What's really at stake in the Edition Wars

[Umbran]

As for my own role in edition wars. . . I'm currently a defender of 4e, not because I particularly like it, but because I'm absolutely sick of seeing certain parties take each and every opportunity they can to deliberately bag on the game in the most insulting way that they can conceive of or criticize its players in a similar manner. Sick. To. Death.

Yes, I understand the feeling. This, however, is when we of the moderation staff highly recommend that you WALK AWAY. There's really no sign that the person(s) in question is going to have their mind changed at this point, right? So why bother? Isn't continuing to engage only giving these parties more opportunities?

Instead of calling people names and making fun of their preferences in gaming, why not try some positive promotion?

Quite. As I've said before, I make a general challenge (not to you, jdrakeh, but to everyone): I double-dog dare you to tell us why your game is super-cool, without comparing it to other games or editions!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

for me, i want to see OD&D(1974) back in print. edit: on page two i see Hobo brings up another point for me. i'd like to find groups to play it.

For someone with such a clear, noble and difficult goal, you are rarely seen on the edition war battlefields, though.

But considering what you achieved regarind Of Sound Mind 2 and our good old Piratecat, I would say that whatever you did was a lot more effective than what the entire edition war did achieve so far.

Sure, it's not OD&D in reprint, but it's adventure support, the next best thing. (aside from having a group, which is, as far as I know, not a problem for you anyway.)

 

[Prism]

First, I think, you have to understand why people have any interest in which edition other people choose to play. For me, it's because I need other people who play the same edition as me, or else I can't play (or have to play a non-preferred edition). Others may also be concerned about whether the edition is "supported" by publishers (though that has never been a concern of mine). There may be other reasons as well, but I think those are the main two.

So given that it does matter to me what edition other people choose to play, why would I participate in online arguments about which edition is better (i.e., the Edition Wars)? Quite simply, because I believe that such arguments can influence the outcome. While my voice alone has effectively no impact, the cumulative effect of many voices is not insignificant.

I agree with you totally that discussion within your group matters. We used to be a group of 5 playing 3e for 8 or so years. When 4e came out and 4 of us switched (for something new more than any other reason), one guy left. He's still our mate but for us we are one person short and for him he gets no 3e game. Discussions of the benefits of either edition were had but we could find no middle ground

However I hold no belief that any form of internet war has any effect on my gaming week to week and therefore have zero interest in getting involved in one. I barely understand those that do to be honest - maybe I'm not as passionate in general about such things. Maybe I'm more selfish as to only get involved in things that directly effect me

 

[jdrakeh]

I'd say this is also an issue that exacerbates edition war threads. By your own admission, you really don't have a dog in the fight, yet you participate anyway.

Well, actually, I do "have a dog in the fight" — I want to see people stop bashing D&D 4e (here). I'm not voicing my observations and discontent simply for the sake of doing so, contrary to your belief. I'm voicing these views because, to me, there are enough people regularly bashing 4e here (for no reason other than to breed contempt) that it makes ENWorld less attractive to me. There's my dog. That's what is at stake for me — my enjoyment of ENWorld.

If you absolutely must attribute my position to a "side" in the edition wars, you can pencil in "Pro-4e" next to my name. I don't play the game, I don't own the books, and I don't plan to anytime soon. . . but I'd rather associate with the Pro-4e crowd when it comes to edition wars, because I simply don't see them going to forums largely dedicated to past editions of the game and trolling them to sow the seeds of discontent. Conversely, I see fans of past editions coming to ENWorld and doing that on a pretty regular basis*.

*Although, as mentioned earlier, it's not occurring anywhere near as regularly as it was several years back.

 

[diaglo]

Quite. As I've said before, I make a general challenge (not to you, jdrakeh, but to everyone): I double-dog dare you to tell us why your game is super-cool, without comparing it to other games or editions!

i've got a few threads like this and on other sites over the last 11 years. talking about how cool OD&D(1974) is. most of them end up devolving into fights and then get closed.

 

[jdrakeh]

Yes, I understand the feeling. This, however, is when we of the moderation staff highly recommend that you WALK AWAY. There's really no sign that the person(s) in question is going to have their mind changed at this point, right? So why bother? Isn't continuing to engage only giving these parties more opportunities?

Give me some credit. While I still step into these threads on occasion, I do so much less frequently than I have in years past. Yes, you're right, I would personally be much better off stepping back and letting the other edition warriors tear themselves apart — but I also think that if the rest of the forum just steps back and lets all of the 4e bashers go at it full tilt, then the whole forum turns into a cesspool of 4e hate (again). That said, I wholly concede that I may be wrong about this (and hope that I am).

 

[SpiderMonkey]

Wow. One night off and seven pages later...

Thank you all for responding. I think there's some really productive stuff here; those of you who are challenging some of my assumptions are making me work to re-frame and be more deliberate about how I am wording them, so I appreciate it (well, maybe not the "navel-gazing" comment, but it iz teh interwebz).

As I mentioned yesterday, I'll try to respond to individual posts for clarification.

I'll start here:

Diaglo, can I ask what you mean about remediation and my bias? I'm not trying to be defensive here, I just think I need some clarification before I can address it. Thanks!

 

[SpiderMonkey]

I think Marius raised from very good points when he said it all boils down to pride. I'm doing to take a related tack and say it all boils down to identity.

We're not just talking about a hobby, we're talking about something that people sink vast amounts of time, money, and emotion into. It's practically a subculture. And because of this, people identify themselves as being D&D (or tabletop RPG, to be more general) players. The statement "I am a D&D player." is a strong statement about the kinds of cultural activities one enjoys, the kinds of people one is likely to be friends with, and the kinds of shared cultural background one has.

For people whose personal identity is heavily based on that statement, changing the definition of D&D is very threatening. If they don't like the new edition, they're suddenly no longer D&D players, and lose that strong statement of identity. "I'm a D&D play who doesn't play D&D." doesn't have the same strong identity. Ergo, they fight tooth and nail against the changed definition, under the subconscious belief that, if they can win everyone back to their definition, they'll be back in the group again.

I think it's a group identification thing. When a new edition reflects my tastes and desires, I feel like I'm part of the group. If sales figures for that edition are strong, I feel good because lots of people share my values; if the new edition wins awards, I feel like it's a validation of who I am. Contrariwise, if the new edition doesn't fit my preferences I feel shut out, and relish sales figures that imply that a retroclone of my preferred old edition is doing well, or that the new edition that usurped it is doing poorly.

Mind you, this is crazy talk, but it's not different than other kinds of fan identification (Mets fans feel bad when their team loses) and I'm not immune to it

Tied up in all of this with pride and identity, and exacerbating the edition wars, is a countering dismissive attitude which tends to inflame the wounded pride and assaulted identity. Whether the dismissives are right in that people shouldn't be getting so worked up about a game or not, the dismissal is counter-productive in quelling the dispute even if the sentiment is sincere. It may even be particularly galling to the one side when the dismissal comes from someone who seems to have identified with the other side (though they may not have even consciously done it).

This is approaching where my thoughts lie on this. BTW - This post is not about the details of the edition war - it's about the fuel stoking the fire.

The geek/nerd social identity is not defined by what you wear or what you believe - it's defined by what you do. So - we're all "gamers". The dominant RPG is D&D [1] and so, yes, sharing D&D is a strong shared currency of interaction. However, the individual experience of the relationship with the game, which itself is of course very immersive, makes the game a strong part of self identity.[2] So, I think if you attack/change/challenge my game then I can take this very personally. You are attacking me.

If you consider this in terms of "Geek Social Fallacies"http://http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html, we see that #1 is "Ostracizers are Evil". I think that while the fall out of "Edition Wars" is seldom real ostracism - this may be its emotional resonance in some cases.

[1] I haven't played D&D for 19 years - so I have been spectating on the edition discussions with interest. I've never played a 3.0/3.5 game. However, it has lead to me acquiring views that aren't important here.
[2] Thinking about this, I realise I think of myself as a "Traveller player" rather than a D&Der as this was the game I really got into having found RPGs via D&D. In practice, only a few % of my game time over recent years has actually been with Traveller but that hadn't shifted this internal calibration.

Note: other Identity posts came in while I was trying to craft this post - apologies for apparent repetition.

Great stuff. I think a lot of what you all address here is some of what I was trying to get at in a rather round about way. This is one of the themes I'll definitely pursue.

I think (and hope) that the OP is using "edition war" in the non pejorative sense...that is...."heated and sometimes angry debate about the editions, that may, and even often, become overblown"

as opposed to:

"edition war" in the sense of "nothing of sense is being said.....this is flames and pain and angst and vitriol and moderation on good sites...YUCK.


Because in the former, there's something to study. In the latter, it's rubbernecking at a car crash.




And I do realize that the OP wants examples of the horrors of the edition war................but I HOPE that these are to be introductory as to how bad it CAN be, along with the majority of the empahsis of his work presenting where the real crux of the issue rests....

...because the crux of an issue never lies at the edges...it's in the middle.

You are correct. I'm looking to talk about it as an overarching phenomenon rather than "gamerz gone bad." I'm considering using the more overblown examples to show just how uncivil it gets--to show how strongly people can feel about something that is, in the end, just a game. But that's only a small rhetorical flourish at most, and I'm still not sold on doing it yet. We'll see.

(And thanks for interpreting my question in a positive light--that stuff doesn't always translate well on the web).

 

[SpiderMonkey]

The 3.x/4E "edition war" is unique because it's more than just gamers.

Publishers (such as Paizo) have taken sides/made choices as well. Also, because of the OGL, there are now even more versions of D&D being actively supported than at any other time.

From one point of view, it's not only 3.x vs. 4E, it's *every other OGL variant or edition of D&D* vs. 4E.

And more are on the way! Goodman - a 4E supporter - is now (reportedly) going to release *their* version of D&D in an RPG. Reportedly a hybrid of 3.5 and 1E.

There is so much divisiveness over 4E it's no wonder that there are edition wars....

Thanks for responding! This is one of the things I hope to address in my talk, but I'm not sure time will allow for it, which is unfortunate. If I were pursuing the subject as anything more than a one-off favor for a friend, I think there's a lot to look at in this regard. As I recall, the marketing of 4e, both official and through the designers visiting message boards like ENW touched off a lot of the arguing; many felt that their edition was being besmirched. Once you involve third party publishers (who carry an interesting ethos in our community), it gets even more complicated.

BTW, my friend Jenny is the one who lured me into this panel. She has an academic book on gaming coming out pretty soon: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Creation-Narrative-Tabletop-Role-playing-Games/dp/0786444517/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266934246&sr=1-5]Amazon.com: Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-playing Games (9780786444519): Jennifer Grouling Cover: Books[/ame]

 

[Desdichado]

Great stuff. I think a lot of what you all address here is some of what I was trying to get at in a rather round about way. This is one of the themes I'll definitely pursue.

While I don't doubt that personal identity is a factor, it fails to be the most parsimonious solution, in my opinion, and therefore its utility in explaining the phenomena widely is suspect. It rests on the unproven and unprovable assumption that edition warriors invest their personal identity in the game to such an extent that changes to the game threaten their identity.

A simpler solution, and one that surely applies to many edition warriors, is what's been stated earlier: 1) concern that with an edition change, it will be materially more difficult to find a group of like-minded gamers with whom to play his game of choice, and 2) concern that support for the game will disappear. These are real, as well as proximate and immediate concerns, whereas self-identity as a gamer of a certain edition is, by its nature, a speculative claim.

I'd be careful of attributing too much to identity crises; because then you appear to come off as dismissive and patronizing of those who engage in edition war behavior---as if they don't have any "real" issue other than their lack of a strong sense of who they are, so they have to substitute their gamer-tastes as their identity, etc. While I'm sure it's true for many gamers, I think it's a poor explanation for edition wars generally.

Armchair psychology without a lot of pointed observation and follow-up with the actors involved isn't likely to be very convincing.