D&D 5E What the warlord needs in 5e and how to make it happen.

[Corwin]

...edition-war...

I wish I had an easy way to mine the En World forums here for every post that uses this pair of words or their derivatives. And if there *were* such a method, the percentage of not only said posts being penned by you, but the percentage of your posts that include them. I would genuinely find those statistics fascinating.

And probably higher than whatever I'd hazard as a guessed.

 

[Corwin]

Nod, I caught that. But, in order for it to be true, it'd require the system be dysfunctional or it's designers incompetent, so I considered a *possibility* not worthy of consideration.

No. Not at all. It only requires the system be *different* from 4e. Different enough that it no longer needs/wants/is benefited from what some are calling for as "more warlord". Just as there are plenty of other things 5e doesn't need "more of" I'm sure. And like many things that *are* in 5e that was found in previous editions (including 4e), what we have is enough for most (warlord-y stuff included).

 

[Tony Vargas]

No. Not at all. It only requires the system be *different* from 4e.

Sufficiently different, sure.

There's no 'difference,' in that sense, though, between 'different' and inadequate to the task of supporting the same styles.

5e's still D&D, and it's open enough in it's design philosophy to incorporate full support for every style that past editions of D&D enabled.

Different enough that it no longer needs/wants/is benefited from what some are calling for as "more warlord". Just as there are plenty of other things 5e doesn't need "more of" I'm sure.

I'm not ready to accept that 5e is the h4ter edition, and that's what you're postulating. That 5e not only can't include fans of 4e, and can't support the styles that 4e opened up, but should actively exclude them.

I say it remains to be seen. We'll know for sure on the eve of 6e, at the latest.

I wish I had an easy way to mine the En World forums here for every post that uses this pair of words or their derivatives.

It'd be a lot. If you could dependably mine posts that engaged in edition warring, it'd be vastly more, as well.

It was quite the thing for a number of years. Denying or minimizing it is pointless.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Denying or minimizing it is pointless.

As is bringing it up in what appears to be every disagreement someone has on anything even vaguely related to 4th edition.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As is bringing it up in what appears to be every disagreement someone has on anything even vaguely related to 4th edition.

5e is addressing the rift caused by the edition war, trying to heal it. You can't address something by pretending it never happened.

If 5e succeeds in healing that rift, everything on both sides will be part of D&D again.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

5e is addressing the rift caused by the edition war. You can't address something by pretending it never happened.

I'm not talking about 5th edition and what it is or isn't doing. I'm talking about forum users and what they do - and bringing something up constantly even if it is only tangentially related to the actual topic of discussion is not the minimum requirement to not be pretending particular something didn't happen.

One could be fully aware of a thing that happened in the past, and be talking about ways to prevent that sort of thing ever happening again, and yet not be constantly bringing up the not-directly-relevant past event. Like how I don't have to bring up the period of my life for which I was homeless in order to talk about reducing homelessness, or actively participate in efforts that reduce homelessness, and am still clearly not pretending that homelessness never happened.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not talking about 5th edition and what it is or isn't doing.

Perhaps we're having one of those non-linear conversations where folks talk past eachother about different things that only seem to be related?

One could be fully aware of a thing that happened in the past, and be talking about ways to prevent that sort of thing ever happening again, and yet not be constantly bringing up the not-directly-relevant past event.

It what possible way could the thing you're trying to prevent not be relevant to it's own prevention?

Not that such would be quite the same thing.

5e has so far avoided another edition war, which is lovely & wonderful, of course, but is not the same thing as having healed the rift caused by the edition war.

That will require some tolerance on everyone's part, and, among other things, yes, support for playstyles that worked in each past edition - even 4e, no matter how much some people hate the very idea that someone, somewhere, might someday play an official Warlord at a 5e table.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Perhaps we're having one of those non-linear conversations where folks talk past eachother about different things that only seem to be related?

Definitely seems like it. Which is odd, considering I've made a single observation that I thought was pretty clear *shrug* Guess I dropped the ball on that one.

It what possible way could the thing you're trying to prevent not be relevant to it's own prevention?

There are a few possible ways. Here's two:
1) When bringing the phrase "edition war" to the conversation makes what would otherwise read like a normal difference of opinion or continuation of discussion into something that reads like an implied accusation of condoning or attempting to start an edition war (which is what seems to happen most of the times I've seen someone bring up the edition war on this forum).

2) When it's genuinely irrelevant. If I say "I believe should devote resources to housing the homeless." I've completely covered the point. If I shoe-horn in mentioning that I was homeless for a while, it doesn't add anything at all to my actual point. It might, though, cause a reader to get distracted from my point by wondering why I mentioned something seemingly superfluous, or to even assume that I'm trying to make the situation about me (which is what happens to the rest of the times I've seen someone bring up the edition war on this forum - it diverts whatever discussion was actually going on into a discussion of whether X is or isn't edition warring).

As a hopeful end to this particular branch of the discussion, I have a final thought and then I'm done with the topic of the edition war in this thread (because I'm going to Godwin myself on purpose): bringing up the edition war while taking about 5th edition feels, to me, a lot like a gaming-specific version of comparing someone/something to Hitler during other topics of conversation/discussion/debate.

...not the same thing as having healed the rift caused by the edition war.

I have a single thought on this sub-topic as well; A rift has two sides, and it closes a whole lot easier if both move. I've seen evidence of the WotC side of the rift moving. I've also seen fans that seem to feel like their on the other side of the rift appearing to refuse to move even an inch.

 

[Corwin]

I'm not ready to accept that 5e is the h4ter edition, and that's what you're postulating. That 5e not only can't include fans of 4e, and can't support the styles that 4e opened up, but should actively exclude them.

Here's some of that "5e Godwinism" Aaron was *just* pointing out. Not cool at all what you just tried to not-so-subtly do there. Shame on you.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Can we go back to talking about me? Just when the conversation finally turns to something important, the thread gets hijacked by people trying to re-live the Edition Wars.

(...ahem...)

FWIW, although I find it intellectually interesting to learn about why some people so fervently want a Warlord class, it's not really relevant to the arguments I've been trying to make. I am in no way claiming that anybody's desire for a Warlord class is based on invalid or weak reasons. I did make the point that the zealotry focused on this one class seems odd, that's true, but that wasn't an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of a position.