The Nature of Change (or, Understanding Edition Wars)

[billd91]

But, it is insulting. You admit yourself that it is too early to know if there is any real comparison between the New Coke debacle and 4e. So, people who trot out this horse for the comparison are doing so in purely speculative terms. The trouble is, no one bothers to say that up front.

No one says, "Hey, in three or four years from now, maybe the release of 4e will look like the release of New Coke. We'll have a better idea once the dust has settled. " No. It's, "Hey, half of En Worlders haven't switched over for whatever reason, 4e is obviously the New Coke and DOOMED TO FAILURE!! ((usually adding the suckitude caveat as well))"

If people want to have an overwrought sense of offense about 4e being compared to New Coke they should think about one or two things. I think Dannyalcatraz's explanation was quite good about why it should not be viewed as an insult. There are quite a few people who have been down on 4e precisely because it does exactly what New Coke did to old Coke drinkers - messed with product identity in ways that no previous revision of AD&D did.

A major difference between 4e and New Coke is that there is no major rival able to exploit the shift like Coca Cola had in Pepsico. THAT is probably what ultimately caused New Coke to fail (though it was sidelined by Classic Coke, it was still bottled a LONG time later, not even a complete failure). By diverting away from old product identity that they had been marketing on months before and mucking with the brand loyalty of consumers, they gave Pepsi powerful PR tools to hack away at Coke's image. Nothing comes close to WotC and D&D when it comes to this issue.

 

[Lacyon]

I'm certain they're listening, but what can they do at this point?

Well, for one thing, they can keep selling me pimped-out gear for my turtlecat.

By the way this may be a cat, but certain people may think it is a turtle.
View attachment 38444

Positively Gygaxian.

 

[bouncyhead]

I too would love answers to this. This is a drum I've been beating for over a year with the whole, say what you mean thing and don't rely on tired, over used memes to try to make your point.


But, it is insulting. You admit yourself that it is too early to know if there is any real comparison between the New Coke debacle and 4e. So, people who trot out this horse for the comparison are doing so in purely speculative terms. The trouble is, no one bothers to say that up front.

No one says, "Hey, in three or four years from now, maybe the release of 4e will look like the release of New Coke. We'll have a better idea once the dust has settled. " No. It's, "Hey, half of En Worlders haven't switched over for whatever reason, 4e is obviously the New Coke and DOOMED TO FAILURE!! ((usually adding the suckitude caveat as well))"

Then people turn around in wide eyed innocence and wonder why a bunch of people who actually like 4e think this is a crock of . And thus is born Edition wars.

The funny thing is, if you are very specific in your criticisms of any edition, there's almost no problem. Discussions might get heated, but rarely devolve into edition war territory. It's only when people want to stick in airy fairy high altitude generalizations that edition wars start.

I think this is because a large proportion of the 4E non-adopters are rejecting on intangible grounds - taste/feel etc. and the Coke analogy speaks well to them and strikes a chord with their experiences. Those merrily playing 4E took a taste, either didn't notice the difference or thought 'this tastes great!' and have been enjoying the game ever since. The Coke analogy seems inappropriate/premature.

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').

Here's a another analogy since they cause so much bad feeling. Season 5 of the West Wing - same characters, same situation, broadly the same storylines, but it didn't 'feel' the same when Sorkin left the show. For me it lost it's way entirely. I would find it v difficult to express specifically what I didn't like about it. I think you can see where I'm going with this...

 

[Darrin Drader]

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').

Actually there have been some pretty extensive reasons listed in numerous places, which revolve around actual game play or the books themselves.

The reason I consider it a step backwards is because of what roleplaying games grew out of and what is unique about them. We all know that RPGs grew out of tactical strategy games, where you were essentially pushing historical army units around on a board, battling other armies to see if you can out-general your opponent. One day Gygax and Arneson decided to apply the basics of that game to allow you to simulate a single character in a fantasy world. His inspirations were fantasy fiction, which I'm not going to cite because we all know the story.

So while RPGs included simulated combat as a core element, the tactical element was de-emphasized and it instead placed an emphasis on recreating your favorite fantasy stories. In short, it was intentionally about simulationism, not gamism.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't HATE 4E. It did some things right, such as making your BAB and saving throws based on 1/2 level + ability modifier and then spread character progression over 30 levels. This really takes care of the problem with 3.x being difficult to play at higher levels and it spreads out the playable levels well beyond what they are in 3.x. If they would have done that and then added in a few of the tweaks from the Star Wars SAGA edition, I think it probably would have worked.

Instead, I see 4E deficient in three key areas.

1. Gamism. The rules focus on combat only. The rules that allowed you to interact with the world in ways that don't involve combat were mostly stripped out of the system. On top of that, while I like the basic concept of powers, I think they got way too carried away with them, making it so that combat revolved around them. Why even bother to include special combat actions and feats if you're going to just build them into the class powers? Also, since your at-will powers automatically double weapon damage, why would you not use them? They're too good. You're never going to choose to not use them, which leads to combat being very repetitive. I prefer the method of having your regular attacks modified by feats. Then there's all the forced movement, and the counters indicating various combat conditions of varying durations. It appears to have been meant to make combat more dynamic, but to many, adds complication back into combat and makes it less fun. To me, this looks like the game is moving closer to its wargaming roots, which is something that I personally don't like. I feel that the right area for gamism and simulationism is somewhere in between 3.5 and True20. 4E is a fine miniatures game, and it's fun in its own right, but I have more fun with 3.5 for actual roleplaying.

2. Layout, white space, and wasted space. With the large font size, the reduced number of character races and classes, magic items, spells, and the amount of space in the books that is literally wasted, I can't help but compare it side to side with 3.5 and wonder what the reason was for excluding so much stuff. I'll avoid projecting motives on WotC, but I will say that I feel like I'm getting less game for more money. Sure, spend more money on more books and get the options you're missing, but I want a core that's a little more complete and more consistent with the past couple editions of D&D. The powers themselves are large, spread out, and colored in where they could be greatly condensed, saving space, which would provide room for some of the things they decided not to include. Yeah, I'm not a fan of powers in the first place, but those things are space wasters. Then the things they chose to cut in favor of the new things they chose to include is just puzzling.

This doesn't even begin to address the fact that combat grinds. There are plenty of tangible reasons people aren't enjoying it.

 

[Hussar]

If people want to have an overwrought sense of offense about 4e being compared to New Coke they should think about one or two things. I think Dannyalcatraz's explanation was quite good about why it should not be viewed as an insult. There are quite a few people who have been down on 4e precisely because it does exactly what New Coke did to old Coke drinkers - messed with product identity in ways that no previous revision of AD&D did.

A major difference between 4e and New Coke is that there is no major rival able to exploit the shift like Coca Cola had in Pepsico. THAT is probably what ultimately caused New Coke to fail (though it was sidelined by Classic Coke, it was still bottled a LONG time later, not even a complete failure). By diverting away from old product identity that they had been marketing on months before and mucking with the brand loyalty of consumers, they gave Pepsi powerful PR tools to hack away at Coke's image. Nothing comes close to WotC and D&D when it comes to this issue.

Considering the massive amount of internet ink that was spilled over every single blog post by the dev's, decrying the blackening of 3e's good name and wailing and gnashing of teeth about how much they were muckraking 3e, I think it's not exactly out of the realm of possibility that people might over react the other way.

It's funny, people talk about how WOTC performed this really negative campaign about 3e, yet, when you go back and actually read the blog posts, now that the dust has settled, it's actually extremely difficult to see anything that's terribly negative.

So, yeah, the New Coke thing does grate. Because it presumes that 4e is somehow a failed product. There's been posts in this thread alone talking about how 4e is an "inferior product". It's not inferior though. I may or may not like it and that's fine. But, it's certainly not inferior to anything.

New Coke failed for a number of very specific reasons that have very little relation to 4e. 4e has not failed (yet) and it is still far too early to draw parallels. Doing so does become somewhat thinly veiled insult. "What? You LIKE New D&D? Come on, what are you talking about? It's crap! Gimme back my old D&D!" Replace D&D with Coke and you've got the same line.

IF, two or three years down the line, 4e falls flat on it's keister and fails, THEN you can draw parallels. Currently, you cannot. 4e is no more different from 3e than 3e is from Basic D&D. Any claims to the contrary is yet another "OH, it's not really D&D" salvo in the edition war.

See, and right there, that's another reason why the New Coke analogy falls down. New Coke wasn't Coca Cola. It was an entirely new recipe. When you start drawing parallels between New Coke and 4e, you're basically saying that it's not D&D. Which, again, is just more Edition War crap.

If I can play a tiefling Binder in 3e, and still be considered to be playing D&D, then playing a tiefling Warlock in 4e is pretty much the same thing.

 

[BryonD]

No one says, "Hey, in three or four years from now, maybe the release of 4e will look like the release of New Coke. We'll have a better idea once the dust has settled. "

Of course, on the other hand, back in July you assured me that the dust would have settled if I simply waited until September.

I didn't think September would be all that different from July and it wasn't.
I didn't think now would be all that much different from September and it isn't. (If anything the new shiny is already cracking)
I certainly don't think 4E will be MORE popular four years from now. How much of an impact the total removal of new shiny has remains to be seen. Maybe a bit, maybe a lot. But I'm pretty confident there is no boom that just hasn't quite happened yet.

 

[BryonD]

So, yeah, the New Coke thing does grate. Because it presumes that 4e is somehow a failed product. There's been posts in this thread alone talking about how 4e is an "inferior product". It's not inferior though. I may or may not like it and that's fine. But, it's certainly not inferior to anything.

If your standard is generation of revenue then it may or may not be inferior. That remains to be seen. And I certainly 100% endorse that this should be WotC's goal and standard.

But I'm not here as an advocate of WotC. When the standard of measure is production of the gaming experience that I want, its measure is simply "fair". That is decidedly inferior to other options out there.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Considering the massive amount of internet ink that was spilled over every single blog post by the dev's, decrying the blackening of 3e's good name and wailing and gnashing of teeth about how much they were muckraking 3e, I think it's not exactly out of the realm of possibility that people might over react the other way.

It's funny, people talk about how WOTC performed this really negative campaign about 3e, yet, when you go back and actually read the blog posts, now that the dust has settled, it's actually extremely difficult to see anything that's terribly negative.

So, yeah, the New Coke thing does grate. Because it presumes that 4e is somehow a failed product. There's been posts in this thread alone talking about how 4e is an "inferior product". It's not inferior though. I may or may not like it and that's fine. But, it's certainly not inferior to anything.

New Coke failed for a number of very specific reasons that have very little relation to 4e. 4e has not failed (yet) and it is still far too early to draw parallels. Doing so does become somewhat thinly veiled insult. "What? You LIKE New D&D? Come on, what are you talking about? It's crap! Gimme back my old D&D!" Replace D&D with Coke and you've got the same line.

IF, two or three years down the line, 4e falls flat on it's keister and fails, THEN you can draw parallels. Currently, you cannot. 4e is no more different from 3e than 3e is from Basic D&D. Any claims to the contrary is yet another "OH, it's not really D&D" salvo in the edition war.

See, and right there, that's another reason why the New Coke analogy falls down. New Coke wasn't Coca Cola. It was an entirely new recipe. When you start drawing parallels between New Coke and 4e, you're basically saying that it's not D&D. Which, again, is just more Edition War crap.

If I can play a tiefling Binder in 3e, and still be considered to be playing D&D, then playing a tiefling Warlock in 4e is pretty much the same thing.

I think there are a couple of things that should be considered as well though.

Sure you can't draw exact parallels for awhile to see the success of 4E. But at the same time the New Coke case study is still good to look at because there are still similarities in the early stages, and to ignore that one can also end up not taking lessons and directing the path in the future to diverge from that model instead of continuing to parallel it.

By discrediting the analogy one also risks angering further those who don't feel that 4E feels like D&D to them. By saying "When you start drawing parallels between New Coke and 4e, you're basically saying that it's not D&D. Which, again, is just more Edition War crap." you are rejecting the feelings that many don't think that 4E is D&D have. Many people like myself don't feel that 4E is D&D to them, and the edition wars get further inflamed when they are told that what they feel isn't true, when in fact that is what they are feeling. When I am using that analogy it is because I believe that analogy is true and is the best way of trying to get my viewpoint across, not because I am trying to pick things with the express intent of lying and trying to further an edition war.

I use the analogy because I don't want D&D to fail, and the path I currently see is remarkably similar to the one taken by Coca-Cola that lead to an epic fail. I use the analogy because I hope that WotC will also look at it and realize that the important part of the analogy isn't that New Coke sucks and so does 4E, but rather that there does seem to be a large segment of their former market is that 4E doesn't feel like D&D to them and to look at the possible consequences of failing to at least take that into account.

As I have said earlier, I don't think 4E sucks. I think it is a well designed a fun tactical miniatures game. I just don't think it is as good of a fantasy RPG and while 3.x isn't perfect either, it works better for that type of game for me.

 

[dmchucky]

Wow!

My take on it is a little bit different. Workplace change is forced on someone usually. What we are dealing with here is nothing forced on us. Many of us were eager for the change. It got our juices flowing.

I think what you are seeing here is not resistance to change, but anger. Anger, because for many of us, for the first time in 20+ yrs of playing D&D, we are being left behind. We associated ourselves with an image. A Brand, you could say. A part of our identity was that we were playing D&D, the latest edition. We may be old timers, we may have cut our teeth on the game in 1984, but we also play the latest & greatest game they put out too. We may houserule it, but we are still part of a growing community of gamers. We buy the newest stuff, or at least check it out and steal from it for our games. When people publish a module, or a new spaltbook, it's for us, damnit! We are part of the next great thing. We are evolving and changing with the game. We are riding the wave of newness, freshness, the latest and greatest. And we loved that. It was part of who we were.

Part of our identity.

With 4e, many of us just felt we couldn't make the switch. It was too far from the game we played and loved.

The result of that, was we were no longer the cutting edge. I know I personally feel regret that I won't be able to go into Borders and sit down and read the latest D&D books. That's something I have been doing since 1984. It's basically like someone teling me that the car/computer/IPod that I have now will be the one I will have forever. There is no sense checking out new cars/computers/IPods, because I won't like it.

It's sad, sort of depressing. It makes me feel old and left behind. Out of touch. And that excitement that I have had in looking forward to the new thing from D&D, that I have felt since 1984, I will never have again.

From that comes anger. Anger at the people/company who took away a part of what I liked about my life, a part of myself. Something I identified with. Something that made me who I was. Anger is a natural reaction, along with the sadness. Eventually acceptance will come, or has come for many of us, and we will find something else to identify with.

I think that's why so many people have such high hopes for Pathfinder, and are calling it the real D&D 4e. That way they really didn't lose anything, they just re-associate that aspect of their identity with something else. Same with the people who are going with C&C, or other systems. It's no coincidence that people are picking up their heads out of the 3.x books, and looking at new and growing systems. They want to be a part of something they can identify with in the same way they used to identify with D&D. They want to be able to buy the new car/computer/IPod damnit! They want to be a part of something successful, new, that grows and evolves along with themselves and their gaming hobby. Just like they used to have.

It stands to reason that for the same identity issues, some, not al, but some people went to 4e because they didn't want to lose that part of their identity. I think most by far went because they loved the system, and it worked for them. But some went because of fear of losing part of themselves.

Edition wars arise because people basically don't want to be analyzed as to their psychological motivations, or reasons for doing something. Most think they are completely rational creatures. If you threaten their sense of self, or identity, they get angry. Their defending of their game system or true motivations is essentially stemming from their identification with the game they play. The more they identify with something, the more hostile they get when you try to take that source of identification away from them. Loss of the argument triggers fear of losing part of themselves. Back someone into a corner and th reaten to take something valuable from them, and watch how they react.


Just my 2 cents...

This. QFT. This is the best explanation I have ever seen written for how I feel about 4th Edition D&D. Leave it to a lawyer to spell it out so perfectly. Thanks dude.

 

[Hussar]

If your standard is generation of revenue then it may or may not be inferior. That remains to be seen. And I certainly 100% endorse that this should be WotC's goal and standard.

But I'm not here as an advocate of WotC. When the standard of measure is production of the gaming experience that I want, its measure is simply "fair". That is decidedly inferior to other options out there.

No, that means that you simply don't like it. Inferior and superior have pretty specific meanings. I don't like AD&D. It doesn't provide the experience of gaming that I want. Does that mean that AD&D is inferior to 3e?

I think there'd be a fair number of people who would argue with me if I tried to claim it.

I can pretty clearly claim that I don't like AD&D 1e. That's fine. I'm just stating my opinion and no one can argue with me on that. It's when I try to justify my dislike by stating that the product is simply not up to standard (which is what inferior means) that edition wars start.

BTW, in the Edition Switch Poll, version 2, I already stated early on that I was suprised by the results and I was wrong. I'll state it here as well. What did that have to do with this discussion?

Brown Jenkin - but, in my mind, why bring up the idea that 4e is or is not D&D at all if you aren't starting edition wars? What possible difference could it make to you whether or not I claim to be playing D&D when I'm playing 4e? You don't like 4e and don't play it (I assume, and neither do I play it either). But why blatantly state that I'm not playing "real" D&D when playing 4e?

What purpose does that serve? How is that even a reasonable critique of the system? All it does is tie us up into a tail chasing debate over dueling ideas of "what is D&D". It doesn't advance anything.