What's really at stake in the Edition Wars

[Mallus]

The edition wars are basically fans fighting tooth and nail to keep their edition from being "canceled," to win an extra "season" or two.

The difference is that, to cite a current example, if Caprica gets canceled, my friends and I can't make our own episodes. But my friends and I can make our own D&D. In fact, we're always doing that.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

What was its player base like? If very few people played it, that might explain why its fans are never heard from.

I don't personally know anyone who played it - all the groups I knew of back in the 1e (and 2e) era were either running 1e, Victoria Rules, or (later) 2e...or had bailed on the game completely and were doing something else.

Lanefan

Wasnt D&D at it's lowest point during 2E?
I know I stopped playing / running after the preliferation of kits and Players Options came out and started playing a whole bunch of other games instead (Mekton, Cyberpunk, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, Rolemaster and Champions mostly). I only started up a 2nd edition game just before 3rd edition came out to get back into the feel of things.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Have you ever heard of a thing called "transference"? I believe that transference is at the heart of reader bias. We read something, and we process it as though we had written the same words. We know what would cause us to write those words, and then transfer those motives onto other people.

FWIW: I think you mean Projection, not Transference.

Projection is "I have an emotion that I'm not comfortable admitting, so I'll attribute it to others."

Transference is "I act in a way toward my therapist that I would act toward a parent."

Just a little Psyche vocab tangent there.

 

[BryonD]

must have had blinders on.

Somewhat true, I was a hell of a lot younger. But, at the very start of 2E, it was not so much blinders as options. As I said, the moment I found other things I jumped.

If you are referring to the setting yup... I am starting to get that.

Setting is part but not all. I'm not going to spend a bunch of time arguing point for poitn because that is irrelevant. You can explain why having a magic missle not automatically hit makes no difference to you. But we are not talking about an objective truth that can be argued to a correct answer. We are talking about subjective value to other people.

Someone can think that 4E is an awesome game and still think "it isn't D&D" because magic missles hitting is a defining truth of what makes D&D be D&D.

Just because you call any fantasy game "D&D" does not obligate other to do the same and does not make their defintions invalid.

 

[Piratecat]

I can only speak anecdotally, but I don't personally know a single group who converted their 2e campaigns to 3e. Most of them simply dropped their 2e campaigns like a hot rock and immediately began anew in 3e. Two (that I can think) took the time to finish out their 2e campaigns and then started new 3e campaigns.

Anecdotally speaking, both Sagiro and I did. Worked beautifully (after the cleric/fighter/magicuser conversion glitch).

 

[Umbran]

Have you ever heard of a thing called "transference"? I believe that transference is at the heart of reader bias.

And I think you're wrong about that.

Not that there aren't cases of transference (okay, corrected - projection). Not that sometimes a bias is not created through such. But I suspect more often, transference is a way to justify pre-existing bias, rather than the root of the bias.

Humans laud themselves for being rational thinkers, and being able to look at evidence, and come to conclusions based upon that evidence. Unfortunately, more often than we want to admit, we are not so much rational thinkers as rationalizing thinkers - we have some pre-existing notion or preference, and then emphasize or de-emphasize data to support that notion or preference.

This becomes exceedingly true in fields where, if we are honest, actual solid evidence is hard to come by. By and large, the Edition Wars are fought with anecdotal evidence, at best. When we lack anything we can agree upon as facts, we have to use something else to shore up our opinions.

Projection then becomes a powerful tool in supporting our biases. If I am angry, fail to admit it, and assign the anger to you instead* it looks like you (and thus your opinions) should be dismissed.



*or, perhaps more frequently - if I look at the words and say, IF I had written that, this is what my state would have to have been, therefore you are in that state.

 

[Deset Gled]

I don't think the edition wars have any material impact on the success or failure of 4e.

I will agree that the impact of the edition wars is minimal; the number of people that change what edition of D+D they play because they were convinced to change by an internet discussion is relatively small. However, the edition wars are a highly visible symptom of market splitting. Hence my claim that the root of the edition wars is tied to future market trends.

And, I think there was already a WOTC survey that showed that a majority of players were still playing their very-home-brewed 1e version of the game, even during the 2e and 3e era.

Can you post a link to back that up? I find it a little hard to believe. Not because of the statistics (it's certainly possible), but because I have no idea how WotC would find those players to survey them.

 

[Azgulor]

Apologies if covered elsewhere already but I didn't have time to wade through all of the pages right now. Here goes:

So...

...for you, what's really at stake?

(The next post is a copy of the abstract.)

For now...nothing since the Edition Wars are over. Yes, I'm being serious.

Yeah, there's the occasional border flare-up now and again and there are certainly hard-liners & fanatics in each camp, but at this stage everyone's picked a side. The d20 Empire of WotC and it's colonies, sister-states, and allies has fractured into separate, distinct entities.

The bad parts? The individual entities have to go it alone like never before. Like a civil war, hostilities exist where they didn't previously, and there were casualties along the way. (3rd party publishers, fans who abonded d20 games altogether, etc.) As mentioned above, border skirmishes are still fairly common but the companies themselves have moved on.

The nice part? The customers won. 3e lives on in games like Pathfinder, Trailblazer, and FantasyCraft. 4e fans have 4e. They lost a TON of 3rd-party support but the most vocal 4e fans often express disinterest or outright disdain for non-WotC product so they shouldn't be too upset (taken as a whole). Others have branched out into games they hadn't considered previously, etc.

Yeah, it's a huge milestone in RPG history and another Edition War may come again someday but the first one is over.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

New thoughts rolling through my head....

What's really at stake in the Edition Wars? First, a definition of Edition Wars. War = Conflict. So, a conflict between two (or more) people over their editions of choice. As human beings we have a basic need of reassurance. We need to reflect on the fact that our choices were the right choices for us. This can range from a very subconscious level of self-assurance to an outward conscious level for others to reassure us. We reassure ourselves on these boards by sharing our choices with others. A counterpoint to one's choices can lead to healthy board discussion or can sometimes be perceived as an attack on one's choices and lead to unhealthy flame wars.

So, what's really at stake in the Edition Wars? It's not proving that some other guy on the internet is wrong. It's reassuring yourself that your choices are right....for you.

 

[Garthanos]

Just because you call any fantasy game "D&D" does not obligate other to do the same and does not make their defintions invalid.

You keep pretending I said that. Yet the very first example I gave on thread.. RQ is very much a fantasy roleplaying game of magic myth and men fighting monsters... it was point by point mechanically distinctive in ways that create really basic differences in play. I call it a a fantasy roleplaying game distinct from D&D... that wasnt just the numbers filed off.

And I think the more other games (fantasy roleplaying ones or ones that can be used for fantasy roleplaying) that people have been exposed to ... the less they are going to find the version differences significant (and apparently heart wrenching). Of course that too could be because you do get less bound up by the "one true frpg" once you are exposed to others... less heart strings to pull.