The Nature of Change (or, Understanding Edition Wars)

[Derren]

I think the OP explains that pretty well. This time many people actually have something to loose, so their emotional reaction is stronger.

Or maybe 4E really is worse than 3E for a larger number of people?

 

[Truename]

Interesting, especially the 2 months timeline. How would you expect that an echo chamber for criticism and praise such as this board affects the changeover process? I would assume that communicating with like minds will reinforce perceived disadvantages of the new make individuals even more resistant to change?
And in the same vein would this echo chamber reinforce perceived advantages and make evangelical posters more evangelical?

I have no idea. But, in my industry, we've been undergoing a major change in work styles for ten years and people are still arguing about it on Internet fora. Not as much now as they used to, fortunately.

What surpises me this time around is the level and duration.

I suspect that there was just as much reaction to the 2e->3e change (and the 1e->2e change), but there are now more people online and in this forum, so you see more of the reaction than before. (I can't prove this at all, so take that guess for what it's worth--not much ).

Those who resist 4e just need counselling. Hmmm...

I hope that's not what you think I was saying. (The last thing I want to do is start yet another new edition war thread.)

Change is painful. I mean, doesn't that really summarize things?

Yup.

The other major point to take away is that when people react negatively, they're generally reacting to what they're losing, not what's new. Witness all the complaints about 4e being incomplete, or the MM not having fluff, or the GSL shutting people out. I think if you look carefully, you'll see that most, maybe even all, anti-4e complaints are about loss.

Also, I'm not claiming that 4e is better than 3e. That's an individual decision: Do I get more than I'm losing?

Generally, if people get that "transforming idea" and embrace a change, it's because they figured out the answer to this question: "What are the core values that I don't want to lose in (current way), and how can I have those values in (new way)?" Those answers aren't specific decisions like "no healing surges" or "revised GSL" but underlying values like (for example) "a sense of realism and wonder" or "large variety of support material." And, as I said, the answers will be very personal.

 

[Plane Sailing]

First, it's human nature to resist change. It's not actually a dislike of new stuff that causes this resistance; it's that people get comfortable with the current way of doing things. The resistance comes from not wanting to lose stuff they already have and like. So the more mastery someone has over the existing way of doing things, the more likely they are to dislike a new way of doing things.

it is an interesting perspective. I don't know whether you may have glossed over one issue in order to simplify things, but I think a significant factor which you may have overlooked in this presentation is the 'early adopter' effect - there is rarely universal resistance to change, is there?

My understanding is that typically you have the early adopters (who like to try new things), then the main body of people (who are initially resistant to change but may change over time - the group you are largely talking about), and finally a group of people who are always remain resistant to change.

Personally I tend to come into the 'early adopter' strand. Evangelistic about trying out new things. Almost a neophile, if you will. Sometimes I'll try out something new and end up rejecting it however, if I weigh things up after a while and my assessment of it is that it isn't much good. One of the effects of this is that in the business world sometimes someone comes up with a 'new' idea and I find myself in the resister camp because I tried it and have supported it once before but it really, really didn't work out (employee of the month, I'm looking at you!)

Cheers

 

[Aus_Snow]

My day job is all about helping people make major changes to their work habits. I see the same types of reactions there that I'm seeing on this forum in regards to 4e, so I thought you might like to hear some of the things that I've learned about change.

Interesting, but I don't think it translates very well, sorry.

4e is a totally optional upgrade/downgrade/crossgrade (depending how one might view it) to a particular leisure activity. That is all.

Some people (like me and many people I know, and many I know of) simply find the game to be lacking, or in some cases to be truly awful. That is all. This is not 'resistance' to anything. Yeesh.

Srsly, d00d.

 

[Azgulor]

Interesting, but I don't think it translates very well, sorry.

4e is a totally optional upgrade/downgrade/crossgrade (depending how one might view it) to a particular leisure activity. That is all.

Some people (like me and many people I know, and many I know of) simply find the game to be lacking, or in some cases to be truly awful. That is all. This is not 'resistance' to anything. Yeesh.

Srsly, d00d.

Seconded. My aversion to 4e has nothing to do with change. Over the course of my RPG fandom, I've probably sat on the GM side of the screen 80% of the time. I'm also the one suggesting changing settings, systems, or genres 90% of the time.

I've ran & played everything from Basic D&D to Star Frontiers, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Traveller, Star Wars (WEG), GURPS, 3.x, Rolemaster, Alternity, Trinity, Call of Cthulu, and a bevy of OGL games.

So from a gamer's and collector's perspectives, I had every reason to want to buy 4e. Two significant factors conspired against it but would not have prevented it:

1) Having firmly embraced the d20/OGL concepts, I can pretty much make the game/setting/genre of my choice using D&D, d20 Modern, or an OGL game as a baseline. The argument of System X doesn't do <genre> really didn't apply any longer, thereby reducing demand or perceived need to buy to run another genre.

2) Financial. As a long-time RPGer, I've got a lot invested in RPG material. However, the amount of 3.x/d20/OGL is by far the largest and is pretty easy to mix-n-match as desired. I couldn't justify "starting over" nor did I want to wait to "fill in the holes" when my current collection's holes were much, much, smaller.

However, the clincher for me was WotC's combined efforts of the 4e rollout, treatment of the d20 & OGL licenses, and the abomination that was the 4e GSL.

I still looked through the books at the local bookstore and visited sites like this one to read about 4e, to see if in fact I was missing something. My research has only strengthened that initial gut impulse - I'm not missing anything.

If 4e is the game for you, more power to you. But I don't think "resistance to change" is as big a factor in people not choosing or sticking with 4e as some believe.

 

[underthumb]

I hope you realize just how patronizing this thread is, despite your intentions.

I think that you're correct in your presumption that there is more to changing systems than the objective qualities of those systems. However, your ascription of these difficulties to a generalized "fear of change" lacks substance and support. Here's a question: what evidence would lead you to believe that resistance to 4e is mostly "rational" (that is, based on the qualities of 4e vs. some other edition) vs. "fear based". Describe how one might discover the truth of the matter in this specific instance.

 

[DaveMage]

As someone not going 4E, it was originally my intention to buy the core books and make a decision afterwards. Once I learned that what was "core" in 3.5 (PH, DMG, and MM) was not going to be in the first three books of 4E, I felt like WotC was gouging, and it's been downhill from there.

So, I was originally open to "testing the waters", but then I saw a shark.

And, since I've changed with every other AD&D edition change, I hardly think the reason I'm not changing is simply "resistance to change."

 

[Truename]

it is an interesting perspective. I don't know whether you may have glossed over one issue in order to simplify things, but I think a significant factor which you may have overlooked in this presentation is the 'early adopter' effect - there is rarely universal resistance to change, is there?

My understanding is that typically you have the early adopters (who like to try new things), then the main body of people (who are initially resistant to change but may change over time - the group you are largely talking about), and finally a group of people who are always remain resistant to change.

What you're talking about here is the classic "diffusion of innovations" curve. Geoffrey Moore used this curve to divide people up into five categories:

• Innovators, who want to be on the bleeding edge at all costs
• Early adopters, who like to try new things
• (the chasm--a big gap between what the first two categories want and what everyone else wants)
• Early majority, who wait to see other people have success it
• Late majority, who wait to see most people succeeding with it
• Laggards, who think new-fangled gadgets (like television) are just a passing fad

These five categories form a bell curve, with most people being "early majority" or "late majority." It's a way of understanding the market for new products, and how to sell them to different people.

Change models like Virginia Satir's look at individual and small group reaction to change. (Satir specialized in family counseling.) Different people react to a given change differently. If you graphed all those people together, you'd probably see a bell curve a lot like Moore's.

So, yeah, I agree. But just because someone is an "early adopter" or "innovator" for one type of change, doesn't mean they will be as eager to adopt a different kind of change, even one that seems closely related on the surface. The population as a whole exhibits the bell curve, but individual reactions vary.

 

[El Mahdi]

Interesting, but I don't think it translates very well, sorry.

4e is a totally optional upgrade/downgrade/crossgrade (depending how one might view it) to a particular leisure activity. That is all.

Some people (like me and many people I know, and many I know of) simply find the game to be lacking, or in some cases to be truly awful. That is all. This is not 'resistance' to anything. Yeesh.

Srsly, d00d.

Seconded. My aversion to 4e has nothing to do with change. Over the course of my RPG fandom, I've probably sat on the GM side of the screen 80% of the time. I'm also the one suggesting changing settings, systems, or genres 90% of the time.

I've ran & played everything from Basic D&D to Star Frontiers, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Traveller, Star Wars (WEG), GURPS, 3.x, Rolemaster, Alternity, Trinity, Call of Cthulu, and a bevy of OGL games.

So from a gamer's and collector's perspectives, I had every reason to want to buy 4e. Two significant factors conspired against it but would not have prevented it:

1) Having firmly embraced the d20/OGL concepts, I can pretty much make the game/setting/genre of my choice using D&D, d20 Modern, or an OGL game as a baseline. The argument of System X doesn't do <genre> really didn't apply any longer, thereby reducing demand or perceived need to buy to run another genre.

2) Financial. As a long-time RPGer, I've got a lot invested in RPG material. However, the amount of 3.x/d20/OGL is by far the largest and is pretty easy to mix-n-match as desired. I couldn't justify "starting over" nor did I want to wait to "fill in the holes" when my current collection's holes were much, much, smaller.

However, the clincher for me was WotC's combined efforts of the 4e rollout, treatment of the d20 & OGL licenses, and the abomination that was the 4e GSL.

I still looked through the books at the local bookstore and visited sites like this one to read about 4e, to see if in fact I was missing something. My research has only strengthened that initial gut impulse - I'm not missing anything.

If 4e is the game for you, more power to you. But I don't think "resistance to change" is as big a factor in people not choosing or sticking with 4e as some believe.

Classic expressions of Denial. Would you two like to talk about this?

 

[Azgulor]

Artfully, played sir!