I'm getting Edition War fatigue

[Infiniti2000]

If it needs to be said, "what they were smoking" was an obvious shorthand for "what wrong-headed design decisions were made that led the game down an unpleasant detour". The phrase itself was "air-quoted", mind you, and I'd also like to think that people are reading in context rather than assuming literal accusations of drug use. (I suppose it wouldn't help to point out that I'm 4/20-supportive.)

In general, I don't know how you can have "incisive critique" of an idea, without some allowance for "insulting the idea" (i.e. colorful/descriptive negative phrases that help people to express exactly what they find wrong with a particular concept).

I really doubt anyone took your comment as literal, regardless of how TurtleJay responded. However, I certainly didn't take it as obvious short-hand for anything that was non-pejorative. I inferred that you intended to insult the designers. Pure and simple as that. That's how I and I wager A LOT of people will infer that type of statement. It is by no means simply a colorful phrase. If you think it's simply colorful and non-inflammatory I simply recommend you re-think it. That is, if you care to not try to bait people on it in the future. Remember, we can't read your body language or tone and aren't close friends, so we can only see the written word and can't assume that you don't intend it as friendly.

For example, Bob calls Robert a "jerk." Is that shorthand air-quoted for "we don't really see eye to eye on this?" I would hope you'd say obviously not, but the analogy (from my perspective) is very close to what you wrote. You might not see it that way, but my point of replying is simply to help you understand the other perspective. This is not a one-way street either. The same exact thing holds for me (for example) in discussions of older editions. I cannot provide a similar air-quote (like you did) about previous designers. I would expect you or others like you to admonish me for such a statement.

 

[billd91]

I noticed that. I was away for a little while, and I must have missed something. Why is everyone so riled? Was there a major release from Paizo or WotC, or did a publisher announce something new, or what? (Not that Edition Wars need anything of the sort to flare up; I was just curious.)

I don't think it's particularly edition warring that's the source of a current trend on ENWorld. Lately, I've seen a tendency for threads to proliferate a lot, specifically spawning off subtopics from other threads going on. It's happening with more than just 4e-based discussions. I've seen a lot of game play styles ones too. Sometimes it seems like the OP of the spawned thread may be seeking clarification of something without trying to clutter up the main thread, sometimes it seems to be seeking the validity of other ideas being discussed in the source thread. For example, if in a discussion one party is saying FLIP and is getting a lot of contradiction from people saying FLOP, the flipper will start another thread to see if FLOP is really true among the rest of the board population.

It's been going on a lot lately, and I think that one of the reasons there are so many 4e vs 3e threads going on now. One or two threads have spawned a few more each.

 

[Piratecat]

I'm swinging this closed. We can let edition wars, either in practice or in abstract, rest for a while.