The Nature of Change (or, Understanding Edition Wars)

[merelycompetent]

I have no doubt that the relatively short time between editions was the biggest source of resentment for some, but not me.

The problems with feel and genre confusion would be present and it wouldn't matter if that happened now or another 10 years from now. Despite what the OP of this thread is asserting, there are some gamers that want to play sword and sorcery fantasy and not supers fantasy and the passage of time will see them playing other games rather than playing something that they don't want.

It is very clear to me, now, that there are multiple sources of resentment.

The OP, IMO, describes one; you have very succinctly and accurately described two more. I would add another from my own experience:

Edition shock. The degree of mechanics, fluff, and setting change in editions is too much. "My campaign has to end before I can use the new edition."

I seem to recall a lot of comments about people winding down their campaigns because of the 4E release. Heck, I recall mention from various WotC staff flat out saying that there would be no real way to go from previous editions of D&D to 4E, mechanics-wise. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong in my recollections.) The cosmology and setting changes, linked to those rules differences, only increased the edition shock.

 

[lutecius]

I knew this thread had potential. Granted, it took the involvement of a wotc marketer to really take off but it did deliver… edition bashing, indignation, coloured text, coke metaphors, and major drifts!

Discarding it as a (or the) major reason out of hand is also glib. Do not throw out hypothesis that are consistent with the evidence out of hand. You don't need to be bound by them - just keep them in mind as possibilities.

I am not, personally, one who holds to most models that human reactions work in "stages". That does not mean the model does not hold some goodly wisdom you can extract, and use to your own benefit.

The thing is, I believe this model is accurate, for the most part. At any rate, irrational resistance to change is a common phenomenon. I know I experience it all the time. But, like most psychological interpretations, it is just not applicable to every situation. More often than not, many more parameters come into play.

In this case, one of the op's faulty assumptions is that reactions can be “independent of how much better or worse the new thing is”. Unlike the software products in his analogy, a game is not a means to an end, it’s an end in itself. Edition wars are very much about content, you can’t just hand wave that away. And since it’s a matter of preference, not efficiency, gamers have no reason to assume by default the new edition is an improvement, even if it “worked for a bunch of people”.

The proposed explanation is not that “consistent with the evidence” either. Many h4ters simply don’t follow the pattern described in the SCM.
Some early adopters of 3e violently rejected 4e. What made them change their behaviour patterns if not the game's content?
Some weren’t satisfied with 3e anymore and expected serious changes. They just happened to hate the way 4e “fixed” things. Their arguments certainly don’t come down to “I like what I have now. Please don't take it away from me”

And most of all, you don't need “resistance to change” to explain edition wars. Like I said previously, online wars happen all the time, over many things that don’t involve changing habits. Enworld is a fan site, this is what fans do. And like you said, “the internet medium creates, amplifies, and sustains the reaction.”

Either people lack basic notions of polite discussion, or there's more than that going on. Given that we are collectively capable of polite discussion about most other topics, the former reason does not explain the behaviour.
Ergo, there's more than "love of debate" going on. Probably several things.

This is mostly a dnd site. What could be more polarizing than a new edition?
Even though people here had different tastes and played other games, 3e was the shared experience that made them stick together, the common language if you will. Like it or not, at some point, one “side” or the other will feel excluded from this community (there can only be so many diaglos) or even from the dnd “scene”, depending on where they live. So of course it’s an emotionally charged debate and some posters will get bitter or irrational at times. But I don’t think the causes themselves are that irrational.

...if that makes sense.

 

[RFisher]

The reason that there are so few edition discussions that focus on specifics/mechanics is that very few non-adopters (in my experience) have rejected 4E for specific/mechanical reasons ('I would play it but for the multi-classing rules', 'It's great but I can't bring myself to like minions'). They just don't like the taste. Asking them 'but what do you specifically dislike about the taste?' probably won't elicit any kind of constructive response ('I dunno... it's just... different' or the classic 'It just doesn't FEEL like D&D').

I don’t know that I agree with your premise. But I will say that if the dislike was as simple as “I would play it but for the multi-class rules” then that person would just house-rule the multi-class rules and move on. The dislike has to be lots of things, something that is pervasive, or feel. (Though I’m not sure that a change in “feel” isn’t most likely due to one of the other two things.)

But can anyone, whether friend or foe of 4E, look McSmiley in his four eyes and tell me/him that 4E does not remind you, in any way, of World of Warcraft?

Yeah, I can. Because I know little about WoW other than it’s name. Never played it. Never seen it played. Never visited the website. ^_^

Yes, games like WoW are like D&D. But what Korgoth is saying, I believe, is this: «Look at the ways that WoW is not like pre-4e D&D. (...Korgoth & I might rather say pre-3e...) Doesn’t 4e look more like those parts of WoW than earlier editions?»

Yes, but instead of gnomes and half-orcs, we get eladrin, tieflings, and dragonborn. [...] It strikes me as change purely for the sake of change.

Hey, look! I’m going to defend 4e now!

There has long been a contingent that never found gnomes or half-orcs attractive. (Or maybe two contingents with significant overlap.) I think since the 1e PHB was released.

Plus, I think it’s clear that the designers thought that tieflings and dragonborn rounded out the set better than gnomes and half-orcs. Especially from a mechanical point-of-view.

While I’m not sure I would agree with the decision, I can’t really call that change for its own sake.

By the argument Darin raises here D&D could never evolve, we would be forever wedded to the concept and ideas of Gygax and co because finding ideas that may work better in a game are "change for change's sake".

The problem is that people who don’t like bits of the game or who misunderstand bits of the game get this idea that their way is better when all it really is is different.

Nigh every person who has ever played D&D has ideas about how to “improve” it. Yet good luck getting even two of them to agree on an exact set of changes.

(I’d be surprised if this weren’t true among the 4e designers themselves. I’m betting the game isn’t a consensus among the designers. Rather authority or majority decided which way things went.)

While products do develop, the rate of change should slow down and the product become stable.

Of course, then they say that it is “evolve or die”. D&D would whither on the vine just like TSR let it.

1. People who know late 2e much better than I do often point out that much of 3e has its roots in late 2e. So, TSR was trying to make it evolve as it was dying on the vine.

2. People said Steve Jobs was crazy for starting the Apple Stores because Gateway and all the other failures had proved that they wouldn’t be a success. The Apple Stores are now the most successful retail stores per square-foot. So don’t hand me such a simplistic analogy. The incompetence of TSR at the end was legion. Just because TSR failed at something doesn’t mean it can be done successfully.

Rather than changing the mechanics of D&D, they should focus on better explaining the mechanics that are there. That’s the sort of change D&D really needed. A simple game that introduces people to the hobby and emphasizes the hobby’s strengths.

Games as complex and experimental as 3e and 4e should be separate games that would sell better if D&D was doing a better job of growing the hobby.

Of course, I’m betting my livelihood on network security devices instead of role-playing games, so my opinion carries zero weight. But this country was founded on Monday-morning quarterbacking, right? ^_^

 

[Umbran]

The thing is, I believe this model is accurate, for the most part. At any rate, irrational resistance to change is a common phenomenon. I know I experience it all the time. But, like most psychological interpretations, it is just not applicable to every situation. More often than not, many more parameters come into play.

I agree (and have already stated) that this should not be taken to explain 100% of every individual's reactions. However, I also think that with a group this large and diverse, no single explanation will cover everyone. Not this, nor any other simple, glib statement about people.

Try it as, "This may explain some of what you see from some people," and think of it as a contributor to the overall dynamic of the place, and it has some usefulness. Like most generalizations, it has little application to particular individuals.

In this case, one of the op's faulty assumptions is that reactions can be “independent of how much better or worse the new thing is”. Unlike the software products in his analogy, a game is not a means to an end, it’s an end in itself.

I think this is inaccurate. When people get together with friends, sit down, and play D&D, they have some desires and expectations that are not "play D&D" - the game is a means to one or more ends, a tool we use to reach the ends. We sometimes broadly generalize this to "I play to have fun" - where "fun" is a highly variable thing.

And since it’s a matter of preference, not efficiency, gamers have no reason to assume by default the new edition is an improvement, even if it “worked for a bunch of people”.

Even in the working world, one generally has no reason to assume that a new tool is an improvement to your particular work. So, that's not really a difference.

The proposed explanation is not that “consistent with the evidence” either. Many h4ters simply don’t follow the pattern described in the SCM.

Again, please drop the idea that this 100% explains everything for all people. While the OP may or may not have intended that, every time I've suggested it not be discarded out of hand, I've tried to phrase it as a possible contributor, not the whole explanation.

And most of all, you don't need “resistance to change” to explain edition wars. Like I said previously, online wars happen all the time, over many things that don’t involve changing habits.

I think you need something a bit more potent than "the internet is like that" to fully explain a *year long* war among people who had previously been shown to have their heads by-and-large screwed on straight.

This is mostly a dnd site. What could be more polarizing than a new edition?...

...if that makes sense.

As a long-time poster here, I feel we should be seeking ways to understand each other, such that we can work around and through such disruptions more quickly and easily. As a moderator this is more than a feeling - it is a responsibility.

I find your explanation to be rather more absolute than the OP's, and yours is also rather more simplistic - so much so that it gives us no real handles to work with. To me, you seem to be saying, "The internet and fans are like that, there's nothing to be done about it."

It is possible that what you are saying is part of the problem. But it is also saying that it is a part of the problem that is thoroughly outside any of our influences. I'm not going to worry much about problems I cannot fix - I'll deal with the ones I might be able to help, thank you.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at a model here that does seem to explain at least some of the reaction, and that gives me some thoughts to work with, both as a moderator and as a fellow poster on these boards, that might lead to more constructive patterns of behavior in the long term.

Which, then, should I be paying attention to?

 

[joethelawyer]

I knew this thread had potential. Granted, it took the involvement of a wotc marketer to really take off…

yeah, and after it took off, he took off, never to be seen again.

I feel bad for the guy. It's a tough situation he is in, trying to keep people on a train that appears to be shedding passengers left and right.

I don't know what's in his, or anyone else from WOTC's minds when they post here. I don't know if what they say is something they have to say because of corporate demands, or something from the heart, or both. But you can't get mad or frustrated with them. We've probably all been in that situation with a company we worked for before. These guys have mouths to feed, bills to pay, and careers to grow.

I was chatting with someone from the board the other night, and discussed my desire to have a 100% spin-free forum where we can ask questions and get answers without the corporate BS, ra-ra, or spin, and without the "We can's divulge that info at this time" type answers. But it will never happen, and I understand why.

I just try and keep in mind that it's not the fault of the individual reps/posters from WOTC who come on here and interface with us. It's just a corporate thing. It is what it is.

I know its hard not to direct your anger or frustration with WOTC at the WOTC guys who show up here, But we have to keep in mind they are just gamers--like us, just trying to do their job, pay the bills, and get by---like us.

Just my 2 cents, after some afterthoughts about some of my comments coming out harshly against Mr. Rouse, rather than where they should have been directed against.

Sorry man.

 

[Umbran]

2. People said Steve Jobs was crazy for starting the Apple Stores because Gateway and all the other failures had proved that they wouldn’t be a success. The Apple Stores are now the most successful retail stores per square-foot. So don’t hand me such a simplistic analogy. The incompetence of TSR at the end was legion. Just because TSR failed at something doesn’t mean it can be done successfully.

Um, you might want to reconsider that analogy.

People said Jobs was crazy to open stores for selling computers, because Gateway and all the other failures had proved that they wouldn't be a success.

Note how they opened the first Apple store in may of 2001. The iPod was introduced in October of 2001. Ever been in an Apple Store? The computers are typically in the back - the front is all iPods and iPhones.

So, basically Jobs didn't do what Gateway and the other computer sellers did. He turned his computer company into a personal electronics company, and succeeded by not doing what the failed companies did.

Thus, by your own analogy, if you don't want to end up like TSR - take that same expertise, and do something other than what TSR did with it...

 

[Hussar]

There's no question in my mind that 4E is easier in that respect. DMs really get it easy in 4E, and that's one of the strengths of the system. Player-side modding is where I see the rigidity. Suppose I wanted to reintroduce Vancian magic to 4E. How would I do that? Say I wanted to ditch powers and go back to traditional class abilities? How would that work? Exactly how much work would be involved in creating a new class? If the system as a whole worked the way I like, maybe I'd find it easier, but I did make the decision not to get too heavily invested in it based on my opinion of the way it actually plays. I think it's easier to take the stuff I like and mod it in to 3.5 than it is to take the stuff I don't like out and mod the stuff I do like from 3.5 back in. Again, your results may vary.

But that's not entirely fair either.

How easy would it be to strip out Vancian casting from 3e? Say I wanted to add powers to 3e. How would I do that? It took two entire books, Tome of Magic and Tome of Battle to do even a half assed job of doing it. Five hundred pages of rules is not exactly a light lifting job.

You're basically complaining about the lack of backwards compatibility. But, 3e is barely compatible with what came before either. Try adding a clerical Sphere system to 3e and watch how much work you have in front of you. Try bringing in racial level limits into 3e and watch what happens to your game. How about using a 1e era initiative system with the 3e combat rules? Not exactly an easy fit.

Can you mod 4e to look like 3e? Probably. It'd be a huge amount of work, but you could probably do it. Can you mod 3e to look like 2e or BD&D? Again, probably but it'd be a huge amount of work. What's the difference here?

And, the better question in my mind is, why would you bother? If you want to play 3e, do so. For years on En World, the standard answer to those who didn't like a given game was to try a different game. Why should 4e be any different in that regard?

 

[Jeff Wilder]

This thread has been working at my subconscious a bit, I guess.

I think the friction between pro-3E and pro-4E people, more than anything, is analogous to a breakup of a group of close college friends. Most people who had a really close-knit group of friends in college, and lost them to the Real World, may have some idea of what I'm talking about.

It's a sense of feeling you are weaker and lesser when you're not with your friends than when you are. (And by "with," I don't mean physically present, but rather sharing the same experiences in a very close way.) It's a very real feeling of wondering if you'll ever have friends like those again.

When I was in undergrad and law school, I had friends like that, and when we were in the process of being pulled apart by Real Life, some of us quarreled. (To a lawyer, BTW, an "argument" and a "quarrel" are very, very different things.)

I remember thinking -- ridiculously, with the benefit of perspective -- that they were deliberately breaking up the group. And -- again with 10 years to look back on it -- I'm sure they felt the same about me. And we fought. And fractured. And the loss of friendship, in some cases, became total instead of partial.

Is that "resistance to change"? I suppose it is. But it's a very specific kind of resistance to change, and it feels to me (obviously) that it fits much better than the model presented. I didn't want to lose this mass of 3.5-playing "friends." I felt that by moving to 4E, people were choosing to "break up the band." And it made me -- well, angry's not the right word -- but something heading in that direction.

My point is that, IMO, I didn't do my (limited) snipping at pro-4E people because I was resistant to the change between 3.5 and 4E. I "warred" with them because I felt they were breaking up the largest D&D group ever. And they warred with me because they felt I was.

 

[Darrin Drader]

yeah, and after it took off, he took off, never to be seen again.

I feel bad for the guy. It's a tough situation he is in, trying to keep people on a train that appears to be shedding passengers left and right.

I agree, the Rouse got it a lot harder than he deserved. I'm at least partially responsible for that, and I apologize for venting my frustrations as strongly as I did. I still like WotC - honestly. Doesn't mean I'm not frustrated, but it seems like there's plenty of that to go around these days.

 

[RFisher]

Um, you might want to reconsider that analogy.

^_^ See, it just is not that simple. The success of the Apple Store is not just because they have iPods in the front. (I can see the articles that would’ve been written if they’d just called in the iPod store. Probably even more negative.) Yeah, I’ve been in one. I happen to know quite a lot about them beyond what you see from just walking in one. I happen to have a bit of experience with the retail business myself.

Likewise, the failure of TSR is much deeper than they had too many products or they didn’t listen to their customers. (Though the latter is a greatly more important factor than the former.)