What 3rd edition got to with anything?

[Belphanior]

What about when X worked perfectly in 3.whatever, but now their changing it to Y in 4th for no good reason... on top of that Y doesn't sound like such a good replacement for X either.

Thats a valid argument too

Not really, because "for no good reason" is very hard to judge from our position. X may have worked within the context of 3E but the new edition promises to be so different that Y might be needed instead. They can't be so simply equated. You might as well argue that X worked well in a different game and thus D&D has no reason to use Y instead.

"Hey, if Exalted can use player description to regain resources, I bet my mage should be able to re-memorize his spells if I describe my saving throw really well!"

No. Absolutely not.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

+1.

The sins of previous editions don't excuse the sins of the next.

Next time I am in an edition war thread, I intend to summon a Fiendish Kamikaze Midget...

As for the OP, that line of argument is certainly sometimes abused. However, if we are all being perfectly rational about things, why do we need so many "Not switching" threads? Can't we just roll those into one big "3e is the One True Game for Me" thread under General and sing Kumbya there?

This is not meant as a criticism of anyone. Just trying to point out that the details of the context matter. It may seem irrational from your or my POV in a certain case, but there is certainly a context under which such comments do make sense. Context is a difficult thing on the internet.

 

[Wolfspider]

Next time I am in an edition war thread, I intend to summon a Fiendish Kamikaze Midget...

As for the OP, that line of argument is certainly sometimes abused. However, if we are all being perfectly rational about things, why do we need so many "Not switching" threads? Can't we just roll those into one big "3e is the One True Game for Me" thread under General and sing Kumbya there?

This is not meant as a criticism of anyone. Just trying to point out that the details of the context matter. It may seem irrational from your or my POV in a certain case, but there is certainly a context under which such comments do make sense. Context is a difficult thing on the internet.

True enough.

This is just a personal pet peeve of mine. I'll certainly get over it eventually.

The term "gish," on the other hand....

 

[Toryx]

I've often had the same thoughts that the OP expressed.

I also get the impression quite often that the designers of 4e aren't really interested in improving the game from 3.x as much as they want to have a new game entirely based on a random selection of 3.x problems. It's like their determination from the beginning to point out Grapple as this huge, OMG, flaw that represented all that was wrong with 3.x. Then they're all surprised when people cheered the change of the magic system from the vancian form. "Who knew people hated the vancian system so much?"

When I heard that, chills literally slid down my spine. If that surprised them, what were they making the new edition for?

 

[Tolen Mar]

Then they're all surprised when people cheered the change of the magic system from the vancian form. "Who knew people hated the vancian system so much?"

When I heard that, chills literally slid down my spine. If that surprised them, what were they making the new edition for?

QFT.

I read that statement and I was just amazed. Nearly everyone I've gamed with (not all, but quite a majority of them) played the rules as written, but griped about the magic system. A few of us tried to do something about it, but then you have the whole problem of porting house rules around.

Did they really NOT know vancian magic was that unpopular? Who did their market research?

 

[RigaMortus2]

The term "gish," on the other hand....

I don't like the term either, but I have come accustomed to using it. But if it appears as a 4E term.... ugh...

(And yeah, I realize it was in a 1e or 2e book, but has come to lose it's original meaning. It's like calling a Fighter a TANK and WotC actually using that term in a PHB... ick)

 

[Tolen Mar]

Actually, some of us don't know the term (if it was in the 1E books, its been 15 (?) years since I read it). I've just assumed a definition based on context.

And only knowing it that way, it would be very annoying to see it used.

 

[Voss]

If someone argues that 4e sucks because of X, but that person also has expressed a love for 3e, and 3e also has X, then apparently X is not something that makes a game system suck.

If someone is just making the general argument "I hate X, and 4e has it. I wish it didn't." then that's fine, and comments about 3e are not relevant.

Interesting note to your theory (which is fine in theory), is that I rather dislike 3e (to put it mildly), and I've gotten hit with the 'but 3e does it' argument more than a few times. It often comes across as a stopgap that some people (not anyone in particular) just pull out when they don't have a particularly reasoned argument to add to the discussion.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Interesting note to your theory (which is fine in theory), is that I rather dislike 3e (to put it mildly), and I've gotten hit with the 'but 3e does it' argument more than a few times. It often comes across as a stopgap that some people (not anyone in particular) just pull out when they don't have a particularly reasoned argument to add to the discussion.

It's pretty much assumed, I think, that if someone is bashing 4e, then they're edition warring between 3e and 4e at this point, whether its true or not. The 3e "grognard" crowd is really vocal, after all, and I understand that they're upset about 4e coming and uprooting their game. However, in many cases its creating a divide where there need not be one.

I would imagine lots of pro-4e people would not bash 3e so much if we didn't feel we had to be so defensive toward the anti-4e people, who are constantly bashing anything we might like. It seems like WotC can't open their proverbial mouth without having the anything they say drug through the dirt.

I'm definitely on the defensive. It's annoying to have something you like constantly berated. I mean, in the Draconomicon thread, we've got people up in arms over there being two Dragon books published for the next edition, maybe more. One person going as far as to say that this has caused him not to buy the game. Think about that for a second: he isn't going to buy the game because the game of Dungeons and Dragons is going to have multiple books on Dragons.

Then we have claims that WotC is going for a money grab and people don't want all these dragon books. Well, that's self-contradictory. But, it doesn't matter, people throw these baseless insults around like Jack Chick fliers in a 1980s bathroom stall in just about every thread in this entire sub-forum.

And, no, 3e doesn't deserve to be brought into this mess. But, human beings have a problem. They define everything like this in sides, and we rarely see more than two sides to anything. So the people who like 3e are grouped with the people who don't like 4e. It's not logical, but its, unfortunately, how things always seem to happen in these matters. XBox versus Playstation, Republicans versus Democrats, 3e D&D versus 4e D&D.

I wish it were different. I wish we could all see each other as individuals instead of part of a group. I suppose we're doomed to forever try and put all anti-4e people and all pro-4e people into these nice little groups where we have meetings, discuss our agendas, and face off against each other on the field of battle. I'm not saying its right, I'm not saying that's how it should be, but I think that is the reason you see statements like "It was that way in 3e" banded around the forums.

I hope that has, at the very least, helped show a little bit of my own perspective.

 

[glass]

Interesting note to your theory (which is fine in theory), is that I rather dislike 3e (to put it mildly), and I've gotten hit with the 'but 3e does it' argument more than a few times.

Whether or not you like it is irrelevant to the fact that many people have been playing 3.x with some success for nearly 8 years.

The argument that the game is broken because of Y, is defeated by pointing out that Y didn't break 3.x, regardless of what party likes.


glass.