Is this what you went through with 3rd Edition?

[FourthBear]

Has anyone in the history of human interactions ever responded well to psychoanalysis of their motives in a positive way? If anyone's goal is to encourage people to see things their way, I don't think speculating as to others' mental state is going to lead anywhere good.

 

[shadowguidex]

Sure. But assuming everyone fits such a stereotype isn't too open minded or conducive to getting a real feel for what is going on. It could be as simple as many people had bad experiences with 2e and good experiences with 3e.

I didn't say everyone who hates 4E fears change - I said many(much) of them do - and I definitely didn't make that assumption about everyone, but from what I know of people, I am certain that is the cause of many people's criticisms - what percentage of haters is that - who knows - but when someone doesn't say "everyone" please don't read it that way. You used the exact same phrasing as me in your second sentence - I'm not going to respond by asking you why you think everyone who is a 4E hater had bad experiences with 2E.

 

[kenmarable]

Well much of this sort of psychology is just showing us that the person generally fears change. They do not necessarily really honestly object to certain rules or ideas presented in 4E, they merely criticize because their comfort zone is being challenged and they feel the need to lash out against the source of their discomfort, even when the upcoming change is fixing cumbersome or broken ideas.

Sure, fear of change is real for many people.

But so is plain old not liking the change.

I wouldn't presume which group most people fall into, but I know where I am.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Yup, that's exactly right. Everything being said about 4e now was said about 3e in 2000, and about 2e in 1989.

Where were the 2E complaints aired? I'm trying to recover some of the history of this, so if you can point me to some documentation of these complaints, I'd love it.

 

[Wormwood]

I find the idea that 3E was much too combat focused and that it would kill roleplaying (paraphrased) to be particularly telling and relevant to the current discussions.

Eerie, ain't it?

 

[shadowguidex]

Where were the 2E complaints aired? I'm trying to recover some of the history of this, so if you can point me to some documentation of these complaints, I'd love it.

I don't think that the internet was really viable in 88 89 when 2E was being developed/released. I personally didn't like 2E at all over 1E, but then I loved 3E as a step above 2E, and I love 4E as a step above 3E.

 

[Wormwood]

Where were the 2E complaints aired? I'm trying to recover some of the history of this, so if you can point me to some documentation of these complaints, I'd love it.

*Partial Translation: What the Hell is a Baatezu?

 

[Nahat Anoj]

http://groups.google.com/group/rec....bca0c3ec1e7447d9?hl=en&tvc=1#bca0c3ec1e7447d9

Cruising around Google groups I found discussions like the above that were hauntingly similar to discussions going on right now. This is only one thread that I picked out of thousands. Doing an advanced search of rec.games.frp.dnd from, say, December 1999 to March of 2000 reveals more similarities than you could believe.

Man, it is so weird going back to those old threads and seeing what I was talking about oh so long ago.

 

[hong]

Dig around a bit more, and you'll find that I was one of the first to propose nerfing haste!

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I don't think that the internet was really viable in 88 89 when 2E was being developed/released. I personally didn't like 2E at all over 1E, but then I loved 3E as a step above 2E, and I love 4E as a step above 3E.

http://www.textfiles.com/rpg/ is about as far back as we can go back, it seems.

Seriously, though, if there are discussions of 2e changes in Dragon's old Forums section (I haven't taken the time to look yet, though I have looked at some of the official TSR releases on the new edition, including a copy of the official promo pamphlet for the edition.) or some other fan magazines, I'd like to know.