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<blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 5432323" data-attributes="member: 3887">I haven't been following this thread closely, but here's my answer to the original question: was fragmentation inevitable?Yes. Absolutely. First off, the player base is effectively fragmented within a single edition. Not every group plays the same way. House rules differ. Individual campaigns vary so greatly in tone and content they might as well be different games. This has been true since the days of OD&amp;D and remain just as true today. Changes to the rule set only exacerbate frictions already present within the hobby, and, frankly, offer a flash point for arguments. We'd still be arguing over fundamental differences in play style even if we were all using the AD&amp;D framework ie, some of us would be running sandboxes and others, Tolkien or Dragonlance-esque epic quests. Then there's the fragmentation produced by groups who decline to &quot;upgrade&quot; to the current edition. Some people are happy with the rules they already own and the special, personal way their group(s) implement them. There's no need to &quot;upgrade&quot;, and for them the term is both loaded and erroneous. Fragmentation we will always have with us. I think it's a mistake to get bogged down in editions specifics/minutiae when discussing this topic. When you pull back, I think it's fairly clear to see the fragmentation of the player base to be an unavoidable quality to RPG play. They're meant to be customized, and customization == fragmentation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mallus, post: 5432323, member: 3887"] I haven't been following this thread closely, but here's my answer to the original question: was fragmentation inevitable? Yes. Absolutely. First off, the player base is effectively fragmented within a single edition. Not every group plays the same way. House rules differ. Individual campaigns vary so greatly in tone and content they might as well be different games. This has been true since the days of OD&D and remain just as true today. Changes to the rule set only exacerbate frictions already present within the hobby, and, frankly, offer a flash point for arguments. We'd still be arguing over fundamental differences in play style even if we were all using the AD&D framework ie, some of us would be running sandboxes and others, Tolkien or Dragonlance-esque epic quests. Then there's the fragmentation produced by groups who decline to "upgrade" to the current edition. Some people are happy with the rules they already own and the special, personal way their group(s) implement them. There's no need to "upgrade", and for them the term is both loaded and erroneous. Fragmentation we will always have with us. I think it's a mistake to get bogged down in editions specifics/minutiae when discussing this topic. When you pull back, I think it's fairly clear to see the fragmentation of the player base to be an unavoidable quality to RPG play. They're meant to be customized, and customization == fragmentation. [/QUOTE]

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