How has the 4e/3e schism affected you?

[kiznit]

Important:
This is not a blame thread. This is not meant to be a thread about whether you like the new edition or not (please save these personal opinions for the multitude of already existing threads). The focus of this thread is meant to be on your opinion of the state of the fan community and how it has affected you personally.


With that out of the way, my impression is that the schism is largely online, and that it is primarily a matter of D&D idealists who believe that their favored edition favors their specific playing style, as opposed to the newer (or older) edition, and are either appreciative or resentful based on that.

Now, granted, to some extent we're all D&D idealists, in that we all want to be playing the best kind of D&D we can. In particular, we're the kind of idealists that like to get together online and really hash out what we enjoy (and sometimes don't enjoy) about playing D&D. However, I like to think that the vast majority of D&Ders really care first and foremost about their specific individual roleplaying experiences, i.e. the exact kind of D&D that they sit down with their buddies to play on a regular basis as opposed to what everyone in the hobby is playing (that being said, I wish people online would stop proving me wrong about this ).

Do you have 3.x/4e arguments around your own gaming table? Are you currently experiencing adoption pains as your group decides what to play? Do the arguments get kind of nasty?

Any stories of actual gaming groups being split apart because of this?

Do you think that the schism you see online is reflected among the total gaming demographic? If not, why not?

Do you think the community will eventually heal itself? How long do you think it will take? What will be the result/general concensus?

How does this current schism compare to past D&D base-splitting from earlier editions? The same? Worse? Better?

Just curious.

 

[jdrakeh]

First, I've resigned my membership to several online forums. It's a bad sign when every visit to a given forum makes you feel worse than you did before said visit, and when the obvious 'edition wars' trolling obscures any useful content to such a degree that you have to use the forum search function to find the latter.

Second, I've removed links to the forums mentioned above and several others from my own web page, as I'm more than a little reluctant to recommend forums that are currently thick with the hate to anybody else. Some of those links will probably be re-posted when/if the heat dies down, though until that happens, I don't feel comfortable saying "Hey! Post over here!"

Third, I've also started looking at games other than D&D 3x or 4e for actual play, lately. For instance, I play in a Dark Heresy game on Tuesdays, and I'm leaning toward starting a Risus game soon, as well as a Holmes BD&D game (the Borderlands thing in my .sig). I really have no desire to stumble into the real-life equivalent of the forum arguments that I've seen.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've cut back on visits to several sites where the communities don't seem to get that they are driving all sorts of people away -- even ones who might agree with the majority.

As for my campaign, I have one player who is adamantly against changing away from 3.5, because he likes all the splatbooks and complexity. Everyone else is in a wide spectrum, ranging from 4E-friendly to 4E-curious to 4E-agnostic.

 

[nerfherder]

My gaming group is all "ooh, new, shiny!"

I doubt if any of them have heard of the GSL or have any interest in it, despite us playing Thieves' World.

Several of them are very keen on having a character generator ("like the one that came with the 3e PHB - but working better"), and there is even some interest in the virtual desktop to be able to play with former members who now live in other parts of the country.

So, no schism or drama at all for me, in the real world.

 

[Byronic]

Nada, nothing, zip.

We play 3.5 now, we might play 4.0 later on. I hope to play in both of them later on but either doesn't matter.

As long as I can roll dice, be with friends and can play a character (as in personality) I'm alright. Most systems have flaws of some kind. In the end just pick whichever's convenient, compensate for whatever flaw the system has and have fun.

This is a hobby. It's fun. It's not an alternative lifestyle.

I think that most of the love 3.5/ not so favourable on 4.0 is because of a love of complexity. Some people love and thrive on complexity. 4.0 is not complex. And I think we'd like people to like what we want. It's human nature (in general).

Also some of us just like to argue

 

[scruffygrognard]

It's made me:

1] Invest in Paizo in a way that I've never invested in a company before. Believe it or not, I've never subscribed to RPG subscriptions in my 25+ years of gaming. At this point, I'm buying MANY products that I might never use from them. Why? See [2]. Also, I like the way that they treat their customers.

2] Hope that someone keeps 3.5 alive. So far Paizo's the object of my hoping (though I wish they'd clean up 3.5's problems a lot more and tinker with races and classes a lot less).

3] Continue to play 3.5 with my Saturday group. While there a bugs in the system (especially at higher level), I'm trying to persuade them to stick with 3.5 when our current Scarred Lands campaign ends. The DM isn't fond of 3.5's complexity (particularly when designing encounters and generating NPCs) BUT might be willing to run a "core rules" only 3.5 game... which is more than fine with me.

At first he wanted to switch to 4th edition (because it was touted as being much easier to run) but now looks at it as more of a "pick up" game than something he'd like to run a long-term campaign in.

 

[Gundark]

Away from the interwebs???! No no drama at all...we're all playing 4e. No cares about the whole 3.5/4e debate

 

[Obryn]

Nope, no effect whatsoever.

My players were happy to try a demo of 4e and loved it. We'll play more of it.

We'll probably go back to our Arcana Evolved game at some point, too.

Right now, I'm running WFRP - and my players are loving this, too.

Zero drama IRL on this end.

-O

 

[ZombieButch]

No effect at all. I got tired of and stopped running 3.0 before it ever became 3.5, and never published anything for it. I'm really digging 4.0 though, and if time permits I'd like to put out a few modules for it.

 

[Nifft]

My group hasn't noticed particularly.

Cheers, -- N