This is a really insightful comment, especially thinking back to the state of 3E forums and the discussions there before 4E started creeping into things. I would actually go a bit farther and say that this wasn't a binary issue and there were more than two groups of "philosophies" on how to play D&D. One of the hallmarks of 3E was that it tried to do everything and to accomodate everybody. The issue I found was that a lot of things and philosophies aren't really compatable, and that 3E was often a game that was at war with itself. Many of the simulationist aspects of the game didn't really mesh well with classic beer and popcorn D&D. The difference in results between optimizing your character to 11 and not doing so often caused friction. You can go on and on.
4E chose to define D&D and pick a side, and then make the best game possible to cater to the core audience it defined. Other people like different things, and it was decided to let those players go and drift off to other games.
Hey, thanks! I try to be smart!
I completely agree with you, thecasualoblivion, about there being more than two philosophies in the community. I had actually considered that as I was writing that post. However, in the interests of trying not to make a already complicated argument even more confusing, I simplified to two groups. Like you said, you could go on and on about it, but still, I'm glad you brought it up.
I'd hazard that it's because each of the two "factions" is actually a nebula of small, distinct philosophical groups that the 3.5E/4E issue isn't completely polarizing. Despite individual folks being generally more strongly in favor of one system than the other, there's still a sizeable portion of fence-sitters, who haven't chosen one side or the other to any statistically significant degree. The community, though it sometimes seems sharply divided, still isn't anywhere near as polarized as communities sometimes are in the face of sociopolitical issues like abortion or gay marriage. This is probably because, unlike in those situations, where the choice is largely "either/or", in the roleplaying community there are more than two games (3.5E and 4E) to choose from, nor does any one choice actually exclude making additional choices. (One can choose to enjoy several games to various statistically significant degrees.)
Maybe what I'm trying to say is that, ultimately, while the community is perhaps partially fractured or fragmented now, it's BS to say that 4E is "splitting" or "dividing" the community. I think any such "splitting" or "dividing" began at least several years ago, (long before 4E), and that it's primarily due to the varying mindsets of players, which have driven the development of new, philosophy-specific games via individual consumer practices.
Doctorhook, speaking of "irreconcilable differences", I'd like to quote you against .. yourself.
doctorhook said:
I believe that part of why 4E is as popular as it is (and it is popular among an economically-significant portion of roleplayers) is that it fits well with the type of games that many people have been playing over the past few years*. The philosophies that guided the design of 4E are visibly present in 3.5E, in hindsight.
*The extension of this is that a sizable portion of players were playing 3.5E as a "different" game than the group mentioned above was. Nobody was right or wrong, of course, but there were at least two major mindsets in the D&D community, which was exacerbated by the release of a new edition. I posit that these, the disparate philosophies of the community, is the underlying cause of the edition wars of late.
vs.
doctorhook said:
I disagree here, Psion. I think the "philosophical shift" is community-based, not rules-/system-based.
Your observation in the first quote is spot on. You're not the first one to notice this, but you're right, and I'm happy to give you full credit for figuring it out on your own.
But your absolute correctness in the first quote undercuts the second quote. It's both community-based and rule system-based. 3E tried to cater to both sides of the community, and 4E picked one. And they did it by changing the rules.
So one side of the community (which I'll call the "Wormwood-Snoweel Alliance") is happy as a pig in mud, because 4E is now exactly the game they were always trying to play. However another side of the community (which I'll call the "Irda-Midget Imperium") is like "Well crap, these rules are useless for playing the game we're interested in."
I thank you for the credit, Irda Ranger. You're obviously a good sport!
FWIW, I don't mind not being first, but I am glad to figure something out for myself.
I think my biggest error here is that I wasn't clear enough, and that I still haven't quite wrapped my head around all of the implications of what I'm suggesting. I suppose what I really mean to say was that this "philosophical shift" was community-based first, and is community-based more than rules-/system-based. It's not that the systems haven't influenced these philosophies, but I believe that it's the community that drives the development of new games. (Thanks to free-market economics; generally speaking, consumers buy what they want and don't buy what they don't want, and in order to secure those consumers' dollars, producers attempt to sell what consumers want, and attempt to avoid being stuck trying to sell what consumers don't want.) Specifically, I mean to suggest that the attitudes present in the gaming community tend to inform the attitudes of game designers and developers, who are themselves members of the community. Thus, a new "narrativist" game might be developed in the hopes of becoming a successful product, buoyed by the support of "narrativist" gamers, for example.
I really hope I'm not still contradicting myself here; I'm trying not to, but lemme know. I'll also admit that there's probably an opposite side to what I'm suggesting; that, in fact, the games people play (not to mention the movies they see, and the books they read, and so on...) influence the attitudes of the gaming community, bringing us back to one big cycle of a myriad of ever-shifting philosophies influenced by and influencing each other, the community around them, and the products which result in order to cater to that community.
Call me a "Communitist". I focus on and believe in the community as the primary driving force of change, despite that the reality is multilayered and much more complicated.
