Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

[Thomas Shey]

That sounds like an argument for newer is better.

I'd say its more an argument for a clear--but true--tautology: newer is more popular, or in most cases it wouldn't be what was being sold. I know you hate arguments from popularity, but when it comes to finding players, that's all that matters in the end, like it or not.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The Market has, to a very large extent, said what it's been told to say.

While with D&D in particular because of its market-juggernaut status that could theoretically be true, it at least requires explaining why they would not be chasing the popular market rather than trying to make it; unlike some fields there's no self evident reason for them to do so. So if your claim is they swerved away from the popular rathet than toward it, I think its your obligation to at least present a credible reason they'd do that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So when people select an RPG to play they are not making an informed choice, but are tricked by social pressure and marketing? Is marketing that powerful?

I'd say it largely depends on what "that powerful" means. There's a perennial argument about D&D's popularity, and how much of it is because of personal preference, and how much of it is because of its visibility and the network factors involved. Its an argument that never gets resolved because its an almost impossible question to test for in either direction.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Like @Lanefan my understanding is that you run some frankenpaleo-D&D, and that seems to have been going strong for quite a while.

frankenpaleo - that is brilliant!
I need to find a way to use it with my mates.

 

[Maxperson]

Let's take this forum as an example. You as a mod occasionally have to punt individual people off the site due to their behavior. That's their fault, in the end; and everyone more or less accepts that. But if Morrus decided tomorrow to suspend all D&D and OSR discussion in these forums and change the forum's primary focus to PbtA games and their ilk, the long-time-active D&D and OSR fans here would have a legitimate case for feeling excluded; and not for anything that could be remotely considered as being their own fault. And yet the site would still be called ENWorld.

If he suspended all discussions, then you could not post about them and it would actually be exclusion. To continue the metaphor people are complaining that they are being excluded from threads that they can post in and read, but dislike and don't want to. That's not exclusion.

To argue that it is exclusion is to adopt a personal usage of exclusion that does not meet the actual meaning of the word.

 

[Lanefan]

If he suspended all discussions, then you could not post about them and it would actually be exclusion. To continue the metaphor people are complaining that they are being excluded from threads that they can post in and read, but dislike and don't want to. That's not exclusion.

To argue that it is exclusion is to adopt a personal usage of exclusion that does not meet the actual meaning of the word.

It's exclusion if the choice is made for you, even if unintentionally.

I can choose, as a hypothetical example, to not read any threads tagged "5e 2024". My ability to freely make that choice is what makes it non-exclusionary, as it's a choice I can unmake at any future time I want.

If someone else decides that henceforth all new threads will and must be about (and tagged) "5e 2024", however, then anyone not interested in those threads has, in slow motion as the old existing threads die away, been excluded even if that was not the intent.

See the difference?

 

[Maxperson]

It's exclusion if the choice is made for you, even if unintentionally.

No choice was made for them. If I build robot horses for people to buy and ride, but you dislike horses, I did not exclude you. You get to decide if you like the horse and make the choice not to get it.

I can choose, as a hypothetical example, to not read any threads tagged "5e 2024". My ability to freely make that choice is what makes it non-exclusionary, as it's a choice I can unmake at any future time I want.

Same with playing 4e for @Micah Sweet. At any time he can unmake his choice and play it again.

If someone else decides that henceforth all new threads will and must be about (and tagged) "5e 2024", however, then anyone not interested in those threads has, in slow motion as the old existing threads die away, been excluded even if that was not the intent.

I can get the 4e books tomorrow and play it if I want, despite disliking the edition and it being out of print. Further, if I want to I can rip out all the classes and just shove in the 3e classes. It won't work very well, but I can do it. Why? Because no one is preventing me from doing it. There is no exclusion.

Further, when you apply the above analogy to D&D editions, we can see that prior editions(older threads) don't die away. People are still playing Basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e, and 5e. Nobody has been forced to buy 5.5e just because WotC decided to make it and stop supporting 5e.

See the difference?

There is no difference that makes it exclusionary. To be exclusionary the person must be prevented from posting in those threads. If the older threads can still be posted in, folks are free to do so.

For 4e to be excluding @Micah Sweet, he must be prevented from playing it. That he made the choice to play it and run it for a year and a half is proof that it did not exclude him. He then made the choice to stop, because he didn't like the edition. Next week he can make the choice to play it again. There is no meaning of exclusion that applies to him and 4e.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't mind basketball? If any serious effort was made to balance the teams, there's some really interesting tactical play, and the short duration rounds make it much more watchable than many other sports. American football is too strategic and not especially interesting to parse round to round, the plays are either pretty rote, or too esoterically different.

Sports are just generally less interesting because the efforts to balance the pieces (players) are like, intentionally corrupt and degenerate, and that's somehow a good thing the fans like?

It's far more important that a narrative is generated than that generation of that narrative is balanced.

 

[TwoSix]

I can reiterate my opinion about story elements in RPGs and narrative-based mechanics from earlier in the thread if you like.

That's OK, I certainly wouldn't want to make you repeat yourself.

 

[Umbran]

That sounds like an argument for newer is better.

Well, you are on a computer messageboard, not reading a mimiographed fanzine you've gotten in the mail...

The only constant is change. Whether it is "better" or not is a matter of opinion, and kind of moot. It happens anyway.