The Nature of Change (or, Understanding Edition Wars)

[evileeyore]

Sure, I meant finding material already written. Like another copy of a PHB or DMG or soemthing.

I wonder if there's enough demand for someone to retro-clone OD&D?

i've been demanding it. ask (T)ed stark.
i submitted OD&D to the wotc new idea plea that eberron won.

give me enough time i'll be sure to get a few more gamers to know who wants OD&D back in print.

and new material for the greatest edition ever.

Why don't you just do it up like OSRIC? I'm sure there has to be more than just the one of you that has the old books.


Heck if we roll it Moldvay I can assist, I've got the old Moldy books...


(EDIT: Of course, I've got the old Moldvay books, so I don;t need a revamp... geuss the case is the same with diaglo. Damn.)

 

[cwhs01]

But enough do.

Says who?

So is it a turtle or a cat?

I'll add a few more questions to my "edition-wars debate" list:

What do people hope to accomplish, when using (often derogatory) metaphors in discussions about the different editions?

Could the point be made without risking antagonizing people needlessly with thinly veiled insults (eg. comparing 4e to new coke)?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Sure, I meant finding material already written. Like another copy of a PHB or DMG or soemthing.

I wonder if there's enough demand for someone to retro-clone OD&D?

Its been done.

Swords and Wizardry while not an exact reprint, is closer to OD&D than any other retro clone. Its a fun read and I plan on running at least a few sessions to take it for a test drive.

If WOTC wants to push the new shiny as the only supported system then let them. If you don't like 4E then don't play it. As far as finding gamers is concerned, if a perspective player refuses to even try any system other than one that you hate, then chances are clashing playstyles would make gaming with them short lived anyhow.

 

[Imaro]

BS. You said they were not putting effort and resources in to 3E, which you just countered right here by saying they were, just putting out product to have people "wrap up" their 3.5 campaigns. Which is it? Maybe there's a good reason you don't understand the debate.

Let's review what my actual statements were...shall we...

Well I just wanted to comment on this part of your post... could it also be that WotC was just being unimaginative because they already knew 4e was coming? I know for a fact Mike Mearls had knowledge of 4e from 2005 on.

I mean the 3PP were still producing new and interesting things (adventures, campaign settings, new classes, ways of using skills, etc.) without repetition, I mean sheesh there were still parts of Eberron that hadn't been touched on and a book with expansions for the fringe classes like Hexblade's, Duskblade's, etc. would have been great. In the end I think we were given some, maybe even majority crap for 3e/3.5 to prep us for acceptance of 4e... at least by WotC.

Hmm...okay I don't say 3.5 was stopped or put on hold in this post...in fact this sounds exactly like what I'm still claiming...ok let's look at my other post...

And yet you still have to devote resources, and money... probably the lion's share of both to a new flagship project, so do you think they had their best, most creative and well paid designers on late 3.5 stuff or on 4e stuff? So now which would suffer again, oh yeah 3.5... exactly what I stated earlier, yeah I guess that is kinda funny but I don't see it in any way as cutting off your nose to spite your face, especially when core books are where your game is made or broken.
...

Now in both posts I claim that the material they were putting out at the end of 3.5 was not their most imaginative or creative stuff and was in fact more geared towards ending campaigns or getting one to end their 3.5 games... how does this in any way contradict with there being less resources (just look at the release schedule near the end of 3.5) and less creativity devoted to 3.5 due to 4e? Again I believe there was life still left in 3.5, the products at the end of it's life cycle carried an agenda, and were most likely regulated to less importance than 4e... thus they are in no way proof 3.5 had "blown it's wad". Clear enough now?

Martial Powers darned well SHOULD have Paragon Paths in it as it's closer to a "core" book and centers around a general type of character. I'll grant you Manual of the Planes and Draconomicon are still a harken back to 3.5 with Paragon Paths although I am curious as to which Paragon Paths are in them. If there are only a couple and are directly related to said book (say, Dragonslayer, HaAnd of Tiamat, or the like in Draconomicon) I can see it being more appropriate than a lot of the 3.5 inclusions, but I'm guessing they threw some other stuff in too. More streamlined, but still not great and yet using a style still that would be familiar to 3.5 fans.

So you agree with me...stuff is scattered about in 4e as well.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

The problem with the analogy is that it just doesn't fit. Most of the peoples on this board played 3E. Some gladly switch to 4E, some don't see why they should. If it was as simple and obvious as the difference between as a cat and a turtle, this would never have happened. How many cat owners certainly learn that they prefer turtles? Or that their pet shop is now selling them turtles instead of cats?

So make it a dog/cat analogy. I'll gladly concede that it's a much better fit.

The point still stands.

 

[Lacyon]

I account for the possibility; I think that this lack of knowledge is what I'm talking about as a possibility.

You can believe WotC's continuing line about record-breaking sales, or you can believe the polls here on EN World, or you can -- like me -- believe the answer is somewhere in the middle. If that's the case, WotC badly miscalculated X-1, not just for me, but for lots and lots of gamers. And I believe that the effects of miscalculation -- if that's what happened -- could have been substantially lessened.

My point is that if you really bought every single 3.5 supplement, your X-1 seems likely to be much smaller than you believe it to be (relative to the market as a whole).

People who said that you left WotC rather than WotC leaving you are... making odd claims, IMO. WotC definitely adjusted its aim. But it didn't necessarily adjust the aim very far.

Every single dart that WotC threw at the board in the 3.5 years struck close enough to your center that you thought it worth your while to pick up. Is it that hard to believe that, in adjusting their aim for the new edition, it was practically inevitable that they were going to miss with a few? And that, since you have a complete edition of hits, those misses in a new edition with (currently) less supplemental material are very likely to be a dealbreaker for you?

 

[diaglo]

My point is that if you really bought every single 3.5 supplement, your X-1 seems likely to be much smaller than you believe it to be (relative to the market as a whole).

i bought every single product.
they lost me feb 07.

 

[Herschel]

Now in both posts I claim that the material they were putting out at the end of 3.5 was not their most imaginative or creative stuff and was in fact more geared towards ending campaigns or getting one to end their 3.5 games... how does this in any way contradict with there being less resources (just look at the release schedule near the end of 3.5) and less creativity devoted to 3.5 due to 4e? Again I believe there was life still left in 3.5, the products at the end of it's life cycle carried an agenda, and were most likely regulated to less importance than 4e... thus they are in no way proof 3.5 had "blown it's wad". Clear enough now?

So you agree with me...stuff is scattered about in 4e as well.

First, your point that it wasn't creative or imaginitive doesn't have to coincide with wrapping campaigns up. At all. You're arguing from a biased belief, not an objective view of things. Wrapping things up with a *BANG* is the goal. A climax with the feeling "Wow, we've done it all now" would be the preferred way to "end" 3.5.

I do agree some things are still scattered, and it's one of the things I hated about 3E and am not pleased with about 4E as they only appear to have cleaned it up some.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So make it a dog/cat analogy. I'll gladly concede that it's a much better fit.

The point still stands.

I am not sure I get the point, either.

I can only assume people played D&D 3E because it gave them what they individually wanted. Now D&D 4E gives some people still what they want (and some people more then 3E did give them) and others not what they wanted (or at least less of it.)

Is the best analogy that people had a dog, and some people liked it because of the fur, but would like to to purr when petted, while others enjoyed walking their dog? But can we follow that the dog owners got it right - it was a dog, so the pet shop should still sell dogs to them and not switch to cats? Or does it just mean that a cat is also a valid pet and the pet shop should sell those too? (The analogy fails the moment we consider that a real pet shop would sell you both cats and dogs - well, assuming they are sold in pet shops.) Or do you think D&D always stood for dogs, and when the "Dog Shop" suddenly sells cats he's doing it wrong?

But again, the problem is that it is every easy to distinguish between cat and dog. People usually know that they have a cat or a dog. But people don't necessarily distinguish exactly what makes a particular game they like "their" game - until you change the game and remove the parts they liked.

Nah, this analogy just sucks. It simplifies the aspect that is exactly not simple and creates the problem we are talking about! I think food analogies like "spaghetti sauce" can work better. D&D is a spaghetti sauce. But do you like the sauce because of the chunky parts, or because of a particular ingredient, or a mix of things? You'll only find out if you still like it if I change some of the ingredients.

Or if it has to be cats and dogs, D&D is a dog. D&D 3E and 4E are both dogs, but different types - maybe one is a sheppard dog and the other is a Chihuahua, and the Chihuahua showed you how much more you liked big dogs over small dogs, or how much easier it is with a small dog in your apartment...

[/rambling]

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Every single dart that WotC threw at the board in the 3.5 years struck close enough to your center that you thought it worth your while to pick up. Is it that hard to believe that, in adjusting their aim for the new edition, it was practically inevitable that they were going to miss with a few?

But that's the thing ... they didn't miss with "a few," as far as I'm concerned. If they were even still facing the dartboard, they must've been throwing backwards over their shoulder.

Sticking with your analogy, doesn't it seem odd that in "adjusting their aim" -- given that everything they threw hit the target before -- absolutely nothing hit the target this time? That's not "aim adjustment." That's switching to the pub down the street. Or it's really, really bad aim. Right?

It also occurred to me ... if we accept your hypothesis -- that in adhering so closely to 3.5 that I bought everything, it's logical that 4E doesn't appeal to me -- and carry it out to the extreme, does that mean that someone who bought no 3.5 products is more likely to buy 4E than is someone who was more moderate in their 3.5 purchases than I was?