Mearls' Legends and Lore (or, "All Roads Lead to Rome, Redux")

[Umbran]

Wow, tough crowd - it is as if people want there to be continued conflict, continued edition warring.

Humans have a innate tendency to divide the world into Us and Them.

If the fans want to fight, they will fight. There is nothing WotC can do that would prevent this.

Unless and until people realize that we have more similarities as gamers than we have differences based on the edition we play, the nonsense will continue. And, when we do realize that, the nonsense will largely cease.

 

[pawsplay]

Mike Mearls, in my humble opinion, is wrong about a lot of things in his D&D vision.

Yeah, I pretty much hated his revised Beholder and Ogre Mage articles.

 

[pawsplay]

Wow, tough crowd - it is as if people want there to be continued conflict, continued edition warring.

Well, I for one am tired of the war against edition warring. Why can I not simply dislike something, or disagree, or refuse to be persuaded, without being labeled as the problem?

I would ask if anyone can cite examples of games that continue to support older editions?

Pretty much all of them. GURPS, Palladium, Runequest, etc.

I mean, it is time to accept that 4E is the current, supported version of the game.

I accept it but I will never like it, and I wait impatiently for 5e.

Paizo is supporting 3.5 via Pathfinder - why should WotC?

Bigger market share?

 

[BryonD]

And then 4th edition came out.. and it cleaned up a lot of the issues that 3e had. 3e provided the things I wanted like a skill system and interesting tactics.. and then 4e simplified it and made those elements sing.

Cool. Is it also ok with you that A LOT of people disagree?

I wish we could all get over the sociopathic self-centered foolishness

I guess my question is answered.

 

[thedungeondelver]

Wow, tough crowd - it is as if people want there to be continued conflict, continued edition warring.

I would ask if anyone can cite examples of games that continue to support older editions? I am not saying that WotC shouldn't have, say, a section of Dragon called "3.5 Corner" or "Retro Arcana" but I do think it is a tad ridiculous for them to pour resources into an older version of the game, at least to the extent that some seem to want.

I don't want them to "pour resources" into anything. Other people were selling OOP edition PDFs. Other peoples' server space, other peoples' e-commerce fees, other peoples' worry.

I want them to quit acting like older editions didn't exist or were laughable.

Is that so much to ask?

Apparently it is since doing so constitutes, to you, "edition war".

 

[Mark CMG]

D&D isn't an edition, it's what I do with my friends. I wish we could all get over the sociopathic self-centered foolishness of edition wars and industry obsession or maybe come to the realization that resentment isn't a matter of edition, it's a regrettable personal choice. In effect it's saying "you can't be having fun because I'm unhappy".

You're absolutely correct, WotC should stop trying to marginalize players of earlier editions. I'm not sure which WotC employees you are accusing of "sociopathic self-centered foolishness" but maybe if they just started "making past editions available again in PDF form, occasionally throwing past edition players a bone in the form of a new product or free online support, and in continuing the type of support first explored at the end of the last millenum (OGL)" they'd find that it would work better than either ignoring those fans or marginalizing them. It's funny but when you actually listen to those fans of earlier editions you can break down most of their gaming wishes into the three suggestions I make above. When instead you ignore their wishes and choose to label them or name call, you tend to undermine the feeling that all players are part of a larger community. The rest of the sentiment proffered in the article rings hollow when the name calling starts. Fans of past WotC editions generally want one of those three suggested things to be content WotC fans. Mind you they will keep playing earlier editions regardless of being happy with WotC but a key to the happy community WotC seems to want to foster probably lies in my suggested triad of initiatives. Past edition fans are not unhappy at the table, they just aren't happy with the trademark holder of the game they play because of the way the fans get marginalized if they don't play the latest edition.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I already see some trying to have it both ways in this topic. Look, if you want to come from an original D&D perspective, and fight for D&D "purity" (whatever that is), then it is possible to do that without dancing with hypocrisy. I think the, "we made up stuff that we thought was fun," crowd has an argument against you, but you certainly can make a consistent argument for what should be done, versus what was done.

By the time the 2E designers had started grafting on things, though, it is getting difficult. By the time 3E came out, and it's "rule for everything" push? Too late, the purity ship done sailed. Once that's been settled, now we are merely discussing price.

Hypocrisy? Hypocrisy is all the folks that were just fine with D&D changing into something that they wanted, but screamed bloody murder about "not being D&D" the moment it changed into something other people wanted in their D&D all along. Note the "and", please.

There isn't a whiff of hypocrisy in Mearls' statement. He is coming from a avowed and strong position of advocating for change and expansion in what is D&D. You can criticize that for being a bad idea if you want. You can criticize it for advocating more change or different change than you think is a good idea. You can advocate for a certain amount of change, or lack thereof. If you support change and expect it to always be the ones you want--well I don't know what to tell you.

 

[UniversalMonster]

You're absolutely correct, WotC should stop trying to marginalize players of earlier editions. I'm not sure which WotC employees you are accusing of "sociopathic self-centered foolishness" but maybe if they just started "making past editions available again in PDF form, occasionally throwing past edition players a bone in the form of a new product or free online support, and in continuing the type of support first explored at the end of the last millenum (OGL)" they'd find that it would work better than either ignoring those fans or marginalizing them. It's funny but when you actually listen to those fans of earlier editions you can break down most of their gaming wishes into the three suggestions I make above. When instead you ignore their wishes and choose to label them or name call, you tend to undermine the feeling that all players are part of a larger community. The rest of the sentiment proffered in the article rings hollow when the name calling starts. Fans of past WotC editions generally want one of those three suggested things to be content WotC fans. Mind you they will keep playing earlier editions regardless of being happy with WotC but a key to the happy community WotC seems to want to foster probably lies in my suggested triad of initiatives. Past edition fans are not unhappy at the table, they just aren't happy with the trademark holder of the game they play because of the way the fans get marginalized if they don't play the latest edition.

Nobody has been marginalized. The edition warrior idea that "I've been marginalized!" is a paranoid fantasy and then it gets turned around and used as the justification for constant negativity. Because once you've been marginalized, of course any response is justified. I'm saying, no, it's not justified, and jeez, I'm just so tired of it. It's ruined the online discussion of D&D, because we can't really talk about the game anymore, now we have to talk about everyone's feelings. Aren't there other forums where guys go and talk about their feelings?


It's been three years now. There is nothing that WOTC can do to save people from their feelings. They don't provide therapy or counseling. But your favorite version of D&D is probably still up on your shelf where you left it.

The clock is never ever, ever, ever turning back.

 

[BryonD]

If you support change and expect it to always be the ones you want--well I don't know what to tell you.

I don't for a second think anything remotely like this will happen, but just for kicks....

That message could be laying the groundwork for next month's announcement that 5E is coming and they are going back to bring in all the simulation/OGL/D20 fans they lost. It would be interesting to see how many people stuck to their "unity and acceptance" position.

 

[BryonD]

Wow Peter, you sure like the name calling.

Why can't we all just get along?