PvP Nails the Edition Wars

[2WS-Steve]

PvP weighs in on the edition wars.

 

[cangrejoide]

It's a continuation from his blog a few months ago:

I’m also getting a lot of emails from uber-gaming-nerds who are infuriated that I’m supporting the new 4th edition. For those people, I would like to reflect on the great sage Aurthur Fonzarelli and reply with a hearty “Sit on it, Potsie!”

You know what I don’t miss about my old D&D gaming sessions? I’ll tell you. I don’t miss the ridiculous debates between the min-maxing rule-mongers over some bullcrap minutia or statistic. If Wizards wants to make a simpler version of their classic game in the hopes of making the time spent playing more enjoyable, while at the same time bringing in a a whole new group of gamers who might have avoided it in the past…awesome! Yay!

Guess what? Your 3.5 edition stuff did not disintegrate into a pile of black dust today. Get over yourselves. Nobody gives a crap that you committed all the old books to memory and figured out the math of the rules to totally max out your character. Nobody wants you at the table. We only invited you because you got all the books and so many goddamn miniatures.

My father introduced me to D&D with the red and blue box editions. My dad. He played. Everyone played then. It just stopped being for everyone when it got bogged down by the weight of all the dead trees the advanced rules were printed on.

If you like the advanced stuff, play it. But don’t discourage Wizards from bringing people like my DAD back into the fold. How could that be a bad thing?

 

[thundershot]

*applauds*




Chris

 

[Hussar]

Sweet. Like it.

 

[Reynard]

Sweet. Like it.

This one's easy to predict: 4E fans think it's funny, 3E fans think its offensive.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This one's easy to predict: 4E fans think it's funny, 3E fans think its offensive.

You're aware that Hussar is still playing 3E? (Unless I mistake him for someone else with the same avatar and similar username )

 

[Vanuslux]

This one's easy to predict: 4E fans think it's funny, 3E fans think its offensive.

I think there needs to be an understanding that 3E fans and anti-4E fanatics are two different groups of people. 3E fans can make reasonable arguments about what they like better about the system. Anti-4E fanatics, as illustrated in the strip, are just obsessed with attacking the system over any nit-picky little thing they can think of. There are a lot of people who use spell cards and magic item cards in previous editions. Heck, as a DM I've always used index cards for NPCs. The argument in the strip is just plain stupid.

Much like pretty much everything in PvP.

 

[frankthedm]

The comic right before this one is a none to subtle jab at the 4E stealth rules.

 

[Hussar]

Heh. I think it's funny because, if you file off the editions, you could print this same joke about just about every gamer nerdrage issue for the past twenty years.

The unbelievably truly funny thing about this, is that 3e is NOT MENTIONED anywhere in the joke. Not once. Not even implied really. These are two 4e players arguing.

I saw exactly these types of arguements here on these boards for years - Google Suspension of Disbelief and EnWorld if you think I'm misremembering. The idea that drawing from certain sources is somehow inferior is a long standing issue. The idea that if you step outside of certain themes or archetypes, it's not D&D anymore was leveled at every edition. The idea that if you draw from anime, videogames, certain fiction, drew all sorts of aggro from various posters.

I don't see this as a shot at 3e at all. This is a shot at every single nerdcore gamer who figures that his or her vision of "The Game" is the one true way and all other ways are destroying perfection.

 

[Phaezen]

Oddly enough the strip comes across as poking fun at rabid fanboys both sides of the argument.


Phaezen