MERGED - "About Edition Wars" threads x9

[The Shaman]

I cut the ropes holding up the tent, then set the collapsed tent on fire.



If I can do that, it's probably D&D.

 

[Beginning of the End]

The Shortest List
1. D&D

The Longest List (Without Being Crazy About It)
OD&D
OD&D + Supplements
Holmes Edition
Moldvay Edition
BECMI
Rules Cyclopedia
AD&D1
AD&D1 + Unearthed Arcana
AD&D2
AD&D2 + Player's Options
D&D3
D&D3.5
D&D4
D&D4 Essentials

 

[BenBrown]

I think the root of this problem is that "real D&D" is a phrase without meaning.

What I can say is that there was a game invented in 1974 called Dungeons & Dragons. Its rules were revised. Its math was cleaned up and occasionally tweaked. New options were added. But its fundamental gameplay remained the same.

Until 2008. When a game with fundamentally different gameplay -- that had been explicitly and specifically designed in order to feature fundamentally different gameplay -- was released with the same trademark on the cover.

That doesn't mean it's not a good game. It doesn't mean it's "not D&D". (It clearly is: It's got the name on the cover and everything.) But it ain't the same game. And it was specifically designed that way, so it really shouldn't be so shocking for some people to discover that this is true.

From my point of view, the new game produced by WotC and released in 2000 was fundamentally different than the previous games, enough that you could call it "Not the same game." I don't think this is too shocking, but some people find it so.

 

[Beginning of the End]

From my point of view, the new game produced by WotC and released in 2000 was fundamentally different than the previous games, enough that you could call it "Not the same game." I don't think this is too shocking, but some people find it so.

There are people who think the game fundamentally changed when Supplement I was released in '75. And they're welcome to their opinion. It just that:

(1) It's not based on any truly meaningful and demonstrable alterations to the core gameplay of the game.

(2) Unlike 4E, this was not a stated design goal of the Greyhawk supplement. (Nor 3E.)

So there is a meaningful and objective difference between what you're saying and what I said. What meaning you choose to apply to that objective and meaningful difference, of course, is a matter of personal opinion.

But some people have trouble separating their opinion from reality.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, I've been in the tent for a long time now.

I do not play all editions, but I consider them all D&D, and see a lot of similarities between them all, if not rules, then at least the world and the flavor.

 

[FireLance]

If I can do that, it's probably D&D.

You can certainly try. Let me roll to see if someone spots you doing that first.

What's your Stealth check?

 

[S'mon]

Until 2008. When a game with fundamentally different gameplay -- that had been explicitly and specifically designed in order to feature fundamentally different gameplay -- was released with the same trademark on the cover.

I think 4e gameplay does feel fundamentally different to prior editions, I'm not really sure how that could be seriously disputed. It's a much bigger change than 3e was (despite reviving rest-after-combat and a few other
pre-3e elements). It feels to me much further away from say 0e/1e D&D than many explicitly 'not D&D' games - Runequest or Dragon Warriors, say. If 4e is mechanically 'D&D', then logically so are many other games that don't have 'D&D' on the cover.

 

[FireLance]

To me, the relationship between 4E and older editions is like the relationship between modern English and Middle English (the language used in the following excerpt from The Canterbury Tales):

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.​

They are, on the surface of it, not the same language. But they are fundamentally linked.

 

[fuzzlewump]

Sounds good. But if what you said is true? Then you would have responded with something along the lines of:

"You know what? I disagree, but I respect that you feel that way. Have fun playing whatever you play."

...

When you say that you respect someone's opinion it's either you do or you don't. You cant say that "if you say x I can respect that" then turn around and tell them their opinion is wrong.

Again: TO ME 4E lacks that connection. To you and other 4E fans it does not. GREAT. Party on D00d's. But dont turn around in the same breath and tell me that I'm wrong for feeling the way that I do. THIS is one of the main reasons why the edition wars keep going.

...

With any of those examples, do you honestly think by "correcting" the errors of their ways that you are going to convince them to agree with you? By telling them basically "Hey, I dont know you, but that time you spent playing 4E and the impression that you got from it? TOTALLY WRONG. Here's why..."

Posting your opinion to a message board though, while I see you do not like it, you can at least expect someone is going to tell you you're wrong. Especially about borderline factual claims.

If I said, "To me, canned Coca-Cola has no connection to bottled coca-cola. It doesn't feel the same at all." I can certainly expect someone to say there's no chemical difference between the two, besides the use of cane sugar. Or whatever. Definitely a connection between the two things, even if it doesn't 'feel' like it to me.

Message boards have an audience; saying such things as 'you're wrong, here's why' is not necessarily to convince the "wrong" party. Sometimes speaking against someone's opinion will effect how borderline 'on the fence' people feel reading it. At least, that's my experience.

 

[Reigan]

For me, 3e changed the way D&D was played far more than 4e has. 3e was also a far better game than its predecessors, but for me 4e is better again.

What is D&D is really a personal decision, the problem arises when some people insist it must be a collective one.