me more on supplements than the game itself. Though an amazing number of people hated AM 3.

Yeah. I was one of those, though for the most part that was due to flavour text rather than mechanics, per se. This was when White Wolf owned the game and they seemed quite determined to link Mythic Europe with the World of Darkness. The Realm of Reason really cheesed a lot of people off, as did the constant rather silly references to demons. **shrug**

That being said, I love AM. I have played it as 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition (well, the latter was playtest -- still trying to bring my players over to The Dark Side). 4th ed is so far my fave, but there are good things about 5th and 2nd.

And let me join the chorus of 2nd ed Paranoia fans! The Computer Is Your Friend! Subsequent editions really screwed things up, though I hear the XP version is good (haven't seen it yet).

And RuneQuest -- I far preferred RQ2 to RQ3. The focus was still on Glorantha, the mechanics were clearer, and I really, really liked it. RQ3 went off in some very strange directions. And don't ask me about the newer versions...

That being said, I have found a Great Truth in gaming -- no matter how much you may hate any given system, the right GM and the right group of fellow gamers can make the game terrific. I have no love for GURPS, for example, yet one of the greatest campaigns I was ever able to participate in was a GURPS Tekumel campaign. The GM knew when to leave the rules to the side and get back to the story, so all was good.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

That being said, I have found a Great Truth in gaming -- no matter how much you may hate any given system, the right GM and the right group of fellow gamers can make the game terrific. I have no love for GURPS, for example, yet one of the greatest campaigns I was ever able to participate in was a GURPS Tekumel campaign. The GM knew when to leave the rules to the side and get back to the story, so all was good.

Wombat has received the Great Revelation. He is now plump and wise.

Rub the Wombat, gain wisdom and good fortune.

 

[Staffan]

Yeah. I was one of those, though for the most part that was due to flavour text rather than mechanics, per se. This was when White Wolf owned the game and they seemed quite determined to link Mythic Europe with the World of Darkness.

That link has been around since the very start of the World of Darkness (not the very start of Ars Magica, since that precedes WoD by a couple of years). Note that one of the Vampire clans has the exact same name as one of the Houses of Hermes (Tremere).

 

[cildarith]

I was a HUGE fan of Rolemaster. I bought everything ICE ever released since The Iron Wind and Arm's Law were first published and I played RM 1st ed before there even was an RM 1st ed.

As everyone knows, Rolemaster was The Schizznit in the mid to late 80's and Rolemaster 2nd ed. is one of the finest RPGs ever published (take that Diaglo!)

Somewhere along the way in the mid-to-late 90's, they decided to release "Rolemaster - the Standard System".

RMSS was born, featuring even more charts, more bloat and a character generation system that would take hours to set up a character under. It was utterly broken. Horrible. Horrible!!

GAHHHHHH!!

ICE went bankrupt over RMSS. *spitz* Rebranding it as "RM-FRPG" did not help it much either.

RM2 forever.

Amen to that! My hat of RMSS know no limit!

RM2 rocks!

 

[KaosDevice]

This is why I am completely owned by Chaosium. Even though the differences between the "Editions" (I'm still convinced edition actually means cosmetic change to those guys) are minor I still slavishly go and buy whatever the newest edition of CoC is. Sometimes though, issuing "new editions" seems more like marketing then rules improvement, something that has frustrated me for as long as I have gamed.

 

[painandgreed]

All WW products. They put out the softbound and one year almost to the day, the second edition hardbound would come out. Then came revised and now WoD2. Most people just held off on buying any of the games till the second edition came out because it was mostly bug fixes and they only fixed things that needed to be fixed. in WoD2, the changed the system and nobody I know is willing to play it over the old even if they like the new setting better.

Warhammer 40k. I knew people who still swore by Rogue Trooper when I started. When they revised the rules (and army lists) again I just sold everything and stopped playing even though I would have been happy playing the previous version.

Traveller. It seems that the only way I can get any interest in Traveller is to mention the classic small books (which is fine by me).