What defines the "edition war" and why are participants / moderators opposed to them?

[innerdude]

I hope the gist of my question comes across correctly.

I notice frequently that any time the relative merits of one of the current rule sets is brought up, invariably one of the participating posters will say in essence, "Oh this is just an edition war waiting to happen."

And I suppose my question is, why is this a bad thing?

Coming from a humanities academic background, arguing and persuading others using sound logic and rhetoric is essential to promoting progress. If core issues cannot be debated, then there's no way to "sort out," or ultimately move discussions forward. Thus, I find it somewhat disappointing that any attempt at discussing opposing rule sets is met with opposition because it's no longer discourse, it's "an edition war."

Now to an extent, I understand the rationale behind this, especially from a moderator's point of view. This being the "Interwebz," getting consistently high level discourse on RPG systems is a dicey proposition at best, and all it takes is one "My system rul3zz, your system dr00lz!" type of response, and the whole thing burns to the ground. Putting myself in the shoes of a moderator, I realize that they're probably just sick of these types of threads, they feel they're not productive, they're not adding anything to overall community.

But at the same time, the need to have real discourse on the subject is not something to be taken lightly. To some extent, I understand that "personal preference" can never be adjudicated. If one rule set appeals to a player or group, then telling them that there are "flaws" in the rule set probably doesn't interest them. As most of us are aware, one man's "flaws" are another man's "critical features."

But again, my experience tells me that the reality is that an argument of one rule set being better than another is not totally subjective. There can be hard and fast, provable ways that one rule system is superior to another--and I think we should be able to discuss what those are, no matter which edition they came from. Will there ever be a 100 percent "perfect" rule system for all types and styles of play? Probably not, but I feel strongly that there's still a lot of progress that can be made in game design, game balance, adjudication, and appeal to the broadest possible player groups. Just because no edition will ever be perfect doesn't mean, in my opinion, that we shouldn't be allowed to discuss ways that systems can be improved just because the threat of an "Edition War!!! ZOMG!!!!" response hovers over the proceedings.

I'm very curious to hear what the community thinks.

Thanks!

 

[jdrakeh]

Edition wars are not reasoned arguments or civil discussions. Edition wars are conflicts consisting of two camps of people launching volley after volley of insults at one another across the Internet, with neither side of the conflict willing to concede that the other may have some valid points or that their own personal preferences may not apply to everybody. Each side of the conflict seeks the utter decimation of the other and will settle for nothing less. I shouldn't have to tell anybody why most forum moderators (at any forum) don't want that.

 

[ppaladin123]

An edition war is what happens when calm, rational discourse about the strengths and weaknesses of a system (mechanics, adaptability to different play styles, flavor, genre and/or literary trope support, etc.) devolves into name-calling (and other ad-hominem attacks), and objective statements about the subjective aspects of the system.

For example, any system might statistically tend toward longer/shorter combat, (less) swingy battles, greater/lesser lethality, etc. Posters have a variety of opinions about whether this is a good thing. Also, posters have (in most cases) only anecdotal evidence to support their theory that the system does in fact have this property. There are two possible paths to edition war:

A. "You are wrong, swingy combats are bad and you are stupid for liking them." (An attack on preferences and/or intelligence/sophistication)

B. "You are wrong, combats are (not) swingy because in my experience they are (not). You are stupid/wrong and don't understand anything." (An attack on theoretical reasoning skills, bold use of induction).

Edition wars are a lot like your standard angry political bickering with the added wrinkle that editions are numbered, and built (or not) on one-another. As a result there are questions of progress or devolution. Does a higher number mean a better system? Does a lower number mean a more pure, "true," experience?

It is certainly possible to have discussions that do not devolve in this manner but when passions run deep, people sometimes lose their cool.

If you want to discuss the intricacies of a system, its limitations and ways to alter it to fit a particular play-style or theme, you can post in the house rules forums for the appropriate edition. Those forums are populated by people who like the system, and who prefer to use it as a framework for their tinkering projects. Thus there are far fewer occasions for the discussion to degenerate into the sorts of exchanges that characterize an edition war (but it still happens from time to time).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Or, in short, edition wars are heated and disruptive, so mods try to keep a lid on them.

 

[fanboy2000]

The problem with discussing the relative merits of a game are two fold: 1) games are supposed to be fun. Knowing what is fun for someone else isn't really a useful line of inquiry unless you know them or plan sell them a game. 2) There's a near universal tendency to confuse one's opinions with objective fact.

I see number 2 a lot with things like "suspension of disbelief." E.g., someone will say or imply "X is bad because it ruins the suspension of disbelief." That statement assumes two things that aren't necessarily true for everyone. First that everyone wants to suspend their disbelief during a game, and second that X will ruin everyones suspension of disbelief.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well our favorite Grandma does not like them.

Seriously, they help fragment the community and breed bad feelings. Or end up with people putting others on ignore lists which means they never interact again, or at least for a while.

Plus, it has ALL been said before. Multiple times.

 

[Snoweel]

I think there's also the problem, which also exists in contemporary political discourse, where one side or another has co-opted or even subverted many elements of the language used to discuss the subject.

The problem being then, that rational discussion becomes literally impossible due to emotionally-laden terminology that must be avoided by one side of the debate, or casually thrown around by the other side as a tool of ridicule or moral one-upmanship.

Even more confusing is when you have the case of language that is still in the process of being subverted by both sides of the debate. This leads to the situation where people just talk past each other and become frustrated when their opponents don't share their perception of 'victory conditions' in the debate.

 

[Ariosto]

One problem is that "edition" here is rather a euphemism.

People of a certain age might recall the days when the Atari ST (put out by Jack Tramiel, ousted founder of Commodore Business Machines) was in competition with Commodore's Amiga (designed by a team of former Atari employees).

The designs had enough in common that Atari and Amiga users could share some valuations of the relatively less colorful IBM PC and starkly monochrome Macintosh. However, the platforms were very clearly fighting for commercial survival not only against those but -- and indeed most keenly, in the market for what only they could deliver -- against each other.

The business of D&D 'editions' has turned into a matter of quite different games sharing the same trademarked name. The Open Game License opened the way for different 'D&Ds' (albeit not all by that name) to be in competition with each other in a way that goes beyond what was the case with Amiga versus Commodore 64, or Macintosh versus Apple][.

This is complicated by the reality that it's not such a clear-cut matter of "technological superiority". TSR-D&D, 3E-D&D and 4E-D&D are not linear developments of increasing power and sophistication -- they are simply different, as much as RuneQuest or Tunnels & Trolls is different from any of them. One is "better" than another only in the thoroughly subjective sense of coincidence with one's personal preference.

 

[Morrus]

I hope the gist of my question comes across correctly.

I notice frequently that any time the relative merits of one of the current rule sets is brought up, invariably one of the participating posters will say in essence, "Oh this is just an edition war waiting to happen."

And I suppose my question is, why is this a bad thing?

Because 99.99% of the time it gets argumentative, moving into aggression an insults. And the moderators have to spend time dealing with it - which we don't want to do. One learns what types of threads are going to result in lots of work for us.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I think there's also the problem, which also exists in contemporary political discourse, where one side or another has co-opted or even subverted many elements of the language used to discuss the subject.

I think it goes deeper than that. I think people in this era are a lot more sensitive to criticism and more easily moved to lurking with their own group, who think the same. I'm wondering if it's a product of the Internet and the increasing choice of entertainment/information, making it easier to find a web site or forum where only things you agree with are discussed.

I see this example on more extreme forums. Some people just want to denigrate the other side. Old school fans are called dinosaurs, grognards, while they use terms like 3tard or 4ron. I see one forum get created because the other old-school forum is "too lenient" allowing 2e talk.

What's happened is whether or not you agree its a good thing, D&D made a radical change and its alienated some people, while making it fans to others. Most people on ENWorld were all of the same path because it started as a site for the most current edition of D&D. Now that there are two camps, I think the big problem now is people are oversensitive to critique--the different opinions are interpreted as insults to the other's character. And I think that needs to change.

But changing people is a lot harder than setting up a forum policy.