History repeats itself

[Nahat Anoj]

Haha, very good!

Erm at least I hope that is subtle sarcasm?!?

FWIW, based on his posts from this and other boards, I don't think he's being sarcastic.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

There is one major distinction -- the OGL.

After 2e ended, there was no new, professional, material for it. If you wanted Cool New Toys, you had to move to 3e, or some other system entirely. Most of the netbook sites dried up and died, as well.

With 3x, there can be a constant stream of new material, professionally done. 3x 'spinoffs' like True 20 and Spycraft will still be out there and supported. There was never any company which could earn money supporting 2e grognards, but if there's enough 3e players left, companies can and will cater to them, reducing the need to move to 4e. Thus, more of those 'on the fence' will stick with 3e that much longer.

Well, unless the new OGL will be considerably more restrictive than the old one (and it doesn't look like it), when most D&D players will move on to 4E (and they will) the third party publishers will move with them. After all, that's where the money is - and there is little enough money in the gaming industry as it is.

 

[Lizard]

FWIW, based on his posts from this and other boards, I don't think he's being sarcastic.

I'd say you need a few ranks in Sense Motive, but, this being a 4e board, I guess you need to make it a Trained Skill.

You might also wish to take "Detect Self Mockery" as an at-will spell.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Well, unless the new OGL will be considerably more restrictive than the old one (and it doesn't look like it), when most D&D players will move on to 4E (and they will) the third party publishers will move with them. After all, that's where the money is - and there is little enough money in the gaming industry as it is.

QFT. Like it or not, I think companies who don't eventually transition to 4e will be left in the dust.

 

[Bishmon]

Is this one of those threads where I can use thinly-veiled sarcasm to disparage those that disagree with me? I love those.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I'd say you need a few ranks in Sense Motive, but, this being a 4e board, I guess you need to make it a Trained Skill.

You might also wish to take "Detect Self Mockery" as an at-will spell.

Ah, okay. My Wis is fairly low, so I'm easily duped.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

And I am incredibly amused how history repeats itself. Today we are seeing the same hysteria, the same rumors, the same denouncement of any changes (regardless of whether these changes have actually been confirmed), the same endless debates which are only based on hearsay instead of factual confirmation.
QUOTE]

In my case it is very different. I have played D&D since 1E, but I was eagerly awaiting 3E when it was announced. 2E had become stale and inflexible (level limits anyone?). 3E offered a chance to customize one's character as he wished.

Although 3.0/3.5 had flaws, it was easily the best version of D&D I ever played.

Five months before the release of 3E I was chomping at the bit to switch. Five months before the release of 4E I have heard nothing to make me think it is better than what I have got (either a houseruled 3.5 or some other system). In fact, there are many things that make me fear it will be worse. I am willing to review (not buy but review) the PH before passing judgement, but I am not optimistic.

I think the people might change, but the quality or nature of the discussion doesn't change.

 

[Lizard]

Well, unless the new OGL will be considerably more restrictive than the old one (and it doesn't look like it), when most D&D players will move on to 4E (and they will) the third party publishers will move with them. After all, that's where the money is - and there is little enough money in the gaming industry as it is.

Actually, it looks far more restrictive to me -- based on what little we know and the fact it's really more like the STL than the old OGL. WOTC has made it clear they don't want anymore Spycrafts, M&Ms, or Conans feeding off their turf, or even games which only "require" the Players Handbook in the most cursory way. (Many 'stand alone' D20 games used the STL and technically 'required' the 3e handbook, except for the part where they didn't. I believe such games will be impossible to produce under the 'new' OGL, which seems narrowly focused to permit only D&D supplements.)

 

[Mark Hope]

I'd say it's just People + Internet. Gamers, changing editions or repeating history has nothing to do with it. Plenty of folks have pointed this out in plenty of threads, namely that gamers don't have a monopoly on behaving in an outrageous manner over things that matter to them. There was a mention in another thread about Starcraft II receiving similar attention from the pro and con camps, for example.

Elsewhere online I visit a board for bassists, Moorcock's board and a couple of large sites for fans of Nine Inch Nails (of which I am one.) Let me tell you that gamers have nothing on rabid NIN fans for snark, hyperbole or downright nastiness. Bassists too can get all up in arms over the relative merits of the Musicman Stingray or whatever. (Folks at the Moorcock site tend to be pretty chilled out, though, unless the subject of Chaosium comes up, and then it can get a bit tetchy, heh). And I'm sure that other posters have similar experiences in other areas of fandom. Point is, we're no different as a community. We're more open-minded than some, and less open-minded than others. Could be worse. Could be better, too.

So I'd say the current furore is to be expected. Maybe WotC could have handled some things differently from the PR side of things. But the fanbase is ultimately responsible for its own reactions, good and bad. It's just part of being online as far as I can tell.

 

[Celebrim]

If your history teacher believed that, I'd wager he believed West Side Story and Romeo&Juliet were totally different plays...

No, but he would have laughed at your example, because it precisely illustrates his point. Humanity likes to construct simple narratives. The historian is not a story teller. His job requires him to record things that are boring in ways that are boring, and he must resist the temptation to create simple narratives of events least he run the risk of being merely a creator of fiction.

West Side Story and Romeo & Juliet are not history. Not even Shakespeare's historical play are history.

HUMANITY doesn't change. Thus, neither does history.

Certain patterns of human behavior may repeat, but history doesn't. It involves different people, in different times, in different places doing different things. If this thing is something like something else, you need to resist the temptation to only focus on the things that make it similar. Humans are good at finding patterns, and they'll often find patterns in places that they don't exist. Just as you can describe someone by the class of person they are - gender, race, nationality, religion, hobby, politics - and so forth and could thereby have some description, but really no next to nothing about the person unless described them as an individual, you know next to nothing about an event by describing it in terms of things it reminds you of. Because real history is as individual as this individuals.