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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6507199" data-attributes="member: 6787650">It's hard to say really. My first reaction is to say, "if they've rejected the 4E classifications, then clearly that person isn't operating in the 4E paradigm any more" but then I look at the way some of those people behave (trying to classify AD&D Thieves as Strikers for example) and it seems clear that they are still using the 4E paradigm after all. You can extend the 4E paradigm to cover non-4E situations by inventing "combat roles" and "non-combat roles" in the same way you can extend Ptolmaic astronomy with cycles and epicycles and still model the solar system fairly accurately; but modern astronomers don't bother thinking in terms cycles and epicycles because Newtonian calculations are more straightforward (and relativistic calculations are more accurate). Anyone who was emotionally attached to Ptolmaic astronomy could have held on to it long after new astronomers had stopped adopting it, preferring Newton, and that's how paradigm shift happens: people die off.Anyway, I'm not an expert on Kuhn's ideas, it's just a book I'm reading right now so don't take my comments too seriously--I just wanted to point out the similarity between this discussion and his ideas. There's nothing stopping some people from seeing 4E roles in 5E, and they probably will until they die. What will determine future paradigms is not what old gamers continue to see, but which ideas are compelling enough that new gamers begin to adopt them. (Note: this is not a value judgment on old gamers' tastes, in either direction.)</blockquote>

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