I'm getting Edition War fatigue

[airwalkrr]

I guess what I'm saying is...can't we all just get along? Or is it actually impossible for people with differing opinions to occupy the same space?

Ethnic hatred has existed for far longer about far less. I doubt you'll ever get your wish.

 

[catastrophic]

Foundation of all human conflict: "You're picking on me!"/"No, you're picking on me!"
Toddlers play the "you started it game" over and over.
And countries tend to play it whenever they go to war.
You're always the good guy, the other guy is always the bad guy.
Truth is usually that both sides have some jerks, which draws in average people against said jerks on each side.
Edition Wars aren't much different. Fanbois and haters both have problems accepting the validity of someone else's position.

This attitude is actually a big part of the problem. It's completly false.

People are not equivalent, people don't argue simply to argue, and where there is a conflict, somebody usually did 'start it', and while there is rarely black and white distinctions, in actual fact it is often the case that one side is in the right, and the other side is in the wrong.

There are endless real life examples of this, unfortunatly mentioning any of them as an exmaple is likely to result in trouble. It would also be unfair to asociate this debate with RL debates relating to actual scientific fact.

However, it's also completly unfair to pretend that this is simply a tribalist squabble between interchangable partisans. The edition wars are caused and perpetuated by the hostility towards 4e, and that hostility is not rational, resonable, or constructive. But it's as toxic there as it is there to pretend that everyone is just arguing for the sake of arguing, and that fallacy does a lot to obscure the issues and, ironically, make empty partisanship that much more attractive.

People who hate 4e keep this cycle going. Yes other people then retaliate and the two sides argue a bunch, and the 'pro-4e' other side of the debate is far from flawless, but it's incorrect to suggest that this is some kind of purely subjective space where people argue purely for the sake of arguing.

 

[Maggan]

in actual fact it is often the case that one side is in the right, and the other side is in the wrong.

Nah, life aint that cut and dried.

In most conflicts I have seen, be it family feuds, workplace squabbles or what have you, both sides have something that is right, and a lot of what is wrong.

IME, life isn't easily divided into "this is right and this is wrong". If it was, we'd be seeing a whole different planet than what we have now.

/M

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No you aren't getting snippy. You have a point. There's a large amount of discussion going on in General that ought to go into a 4e specific forum. A bug currently prevents us from moving those threads. Our other choice is to close the threads entirely, and ask people to start them again - and if we find them too late, after the conversation really gets going, that's kind of harsh.

You want to have a discussion specifically about 4e that's less likely to attract rancor? Take it to one of the 4e forums. Don't put it in General.

But I think this is not the way General RPG was used before 4E entered the scene.
The rules forum was for rules questions, and maybe min-maxing. It was not about adventure design, handling player issues, discussing GM experiences, asking for DM suggestions and all that.
All these questions can very directly depend on the edition. Can, but don't have to.

But in fact, posing a thread on General that asks about "Is this power balanced" will hardly incite an edition war. It is an annoyance, sure...

Unless... There is an another interpretation. Anyone wants to discuss how he doesn't like D&D 4? Put it into D&D 4 Rules, because it will usually be about rules, like how healing surges are videogamey or some such. Not relevant to General Gaming, and highly edition specific. And you won't find much edition warring going on, because usually only people that actually play D&D 4 go the D&D 4 forum.

If you want to ask: "What other games are out there besides D&D 4" - well, that can go into General.

 

[Pig Champion]

I really think the problem is purely one of perception. In a typical edition war thread here on ENWorld, I'd bet 90% of the posts are made by the same half dozen or dozen people.

Yeah, the "war" periodically takes up a lot of time/space/energy, but I think it's really dwindled into more of an "Edition Spat" between a handful of argumentative folks.

Easy enough to ignore.

Yeah I agree. I'm relatively new here but with in my first week of posting I had already been jumped on by various users for offering what I thought was just sharing my opinion.

It's funny because I play both editions but every time I was accused of playing one edition over the other because I couldn't handle "thread topic".

From my observations, it's those same people continuing to jump all over people consistently.

Easy enough to ignore.

 

[Truth Seeker]

Love or hate it...edition wars are a part of the human condition.

As we are here...it is here.

Truth.

 

[catastrophic]

Nah, life aint that cut and dried.
. . .
IME, life isn't easily divided into "this is right and this is wrong".

Actually in a great many cases it is. Not all cases, but certainly a substantial number of cases which are misrepresented as far more subjective and ambigious than they are.

There are any number of real world debates where one side of the debate is wrong, and the other one is right. Many of the most contentious debates in modern politcs, such as climate change or evolution, as well as more diverse issues like sex ed for secondary school students, are in fact not debates at all; but retorical conflicts between people who are largely informed of the real facts of a situation, and people who are not, or deliberatly oppose a factual discussion of the issue.

Platitudes to the contrary often encouage irrationality and apathy on issues that are in many cases literally a matter of life and death, and they also prevent proper focus on genuine issues of uncertainty relating to these hot-button topics.

Even in a relativly trivial debate like this, the platitude does not help- it's not constructive to pretend that we're all just butting heads due to human nature. Human nature is far more complex than that and when we argue, it's usually not simply for the sake of arguing.

 

[Kzach]

Can we get a 4e general for such threads? I would love to have a board to talk about 4e, so that I can ignore General RPG Discussion but presently all we have are 4e rules boards.

I wonder what the point of a 'general' board is in that case. Pathfinder is already segmented away, as are the other non-4e D&D (but typically d20) inspired systems. ENWorld would become even more divided....

I would seriously love it if there was a General 4e forum, a General Pathfinder/3e forum, and a general General forum.

I think it would then be easier to realise the troll posts for what they are, as well as have generally general discussion that isn't edition specific. Everyone gets to eat their cake and mods lives are made easier.

At least, that's the theory.

 

[fuzzlewump]

No you aren't getting snippy. You have a point. There's a large amount of discussion going on in General that ought to go into a 4e specific forum. A bug currently prevents us from moving those threads. Our other choice is to close the threads entirely, and ask people to start them again - and if we find them too late, after the conversation really gets going, that's kind of harsh.

You want to have a discussion specifically about 4e that's less likely to attract rancor? Take it to one of the 4e forums. Don't put it in General.

Do you mean 4E rules discussions or 4e discussions belong in the 4th edition forum? The forum description seems to imply that it's for discussing the rules of the game, as in what does forced movement mean? General forum is for, are rules for forced movement good for RPG's, even though it's referring to a 4e rule. I'm actually curious here what the dividing line is supposed to be.

D&D 4th Edition Rules (60 Viewing)
Ask questions about 4th-Edition rules and the like in here. General discussion about 4E or any other game belongs in General RPG Discussion, above.

 

[catastrophic]

Here's a crazy idea, how about instead of putting 4e threads in a 4e forum, you put edition war threads in an edition war forum?