# The Great D&D Schism: The End of an age and the scattering of gamers



## wingsandsword

I've been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about the last decade and a half or so of D&D and what has happened to the gaming community.

When I started playing D&D in 1998, the various groups I knew that played D&D each played heavily house-ruled versions of AD&D 2e, modified almost beyond recognition.  No two groups used the same modifications, you basically had to re-learn the game just to go from one group to another.  Even one group that tried to be by-the-book and didn't want to change things ended up changing certain rules that were just too constricting.  Many groups had jumped to homebrewed fantasy RPG's, or had just given up on fantasy RPG's and were playing Star Wars or CoC or Shadowrun.

Then 3e came out in August of 2000.  It was like a breath of fresh air.  D&D remade with a modern rules system, consistent rules, balanced and flexible rules.  Rules existed which filled many/most of the function of the various house rules I'd seen over the years.  We joked that WotC must have been spying on our sessions for ideas.

Over the next few years, I saw virtually every D&D gaming group I know convert to 3.x.  I saw a group that had been playing 1e since 1980 go to 3.5e.  I saw groups that had given up D&D for GURPS or other games return to D&D, at least to playing it sometimes.  By 2005, the substantial majority of all gaming groups I knew played D&D 3.5e, at least sometimes.  Most of those that didn't played a related d20 game like Blue Rose, Arcana Evolved, Iron Heroes or d20 Modern and still played 3.x occasionally or were at least familiar with it.  Even players who would rather play another edition at least learned 3.5 and owned the PHB.

In retrospect, the early to mid 2000's were a Golden Age of D&D.

Then 4e came.  The controversy was immediate, since it took what people liked about D&D 3e and threw it out in favor of something new and completely different.  Incendiary marketing from WotC that outright insulted D&D 3.5 and its players didn't help.  Volatile language on both sides of the edition wars escalated.  Both sides saw the other as a tiny minority and their preferred edition as the only one people played.  3.5 players didn't buy 4e books, and the two camps began to grow apart.

Then Pathfinder showed a new way, now people who wanted D&D the way they liked it could get it. . .but not under the D&D name.  A lot of people just walked away from D&D pretty much forever to their own fork of gaming over this schism.

I saw the Edition Wars break into real life like no other gaming debate ever did.  When I was on Active Duty in the Army, I would meet fellow soldiers who wanted to game, but every time there was that cautious "whose side are you on" question when they would ask which edition you played.  In my experience, most played 3.5, but some did play 4e. . .and the players of one never played the other.  These were people I'd never seen before, from all around the country. . .the Edition Wars had become a Cold War among D&D gamers, as everybody was too tired of arguing to want to keep fighting, but the underlying cause was far from settled.  Years of yelling, but to no effect.

I saw a gaming club I love slowly break apart as each faction didn't want to play the other games.  The people who play 4e refused to play 3.5 or Pathfinder, the 3.5 players wouldn't touch 4e with a 10 foot pole and didn't see a need for Pathfinder since they were happy with their 3.5, and the Pathfinder players didn't like go back to 3.5 and had an "over my dead body" attitude about 4e.  Whereas there was a general consensus on which game to play several years prior, now it was small camps that didn't want to game with each other.

Now, years later we have "D&D Next", 5e that is, on the horizon. . .and it doesn't look to be mending any fences.  Too dissimilar to either camp to draw the majority in, right now it looks like at most it will create a 3rd faction (or 4th if you count Pathfinder as an edition) to the Edition Wars.

I miss when we were all on the same page, more or less.  I miss when I could talk D&D online or in meatspace and not have to ignore half the conversations because I genuinely dislike the edition they are talking about, or when I could walk into my FLGS and actually see books I wanted to buy.  I haven't bought a D&D book in about 6 years, because they stopped making anything I'd want to buy.  

The sad thing is, I've got no idea what could fix this gaming schism.  D&D Next (I still want to call it 5e) was meant to bring the factions together, but it's not seeming like it will do that.  Personally I'll probably buy the PHB for it, but I've got faint hope that it will do anything other than break D&D gaming apart further.


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## Ahnehnois

Those anecdotes are sad, particularly in the military. I think your picture is pretty typical to what happened. There was a vibrant D&D community, and now there isn't to the same extent. We'll probably never get that golden age back. I think the best that can happen is that some time passes, some of those competing camps die out and others diversify, the community gets back to something like  it was before the 3e release, and something new and brilliant comes out that grabs everyone again. But we're a long way from that, and 5e ain't it.

The best we can do is enjoy our own games.


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## innerdude

To an extent, you're completely right, @_*wingsandsword*_. 3.x was fairly groundbreaking in its unification of the D&D fanbase, even from the beginning--considering how TSR knowingly fractured their own fanbase with "basic" D&D and "advanced" D&D. 

About a year ago I posted a thread describing, however, that "unification" itself is a bit of a fallacy, in that we've never _really _been united in our choice to play Dungeons and Dragons.

There's been massive tensions and "drift" for D&D in actual play for a long, long time. People have wanted very different things from their RPG experience, but a lot of us stuck with D&D because it was popular enough that everyone at least had some experience with it, and if it wasn't _exactly _what we wanted from an RPG, it was close enough, and there was enough "traction" in the gaming community at large that we just went along with it. Getting groups / players to branch out was generally a difficult task, and required great amounts of effort from a GM to go out of his or her way to specifically _recruit _for it.

Even now, how much easier would it be to recruit a group at your local FLGS to play a Pathfinder campaign versus say, GURPS or Runequest? 

The 4e / 3.x schism just happened at a time where the dissenting love / hate opinions with the 4e system were codified into a public space -- the Internet. The rift became that much more real because we were in front of it, many of us participating in it, every day, all around us.

We had opportunities to explore the _why_ of that rift, to explore the dimensions behind the theory and game designs of each system, and to better understand our own preferences in gaming. To me, this is a massive positive of the "Edition Wars," which makes me a little bit hesitant to label anything an "edition war," or to even discount someone else's opinion, even if it's couched somewhat in vitriol. 



Ahnehnois said:


> I think the best that can happen is that some time passes, some of those competing camps die out and others diversify, the community gets back to something like  it was before the 3e release, and something new and brilliant comes out that grabs everyone again. *But we're a long way from that, and 5e ain't it.*
> 
> The best we can do is enjoy our own games.




Sadly, I'm fairly certain you're right, @_*Ahnehnois*_. Based on the playtest feedback I've seen here and elsewhere, 5e doesn't appear to be pushing the right buttons for enough people to become the "grand unification" edition. From the feedback I've seen, the very FIRST playtest packet seemed to be the most popular, because it specifically touched the "OSR" nerve in a lot of people. Everything from the first packet onward seemed to produce an increasingly smaller return on investment, in terms of fan appreciation.

Truly, the best we can do is enjoy our own games---but the trick now is to go out and find the game you'll most enjoy! The available gaming options for any given group are staggering. There's virtually no reason to play a game / system you're not really enjoying. 

The biggest danger to D&D as a whole is a group of fans like me, who break away from D&D by trying other stuff, and then suddenly realize that they don't miss D&D at all, because they've found a game or games that radically suit their needs better. I'm definitely in that camp. 

Pretty much any variety of D&D / d20 is easily now fourth or fifth on my list of systems I'd like to play / run, even the ones I actually LIKE such as Fantasy Craft and Radiance. 

D&D Next's problem isn't just that it's fighting against Pathfinder, and 4e inertia. It's also in a very real fight against Fate, Savage Worlds, and the ever-growing OSR movement for mind share.

WotC is just now coming to realize that as Malcolm Gladwell described in a famous TED talk, we don't want "the one perfect D&D spaghetti sauce." We want fifteen different "D&D spaghetti sauces." 5e is obviously an attempt to do this, but I don't think it's going to be modular enough to achieve "unification." 

If the 5e framework is solid, and future modularity can be built piece by piece into it, then I think 10 years from now, 5.5e or 6e may have a shot at it. But the current landscape makes "unification" pretty much a pipe dream.


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## Feeroper

Don't be so quick to assume Next has failed before its out the gate. Everyone has an opinion or 2 about the playtest to date, however we haven't seen the final product yet. While I can't say for any certainty that the next edition will do any good or push things further apart, no one can say for sure what the end result will look like.


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## Ahnehnois

innerdude said:


> The biggest danger to D&D as a whole is a group of fans like me, who break away from D&D by trying other stuff, and then suddenly realize that they don't miss D&D at all, because they've found a game or games that radically suit their needs better. I'm definitely in that camp.



I do miss it, but not enough to buy something that isn't better than what I already have.

I think their danger is that by breaking up their own monopoly and forcing people out of the chain of buying their books, they've created a much pickier group of customers, ones who are now more educated about the variety out there. It used to be that d20 was the lowest common denominator, but now I think it's too low.


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## Dungeoneer

You see a schism, I see a healthy diversity.

Looked at through another prism, in the past people who wanted to play a fantasy RPG had one real choice. Now they have many. They can pick a game that caters best to their tables' preferred play style. They can try out Pathfinder or Dungeon World or Fate or GURPS or Savage World or 13th Age. I'm sure I've left some important ones off that list. Seems like lately there's more cool, professional games out that there than ever before. This can only be good for the hobby. 

I suspect that the only people the 'schism' is really bad for is Wizards of the Coast. 

Going forward there may not be One Game To Rule Them All. And that's fine. As long as you are open to new gaming experiences I doubt you'll have trouble finding a table to play at.


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## innerdude

Feeroper said:


> Don't be so quick to assume Next has failed before its out the gate. Everyone has an opinion or 2 about the playtest to date, however we haven't seen the final product yet. While I can't say for any certainty that the next edition will do any good or push things further apart, no one can say for sure what the end result will look like.




I don't think 5e will "fail," certainly not from a commercial standpoint. And certainly it will "win over" some fans as their preferred edition. 

The original subtext of this thread is that 5e doesn't appear to be a vehicle for player base unification. If you're defining 5e's success or failure based on its ability to unite the fan base, then yes, in my opinion 5e will "fail." 

But 5e can fail at that aim, and still find success in other ways.


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## Ahnehnois

[MENTION=91777]Dungeoneer[/MENTION]
I mostly kind with that (i.e. that diversity is good), but I do think that for when you don't have a trusted established group, a common language and set of experiences is awfully useful. I have the group I want now, but the thing that concerns me is if I'm ever in the market again, will I have to teach players from scratch or even get them to unlearn other things they've learned just so we can get on the same page.

It's also helpful for the quality of that one dominant system if everyone's playing it and they're getting feedback and using it.

And lastly, it's always a problem when you're talking to someone who isn't in the hobby and you have to explain to them what is and isn't D&D, or why if they want to join they have to buy some old out of print book, etc. That goes above and beyond variety because you have to explain a value judgment to someone who doesn't understand it, and it doesn't cast our hobby in the best light.

But there are definitely some good things about the increased variety. I wish we could have had that without all the other stuff.


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## Tequila Sunrise

wingsandsword said:


> I miss when we were all on the same page, more or less.



I agree with Ahnehnois that your anecdotes are sad, but I don't think D&Ders have ever lived in a golden age of communal understanding. Except maybe at the very beginning, when Gygax and Arneson were DMing the very first campaigns and making things up as they went. Actually, scratch that, considering the differences that developed between the two, I doubt even they were ever on the same page.

So frankly, all this talk of golden ages and great schisms sounds very melodramatic to me. I think that we are in a transition between Ages; but it's not from a golden age of communal bliss to a dark age of schisms. It's the transition between the first age of our hobby, when the first of our hobbyists are still alive and gaming, to an age when most of us have seen and played multiple incarnations of the game, and nobody can claim comprehensive knowledge of the hobby. And those of us who've played multiple editions have generally realized that there was never a possibility of D&Ders 'being on the same page,' and that no edition will ever achieve that utopian state.

Because the simple fact is that tastes vary too widely to achieve anything resembling mutual game values, even within D&D, and the only reason that the hobby may have once resembled a collective soul is because it was a small hobby, with a very few DMs making the calls.


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## Tequila Sunrise

Dungeoneer said:


> You see a schism, I see a healthy diversity.
> 
> Looked at through another prism, in the past people who wanted to play a fantasy RPG had one real choice. Now they have many. They can pick a game that caters best to their tables' preferred play style. They can try out Pathfinder or Dungeon World or Fate or GURPS or Savage World or 13th Age. I'm sure I've left some important ones off that list. Seems like lately there's more cool, professional games out that there than ever before. This can only be good for the hobby.
> 
> I suspect that the only people the 'schism' is really bad for is Wizards of the Coast.
> 
> Going forward there may not be One Game To Rule Them All. And that's fine. As long as you are open to new gaming experiences I doubt you'll have trouble finding a table to play at.



Well said, Dungeoneer!

I've certainly run across a couple of the real-life edition warriors that wingsandsword mentioned, but more that are willing to at least try games and editions outside of their comfort zone. Generally, a GM can find a group to play edition A even if this player'd rather play edition B and that player'd rather play game Q.

I myself played and loved 3.x for eight years before becoming a 4e fan, and occasionally play PF with a local Paizo group. I, like most gamers I know, are somewhere in between "It's about the group, not the rules" and "It's my edition or the highway."


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## GMforPowergamers

I ran my first game Christmas holiday of 1995, before that I had LARPed and play RIFTs a few times.

by 1999 we had a group of almost 60 people in 10 or 11 games (we ran every Tuesday night, every Friday night and every saterday night alternating Friday and saterday games) No 2 DMs ran the exact same but we shared the lion share of house rules.

When Tuesday night upgraded to 3.0 we lost 3 players... they said it was garbage they weren't going to play. (we also lost 1 to having twins born but that would have happened either way) Friday night game completely fell apart to fighting edtion wars. Saterday night game some of the games up graded some kept running 2e.

By the time 3.5 came out we had only Tuesday and Saterday running and only 12 regular players... when Matt took over saterday DM duties full time and ruled that it was "Any 3e book published including 3rd party" that game fell apart quickly.

When 4e came out we had 5 players on Tuesday, and started a new saterday night game with 5 players (3 cross over) so starting 4e we only had 7 players...

our splitting group started the first time someone told me "I'm not buying or playing magic the gathering...and Wizards are only Magic the gathering"


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## Derren

Dungeoneer said:


> You see a schism, I see a healthy diversity.
> 
> Looked at through another prism, in the past people who wanted to play a fantasy RPG had one real choice. Now they have many. They can pick a game that caters best to their tables' preferred play style. They can try out Pathfinder or Dungeon World or Fate or GURPS or Savage World or 13th Age. I'm sure I've left some important ones off that list. Seems like lately there's more cool, professional games out that there than ever before. This can only be good for the hobby.
> 
> I suspect that the only people the 'schism' is really bad for is Wizards of the Coast.
> 
> Going forward there may not be One Game To Rule Them All. And that's fine. As long as you are open to new gaming experiences I doubt you'll have trouble finding a table to play at.




That sounds a lot like wishful thinking.
There were fantasy games before 4E people could have played if they didn't like D&D. Fact is many did, either directly or one of the many D20 games which used D&D as basis. Games back then were already diverse, but D&D profited from all of them.
4E changed that by declaring a small subset of this healthy diversity to be the true way of D&D and driving away who liked something else. This is certainly not a healthy diversification but a unhealthy schism.


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## DEFCON 1

Melodramatic is right.

You know what the real breaking point is?  The ubiquity of the internet.

Before that point... the only people most of us ever talked to about it were people we came into contact with personally.  And those people tended to be folks with whom we shared common gaming ground with (because we wouldn't hang out with people whom we didn't get along).  And thus... we rarely heard as many negative things about the games we were playing.

But now with the internet, messageboards, social media etc,... we're stuck listening to all these other people who have opinions and beliefs that are completely insane and we can't get away from them.  And it has nothing to do with the games themselves.  No matter where we go on the net to talk about something we like... there is an equal and opposite faction telling us that our opinion is crap and that we're idiots.  Just like we feel towards them.

I would guess that had we had the internet in the early 90s... the caterwauling between D&D and Vampire: The Masquerade players would have been just as ridiculous and overblown as any 3E/4E/5E conversation.  The talk about D&D is no more special or disparate as its ever been... there's just a lot more people all grouped together throwing stones.


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## ccooke

innerdude said:


> I don't think 5e will "fail," certainly not from a commercial standpoint. And certainly it will "win over" some fans as their preferred edition.
> 
> The original subtext of this thread is that 5e doesn't appear to be a vehicle for player base unification. If you're defining 5e's success or failure based on its ability to unite the fan base, then yes, in my opinion 5e will "fail."
> 
> But 5e can fail at that aim, and still find success in other ways.




Unification of a playerbase this divided isn't something you can judge at release, though. It's something that can only happen over a long period.
Success in unification will only come if WotC are prepared to keep pushing 5th edition for a long period:

At release, it needs to capture at least a portion of the market.

After release, WotC need to actually release the right things to make it a viable ecosystem: They need the basic box to pull in new players. They need adventures, both advanced and simple. They need to release new rules content that enhances the system without overcomplicating it (this is where the modular approach could reap dividends).

Long-term, 5e will succeed if it's a vibrant and viable option in the market for a number of years. If it's pulling in new players and the curious, then every time you finish a campaign it'll be an option, gathering more people and content until it can TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!11!!!

Ahem. Sorry.

But yeah, I think that's the only viable model for true success with 5e - a long-term investment spread over several years. I think the noises coming out of Wizards right now indicate they get that, too - all this talk about brand awareness and multiple platforms is a long-tail play. If they can make D&D a big enough thing in the public mindset, then they'll make profits from all of these multi-media ventures in the short term. In the long-term, *some* of those people are going to be curious and buy the game, which means they (could) be a customer for many years (and those people keep the idea of D&D in the public eye, too, because hey - it's not exactly a stigma any more). 

Failure is easy - it could fail to get enough of the market on release to be viable (although I don't believe that will happen).

Wizards could fail to bring enough existing, lapsed and new players to it over the first year to 18 months - a failure of marketing and their ability to release good quality new content, really. In that time period, fifth edition needs to be *growing* in the market.

And finally, they could fail to stay the course and change plans a few years in. A failure of staying power or (quite possibly) lack of ability to keep producing high quality content. 

Well. Those are some thoughts, anyway. I have no idea how close this is to their *actual* plan. Not too far, I hope. But either way, there's a lot of room for both success or failure in the market today.


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## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

Derren said:


> That sounds a lot like wishful thinking.
> There were fantasy games before 4E people could have played if they didn't like D&D. Fact is many did, either directly or one of the many D20 games which used D&D as basis. Games back then were already diverse, but D&D profited from all of them.
> 4E changed that by declaring a small subset of this healthy diversity to be the true way of D&D and driving away who liked something else. This is certainly not a healthy diversification but a unhealthy schism.




I can promise you that "Old World of Darkness" got a lot of play in the 90's.


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## billd91

I don't think there's been a heck of a lot of unity in RPGers since maybe the 1970s. As soon as significant critics of any one game showed up to play something else, the bickering has been going on. Enthusiasts are nothing if not enthusiastic - both for and against the things they like and don't like and the way they like them (and it's not limited to RPGs, just ask ASL players if they prefer the IFT or IIFT, Plano boxes or some other method of chit storage, and so on).

That said, D&D really has been a sort of lingua franca among gamers due to the immense size of its player base (both current and former) and those network externalities that go along with it. No other non-computer RPG has ever come close to that level of recognizability. Has WotC allowed that to be significantly damaged? Maybe they have. But even if they have, it's hard to tell for certain that's a good or bad thing. Personally, I think it probably has occurred and it's probably a bad thing.


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## Umbran

wingsandsword said:


> I saw the Edition Wars break into real life like no other gaming debate ever did.




If you only started gaming in 1998, then there's a couple of decades of history you missed.  For Example, White Wolf's classic Word Of Darkness was released in 1991, and oh, my goodness the flames between WoD players and D&D players!  Messageboards were not quite the thing then they were at the release of 4e, but the vitriol was quite remarkable.  

There's strong argument that this division led to the development of the "Threefold Model" in 1997-1998, and this to Ron Edwards and The Forge.  And oh, goodness, how nasty people were to each other over that!

So, really, there was lots and lots of debate before 4e came out.  Some of it quite unpleasant and factionalized.



> I miss when we were all on the same page, more or less.  I miss when I could talk D&D online or in meatspace and not have to ignore half the conversations because I genuinely dislike the edition they are talking about, or when I could walk into my FLGS and actually see books I wanted to buy.  I haven't bought a D&D book in about 6 years, because they stopped making anything I'd want to buy.




See above - gamers really haven't had the "all on the same page" on gaming since the early 1990s, if not earlier.  



> The sad thing is, I've got no idea what could fix this gaming schism.




Note that, as you've described it, "this schism" is defined by how you don't like the games others are talking about, and you don't like what is on the shelves.  The schism amounts to, "a lot of people like things I don't like".

Step back from how you could fix that.  *Should* you want to fix the fact that there's diverse desires among gamers?  Why on Earth should we have everyone liking the same things you do?


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## NewJeffCT

People seem to forget that this site was founded when 3E was in the pipeline and coming out soon.  When 3E first came out, it suffered from all sorts of bashing on here, and the other internet forums out there.  (Anybody remember WebRPG?  I found a great gaming group in the 90s through there... RPG.net's been around for years, too)

People said 3E was dumbed down/written for 5th graders, it was too complex, it was too easy, it had no heart/soul, the art sucked, it was too overpowered/munchkiny, made too many changes, required too much magic, the CR system didn't work, trying too hard to appeal to women/minorities, etc, etc, etc.  From my experience, love/unification of 3E and 3.5E was certainly NOT universal.  And, a few years back, I was the EN-worlder in the thread about who had the most gamers within 100 miles of their zip code (I was within 100 miles of Boston & NYC), so it's not like I was living in Antarctica...  Heck, that great 2E group I was in from the 90s basically broke up over 3E, with a bunch leaving to go back to 1E (with one of them saying - with a straight face - that 1E was the cleanest & tightest rules system ever.)  About the only thing that got universal praise was demons & devils being called demons & devils again, instead of baatzu and tannari or whatever it was.

And, look at your Dragon magazine letters to the editor when 2E was coming out around 1989 or 1990 - similar bashing of 2E - dumbing the game down, no heart/soul, bad artwork, trying too hard to appeal to women/minorities, etc.

And, when 6E comes out in the 2020s, we'll have similar issues.


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## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> If you only started gaming in 1998, then there's a couple of decades of history you missed.  For Example, White Wolf's classic Word Of Darkness was released in 1991, and oh, my goodness the flames between WoD players and D&D players!  Messageboards were not quite the thing then they were at the release of 4e, but the vitriol was quite remarkable.




this was quite a big deal when i was playing the 90s (the D&D and vampire split). There was also the split between D&D and AD&D, as well as people who strictly played stuff like rolemaster and couldn't stand D&D. I also remember a lot of people who hated 2E and kept playing first edition. 

When 3E was released, even though a lot of us held out a bit, i remember witnessing a re-unification. I saw lots of 1E players hop aboard 3E, saw tons of new people join in, and even saw some world of darkness folks climb aboard. I believe the 3E boom was pretty huge, probably hard to repeat, and it surprised a lot of people when the edition change caused so much division. But if you had been
playing since the 80s it wasn't all that surprising because 3E was always kind of a coalition government, made up of different groups. It feels like 5E is just trying to find the fault lines and build a new coalition.


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## Yora

Dungeons & Dragons is just a name, that doesn't stand for anything specific anymore. All the editions until D&D 2nd Edition where relatively consistent in what they are and how they are different from other RPGs. 3rd Edition was a major step to something different, but to a large number of people it still at least felt like a different take on the old and familar standards and aspects.
4th Edition just was something completely else that didn't continue the tradition of what the lable D&D stood for, and at that point it became just a name that could mean a lot of things. And now we have a couple of games, both OSR games and Pathfinder, that represent that tradition a lot better than the game currently running under the brand D&D.

5th Edition could potentially, or rather theoretically, fix this by once again representing those things people have associated with the lable D&D for decades. But as of now there doesn't seem any indication that the game is going to get played by a major fraction of the people who like "old D&D".

And I think in this age, we don't really need an RPG company with an almost-monopoly of the market. I like the current situation of a lot of creators trying out different things for several smaller niches a lot more. Everybody wins.
Except the people who once paid a lot of money for the brand name D&D...


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## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

wingsandsword said:


> In retrospect, the early to mid 2000's were a Golden Age of D&D.




You are absolutely spot on about the 2000's being a Golden Age of D&D. 3rd edition opened new avenues for the brand which is still being played and produced (Pathfinder) today. I believe there will never be another "Golden Age" of D&D.


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## Umbran

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> I believe there will never be another "Golden Age" of D&D.




"Never" is a very, very long time.


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## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> You are absolutely spot on about the 2000's being a Golden Age of D&D. 3rd edition opened new avenues for the brand which is still being played and produced (Pathfinder) today. I believe there will never be another "Golden Age" of D&D.






Umbran said:


> "Never" is a very, very long time.




Well I doubt most will look back and call 4e or 5e a 'golden age' (some will just as some don't see 2e or 3e that way) I bet that there will come a day when the pendulum swings back and we have a massive revival of Paper and dice gameing...

[sblock=pessimist] or computer games will over take us and this (now 40 year old) 50 or so years will bearly be a foot note...  [/sblock]


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## Yora

What? Pen and Paper games appear to be doing super-well. It's just that one company that used to be the number one top dog that probably held about 80+% of the market that now has been cut down to being the number 2. And still outselling everyone but the new number 1 by a good margin.


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## n00bdragon

This topic reeks of rose tinted glasses, glasses which conveniently forget the upheaval every edition change of D&D has courted. The difference is that the internet has exploded the number and variety of quality RPGs on the market (the number of sub-quality RPGs has also gone from simply immense to truly uncountable). There's more forums for edition wars than there were in the past, and there's also a massive batch of people who started pretty much with 3e and don't remember the history substantially before it.

Anyone who thinks the heyday of RPGs was the mid 2000s is woefully ignorant of history. The heydey was in the 70s and 80s. It's been a slow decline ever since.


----------



## Derren

Yora said:


> What? Pen and Paper games appear to be doing super-well. It's just that one company that used to be the number one top dog that probably held about 80+% of the market that now has been cut down to being the number 2. And still outselling everyone but the new number 1 by a good margin.




Without some global sales numbers that is hard to tell. The Internet made acquiring RPGs and groups more easy. But on the other hand, video games did cut into the market share. It is hard to say if PnPs are doing well or not.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

n00bdragon said:


> Anyone who thinks the heyday of RPGs was the mid 2000s is woefully ignorant of history. The heydey was in the 70s and 80s. It's been a slow decline ever since.




Incorrect.

3rd edition rules are still in circulation 14 years later with no end in sight. Of course there were people who didn't welcome 3rd edition, but there was a massive influx of old and new gamers coming on boards the 3rd edition bandwagon. I wouldn't be throwing the "ignorant" word around that easily. 3rd edition made D&D "cool" again by a lot of people I know.


----------



## Ahnehnois

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> 3rd edition made D&D "cool" again by a lot of people I know.



To me that's a big part of it. When 3e was being advertised and was popular, it was the closest D&D has ever come to being socially acceptable, at least among people who have some idea of what it is. Now, any statement that "I play D&D" opens up a can of worms. With people outside of the hobby, there's the nebulous sense of xenophobia one would expect, but even within the hobby, that statement is a sort of challenge, one that immediately needs to be followed with qualifiers lest you lose the listener's respect.

It's unfortunate that a hobby with D&D's history has added even more negativity to the mix.


----------



## HardcoreDandDGirl

n00bdragon said:


> This topic reeks of rose tinted glasses, glasses which conveniently forget the upheaval every edition change of D&D has courted.





As a self-professed 2e girl I will say this, I jumped into4e much earlier than I did 3e, and am planning to convert to next day 1 (Istill have a playtest running that has 5 players 2 of them had never RPGedbefore).
My ex’s Dad and his group still meet every Thursday night toplay Dungeons and Dragons, but I doubt anyone here would call the game theyplay that. (At its base it is AD&D1e but with CoC skills and sanity graftedon, and a proficiency system that that takes a lot from 3e feats, and they havehomebrew races and classes on top of the ones from that edition) I have neverheard any of them say anything nice about anything published after I was born…


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> 3rd edition rules are still in circulation 14 years later with no end in sight.




If I am correct you are counting 3e, 3.5, and pathfinder all in there (correct me if I am wrong). That is three versions (based on the same chaise) for 14 years... at the very least you have to combine 1e and 2e (since they too were backwards compatible) to compare life spans... I believe that is 20 years...


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## billd91

HardcoreDandDGirl said:


> I have neverheard any of them say anything nice about anything published after I was born…




The perfect examples of grognards (grumblers). I bet they say the same about music and not just games too. Just wait until they're all wearing pants up their armpits and going to dinner at 4pm for the Senior Special.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

GMforPowergamers said:


> If I am correct you are counting 3e, 3.5, and pathfinder all in there (correct me if I am wrong). That is three versions (based on the same chaise) for 14 years... at the very least you have to combine 1e and 2e (since they too were backwards compatible) to compare life spans... I believe that is 20 years...




Let's just clear something up real quick. 3.0 and 3.5 are not separate editions. 

Basically you have 3rd edition with Pathfinder carrying the flag. 

Also, look at all the games that have spawned from the d20 engine such as Star Wars, Elric of Melnibone, Cthuhlu, d20 modern etc... Don't remember too many games that were created from the 1 and 2nd edition models.


----------



## NewJeffCT

GMforPowergamers said:


> If I am correct you are counting 3e, 3.5, and pathfinder all in there (correct me if I am wrong). That is three versions (based on the same chaise) for 14 years... at the very least you have to combine 1e and 2e (since they too were backwards compatible) to compare life spans... I believe that is 20 years...




2e was more compatible with 1e than Pathfinder is with 3.0.  Many spells are different, and the classes were all retooled for 3.5.   You can say that PF and 3.5E are somewhat compatible, so that would give you a life of 10 years or so now?

Other than a few tweaks, adding NWPs and buffing up monsters, 2e was pretty much the same as 1e.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Dungeoneer said:


> You see a schism, I see a healthy diversity.



I concur. Ryan Dancey is going to go down as being as important to D&D and the RPG hobby generally as Gary Gygax: He enabled the great D&D Diaspora that's given us Pathfinder, the OSR, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Castles & Crusades, Mutants & Masterminds and a thousand other flowers, some of which will create ever more diverse and strange descendants. (By example, for instance, it's helped give us open source Runequest and Traveller, for instance, which is a good thing all around.)

And via the example of FLAILSNAILS, I think there's a growing recognition that the brand of D&D is less important than actually just playing D&D. If 5E enables players to sit down at the table with characters from a variety of sources, it'll be a big hit and help unify those diverse players. (If it doesn't, there's always C&C and ever more choices that do a decent job of allowing source material from various editions to be played together.)

I'm going to be running a D&D game this summer for my nieces and son, and for the first time ever, I've got a half-dozen great choices for a kid's D&D game available to me, many of which are well-supported by their various developers, and all of which are close to 100 percent inter-operable in case I want to use C&C monsters in a Beyond the Wall game with critical hits and fumbles from DCC in the mix.

The golden age of D&D is before us, not behind us.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Let's just clear something up real quick. 3.0 and 3.5 are not separate editions.



 I have heard it argued that the same can be said for 1e and 2e the same amount changed.



> Basically you have 3rd edition with Pathfinder carrying the flag.



 ok compaired to 1e and 2e



> Also, look at all the games that have spawned from the d20 engine such as Star Wars, Elric of Melnibone, Cthuhlu, d20 modern etc... Don't remember too many games that were created from the 1 and 2nd edition models.



 yes but most of those got better the farther they got from basic D20... 

once again I'm just saying 3e was awesome and huge, but so was 1e. The fact is that a lot of retro clones try to harken back to 1e the same way pathfinder does 3.5


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> I concur. Ryan Dancey is going to go down as being as important to D&D and the RPG hobby generally as Gary Gygax: He enabled the great D&D Diaspora that's given us Pathfinder, the OSR, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Castles & Crusades, Mutants & Masterminds and a thousand other flowers, some of which will create ever more diverse and strange descendants. (By example, for instance, it's helped give us open source Runequest and Traveller, for instance, which is a good thing all around.)




I hope someday Dancey does get his full credit... but I think you oversell it by compairing him to Gygax... Just IMO






> The golden age of D&D is before us, not behind us.



I hope so...


----------



## GreyLord

I have to wonder why people's memory's are either 

1. So forgetful...

or 

2.  Different than what happened.

The golden age was definitely when AD&D hit its fad in the early 80s.  Then everyone played...or everyone who was anyone...at least among the youth you could say.  It was a fad much like any fad which hits the huge numbers that give major sales and everyone wants to jump aboard.

Problem with fads...once they are past, they are VERY hard to recreate for specific items.  

So anyone who states the 2000s were the golden age...WOW...just WOW....

It's like calling now the golden age of Pokémon compared to the late 90s and early 2000s...or like comparing the amount of water in the Great lakes to the amount of water in the Atlantic ocean.  Granted...there's a TON of water in the Great Lakes...especially if compared to your local lake or most lakes in the world...but compared to the Ocean...not even comparable.

The 2000s may have been a silver or bronze age for RPGs though.

3e also lost a LOT of AD&D players.  It had a very significant shift (I'd say an even BIGGER shift than 3e to 4e).  The reason was because the internet, though big at that time, was nothing like it is now.  Many people who played AD&D were still playing 1e...or were playing core 2e rules.  They never got the player's options or any other books, and most did NOT go to the conventions (and most still don't go to the conventions, believe it or not).  These changes came from nowhere for them...and it was a much more significant change for them then anything we've seen since.

HOWEVER...there were a TON of those who were playing other games, had moved to other areas of RPGing, who were sick of 2e or even 1e, and a whole lot of splintering.  3e and it's D20 push DID unite those who were left (IMO!!).  It isolated a LOT of the old gamers (and many of those are what you see today behind the OSR movement...and even behind some of the other more innovative RPG ideas coming out these days)...whilst bringing back a LOT of those who had left...and I think there were a LOT more of those who had left and those who wanted something new or different (the new shiny) than those who wanted AD&D or D&D (the older versions).  Hence 3e was originally a great success (once again...IMO!!).

But there's a heck of a lot of difference between what I'd term as the Golden age...and what we might call the Silver age of RPGs.

For example...when people talk about RPGs and the current (2014) military it rather confuses me.  Some research (which unfortunately I can't share here) seem to indicate that whilst a great majority may have been playing in the early 80s...currently there is less than 1% of the military playing RPGs today.  That's still a large number (for example, the US military I think is a little greater than 1.4 million, 1% is still greater than 14,000 personnel that play)...but is nothing to number seen previously.  I remember one store we visited (more looking at OTHER sales than RPGs, but it was there) and it appeared that though it was near a base, and they had several hundred customers...only a couple dozen were actually from the military base which was nearby composed of around 12-13,000 soldiers (which obviously is even less then the 1% I just said...but that was just for that base...and who knows...maybe others got their books elsewhere, went other places to play...obvious things like that).

It doesn't seem as if there'd be enough numbers in the military to really notice an impact of an edition war inside the military...per se.  Then again...maybe they are more concentrated in other areas...or they know how to find each other and that's where the arguments went?

However, the 3e/4e "edition wars" actually seemed rather tame comparatively to arguments between players in the past from what I've seen.  perhaps that is because there are NOT as many RPG players as a whole (to me, it would seem the community has shrunk and continues to shrink...but this is NOT due to any research on my part recently...but my perceptions).

I'd say the bigger risk to D&D and AD&D (and perhaps even to Magic and other games to that degree) is that the audience is shrinking, slowly, but steadily.  Hence it's not just fragmentation, but a shrinking of the audience.  It's not just a struggle to unite such an audience, but also to sell more to those that still remain to buy items (and by shrinking, in some instances it's also relates DIRECTLY to those who are willing to buy or consume more than those who are playing).

Another part of the success of the 2000s I'd say was increased awareness.  AD&D was dying as far as sales go, at that time with a slow but steady shrinking of the audience (once again, not directly those playing, but those buying).  There was a burst of items that suddenly increased awareness among key groups (for example, the Baldur's gate games probably were the start for many a kid into D&D).  3e and D20 made it easier for those to get into the RPG market simply because it was the new thing and not loaded down with over a decade of bulk.

What I think is more pertinent isn't whether there is a scattering of gamers (and I would agree with other sentiments on the thread that basically state, except for early on (though I would add in the golden age of D&D into that) but what will be done to reinvigorate the brand.  I don't see any Neverwinter Nights, or STRONG (as in a really strong line like it used to be...you still have best sellers in the FR, DL, and D&D lines...but Salvatore isn't releasing as many books and some of the more big name authors are now writing for others [such as PAIZO] at least part of the time instead of being steady TSR/WotC devotees) entertainment lines that have D&D as the only outlet.

That's all part of the advertising and such...and that probably has me more worried about the D&D brand than what people are calling fragmentation...at least at the moment (who knows, I may have different feeling about it in a few months!).


----------



## Ahnehnois

You do realize that not everyone was alive in the early '80's, right? That was thirty plus years ago.

If D&D was a pop culture phenomenon in that time, memory has faded no more for that than for anything else from the same time. I find it hard to believe that the "golden age" could be pre-internet.


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## GreyLord

One item I thought I should add.  

I haven't seen as much diversity in RPGs in the market since prior to 2000.  As far as diversity and RPGs go around...I think we are going through an RPG renaissance...

Once again, as if it has to be said...IMO.

Of course.


----------



## GreyLord

Ahnehnois said:


> You do realize that not everyone was alive in the early '80's, right? That was thirty plus years ago.
> 
> If D&D was a pop culture phenomenon in that time, memory has faded no more for that than for anything else from the same time. I find it hard to believe that the "golden age" could be pre-internet.




Oh yeah...it was a golden age for many things that have made a comeback since to a certain degree for a short time...but nothing like back then.

For those who can remember back then...

Cabbage Patch Kids...abominations from Heck in my opinion...but wildly popular for a time.  They made a small comeback some time in the past decade if I recall.

Star Wars...though I think that fad has made a comparable, if not stronger comeback...and maybe not quite like a fad this time around?  Don't know...but it may actually be stronger this time around???

Space Invaders....

Okay...maybe that one didn't have a resurgence...but people I think still tries to make money off of it.

Atari (the console)...

Now that was a fad for a while...

Just some of the other fads from the 80s for those of you who can remember...


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Not to worry ... all this has happened before, and will happen again.

There will come a time when virtually everyone looks back upon the 3E-to-4E era with the same warm nostalgia we feel for the OD&D-to-AD&D era, when the differences between editions matter less because "It's all good, they're all D&D."


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ahnehnois said:


> You do realize that not everyone was alive in the early '80's, right? That was thirty plus years ago.
> 
> If D&D was a pop culture phenomenon in that time, memory has faded no more for that than for anything else from the same time. I find it hard to believe that the "golden age" could be pre-internet.




I was born in the mid 70s, so was a kid in the early 80s, but do remember D&D being pretty big, especially among those a few years ahead of me. There was also a cartoon, which i watched, action figures with playsets, and it was even referenced in ET. Plus you had the backlash like with Mazes and Monsters (which was made into a TV movie staring Tom Hanks). I do not know how it compares to the d20 boom in terms of numbers. Both were pretty big at least they both felt big. I do recall the early 80s D&D seemed to have a wider presence.


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## TerraDave

D&D was biggest in the 80s
The worst fights were on the usenet
You are a grognard when you know that the best all time edition was already published, however recent that was
D20/OGL brought all the gamers together, then let that all go their separate ways
RPGs are always under mortal threat
There are more devoted gamers playing more good games that are easier to find then ever before
The best D&D is yet to come, why wouldn't it be?


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## billd91

GreyLord said:


> I have to wonder why people's memory's are either
> 
> 1. So forgetful...
> 
> or
> 
> 2.  Different than what happened.




Different experiences and different perspectives are different. Watch Rashomon.


----------



## CleverNickName

I'm still a little bit sore over the "Basic" vs. "Advanced" versions.  

The best thing to happen to the hobby, in my opinion, was the Open Gaming License.  This was more than just a game...it was a toolbox that gamers could use to build the exact game they wanted to play...and build it in a uniform and standardized way.  If a product had the D20 Logo on it, you knew that it would work in your game.  And the D20 Logo was _everywhere_ in the mid-2000s.  Forgotten Realms D20, Ravenloft D20, Oriental Adventures D20...it was like a high school class reunion for the "old guard," and things like Eberron and Ghostwalk were bringing new gamers to the hobby in droves.

When 4th Edition was announced, all of that changed.  Third-party publishers shelved their projects, waiting for word on the new edition and whether or not it would also have an Open Gaming License toolbox for them to use.  Only Pathfinder and a tiny handful of others kept printing under the current license...a decision that would make them very, very wealthy.  Then 4th Edition was released--and it didn't come with a toolbox.

4th Edition didn't "kill D&D" as some people proclaimed.  But Hasbro certainly tried to kill the OGL, and the way that D&D material was being produced at the time.  I remember reading dozens of articles, game blogs, and commentaries about the legality of the OGL, and the struggle from Hasbro to reign in the booming third-party industry, and their ultimate decision to restrict the license for 4th Edition.  It was a dark time.  Some bridges got burned.  Talented people lost their jobs.  A lot of publishers walked away.

Fortunately for gamers like me, the OGL survived....thrived even, largely due to the hard work, creativity, and old-fashioned good luck of Paizo.  Which is awesome, because we will never see anything like it ever again in this hobby.

So when people talk about a "Golden Age" of D&D, I don't think about high school and the Moldvay Basic/Expert rules and the Isle of Dread, even though they were the best gaming experiences of my life.  Instead, I think about the Open Gaming License and how it saved our hobby from fading away forever after TSR went under.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

GMforPowergamers said:


> I have heard it argued that the same can be said for 1e and 2e the same amount changed.
> 
> ok compaired to 1e and 2e
> 
> yes but most of those got better the farther they got from basic D20...
> 
> once again I'm just saying 3e was awesome and huge, but so was 1e. The fact is that a lot of retro clones try to harken back to 1e the same way pathfinder does 3.5




There is no argument about it. At the beginning of the 3.5 PHB it clearly states it's not a new edition but a revision.


----------



## Yora

They also clearly stated "the game remains the same", and that doesn't make it true either.


----------



## Ace

People have been sharing anecdotes about the doom of D&D probably since 1976 or so (with Holmes) and the scattering since 2e  Its nothing new and IMO nothing worth being unduly worried about. 

Even with the crud global economy lots of D&D is played by many a group.Heck as worthless as anecdotes are I can say  In the last few months, my group 20's to 40's have  played Pathfinder and that weird black D&D basic  starter box and a host of other games, I suspect many groups are doing the same thing. Besides D&D is cheap and with everybody tight these days its a great social hobby. Just recruit some players and the hobby will grow,. Its not super easy, maybe not as easy as in the days of the FLGS but its not hard either  

That said Hasbro might have a few worries with people switching unless 5e production is more interesting than the playtest. I liked the game well enough but it might be a tough sell and other than the imprimatuer of officiality I don't see any reason to prefer it to the retro-clones or even Pathfinder.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> There is no argument about it. At the beginning of the 3.5 PHB it clearly states it's not a new edition but a revision.




ok well it is at least a huge revision, the size that none WotC D&D would have called an edition.


----------



## Bedrockgames

GMforPowergamers said:


> ok well it is at least a huge revision, the size that none WotC D&D would have called an edition.




I think it wasn't quite a new edition. It is more like the revisions of 2E released in the mid 90s with the black covers. The core components stayed the same. It wasn't like 1E to 2E where you switched from attack matrices to THAC0, made NWP a major option the core book, removed classes, made signif cant changes to classes, rewrote pretty much all of the text and took out large chunks of the exploration rules. 2E was backwards compatible but it was a much larger shift than 3E to 3.5 (which honestly wasnt all that noticeable until you dug around a bit).


----------



## Ratskinner

innerdude said:


> Even now, how much easier would it be to recruit a group at your local  FLGS to play a Pathfinder campaign versus say, GURPS or Runequest?
> <snippage>
> We had opportunities to explore the _why_ of that rift, to  explore the dimensions behind the theory and game designs of each  system, and to better understand our own preferences in gaming. To me,  this is a massive positive of the "Edition Wars," which makes me a  little bit hesitant to label anything an "edition war," or to even  discount someone else's opinion, even if it's couched somewhat in  vitriol.






Dungeoneer said:


> You see a schism, I see a healthy diversity.
> 
> Looked at through another prism, in the past people who wanted to play a fantasy RPG had one real choice. Now they have many. They can pick a game that caters best to their tables' preferred play style. They can try out Pathfinder or Dungeon World or Fate or GURPS or Savage World or 13th Age. I'm sure I've left some important ones off that list. Seems like lately there's more cool, professional games out that there than ever before. This can only be good for the hobby.
> 
> I suspect that the only people the 'schism' is really bad for is Wizards of the Coast.
> 
> Going forward there may not be One Game To Rule Them All. And that's fine. As long as you are open to new gaming experiences I doubt you'll have trouble finding a table to play at.




I think that diversity is/would be a great thing. However, I think there's a great deal of geographic divergences when it comes to the penetration/availability of alternatives to D&D. Some folks around here have commented that finding a Savage Worlds or Fate table to play at is as easy to find a D&D table. That very much doesn't match my experience, where Pathfinder/3.5 seems very dominant in my area.

Certainly WotC will be the primary "losers" in this diversity. However, I do think that there is a bit of a risk for the larger community. Namely, that D&D has always served as the gateway to the rpg world (even when it does a bad job of it.) If D&D ceases to serve that function...well, I don't know how that turns out. Does another game take its place? Does the community adapt to some new paradigm? Does is spell doom for TTRPGs?

I will say that, generally, I'd like to see the community get away from latching onto "my game" so much. Playing a variety of games can really help you reflect on how you like things to go, and often even make you better at having fun with the game you _do_ consider you first choice. Also, I think its the only defense against the risk of drifting too far into an echo chamber of your favorite playstyle or mechanics..


----------



## Desdichado

wingsandsword said:


> I miss when we were all on the same page, more or less.  I miss when I could talk D&D online or in meatspace and not have to ignore half the conversations because I genuinely dislike the edition they are talking about, or when I could walk into my FLGS and actually see books I wanted to buy.  I haven't bought a D&D book in about 6 years, because they stopped making anything I'd want to buy.
> 
> The sad thing is, I've got no idea what could fix this gaming schism.  D&D Next (I still want to call it 5e) was meant to bring the factions together, but it's not seeming like it will do that.  Personally I'll probably buy the PHB for it, but I've got faint hope that it will do anything other than break D&D gaming apart further.



I suspect that the schism is partly an artifact of your perception--there never really was nearly as much "community" and unification as you percieved.  (As a guy who used to hang out at RPG.net before coming to Eric Noah's Third Edition News site, or whatever it was actually called in about 2000, I can attest to the great diversity in the hobby that existed _outside_ of D&D specifically.  And as a guy who was at least aware of Dragonsfoot, even if I wasn't interested in anything that they were talking about, the incipient proto-OSR movement, as it were, I'm not convinced that D&D itself was ever so unified as you assume.)

But also--and this is wandering a bit into armchair psychoanalysis--why is this something that you care about?  If you have a game that _you_ like, and players to play it with, then why does it matter to you about the "greater community" and what everyone else is (supposedly) playing and all that?  I'm a firm believer in the notion that I'd rather have options I don't need than to need options that I don't have.  Diversity in the marketplace is generally held to be good for consumers as a truism.  This is certainly true for me; if I were forced to swallow _any_ edition of D&D, then I'd probably choke on it these days.  Having the OGL, and tons of options to give me a very targeted niche product, is a much better situation for me than a one size fits all big-tent approach, in which I'm forced to accept all kinds of compromises.

The diversity has also greatly contributed to both the content of my conversations about gaming--because I now have all kinds of interesting things to talk about that I wouldn't have without that diversity--and the content of my games, because I can borrow all kinds of interesting and neat ideas from multiple systems.  And because of the internet, these options are now laid out in front of me in a way that I'v enever had before.  Instead of having to be an amateur game designer house-ruling the heck out of my system, I can pick and choose like at a buffet of options, without having to actually create much, if any, rules of my own from scratch.

_This_ is the Golden Age of gaming.  The prior ages were Stone Ages or Bronze Ages at best.  The only reason I can think of why this would not be the case is the psychological desire to feel part of a big tent, or community, of completely like-minded individuals, who all do things the same way.  That, frankly, sounds terrible to me.


----------



## Desdichado

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Let's just clear something up real quick. 3.0 and 3.5 are not separate editions.
> 
> Basically you have 3rd edition with Pathfinder carrying the flag.



They were all three separate editions (or a separate game, in Pathfinder's case.)  Albeit ones with a relatively high level of mutual compatability.

But saying that they're all the same edition is sorta like saying that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian are the same language, just because they also share a high level of mutual compatability.


----------



## Desdichado

GreyLord said:


> The golden age was definitely when AD&D hit its fad in the early 80s.  Then everyone played...or everyone who was anyone...at least among the youth you could say.  It was a fad much like any fad which hits the huge numbers that give major sales and everyone wants to jump aboard.



A Golden Age for TSR, no doubt.  But for players?  That's a more dubious claim.


----------



## Desdichado

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> There is no argument about it. At the beginning of the 3.5 PHB it clearly states it's not a new edition but a revision.



Oh, well there you go.  It says it right in the 3.5 PHB, so there's no argument about it.  Clearly.


----------



## Manbearcat

That is a fantastic post # 52  [MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION].  I agree across the board.


----------



## Dungeoneer

Hobo said:


> They were all three separate editions (or a separate game, in Pathfinder's case.)  Albeit ones with a relatively high level of mutual compatability.
> 
> But saying that they're all the same edition is sorta like saying that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian are the same language, just because they also share a high level of mutual compatability.



As linguists say, a 'language' is just a dialect with an army and a navy.


----------



## steeldragons

Interesting topic and thread. I completely disagree with the OP but that's just me/my point, as I'll get to later.

So, to help form a mutual understanding and timeline I threw together this. [as far as wikipedia can tell me, so if anything's inaccurate, feel free to let us know -and go correct it  ]




From this, and note this is not takign into account anything like various campaign settings, adventure modules, novels, cartoons, toys, video games or any of the other D&D stuff that came out...shoot I even forgot to include Pathfinder's appearance on the scene....but you get the gist...I hope.

The claims of what was/is a Golden/Silver/Bronze or Stone age are, like just about all things in D&D RPG, a simple matter of personal preference and perspective- When you started playing D&D and when you [believe you] had the best time. Schism or Unification, Diversity (as a positive or negative) Inclusive, Exclusive...the game [or rpg's as a whole, which is really a separate discussion] is better/worse off because it is "expanding" or in its expansion actually just "diffusing"?...Is one option/series/edition/number of years "better" or "worse" than the others? Depends on what you want out of your "Dungeons & Dragons". And there's simply no objective answer for that that can be applied as "across all D&D."


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

Hobo said:


> They were all three separate editions (or a separate game, in Pathfinder's case.)  Albeit ones with a relatively high level of mutual compatability.
> 
> But saying that they're all the same edition is sorta like saying that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian are the same language, just because they also share a high level of mutual compatability.




Emmmmm no.

I would recommend reading the beginning of the 3.5 PHB. The answer is there in black and white.


----------



## Umbran

Hobo said:


> Oh, well there you go.  It says it right in the 3.5 PHB, so there's no argument about it.  Clearly.




You know, we removed the rolleyes smilie for a reason - sarcasm is generally a communication failure.

But really, the point is valid - the differences between 3e and 3.5e are not nearly so great as the differences between the languages you mention.  The form of the analogy is sound enough, but the degree is hyperbole, which also often leads to failed communication.

You cannot sit down at a table for a discussion with an someone who is Italian, someone who is Portuguese, and a Spaniard, and not know instantly that they are not speaking the same language.

You *can* sit down to play with three players, who have made characters using 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder, and play for quite some time before someone goes, "Wait a minute, what rules did you make that character under?"


----------



## Desdichado

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Emmmmm no.
> 
> I would recommend reading the beginning of the 3.5 PHB. The answer is there in black and white.



I have.  The answer there is wrong.  It is, in fact, propagandistic.

Although why that's an issue is beyond me.  What significant aspect of anybody's gaming is impacted by whether or not it's a "revision" or a "new edition?"  And what's the criteria for interpreting which it is, anyway?  As has been said already here, the differences between BD&D, 1e and 2e were on a similar scale.  And 1e and 2e are considered different editions, and BD&D is considered a completely separate _game._

But that's all rather arbitrary, because those labels are defined by the company trying to market their product in a certain way, not by anything substantial.

I refer to 3e, 3.5, and Pathfinder as seperate editions (or a completely different game entirely in the case of Pathfinder) while acknowledging their relatively high level of mutual compatability.  Some claim in the beginning of the 3.5 PHB isn't going to change my mind on that.


Umbran said:


> You know, we removed the rolleyes smilie for a reason - sarcasm is generally a communication failure.



That's not correct.  Sarcasm is not a failure of communication, unless you a priori decide that sarcastic communication is failed communication.  You've stated that as if it were a truism, when in fact all it is a circular statement.


			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> But really, the point is valid - the differences between 3e and 3.5e are not nearly so great as the differences between the languages you mention.  The form of the analogy is sound enough, but the degree is hyperbole, which also often leads to failed communication.
> 
> You cannot sit down at a table for a discussion with an someone who is Italian, someone who is Portuguese, and a Spaniard, and not know instantly that they are not speaking the same language.
> 
> You *can* sit down to play with three players, who have made characters using 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder, and play for quite some time before someone goes, "Wait a minute, what rules did you make that character under?"



In this you are completely wrong.  I've been in many conversations that were hybrid Spanish/Portuguese or Spanish/Italian, and which changed throughout the conversation to shades of one or the other.  It was never clear exactly which language we were speaking (well, I was only speaking Spanish, because I don't really speak Portuguese or Italian, but the folks I was conversing with were slipping in and out of two languages in the same conversation. Sometimes in the same sentence.)

Likewise, Asturian speakers, when surveyed, didn't even realize that Asturian was a separate language in depressingly large numbers; they thought they just spoke really bad hillbilly Spanish.  Valencia has been the subject of bitter linguistic debates about whether or not speakers are speaking Valencian or Catalan.  The same kind of debates characterize Gascons vs. speakers of Provençal or other Occitan dialects.

Contrary to your assertion, the degree of difference between them is not a hyperbolic misstatement on my part.  You're simply (it seems) uninformed on the linguistic issues that I referred to in my analogy.

And I also disagree that you can get very far mixing 3e, 3.5 and Pathfinder characters in the same game without realizing it.  As soon as there's any combat, as soon as there's skill checks, as soon as a spell is cast--in other words, as soon as there's any meaningful interaction with the rules at all--there's going to be major discrepancies.  "What do you mean, what's my CMD?  What's a CMD?"


----------



## D'karr

Umbran said:


> You cannot sit down at a table for a discussion with an someone who is Italian, someone who is Portuguese, and a Spaniard, and not know instantly that they are not speaking the same language.
> 
> You *can* sit down to play with three players, who have made characters using 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder, and play for quite some time before someone goes, "Wait a minute, what rules did you make that character under?"




That right there is the problem.  When you sit down with a Spaniard, an Italian, and a Portuguese from the get-go you expect that you will be speaking a different language.  

However, when you sit down to play a game, you expect that everyone will be speaking the same language.  The changes from 3.0 to 3.5 were insidious - not because they made big changes but because they made *so many* little changes.  For our group it forced us to look everything up, again.


----------



## Ahnehnois

D'karr said:


> However, when you sit down to play a game, you expect that everyone will be speaking the same language.  The changes from 3.0 to 3.5 were insidious - not because they made big changes but because they made *so many* little changes.  For our group it forced us to look everything up, again.



Insidious, maybe, but not important. Say you're porting over some 3.0 characters to 3.5 and you forget to switch around skills, and someone decides to roll an Innuendo check. No big deal. The underlying math means the same thing; it's just a skill that got folded up in 3.5. If you forget that your new 3.5 ranger has fewer hit points and more skills, it's not a big deal. If you don't understand the new weapon size rules, it doesn't matter, most of them work the same in practice. If the DM uses some monster stats from 3.0, no one's likely to notice that the number of feats is wrong.

The big things: the meaning of DCs, the basic rates of numerical advancement, and most of the terminology are the same.

The number of differences that really matter is pretty small. There's really nothing that would stop you from bringing a 3.0 character sheet to a 3.5 or even PF session. Whether one wants to call it a new edition or not is a matter of what definition one assigns to that word in this context, but I don't see that any of the 3.X games are really that different.

Another thing, while we're on this. Now that there are all these versions of 3e out there, what percentage of groups ostensibly playing one of those games use significant rules from another? Every week we get a new thread about "can I use this 3.5 thing in Pathfinder?" There have been a few threads specifically on this topic, and as I recall people seem to mix 3e and PF pretty liberally. Which is certainly what the writers intended.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

The devs at the time made perfectly clear that it wasn't a new edition. Some of you can shiut it until the cows come home but it still remains a fact that 3.5 was a revision. 

Doesn't matter how much your group may have struggled with the revision. My group had no trouble what so ever.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

Curious.

What were all these supposed radical changes that threw some of you for a loop and needed to keep referencing the books to solve?


----------



## D'karr

Ahnehnois said:


> Insidious, maybe, but not important.<snip>
> No big deal.
> <snip>
> The number of differences that really matter is pretty small.




In the big scheme of things RPGs are not important.

However, the fact that almost every spell had to be rechecked for accuracy makes the change quite important.  It made it so that you had to go look up everything again.  Because you could not be sure of what had changed or not.  To me and my group that was a pretty big time waster, a big deal, even if the differences were as you say "small".

If I'm running the game that is quite important.


----------



## D'karr

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> . My group had no trouble what so ever.




Good for you, obviously there was no problem for anyone then.


----------



## Ahnehnois

D'karr said:


> However, the fact that almost every spell had to be rechecked for accuracy makes the change quite important.  It made it so that you had to go look up everything again.  Because you could not be sure of what had changed or not.  To me and my group that was a pretty big time waster, a big deal, even if the differences were as you say "small".
> 
> If I'm running the game that is quite important.



Did you not have to check spell text under other circumstances? It seems de rigeur to me that except for a few ubiquitous ones, the sheer number of spells makes it impossible to memorize how they all work, regardless of edition differences. And indeed, those few that changed big time are the ones that are easy to remember (Haste #1, obviously).

It's also very easy when the stuff is available online for people who swing that way. I'm not saying that looking up spells isn't a time waster, but I can't say that revisions really matter.

I DMed 3.5 for years with 3.0 books; didn't buy the 3.5 versions until 4e came out. I don't recall it being an issue.


----------



## D'karr

Ahnehnois said:


> I'm not saying that looking up spells isn't a time waster, but I can't say that revisions really matter.
> 
> I DMed 3.5 for years with 3.0 books; didn't buy the 3.5 versions until 4e came out. I don't recall it being an issue.




And because you don't recall it being an issue it obviously means that there wasn't one.  Got it.  Thanks for the input.


----------



## Ahnehnois

D'karr said:


> And because you don't recall it being an issue it obviously means that there wasn't one.  Got it.  Thanks for the input.



And because you experienced a bookkeeping challenge means that all that stuff that the 3.5 books themselves say about not being a new edition is a lie. Got it.


----------



## D'karr

Ahnehnois said:


> And because you experienced a bookkeeping challenge means that all that stuff that the 3.5 books themselves say about not being a new edition is a lie. Got it.




I don't recall ever mentioning anything about a new edition being a lie.  You might want to check your sources.


----------



## Ahnehnois

D'karr said:


> I don't recall ever mentioning anything about a new edition being a lie.  You might want to check your sources.



Well, you either think it's true or it isn't. Can we assume you agree with the line in the 3.5 books that says that it isn't a new edition?


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

D'karr said:


> I don't recall ever mentioning anything about a new edition being a lie.  You might want to check your sources.




Then what in the hell are you even arguing for?

Jesus Christ, these boards are full of people who argue just to argue.


----------



## Bedrockgames

D'karr said:


> In the big scheme of things RPGs are not important.
> 
> However, the fact that almost every spell had to be rechecked for accuracy makes the change quite important.  It made it so that you had to go look up everything again.  Because you could not be sure of what had changed or not.  To me and my group that was a pretty big time waster, a big deal, even if the differences were as you say "small".
> 
> If I'm running the game that is quite important.




I have to say, people are right that there were little changes and were important during play, but having made the switch like so many others, it just didn't feel like a different edition to me. Revision seems the correct description of 3.5. You still had the same classes, you still had basically the same game. Comare that to 2E where they took our whole classes, reorganized the classes and rewrote all the text (taking out significant GM procedures and advice. Or compare to the different between 3.5 and 4E. 3.5 was a speed bump. But still the same game.


----------



## D'karr

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Then what in the hell are you even arguing for?
> 
> Jesus Christ, these boards are full of people who argue just to argue.




If there ever was a "pot meet kettle" moment this must have been it.


----------



## Desdichado

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> The devs at the time made perfectly clear that it wasn't a new edition. Some of you can shiut it until the cows come home but it still remains a fact that 3.5 was a revision.



Who cares what the devs said?  Lacking a meaningful definition of what makes a revision vs. a new edition, that's a completely meaningless statement, especially from a party that had a vested interest in emphasizing continuity.

I could (and in fact do) make a better line in sand of what the difference is by referring to whether or not I needed to "rebuy" a bunch of books in order to play (or download a new SRD, as the case may be.)  Why not that definition?  That has a much more meaningful impact on me as a player.

If you want to nitpick (as some have _already_ done in this thread) that you can play a 3e character in a 3.5 or even Pathfinder game with minimal adjusting of little details, then how to you answer the fact that you could do the same with a 1e player in a 2e game?  Is 2e just a "revision" instead of a new edition?  How about the fact that you could do the same with a BD&D character?  Is BD&D just a "revision" too?  How about the notion that you could play a d20 Modern character, for that matter, in a Pathfinder game without too much fuss?  Does that mean that d20 Modern is just a "revision" too?

Hopefully the notion that continuity and ability to play without too much fuss is abley demonstrated to be no indication of what a "new edition" is already.  Revision vs. new edition, either one, is really just a marketing gimmick.  There's no meaningful distinction between the two that is consistent and non-arbitrary.

To go back to my analogy, I've personally witnessed several times instances where reporters from Argentina went to either Brazil or Italy and spoke to people on the street (usually about the Argentine soccer player that just got transferred to a local team.)  They'd ask questions in Spanish, and the people on the street would understand well enough to be able to answer in Portuguese or Italian.  Which, again, was understood well enough that the news didn't feel the need to translate or subtitle their answers.  Does this imply that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian are actually not separate languages, because people could (sorta) carry on limited conversations with each other?  Of course not.  Does it imply that 3e, 3.5 and Pathfinder aren't significantly different just because characters can interact with each other using broadly similar rules for a while before some hard rock comes up that requires some ruling to resolve the discrepancy?  Not there either.


> Doesn't matter how much your group may have struggled with the revision. My group had no trouble what so ever.



Oh, well that resolves it.  _Your_ group had no trouble adapting to the new edition, therefore it wasn't really a new edition!  Sadly, the logic of such a statement completely eludes me.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

ok, lets assume 3.5 is only a Major revision and not a true edition (I've had enough arguments to last a life time in this last two weeks anyway.)

It is still 2 edititions, 3/3.5 and pathfinder against 1e and 2e... so still a longer life cycle at TSR...


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

GMforPowergamers said:


> ok, lets assume 3.5 is only a Major revision and not a true edition (I've had enough arguments to last a life time in this last two weeks anyway.)
> 
> It is still 2 edititions, 3/3.5 and pathfinder against 1e and 2e... so still a longer life cycle at TSR...




Want to remind me again what else spawned from those two editions?

Let me remind you that Pathfinder is still going strong.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

Hobo said:


> Who cares what the devs said?  Lacking a meaningful definition of what makes a revision vs. a new edition, that's a completely meaningless statement, especially from a party that had a vested interest in emphasizing continuity.
> 
> I could (and in fact do) make a better line in sand of what the difference is by referring to whether or not I needed to "rebuy" a bunch of books in order to play (or download a new SRD, as the case may be.)  Why not that definition?  That has a much more meaningful impact on me as a player.
> 
> If you want to nitpick (as some have _already_ done in this thread) that you can play a 3e character in a 3.5 or even Pathfinder game with minimal adjusting of little details, then how to you answer the fact that you could do the same with a 1e player in a 2e game?  Is 2e just a "revision" instead of a new edition?  How about the fact that you could do the same with a BD&D character?  Is BD&D just a "revision" too?  How about the notion that you could play a d20 Modern character, for that matter, in a Pathfinder game without too much fuss?  Does that mean that d20 Modern is just a "revision" too?
> 
> Hopefully the notion that continuity and ability to play without too much fuss is abley demonstrated to be no indication of what a "new edition" is already.  Revision vs. new edition, either one, is really just a marketing gimmick.  There's no meaningful distinction between the two that is consistent and non-arbitrary.
> 
> To go back to my analogy, I've personally witnessed several times instances where reporters from Argentina went to either Brazil or Italy and spoke to people on the street (usually about the Argentine soccer player that just got transferred to a local team.)  They'd ask questions in Spanish, and the people on the street would understand well enough to be able to answer in Portuguese or Italian.  Which, again, was understood well enough that the news didn't feel the need to translate or subtitle their answers.  Does this imply that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian are actually not separate languages, because people could (sorta) carry on limited conversations with each other?  Of course not.  Does it imply that 3e, 3.5 and Pathfinder aren't significantly different just because characters can interact with each other using broadly similar rules for a while before some hard rock comes up that requires some ruling to resolve the discrepancy?  Not there either.
> 
> Oh, well that resolves it.  _Your_ group had no trouble adapting to the new edition, therefore it wasn't really a new edition!  Sadly, the logic of such a statement completely eludes me.





Mate, I don't care how much text you type. It doesn't change the fact that it wasn't a new edition, nor was there enough base rules changes to even hint at it was one.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Want to remind me again what else spawned from those two editions?
> 
> Let me remind you that Pathfinder is still going strong.




Pathfinder is a retro clone (the most successful I will grant you) but doesn't every edition have it's own retro clone or two now? They all spawned from the fact that the OGL let them use the basic idea, but at the end of the day there are 1e and 2e knock offs and basic knock offs... so not seeing the difference...


----------



## keterys

The ability to argue about the definition of a word is the kind of thing that creates D&D schisms, and is something that many D&D players will do regardless of system, and about movies, TV, books.

So, yeah, they'll do it about the edition (or revision) of their choice just as much as they will about Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Haters gonna hate.

The only way to win is not to play at all. Well, to win the "Meaningless Argument game". I mean, the only way to win D&D is to play at all. Any edition. Any time. Long as you're with friends.


----------



## Desdichado

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Mate, I don't care how much text you type. It doesn't change the fact that it wasn't a new edition, nor was there enough base rules changes to even hint at it was one.



And it doesn't matter how often you repeat that, it doesn't change the fact that it was a new edition.  So there.

Geez, if all you've got is just repeating "well, that's what the devs said" then why are we even having this discussion?  I notice you still never answered my question earlier: what difference does it actually make, anyway?  Why are you so invested in insisting that it was a revision instead of a new edition?  What does it do for you to be one over the other?

See, that'd be a meaningful conversation (sorta.  At least it'd have the potential to be.)  Just saying, "no, look, right there in the PHB it says so" isn't a meaningful conversation.  It doesn't mean anything at all.


----------



## Imaro

Hobo said:


> And it doesn't matter how often you repeat that, it doesn't change the fact that it was a new edition.  So there.
> 
> Geez, if all you've got is just repeating "well, that's what the devs said" then why are we even having this discussion?  I notice you still never answered my question earlier: what difference does it actually make, anyway?  Why are you so invested in insisting that it was a revision instead of a new edition?  What does it do for you to be one over the other?
> 
> See, that'd be a meaningful conversation (sorta.  At least it'd have the potential to be.)  Just saying, "no, look, right there in the PHB it says so" isn't a meaningful conversation.  It doesn't mean anything at all.




Ha!! You seem pretty invested in saying the exact opposite of  @*XunValdorl_of_Kilsek* ... So why are you so invested in insisting that it was a new edition??  What does it do for you to be one over the other... Just saying.


----------



## CleverNickName

I think the last two dozen posts in this thread have proven the OP's original statement: there is indeed a schism in the gaming community regarding Dungeons and Dragons, and it is highly unlikely that D&D Next will fix it.

Gamers are currently arguing about the definitions of "revision" and "edition."  Before that, gamers were arguing about what range of dates were the "Golden Age of D&D."  And before that, gamers were arguing about version compatibility.  And before _that_, gamers were arguing (most ironically) about whether the rift in the gaming community was good or bad for the gaming community.  Along the way, gamers managed to argue about the languages of Europe and the role of sarcasm in communication.

*sigh*

In the immortal words of Rodney King: "Can't we all just get along?"


----------



## Ichneumon

3.5 wasn't explicitly a new edition, but gamers were forced to treat it as though it were.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Revision seems the correct description of 3.5. You still had the same classes, you still had basically the same game. Comare that to 2E where they took our whole classes, reorganized the classes and rewrote all the text (taking out significant GM procedures and advice.





Bedrockgames said:


> It wasn't like 1E to 2E where you switched from attack matrices to THAC0, made NWP a major option the core book, removed classes, made signif cant changes to classes, rewrote pretty much all of the text and took out large chunks of the exploration rules.



Because I wasn't using those GM procedures or following that GM advice, at least since 1986 and the release of Oriental Adventures; and because I was using weapon specialisation from UA and OA and was using non-weapon proficiencies from OA, WSG and DSG, I didn't find the move from AD&D to 2nd ed AD&D to be a big deal at all.

For instance, I was able to play with almost complete rules mastery in 2nd ed AD&D games without ever having read a 2nd ed AD&D rulebook. The only exception to that claim I can think of involved initiative, and that took one go to learn. (The unarmed combat rules were different, too, but they never came up, much as they had rarely come up before.)

Similarly, I was able to GM players who had learned to play from 2nd ed AD&D books, and were using PCs built from those books.

Of course the classes were a bit different in places: more spells for illusionists, different bards etc. But I was already used to different classes from Dragon magazines, including the revised bard that was published somewhere around issue #60. And THACO already existed in the DMG list of monsters (Appendix E, I think it was) so the only difference that made was in relation to the 6 natural 20s, which applied to ACs that rarely came up unless you were GMing the D series, and which in any bit was always an obscure part of the rules, to me at least.

So for me personally the change was no big deal at all.



Umbran said:


> You *can* sit down to play with three players, who have made characters using 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder, and play for quite some time before someone goes, "Wait a minute, what rules did you make that character under?"





Ahnehnois said:


> There's really nothing that would stop you from bringing a 3.0 character sheet to a 3.5 or even PF session



I think this is equally true for 1st ed and 2nd ed AD&D PCs, as [MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION] has pointed out.

It's also probably pretty true for HARP and Rolemaster PCs, for Runequest, Cthulhu and Stormbringer PCs, and for that matter for Stormbringer and Elric PCs. There are lots of games out there where PCs are built on basically the same chassis, and differences are located in particular story elements (eg what do bards look like in this game) and in somewhat marginal parts of the action resolution rules.

Although because I don't really know what's at stake in showing that a game is a new edition, or a revision, or a variant, I'm not really sure why these things matter as anything other than passing observations about resemblances among RPGs.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Pemerton, I started on 1E to , so I understand much of the material was taken from optional rules in later 1E books...but surely you can see the difference going from the 3 1E core books to 2E, versus going from 3.0 to 3.5.

these are both relatively minor edition shifts but enough material was altered from 1E to 2E that I would call it an edition change, while 3.5 reall felt more like the black PHB and DMG for 2E, which were pretty much revisions.


----------



## innerdude

Ahnehnois said:


> It's unfortunate that a hobby with D&D's history has added even more negativity to the mix.




Frankly I'm not even sure that "D&D the Brand" is even a net positive itself anymore. To the public at large, it means, "Geeky, smelly people who pretend to be elves, but don't really have lives, and why would anyone cool do that?" 

I'm not saying this is accurate in any particular, but by and large, it's what people generally think when they hear "D&D."  

I have the Lords of Waterdeep board game and love it to death, but invariably any time I unveil it for a new group of people, I'll get a comment like, "No wait . . . Dungeons and Dragons? This is a board game, not some weird role-playing thing, right?"

Roleplaying, in my experience, is much, much easier to introduce and describe to people devoid of the long-standing cultural baggage associated with the World's Most Popular RPG. In my experience people are more apt to understand what an RPG is on a basic level if you actually describe the basic tenets and focus of gameplay, rather than simply use the shorthand, "It's D&D." 

"It's D&D" invariably gets a negative reaction, while a non-game-specific explanation of the way a game actually works generally gets at worst a mild, "Interesting."


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Pemerton, I started on 1E to , so I understand much of the material was taken from optional rules in later 1E books...but surely you can see the difference going from the 3 1E core books to 2E, versus going from 3.0 to 3.5.
> 
> these are both relatively minor edition shifts but enough material was altered from 1E to 2E that I would call it an edition change, while 3.5 reall felt more like the black PHB and DMG for 2E, which were pretty much revisions.



I don't know the difference between original and black PHB for 2nd ed AD&D. I've played under both without reading either and don't remember every noticing anything. (Not saying it's not there, just that it didn't stand out to me.)

I only played a little bit of 3E, and have never played 3.5 and as far as I know don't own any 3.5 material (I think the last 3E book I got was Savage Species, and I think the last 3E module I got would be from 2001 or 2002). So I only know the differences from reading WotC material and reading threads on these boards. But didn't rangers get new weapon options, and also change from d10 to d8 HD? That seems comparable to the ranger changes from AD&D to 2nd ed AD&D. Bards changed too, didn't they, but not as much I imagine. And monks?

CORRECTION: I also have the revised version of Arcana Unearthed (Arcana Evolved), which is statted for 3E and 3.5 - so to me the differences seem mostly to be in the facing/space rules and the damage resistance rules. But other stuff I've read makes me think there might be more to it than that.


----------



## Bluenose

pemerton said:


> I think this is equally true for 1st ed and 2nd ed AD&D PCs, as @_*Hobo*_ has pointed out.




In my experience, I could use some 1e characters in 2e without having much change. Others were a lot harder. Pretty much the same was true between 3.0 and 3.5.



> It's also probably pretty true for HARP and Rolemaster PCs, for Runequest, Cthulhu and Stormbringer PCs, and for that matter for Stormbringer and Elric PCs. There are lots of games out there where PCs are built on basically the same chassis, and differences are located in particular story elements (eg what do bards look like in this game) and in somewhat marginal parts of the action resolution rules.




With Runequest at least it's often a matter of nomenclature. Battle Magic, Spirit Magic, Common Magic and Folk Magic; all the same thing, called by different names in different editions. _Bladesharp 2_ does the same thing in every case (+10% to weapon skill and +2 damage for the curious). There are systems which have changed, Sorcery is the largest example, but it''s rarely in a particularly fundamental way.



> Although because I don't really know what's at stake in showing that a game is a new edition, or a revision, or a variant, I'm not really sure why these things matter as anything other than passing observations about resemblances among RPGs.




Proving that 3rd edition was the longest lasting edition of D&D ever, I believe was the original aim.


----------



## NewJeffCT

pemerton said:


> I don't know the difference between original and black PHB for 2nd ed AD&D. I've played under both without reading either and don't remember every noticing anything. (Not saying it's not there, just that it didn't stand out to me.)
> 
> I only played a little bit of 3E, and have never played 3.5 and as far as I know don't own any 3.5 material (I think the last 3E book I got was Savage Species, and I think the last 3E module I got would be from 2001 or 2002). So I only know the differences from reading WotC material and reading threads on these boards. But didn't rangers get new weapon options, and also change from d10 to d8 HD? That seems comparable to the ranger changes from AD&D to 2nd ed AD&D. Bards changed too, didn't they, but not as much I imagine. And monks?
> 
> CORRECTION: I also have the revised version of Arcana Unearthed (Arcana Evolved), which is statted for 3E and 3.5 - so to me the differences seem mostly to be in the facing/space rules and the damage resistance rules. But other stuff I've read makes me think there might be more to it than that.




between 3e and 3.5e, a lot of spells were changed - duration, effect, damage, area, etc.  And, between 3.5e and Pathfinder, still more spells were changed and in similar fashion.  I found it a constant annoyance to have to look up so many changes, "Wait, that was the 3.5e spell, does it do the same in PF?  Let's look it up".  Just Dispel Magic underwent changes from 3.0 to 3.5, and then was greatly changed moving to PF.  (All those "buffing" spells like Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, etc went from 1 hr/level to 1 min/level and changed from a d4+1 bonus to a flat +4)

The same with feats between 3e, 3.5e and PF as well as skills.  

Between 1e and 2e, there were not nearly so many spell changes, and spells take up half the PHB in both editions.  They added in cleric spheres/domains, but the spells themselves were generally the same.


----------



## Desdichado

CleverNickName said:


> Gamers are currently arguing about the definitions of "revision" and "edition."  Before that, gamers were arguing about what range of dates were the "Golden Age of D&D."  And before that, gamers were arguing about version compatibility.  And before _that_, gamers were arguing (most ironically) about whether the rift in the gaming community was good or bad for the gaming community.  Along the way, gamers managed to argue about the languages of Europe and the role of sarcasm in communication.
> 
> *sigh*
> 
> In the immortal words of Rodney King: "Can't we all just get along?"



Why would we?  Until this whole revision vs. edition thing started getting a little bit silly, this was an interesting _discussion_.  Which means that yeah, I disagreed with a bunch of people about a bunch of things, but it was largely still an _interesting discussion_ nonetheless.  What's the value in us all having the same opinion about things?  There's a reason I used to have the tagline "Most opinionated guy on the Internet" on my blog.  But that doesn't mean that just because gamers are opinionated and their opinions differ that there's anything wrong with that.

If Bluenose is correct, and the whole revision vs. edition thing hinges on demonstrating that 3e (plus 3.5 plus Pathfinder) is the BEST D&D EVAR because it's been around for such a long time, then that would explain why the discussion took a turn that makes no sense to me.  Having a discussion that is fruitful tends to work less well when folks are so personally invested in championing their editions that any dissenting opinion has to be immediately shut down because, "ZOMG, people might think that I'm wrong" or something.

Contrary to  [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s assertion (see, I actually appreciated his sarcasm there, Umbran.  It was kinda clever) I'm not really invested in defining 3.5 as an edition or a revision.  Sure, I have an opinion on it.  And I put my own definition out there for anyone to critique, shoot down, accept, condemn, or do whatever they like with it.  I think my definition (do you need to rebuy all the books) makes more sense than "because the developers said so," and I'll stick by my definition, but I hardly think it's the last word on the question.

So why is healthy discussion about something seen as signs of a "schism" and why is it bad?

For that matter, what is this schism?  I thought the premise of the original post was that the schism was precipitated by the release of 4e and how that was handled.  Now, you're suggesting that their's a schism between gamers about the role of sarcasm, or one about European languages?  All that suggests it that gamers are opinionated, or at least some of them are.  That makes perfect sense to me, but isn't necessarily evidence of a schism.  (Not saying that I don't think a schism related to the release of 4e isn't likely, but this certainly isn't evidence of it.  Let's not mistake healthy discussion with deep-felt bitterness or whatever!)


----------



## Stormonu

All I can say is that I've lost ANY motivation to pick up any version of D&D or its clones/deriviatives.  And for someone who has 6 bookshelves dedicated to the game, that just makes me sad.

And a lot of my lost enthusiasm has been derived from listening to the edition war bickering going on.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I don't know the difference between original and black PHB for 2nd ed AD&D. I've played under both without reading either and don't remember every noticing anything. (Not saying it's not there, just that it didn't stand out to me.)




i havent used the black books in ages. But there were minor alterations as i recall. Nothing too significant, but stuff that altered a few rules.



> I only played a little bit of 3E, and have never played 3.5 and as far as I know don't own any 3.5 material (I think the last 3E book I got was Savage Species, and I think the last 3E module I got would be from 2001 or 2002). So I only know the differences from reading WotC material and reading threads on these boards. But didn't rangers get new weapon options, and also change from d10 to d8 HD? That seems comparable to the ranger changes from AD&D to 2nd ed AD&D. Bards changed too, didn't they, but not as much I imagine. And monks?




there were minor changes to the ranger, but i think these were balance revisions, not comparable to how thy removed whole classes and races from 1E or how they pretty much completely altered the bard. 

Therer were other significant changes in 3.5 that were important. But it wasnt strikingly different the way 2E was from 3E when you opened the book. That said, 2E had more in common with 1E mechanically than either had with 3E (though in a lot if ways 3E reflected the spirit of 1E more).


----------



## Desdichado

Bedrockgames said:


> there were minor changes to the ranger, but i think these were balance revisions, not comparable to how thy removed whole classes and races from 1E or how they pretty much completely altered the bard.



I think the removal of classes and races is a red herring.  Since the mechanics of classes and races didn't really change at all, any class or race from any of the family of BD&D, AD&D 1e or 2e could be used almost exactly as is in another edition, meaning that their removal was more cosmetic rather than substantive.  That was clearly not true with regards to 3.5 classes or races in 4e.

To some extent, it's not even true of 3.5 classes or races (especially races) in Pathfinder either.  Despite the obvious similarity, there are also marked differences, and any 3.5 race would work poorly in Pathfinder, for instance, without significant modification to make it fit.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Hobo said:


> I think the removal of classes and races is a red herring.  Since the mechanics of classes and races didn't really change at all, any class or race from any of the family of BD&D, AD&D 1e or 2e could be used almost exactly as is in another edition, meaning that their removal was more cosmetic rather than substantive.  That was clearly not true with regards to 3.5 classes or races in 4e.
> 
> .




Clearly we disagree. Taking out whole races and classes is a big move. Completely rewriting all the text, taking out tons of gm procedures is a big move to me as well. Adding in lots of options like NWP (whoch appeared in later 1E books to be sure) is quite a change. Plus the classes also were altered, thieves had better progression for the skills, for example. So you had changes similar to those in 3.5 and thesome. The bard from 1E is pretty much changed ccompletely. And the initiative system was retooled. They are still similar games. 1e and 2e were highly compatible. And these are just the changes that leap immediately to mind. There were other serious differnces in many if the classes and in the rules.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Hobo said:


> I think the removal of classes and races is a red herring.  Since the mechanics of classes and races didn't really change at all, any class or race from any of the family of BD&D, AD&D 1e or 2e could be used almost exactly as is in another edition, meaning that their removal was more cosmetic rather than substantive.  That was clearly not true with regards to 3.5 classes or races in 4e.
> 
> To some extent, it's not even true of 3.5 classes or races (especially races) in Pathfinder either.  Despite the obvious similarity, there are also marked differences, and any 3.5 race would work poorly in Pathfinder, for instance, without significant modification to make it fit.




I am not saying 1e to 2e was a bigger shift than 3.5 to 4e (i think the later is the biggest change we have had). Just that the shift from 3.0 to 3.5 was small, less of a change than 1E to 2E.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Hobo said:


> To some extent, it's not even true of 3.5 classes or races (especially races) in Pathfinder either.  Despite the obvious similarity, there are also marked differences, and any 3.5 race would work poorly in Pathfinder, for instance, without significant modification to make it fit.




That is one of my biggest complaints with pathfinder. It is just backwards compatible enough if you squint, but since every race and class go an over hall you can't just take a 3.5 book and use it.

I have played in 4 pathfinder games, I have turned down playing in more then that, I will probably never play it again. There is no Warlock, there is no Swordsage, there is no Spell theif, and there is no hexblade... and I am yet to find a DM in the real world that will let me even take a feat from 3.5 inless it has been updated to pathfinder...

At Conn Con last year my friend's younger sister was ridiculed to the point where she left in tears because she only every played D&D and sat down at a pathfinder game and didn't understand the rules they were using...


----------



## dd.stevenson

Hobo said:


> If Bluenose is correct, and the whole revision vs. edition thing hinges on demonstrating that 3e (plus 3.5 plus Pathfinder) is the BEST D&D EVAR because it's been around for such a long time, then that would explain why the discussion took a turn that makes no sense to me.



Just as often, this argument is revisited by posters trying to show that 4E is the JUST AS SUCCESSFUL AS 3E because 3.x is really two editions, each of which ran as long as 4E.

Either way, it's still tiresome.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

dd.stevenson said:


> Just as often, this argument is revisited by posters trying to show that 4E is the JUST AS SUCCESSFUL AS 3E because 3.x is really two editions, each of which ran as long as 4E.
> 
> Either way, it's still tiresome.




this argument started when I said "I assume you are counting 3e, 3.5 and pathfinder all in that year count, so can't we compare that to 1e+2e?"

some how that then turned into 1e and 2e can't be counted togather, but because 3e  and 3.5 are just a rivesion they do... not counting pathfinder (no way you can argue it is not a new edtion) 2e or 1e (either not both) were in print longer then 3e...


----------



## GMforPowergamers

GMforPowergamers said:


> If I am correct you are counting 3e, 3.5, and pathfinder all in there (correct me if I am wrong). That is three versions (based on the same chaise) for 14 years... at the very least you have to combine 1e and 2e (since they too were backwards compatible) to compare life spans... I believe that is 20 years...






XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Let's just clear something up real quick. 3.0 and 3.5 are not separate editions.
> 
> Basically you have 3rd edition with Pathfinder carrying the flag.
> 
> Also, look at all the games that have spawned from the d20 engine such as Star Wars, Elric of Melnibone, Cthuhlu, d20 modern etc... Don't remember too many games that were created from the 1 and 2nd edition models.






NewJeffCT said:


> 2e was more compatible with 1e than Pathfinder is with 3.0.  Many spells are different, and the classes were all retooled for 3.5.   You can say that PF and 3.5E are somewhat compatible, so that would give you a life of 10 years or so now?
> 
> Other than a few tweaks, adding NWPs and buffing up monsters, 2e was pretty much the same as 1e.




I didn't even call them editions in my original post...



> If I am correct you are counting 3e, 3.5, and pathfinder all in there (correct me if I am wrong). That is three *versions (based on the same chaise)* for 14 years...


----------



## Desdichado

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not saying 1e to 2e was a bigger shift than 3.5 to 4e (i think the later is the biggest change we have had). Just that the shift from 3.0 to 3.5 was small, less of a change than 1E to 2E.



Yeah, I know.. sorry, that was an unrelated comment, not meant to imply that I thought (or thought that you thought) that there were significant similarities between 3.5 and 4e.

Clearly I disagree that the shift from 3 to 3.5 was smaller than the shift from 1e to 2e, though.  I think that they were directly comparable.


GMforPowergamers said:


> That is one of my biggest complaints with pathfinder. It is just backwards compatible enough if you squint, but since every race and class go an over hall you can't just take a 3.5 book and use it.



In other words, it's not really comparable at all, I think.  Not without some major work, anyway.


> I have played in 4 pathfinder games, I have turned down playing in more then that, I will probably never play it again. There is no Warlock, there is no Swordsage, there is no Spell theif, and there is no hexblade... and I am yet to find a DM in the real world that will let me even take a feat from 3.5 inless it has been updated to pathfinder...



That's a little silly... feats are one of the things that are directly importable from one to the other.  Classes and races, not so much, but feats?  C'mon.


> At Conn Con last year my friend's younger sister was ridiculed to the point where she left in tears because she only every played D&D and sat down at a pathfinder game and didn't understand the rules they were using...



_That's_ evidence of schism.


dd.stevenson said:


> Just as often, this argument is revisited by posters trying to show that 4E is the JUST AS SUCCESSFUL AS 3E because 3.x is really two editions, each of which ran as long as 4E.
> 
> Either way, it's still tiresome.



Indeed.  I have no dog in either race, since I never updated to 4e, and have drifted away from 3.5 and/or Pathfinder.  Plus, I don't have any interest in promoting my edition at the expense of any other anyway, even if I was playing one of those.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Hobo said:


> That's a little silly... feats are one of the things that are directly importable from one to the other.  Classes and races, not so much, but feats?  C'mon.



The feats in question (2 different campaigns)
- Magic reserve feats... My wizard (Well mystic theurge if it matters) wanted to take force darts (I think that was the name ranged touch attack deals 1d4 per level of highest force spell in prep) I was high enough to have wall of force prepred 
- 3 feats for my Magus, first I wanted the one that gave me tomb of battle maneuver's and I was told no... then I wanted Mage slayer (not even that optimized I would loose caster levels) then the straw that broke the camels back was a feat that let you deal +1d6 damage the first round of combat on anyone that hasn't acted yet...

One of the games I turned down I was told was going to be pathfinder Ebberon, but no artificers, no warforged, no dragon marks because there was nothing from 3.5 allowed... I was told to play an alchemist instead and that was when I just said 'never mind'



> _That's_ evidence of schism.




It is evidence of mean people who did mean things... I'm not sure about the whole thing (I was on the other side of the convention doing board games and heard hours later or I would have gone to the table myself)


----------



## billd91

GMforPowergamers said:


> I have played in 4 pathfinder games, I have turned down playing in more then that, I will probably never play it again. There is no Warlock, there is no Swordsage, there is no Spell theif, and there is no hexblade... and I am yet to find a DM in the real world that will let me even take a feat from 3.5 inless it has been updated to pathfinder...




Well, there are a lot of factors that will determine whether a GM will allow any of those things or 3.5 materials in their game. For example, I've got PDFs of all of the Pathfinder books on my iPad and a couple of apps to make finding and looking up rules easier. Those two issues alone make me far less willing to incorporate 3.5 materials in the PF games I run. I don't really want to have to lug print versions of 3.5 books around to run PF when I can just tote my iPad around for that. Plus, I don't like the warlock, so he's not going to make it into a game anyway.



GMforPowergamers said:


> At Conn Con last year my friend's younger sister was ridiculed to the point where she left in tears because she only every played D&D and sat down at a pathfinder game and didn't understand the rules they were using...




That is unfortunate and probably more damning of the table she sat down at than anything else. Any group using ridicule to drive a new player from the game is a black mark on the hobby.

That said, what D&D did she have experience with? If she just played 4e or just 1e/2e, I can see not understanding the rules of a 3e-based game. But if she was experienced with 3e, the rules they were using should have been pretty recognizable and she should have done just fine with a little guidance of the experienced players at the table explaining the newer subsystems added to the main chassis. Too bad none of them were adult enough to do that...

EDIT: Actually scratch that, these are RPGs. She should have been able to do fine with *any RPG*, even being completely cold on the rules, with a little guidance from the players at the table. (Caveats would apply to particularly advanced scenarios that might require really in-depth knowledge of the rules - and, let's face it, those are comparatively rare, particularly at cons.)


----------



## GMforPowergamers

billd91 said:


> That said, what D&D did she have experience with? If she just played 4e or just 1e/2e, I can see not understanding the rules of a 3e-based game. But if she was experienced with 3e, the rules they were using should have been pretty recognizable and she should have done just fine with a little guidance of the experienced players at the table explaining the newer subsystems added to the main chassis. Too bad none of them were adult enough to do that...




She started playing back in 3.5 (as a teen she just hit 21 in Nov) but has only played 4e since 2009 or so. My understanding is she sat down being told they were playing D&D and she asked 3 or 4, and was told 3... but she didn't know about skills no longer being class/cross class (you just get +3 to class skills in PF) she didn't have any idea what a CMD is (It is a new defense against disarms and grapples in PF) and she was going to make a paladin but the smite is completely different and so is the healing (it is a d6 lay hands instead of base points in PF)...

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/paladin.htm


> Smite Evil (Su)
> 
> Once per day, a paladin may attempt to smite evil with one normal melee attack. She adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per paladin level. If the paladin accidentally smites a creature that is not evil, the smite has no effect, but the ability is still used up for that day.
> 
> Lay on Hands (Su)
> 
> Beginning at 2nd level, a paladin with a Charisma score of 12 or higher can heal wounds (her own or those of others) by touch. Each day she can heal a total number of hit points of damage equal to her paladin level × her Charisma bonus. A paladin may choose to divide her healing among multiple recipients, and she doesn’t have to use it all at once. Using lay on hands is a standard action.
> 
> Alternatively, a paladin can use any or all of this healing power to deal damage to undead creatures. Using lay on hands in this way requires a successful melee touch attack and doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity. The paladin decides how many of her daily allotment of points to use as damage after successfully touching an undead creature.



http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin


> Once per day, a paladin can call out to the powers of good to aid her in her struggle against evil. As a swift action, the paladin chooses one target within sight to smite. If this target is evil, the paladin adds her Cha bonus (if any) to her attack rolls and adds her paladin level to all damage rolls made against the target of her smite. If the target of smite evil is an outsider with the evil subtype, an evil-aligned dragon, or an undead creature, the bonus to damage on the first successful attack increases to 2 points of damage per level the paladin possesses. Regardless of the target, smite evil attacks automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess.
> 
> In addition, while smite evil is in effect, the paladin gains a deflection bonus equal to her Charisma modifier (if any) to her AC against attacks made by the target of the smite. If the paladin targets a creature that is not evil, the smite is wasted with no effect.
> 
> Beginning at 2nd level, a paladin can heal wounds (her own or those of others) by touch. Each day she can use this ability a number of times equal to 1/2 her paladin level plus her Charisma modifier. With one use of this ability, a paladin can heal 1d6 hit points of damage for every two paladin levels she possesses. Using this ability is a standard action, unless the paladin targets herself, in which case it is a swift action. Despite the name of this ability, a paladin only needs one free hand to use this ability.
> 
> Alternatively, a paladin can use this healing power to deal damage to undead creatures, dealing 1d6 points of damage for every two levels the paladin possesses. Using lay on hands in this way requires a successful melee touch attack and doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity. Undead do not receive a saving throw against this damage.



They told her "Girls are bad at math" because at 5th level she put 8 ranks in a skill but you can only put 5 ranks in pathfinder...



billd91 said:


> EDIT: Actually scratch that, these are RPGs. She should have been able to do fine with *any RPG*, even being completely cold on the rules, with a little guidance from the players at the table. (Caveats would apply to particularly advanced scenarios that might require really in-depth knowledge of the rules - and, let's face it, those are comparatively rare, particularly at cons.)




1st they were jerks... like the worst of RPG stereo type jerks

second, if you are used to X or Y then run into B it takes a bit to get used to it...


----------



## Sadras

GMforPowergamers said:


> They told her "Girls are bad at math"




That I can kind of see happening but rather in a comedic cheeky display, with no real harm meant - but to bring her to tears and literally have her leave the table that's just plain nasty on their side.


----------



## billd91

GMforPowergamers said:


> She started playing back in 3.5 (as a teen she just hit 21 in Nov) but has only played 4e since 2009 or so. My understanding is she sat down being told they were playing D&D and she asked 3 or 4, and was told 3... but she didn't know about skills no longer being class/cross class (you just get +3 to class skills in PF) she didn't have any idea what a CMD is (It is a new defense against disarms and grapples in PF) and she was going to make a paladin but the smite is completely different and so is the healing (it is a d6 lay hands instead of base points in PF)...




Oh, I'm quite familiar with the differences and enjoy most of them. PF's smite is much better and less wasteful if the paladin happens to roll poorly for his smite attack. And I'm pretty sure I'd be able to explain it just fine to her if she showed up wanting to generate a paladin at my table. But then, when I GM, part of my job is to guide players through the rules if they're not clear on the particulars. I may not always need to do so if my players are all good with the rules, but if I approach a table of unknown players without that in my head, I've shirked my job... badly.



GMforPowergamers said:


> They told her "Girls are bad at math" because at 5th level she put 8 ranks in a skill but you can only put 5 ranks in pathfinder...




I'd probably have just about murdered them for that since it was a totally reasonable mistake to make going from one edition to the other. I think PF's method is much more user-friendly, ultimately, and I have no doubt she's good enough at math to pick it up given an appropriate explanation.



GMforPowergamers said:


> 1st they were jerks... like the worst of RPG stereo type jerks
> 
> second, if you are used to X or Y then run into B it takes a bit to get used to it...




Well, sure, but a 5 minute explanation could have covered the basics pretty well, particularly when followed up by reminders when the powers are actually used. That they didn't do so and, worse, used it as a point of ridicule, was totally obnoxious. These guys represent the nadir of tabletop gaming and that applies to any game or edition of a game.


----------



## Tequila Sunrise

GMforPowergamers said:


> I have played in 4 pathfinder games, I have turned down playing in more then that, I will probably never play it again. There is no Warlock, there is no Swordsage, there is no Spell theif, and there is no hexblade... and I am yet to find a DM in the real world that will let me even take a feat from 3.5 inless it has been updated to pathfinder...



I wouldn't use it as evidence that PF is a different edition, but "No 3.x material!" is certainly a thing. Which to me is odd, because if I were DMing PF, I'd think "The more options, the merrier!"

But the prevalence of "No 3.x material!" is probably related to the prevalence of "Core only!" in both 3.x and PF. I don't understand the appeal, but there it is. 

/tangent


----------



## Desdichado

GMforPowergamers said:


> It is evidence of mean people who did mean things... I'm not sure about the whole thing (I was on the other side of the convention doing board games and heard hours later or I would have gone to the table myself)



Yeah, I mean who knows, and it doesn't take a big schism for people to act like jerks.  But certainly in this case there seemed to be some level of ambient contempt or dislike of folks who used other editions.

One thing that I think is sadly a bit too common amongst Pathfinder fandom, bless their hearts, is that many of them have become very factionalized.  They dislike D&D, WotC, and are so rah-rah Paizo that they're kinda missing out on anything else that's going on in the industry.  I think a bunch of them are that way because they felt burned by the way WotC handled them with the roll-out of 4e, and they felt listened to and respected by the way Paizo rolled out Pathfinder.

So, in spite of my warnings to be careful about what you call, I do think it is indeed very likely that D&D fandom was fractured by a number of things that all happened at more or less the same time (announcement of 4e, OSRIC and the retro-clones passed a potential legal challenge, and thereby enabled the OSR, Paizo went their own way with Pathfinder, specifically marketing to folks who _didn't_ want to change to 4e, etc.) and that feelings run very deeply still over that schism.  I think it's a real thing.

I'm just not particularly upset by it.  I actually think it's been good overall.  The only downside is that it's potentially harder to find players for the game you want to play.  Since I'm not moving anytime soon, and my gaming group seems pretty stable, I think I'm OK on that front for the time being.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

billd91 said:


> Oh, I'm quite familiar with the differences and enjoy most of them. PF's smite is much better and less wasteful if the paladin happens to roll poorly for his smite attack. And I'm pretty sure I'd be able to explain it just fine to her if she showed up wanting to generate a paladin at my table.



I could defiantl see the benfit of the newer smite (Notice I don't dislike it) and anyone who wasn't a.... never mind what I think those guys were....



> I'd probably have just about murdered them for that since it was a totally reasonable mistake to make going from one edition to the other. I think PF's method is much more user-friendly, ultimately, and I have no doubt she's good enough at math to pick it up given an appropriate explanation.



 when she went on a rant that night her argument was if someone had given her a book instead of just saying "Yea just make a pally" it might have worked better.



> Well, sure, but a 5 minute explanation could have covered the basics pretty well, particularly when followed up by reminders when the powers are actually used. That they didn't do so and, worse, used it as a point of ridicule, was totally obnoxious. These guys represent the nadir of tabletop gaming and that applies to any game or edition of a game.



again where it is an example of the two games being different it is also a much more blatent example of edition warriors... in this case in real life...



Tequila Sunrise said:


> I wouldn't use it as evidence that PF is a different edition, but "No 3.x material!" is certainly a thing. Which to me is odd, because if I were DMing PF, I'd think "The more options, the merrier!"
> 
> But the prevalence of "No 3.x material!" is probably related to the prevalence of "Core only!" in both 3.x and PF. I don't understand the appeal, but there it is.
> 
> /tangent



The funny part is the DMs in question never did core only and still don't... you can play anything from piazo or this one third party that did psionics (I don't remember the name) in half of those games, but nothing from WotC....


----------



## pemerton

Bluenose said:


> With Runequest at least it's often a matter of nomenclature. Battle Magic, Spirit Magic, Common Magic and Folk Magic; all the same thing, called by different names in different editions. _Bladesharp 2_ does the same thing in every case (+10% to weapon skill and +2 damage for the curious). There are systems which have changed, Sorcery is the largest example, but it''s rarely in a particularly fundamental way.



That's all true, but what I was thinking is that you could take a RQ character into a Stormbringer game and it would be playable - the basic logic of a PC sheet - percential skills broken down across basically the same categories - is common across all those Chaosium games.



Bedrockgames said:


> Taking out whole races and classes is a big move.



But I don't think they have a very big impact on compatability. An AD&D Assassin ported into a 2nd ed AD&D game will play basically the same as it did in the edition it was ported from. An AD&D thief ported into a 2nd ed AD&D game will play exactly the same, just with less than fully optimised skill percentages.

Likewise half-orcs.

After all, people were bringing new races and classes, or variant races and classes, into their AD&D games all the time, and that didn't change the edition they were playing. Did it?


----------



## Zardnaar

You could also port monsters from AD&D to BECMI and vice versa with few issues. Classes not so much as AD&D ones were more powerful.


----------



## pemerton

Zardnaar said:


> You could also port monsters from AD&D to BECMI and vice versa with few issues.



Thouls for the win!


----------



## Zardnaar

pemerton said:


> Thouls for the win!




These ol things?

Medium Humanoid
*Initiative*+2 *Senses*Perception +6; darkvision
*HD *3d10+3
*HP *18
*AC *14
*Saves **Fortitude *+7 *Reflex *+8 *Will *+5
*Speed *30'
*Att *2claws +4 damage 1d3+paralysis (DC12)
*SQ:*fake appearance paralysis, regenerate 1/hp per round
*Alignment *LawfulEvil *Languages *Common, Goblin
*Skills *Perception+6 Stealth +6
*Str*13 *Dex*15 *Con *12 *Int *10 *Wis *10 *Cha *11


*Traits*
*Fake appearance:*A Thoul looks like a Hobgoblin. A DC 12 perception/wisdom check reveals its slightly rubbery skin and long ghoul like tongue. 


*Regenerate:*A Thoul Regenerates 1/hp per round.


----------



## Bluenose

pemerton said:


> That's all true, but what I was thinking is that you could take a RQ character into a Stormbringer game and it would be playable - the basic logic of a PC sheet - percential skills broken down across basically the same categories - is common across all those Chaosium games.




There might be the odd place where someone would go, "Wait, what?" Mostly to do with the magic systems, probably. Certainly though the various iterations of the D100/BRP/Chaosium system are very similar. There's rarely a need to change much if you're converting a creature/character from one game to another, whether it originates in Runequest, Elric, Hawkmoon, Call of Cthulhu, or Ringworld. Or from edition to edition, generally. I've used Apple Lane from 2e with RQ6, and everything that needed changing I could do as it came up. I might even include Pendragon in that, despite not being percentile, since it's not hard to add/divide scores by five to convert abilities.


----------



## Storminator

Zardnaar said:


> You could also port monsters from AD&D to BECMI and vice versa with few issues. Classes not so much as AD&D ones were more powerful.




We did plenty of BEMCI adventures with our 1e games, without even thinking about converting. It took us a good long while to realize they were even different versions.

PS


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Likewise half-orcs.
> 
> After all, people were bringing new races and classes, or variant races and classes, into their AD&D games all the time, and that didn't change the edition they were playing. Did it?




Yes, but that doesn't make it less of a new edition. It was clearly a new edition of the game, i would argue a bigger leap than the one from 3.0 to 3.5 (which was barely perceptible if you didn't know what to look for). 2E was designed specifically with backwards compatibility in mind, which i think was a great choice, because it enabled us to use the 1E back catalog of modules and setting material with easy. That is why they went with THAC0 instead of doing ascending AC (my inderstanding is something like this had been discussed during its development, but possible that is incorrect). With 2E there were still large, noticeable differences. Just try reading the 2E dmg and the 1E dmg back to back. They are hugely differen, in a way that would seriously impact campaign style and prominent features of the game like dungeon exploration. And while they are compatible, one relis on attack matrices for attack rolls, while the other uses thac0. I just dont think one can look at the 1-2e transition and 3-3.5 transition and say they were comparable.


----------



## S'mon

_When I was on Active Duty in the Army, I would meet fellow soldiers who wanted to game, but every time there was that cautious "whose side are you on" question when they would ask which edition you played_

The mind boggles...

"Whose side are you on?"

"Al Qaeda."

"Yes, but are you 3e Al Qaeda, or 4e Al Qaeda?"


----------



## Ahnehnois

Bedrockgames said:


> 2E was designed specifically with backwards compatibility in mind



What a novel idea!


----------



## billd91

Bedrockgames said:


> 2E was designed specifically with backwards compatibility in mind, which i think was a great choice, because it enabled us to use the 1E back catalog of modules and setting material with easy. That is why they went with THAC0 instead of doing ascending AC (my inderstanding is something like this had been discussed during its development, but possible that is incorrect).




I think even more to the point, according to some of the design editorials at the time, 2e was at least partly envisioned as a compilation and clean up of the 1e rules, which had picked up a variety of accretions from various follow-up books. The 2e books enabled groups to incorporate weapon specialization and non-weapon proficiencies with one set of core books rather than the PH, Unearthed Arcana, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, and Wilderness Survival Guide. Plus, they got off the attack matrices, cleaned up initiative and surprise rules, and got specialty clerics. Not a bad deal, overall. 

So I don't think of backward compatibility was as much an explicit goal as much as the main core of the rules weren't really up for transformation.


----------



## Man in the Funny Hat

It really doesn't matter which edition did what to the player base, or when, or why.  I think the subdivision was inevitable.  I think D&D had a longer run as the 800 lb gorilla than really should have been expected which I suspect derives largely from the fact that table RPG's is STILL such a niche hobby.  The hobby has grown; its player base expanded.  D&D has notable competition from other RPG's that have developed and primarily it faces the alternate versions of ITSELF, thanks to the radical changes found in different versions.

No version of D&D was ever going to remain the RPG whose players outnumbered all other versions and RPG's combined.  Any thoughts that it would remain the gorilla, any thinking that it was _possible_ for D&D to forever control and outweigh the rest of the market, certainly any thinking that it was actually better that we all be rounded back up under one constricting banner and turned back from our misguided wanderings to other RPG's and other versions, well I believe that's extremely short-sighted if not downright arrogant at this point.  I don't predict where these things are going to go anymore.  My crystal ball is as unreliable as the next guy.  I think the OP is correct, however, in that we're at an interesting crossroads and we're going to be seeing people moving down ever more distinctly different paths.


----------



## Iosue

In general in printed materials, a new "edition" is anything that has been re-edited to accommodate new or different material, typically by a new editor.  This was the sensible use of the word in the RPG world up until WotC decided to use it to mean "significantly different game".  If the text remains the same except for a few revisions, while the author(s) and editor remain the same, that's a revision.

Despite the semantic silliness attempted by WotC, 3.5 is clearly a new edition.  That's why it has the ".5", because it's distinct enough from the 3e books.  It's not how the word "edition" is otherwise used, not even in the RPG world to that date.  That doesn't make it an entirely distinct game from 3e, any more than 2e was an entirely distinct game from 1e, or Mentzer from Moldvay, or even Moldvay from Holmes and Gygax/Arneson.

3e, 3.5, and Pathfinder belong to the same family, just as do the TSR versions of the game.  Let us not further WotC's semantic games by co-opting the word "edition" to mean "distinct game largely incompatible with the previous game."


----------



## Remus Lupin

Reading through the thread, two thoughts occur to me.

First, with regard to the 2000-era "golden age," I certainly experienced it that way as well. It was a really pleasure to be gaming at the time. People were enthusiastic, and there was a sense that we were all pulling in the same general direction, even as the OGL spun off variants like True-20 and Arcana Unearthed. I saw those variants as part of the charm and strength of the OGL.

I don't think there needs to be one and only one "golden age" of a product. I think there have been at least two in D&D -- the early 80s and the early oughts.

It was unfortunate to me that 4th edition was intentionally designed not to build on that foundation, though I certainly understood the internal dynamics within WOTC that made that desirable, particularly with regard to the desire to break away from/kill the OGL. But as a result, they made changes (elf vs. Eldarin, Dragonspawn, Tieflings), that made it "not-D&D" to me. As a result, I decided not to opt in, and Pathfinder meant that I didn't have to. I've always tried to maintain the attitude that there's nothing wrong with 4th edition, it's just my preferred style of play. Also, I will freely admit that WOTC's marketing for 4th edition was _huge_ turnoff to me.

Second, with regard to the question of what constitutes a revision, from my own subjective perspective, the main issue has to do with how radical the changes are. To the degree that I really don't like the current nomenclature with regard to what counts as an "edition". To me a new edition amounts to a moderate revision of the existing product. So, I think of 3.0 vs. 3.5 as two different "editions" of the game, with Pathfinder being a different "edition" under a new publisher. I think you could argue much the same on backwards compatibility grounds between 1e and 2e (and to a lesser extent BECMI).

What I've seen with 4th edition and potentially 5th edition is less of a new "edition" and more a "reboot" -- a la, say a revisioning of a movie property like Spiderman or a series like Battlestar Galactica. It's basically the same concept, but radically changed to the degree that you can't really think of it in the same terms any more.

In that sense, what we've got are really three or four different "visions" of D&D, each of which has "editions" within it's sphere of influence. I'm not sure that this is necessarily a more helpful way of framing things than arguments about "revisions vs. editions" but it's a helpful way for me to think of it.


----------



## tomBitonti

*Will it be a vehicle for storytelling*

What I wonder about 5E (or D&D Next, as the Hasbro marketer's prefer), is whether there will be an engaging story to go along with the game.

Previous editions (excepting 4E -- in my opinion) provided a lot of good adventures and environments.  Previous editions provided a lot of hooks for defining interesting characters.

With 4E, the focus on story telling elements seemed to wither.  This seemed to start in 3E, with its more rigid rules creating a barrier to creative play options.  4E finished to job by completely automatizing the rules and by removing focus on adventures and environments.

As a comparison, Eberron and Forgotten Realms have a rich and detailed history.  There was a large space for novels to be written and for players to create characters which could be enmeshed in the game world.

Where I think the game got off track is by defocusing these elements.  What will make the difference, for 5E, is whether players are re-engaged, and a part of what will re-engage them are the story elements.  Then, having or not having story elements will make a big difference towards helping (or failing to help) 5E succeed.

Put a different way: Rules are one way that players have a common ground for communication.  Story and environment are another.  There has been a lot of talk about rules changes and rules compatibility, but not a lot about story and environment.  I think that is missing an important pillar of the game.

Thx!

TomB


----------



## Desdichado

billd91 said:


> I think even more to the point, according to some of the design editorials at the time, 2e was at least partly envisioned as a compilation and clean up of the 1e rules, which had picked up a variety of accretions from various follow-up books. The 2e books enabled groups to incorporate weapon specialization and non-weapon proficiencies with one set of core books rather than the PH, Unearthed Arcana, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, and Wilderness Survival Guide. Plus, they got off the attack matrices, cleaned up initiative and surprise rules, and got specialty clerics. Not a bad deal, overall.
> 
> So I don't think of backward compatibility was as much an explicit goal as much as the main core of the rules weren't really up for transformation.



In other words... it was basically a revision of 1e?


----------



## Desdichado

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> It really doesn't matter which edition did what to the player base, or when, or why.  I think the subdivision was inevitable.  I think D&D had a longer run as the 800 lb gorilla than really should have been expected which I suspect derives largely from the fact that table RPG's is STILL such a niche hobby.  The hobby has grown; its player base expanded.  D&D has notable competition from other RPG's that have developed and primarily it faces the alternate versions of ITSELF, thanks to the radical changes found in different versions.
> 
> No version of D&D was ever going to remain the RPG whose players outnumbered all other versions and RPG's combined.  Any thoughts that it would remain the gorilla, any thinking that it was _possible_ for D&D to forever control and outweigh the rest of the market, certainly any thinking that it was actually better that we all be rounded back up under one constricting banner and turned back from our misguided wanderings to other RPG's and other versions, well I believe that's extremely short-sighted if not downright arrogant at this point.  I don't predict where these things are going to go anymore.  My crystal ball is as unreliable as the next guy.  I think the OP is correct, however, in that we're at an interesting crossroads and we're going to be seeing people moving down ever more distinctly different paths.



I tend to agree with this.  Whatever it was that held together D&D's dominance for so long was somewhat artificial; or at least, not based on anything inherent in the game itself.  People theorize from time to time about the effect of levels, or archetypes, or whatever, but I don't buy it.  I think it was inertia and the much bally-hooed "network externalities."

The "schism" such as it was, just accelerated a process that was happening anyway, and gave more credible options to people who like the concept of RPGs but not necessarily of D&D, and yet who wanted to have options that they could actually concievably recruit players to play.  

I think White Wolf showed in the 90s that such a concept was possible.  The OGL and schism between, particularly 4e and Pathfinder, was a rather predictable outcome based on the same concept.

Now that it's been done, and seen, and the public perception has caught up to reality about the suitability of alternatives to D&D, I think the RPG base will continue to find new homes with other games at a higher rate than in the past.  This isn't necessarily great news for WotC or D&D specifically, but it is, generally, good news for gamers.


----------



## jasper

And in the evil icy summer of twenty twenty. The Great Cthulhu arrived in Vegas and rolled box cars 66 times on his two d1s ending the Great Schism.
For the 1Es were dead. For the great grand kids had switch out their meds for their d20s and 1es choked on them. Or the 1Es had broken their hips bending over to pick up their die bags.
For the 2Es were too worried on wether they could afford a retirement home  in Florida or if their grand kids would put them in a substandard nursing home.
For the 3Es were too busy getting a second mortgage and could not get the old gang together to game.
For the 4E were seniors in college and had discovered the opposite sex. 
And For the 5E were arguing over which D&D movie ( the one with Scarlett Johanson, or Justin Bieber).
And so Great ONE ate all the nerds. Got a upset stomach and left for another dimension.


----------



## billd91

Hobo said:


> In other words... it was basically a revision of 1e?




Was that ever in question? Where do you think you are going with this?


----------



## Campbell

I don't think it's particularly useful to use language like schism to describe what's happening in the RPG market place. Is there less commonality of choice? Sure. Are we breaking off into smaller tribes? Without a doubt. Here's the thing though - we have always had diverse preferences. They just weren't as exposed as they used to be. Is it harder for me to find gamers to fill a seat at a 13th Age game than it was to find a D&D player back in the day? Sure, but those I find who are interested are more likely to enjoy the sort of games I want to run and play in. I'm not just looking for warm bodies.

This isn't just happening in tabletop RPGs. When D&D was initially released there were about 4-6 television stations in most markets. We all watched the same shows, read the same books, watched the same movies. Now people use streaming services because they don't want to watch what's on offer from the hundreds of programming options on cable. In multiple markets the long tail model is paving the path to success - people want their individual wants and needs met.


----------



## Argyle King

One thing that always strikes me about these threads and conversations is that they too often focus on what D&D and the associated company (WoTC or TSR) did wrong.

In my opinion, they do not often enough make mention of what other games (whether it be 13th Age, Star Wars: Edge of The Empire, GURPS, Fate, or something else) are doing right.  I think that does a serious disservice to the good hard work that many of the other companies producing games are doing.  Sure, it may have been a stumble on the part of D&D that gave me the notion of looking at other games, but those other games kept my attention because they were good.


----------



## Balesir

jasper said:


> For the 4E were seniors in college and had discovered the opposite sex.



I get to be in college again and (re)discover the opposite sex at nearly 60?? Way cool!! Bring. It. On!



Johnny3D3D said:


> One thing that always strikes me about these threads and conversations is that they too often focus on what D&D and the associated company (WoTC or TSR) did wrong.
> 
> In my opinion, they do not often enough make mention of what other games (whether it be 13th Age, Star Wars: Edge of The Empire, GURPS, Fate, or something else) are doing right.



Thoroughly agree. There are some great games out there that don't happen to be D&D.


----------



## GameOgre

Everyone I knew hated 3.0 and its totally (unnecessary changes) and stuck with 2E or 1E. Many still play them today and never gave 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder/4E a chance.

 Heck I still have all my Basic stuff!

 I think gamers are the exact same now as years and years ago and have a tendency to fall in love with their games.Just like anything else you fall in love with if someone else comes along pointing out all her flaws and how she is getting on in years and why not trade her in for a newer modern model you will punch them in the face and scream that you would never drive a foreign car!


----------



## Man in the Funny Hat

Campbell said:


> I don't think it's particularly useful to use language like schism to describe what's happening in the RPG market place.



I think it's perfectly accurate.  Some camps really don't want to identify in any way with others. It's more than just drifting apart.  These are groups that would rather not play than use The Evil Alternate System.  That's a schism.  A severence of ties.  The thing that acted as the biggest tie was the common game/version   That no longer exists and 5e sure won't change that - it can only split it even further.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> I think it's perfectly accurate.  Some camps really don't want to identify in any way with others. It's more than just drifting apart.  These are groups that would rather not play than use The Evil Alternate System.  That's a schism.  A severence of ties.  The thing that acted as the biggest tie was the common game/version   That no longer exists and 5e sure won't change that - it can only split it even further.





I agree I have now gotten to where I will never play pathfinder again, and some of the players that played in my first D&D game will never play 4e... so we don't play anymore... maybe 5e can bring us all back togather, but I'm not holding my breath,


----------



## Remus Lupin

I know the guy who hosts our game is about done with Pathfinder, because he finds it too unwieldy, especially at high levels. The problem is we don't have a consensus on a substitute, and the rest of the group likes Pathfinder, so we keep on with it. I love the game, so that suits me fine. I'd be open to other systems, but not if it requires another huge investment of capital, as another D&D edition almost certainly will.


----------



## Brock Landers

GameOgre said:


> Everyone I knew hated 3.0 and its totally (unnecessary changes) and stuck with 2E or 1E. Many still play them today and never gave 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder/4E a chance.
> 
> Heck I still have all my Basic stuff!
> 
> I think gamers are the exact same now as years and years ago and have a tendency to fall in love with their games.Just like anything else you fall in love with if someone else comes along pointing out all her flaws and how she is getting on in years and why not trade her in for a newer modern model you will punch them in the face and scream that you would never drive a foreign car!





Thank you for this, I really did lough out loud, massive chuckling, amazing.

For myself, I started with 1st Ed AD&D, made the transition to 2nd Ed, 3rd Ed, 4th Ed, but after DMing about 7 or 8  eight-hour-long sessions of 4th Ed I became disillusioned, and started mining all editions (and rocking Basic) to come up with my own 2.5; so if 5th Ed ends up blowing chunks, it will still have stuff to mine.


----------



## Brock Landers

Remus Lupin said:


> I know the guy who hosts our game is about done with Pathfinder, because he finds it too unwieldy, especially at high levels. The problem is we don't have a consensus on a substitute, and the rest of the group likes Pathfinder, so we keep on with it. I love the game, so that suits me fine. I'd be open to other systems, but not if it requires another huge investment of capital, as another D&D edition almost certainly will.





Yeah, after DMing 3rd Ed hardcore for over 3 years I got burnt out on the unwieldiness, pain to DM, so I would like a sort of 2.5, personally.


----------



## Henry

Brock Landers said:


> Yeah, after DMing 3rd Ed hardcore for over 3 years I got burnt out on the unwieldiness, pain to DM, so I would like a sort of 2.5, personally.




With the host of Old School Renaissance clones out there (OSRIC, Swords and Wizardry, Dark Dungeons), "investment" is a minimal concept for a D&D game that is lighter than 3.0 or Pathfinder. For that matter, if there's too much divisiveness on D&D, maybe a complete rule switch to something about as rule intensive as 2E AD&D is in order, such as Savage Worlds, whose rule book is all of 10 dollars for the "Explorer's Edition."

Life is too short to be hung up on version numbers, in my opinion. Ask those friends that, 10 years from now, will they regret that time spent not bonding with friends and family over gaming? (unless they're getting together over something else they all find equally fun, in which case it's a moot point).


----------



## Remus Lupin

Savage Worlds is our go-to alternative, but I am actually very tempted to suggest a switch back to a Basic/Expert game for our next campaign, particularly given the many resources that are currently out there for one.


----------



## Hippy

After reading the bulk of the responses to this thread (I admit I have not read every response), I think it comes to down to a fundamental truth.  People are human beings and as such are individuals.  There cannot possibly be one unifying edition all will play without argument or some modification of rules etc. as everyone has their own tastes.  That is what makes the world go around!

For a quick example, when was the last time you went into a coffee shop and only saw regular coffee as a choice?  Every coffee shop I have ever been in serves dozens of options, which you then tailor to further suit your tastes!  RPGs are no different.  You take what you want from whatever edition/revision or system and modify to suit your game!  I for one am thankful for the many games choices we have in this modern world of the internet.  It has opened my eyes to whole new worlds and ideas, which I have happily absorbed into my own games.

In closing, just play game and spend quality time with your family and friends.  Don't worry about editions, it is those we play with that truly make our games great, not the system.  So enjoy your players.  As life has shown me in my forty plus years of walking this planet, you don't know how long you have to enjoy them at your table and in your life.

Just my two electrums worth - Game on!

Hippy


----------



## pemerton

tomBitonti said:


> What I wonder about 5E (or D&D Next, as the Hasbro marketer's prefer), is whether there will be an engaging story to go along with the game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> With 4E, the focus on story telling elements seemed to wither.



This can be quite individual. For instance, I found Worlds & Monsters to be the best treatment of D&D story elements ever, and the tight integration of story elements into the game (including mechanics) has been a big attraction of the edition for me.


----------



## Desdichado

billd91 said:


> Was that ever in question? Where do you think you are going with this?



Not to me, no.

This was just a one-liner.  I'm not going anywhere with this that I haven't already gone.


----------



## tomBitonti

pemerton said:


> This can be quite individual. For instance, I found Worlds & Monsters to be the best treatment of D&D story elements ever, and the tight integration of story elements into the game (including mechanics) has been a big attraction of the edition for me.




I'm interested in exploring the differences in our perspectives.

Lots of possible explanations, but let me start instead with my basic reactions to 4E materials.  I found myself unable to read most 4E published material, as I have and continue to do often with other material.  I used to read through Dungeon adventures, and although I found many to be oddly build and unusable (to me), I usually was able to enjoy reading them, and able to gather some useful concepts from most.  That would be, a short story line or plot, plus NPC and monster characterizations and motivations, and I could often tie the adventure to a larger context.  I really didn't get that from the 4E publications, and I've tried reading quite a few.

I'm comparing the material not just against earlier (1E, 2E, 3E) materiel, but also against Pathfinder and Fantasy Flight Games.  Fantasy Flight has several RPGs build around the WarHammer 40K universe.  Especially compared with Pathfinder and Fantasy Flight, the 4E publications shine a very pale light.

As a strange example which is prompted by my subconscious, I'm reminded about the set of sketches that are in the 2E Return to the Tomb of Horrors boxed set, which shows images of a party making their way through the adventure locales.  The first sketch has a full group, and the last sketch shows the few survivors toasting to their lost companions.  The panels in-between show scenes from the adventure, including the deaths of party members, and including a scene from the final battle.

Thx!

TomB


----------



## DMZ2112

The past always looks better than the future.  That's just human nature.


----------



## pemerton

tomBitonti said:


> I'm interested in exploring the differences in our perspectives.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I used to read through Dungeon adventures, and although I found many to be oddly build and unusable (to me), I usually was able to enjoy reading them, and able to gather some useful concepts from most.  That would be, a short story line or plot, plus NPC and monster characterizations and motivations, and I could often tie the adventure to a larger context.  I really didn't get that from the 4E publications, and I've tried reading quite a few.



When I read RPG material, I'm generally reading it from the perspective of how I might use it in play, rather than from the perspective of entertaining fiction.

For instance, fiction often benefits from the motivations of key characters being withheld either in whole or in part. Whereas I find this quite frustrating in RPG material. For instance, I know that Dead Gods is a well-regarded adventure, but I find it uninteresting as fiction, and bascially unplayable as a module.

I have not read a great many 4e adventures, but nearly all those that I have read I have used (either in whole or in part): H2, P2, E1 (the least useful of all these), Heathen in one of the first 4e Dungeon mags, and a couple of others. In each case there have been interesting situations - which in 4e is typically a combination of map, antagonist(s) and a couple of story vectors that I can incorporate into my own game.

When I refer to Worlds & Monsters, though, I'm referring to its reconceptuatisation of D&D story elements in overall terms, presenting them as part of a coherent and conflict-charage cosmology. The 4e MMs then follow through on this, presenting a range of classic (and also new) D&D creatures from within this cosmological perspective, and also realising their character as story elements in mechanical terms (to varying degrees, admittedly). And the player-side materials follow through too. Between the race and class descriptions (including the many sidebars in the various * Power books), and the power descriptions, and the paragon paths and epic destinies, many PCs come fully incoprorated into the cosmological conflict that underlies the default story of 4e.

For me, it's the closest that D&D has come to Gloranthan Runequest.


----------



## adamc

Hobo said:


> Now that it's been done, and seen, and the public perception has caught up to reality about the suitability of alternatives to D&D, I think the RPG base will continue to find new homes with other games at a higher rate than in the past.  This isn't necessarily great news for WotC or D&D specifically, but it is, generally, good news for gamers.




I'm not sure this is true. Choices have to be evaluated, and the presence of many different games increases what a typical player needs to know if he/she wants to be able to play in whatever games are available, or reduces the fraction of games the player will be comfortable with. I didn't invent this argument; see http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/gl20/GeorgeLoewenstein/Papers_files/pdf/too_much_choice.pdf

Choices are helpful if you are not getting your needs met with what is available, which was true for you (from what you said). But I don't think we can reason from that to what the average case is without more data.

*Edited to add the "not". Oops.

(FWIW, I have no dog in this fight. I've only played 4e, because that's what we started with, and I've enjoyed it, but I don't really care whether it is/was the greatest revision/edition/whatever of D&D ever. My only interest in 5e is whether it is practical for our campaign; otherwise, it's just a product.)


----------



## pickin_grinnin

Ultimately, for me it will get down to this:  does 5e offer me anything I like that I don't already have in a system I own.  If the answer is "yes," I'll buy it (after looking through it a lot at B&N).  If "no," then I won't bother.

I tend to create my own adventures, settings, etc. from scratch, so it really gets down to the mechanics and rules for me.  I don't really care about the primary world they establish (ex. Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms).


----------



## Balesir

adamc said:


> Choices have to be evaluated, and the presence of many different games increases what a typical player needs to know if he/she wants to be able to play in whatever games are available, or reduces the fraction of games the player will be comfortable with. I didn't invent this argument; see http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/gl20/GeorgeLoewenstein/Papers_files/pdf/too_much_choice.pdf



I know this analysis is very in vogue at present, but after some consideration I am convinced it's mostly tosh.

It's quite possible that some folk _feel_ that they have to evaluate everything on offer, but that's a false supposition. If it weren't, you would need to evaluate all the unpublished choices, too, since they are themselves choices, albeit ones requiring more effort. The fact is that you can just evaluate a random subset of what's on offer and be no worse off than if you only had a more restricted range of published games to choose from.

If I need to choose with little time expenditure, this is what I do - take a random selection and evaluate those. I would _always_ rather have more choice than less, because eliminating part of that range is trivial, if I need it to be.


----------



## jasper

Balesir said:


> ...It's quite possible that some folk _feel_ that they have to evaluate everything on offer, but that's a false supposition. If it weren't, you would need to evaluate all the unpublished choices, too, since they are themselves choices, albeit ones requiring more effort. .....



If I could evaluate UNPUBLISHED choices, I would not be posting here. I would hitting Vegas betting with the knowledge on the UNPUBLISHED choices. Then buying a mansion and a yacht! I find your  post totally silly.


----------



## Desdichado

jasper said:


> If I could evaluate UNPUBLISHED choices, I would not be posting here. I would hitting Vegas betting with the knowledge on the UNPUBLISHED choices. Then buying a mansion and a yacht! I find your  post totally silly.



Are you suggesting that there aren't people out there already deciding whether or not to play D&DN based on the information that's available right now?

Balesir makes a great point.  Some people, (my wife for instance) are easily paralyzed by too many options.  She has the feeling that if she hasn't thoroughly evaluated every option, then how can she make an informed decision and not feel buyer's remorse for her selection?  In her case, opening up a wide-open field of options is not a good thing.  She fits the mold of exactly the kind of person that the study referred to above is talking about.

Me, on the other hand, I'm a much more decisive personality in general.  I'm ready to leap into action and consider a decision made based on a quick and dirty executive summary of a handful of options that are immediately in front of me, and I rarely look back and question my decisions already made unless 1) it's obviously not working out and a new decision needs to be made, or 2) new information becomes available to me that I didn't know when I made the prior decision.

For personalities like mine, that study is complete nonsense.  I don't feel the need to research every option available; I'm perfectly happy making a decision based on the options that are immediately in front of me _only_.  Plus, making decisions is easy, and not based on painstaking research ahead of time.  Plus, I can evaluate almost subconsciously how much I'm going to like a given option ahead of time quite easily, so I feel confident in my decisions, even without lots of research.  For me, having lots of options is empowering, not paralyzing.

I'm sure that the range of human responses is a wide spectrum between those two relatively extreme positions (not that I wife and I are truly on polar opposites of this spectrum; rather than she trends one way and I trend the other).

But by and large, having more options is _always_ better.  I've never heard anyone complain before that they have too many options of shows to watch on TV and therefore are paralyzed by indecision and don't watch anything.  Same thing with books to read, video games to play, or vacations to take.  I don't know why role-playing games would be any different in this regard than any other form of leisure time pursuit.


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## jasper

Hobo said:


> Are you suggesting that there aren't people out there already deciding whether or not to play D&DN based on the information that's available right now?
> 
> ...




No. I saying " If it weren't, you would need to evaluate all the unpublished choices, too, since they are themselves choices, albeit ones requiring more effort" is totally silly sentence.  His whole post sounds like his nose is in the air and he is talking down to  adamc and dismissing adamc' argument.


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## Sadras

Remus Lupin said:


> I know the guy who hosts our game is about done with Pathfinder, because he finds it too unwieldy, especially at high levels. The problem is we don't have a consensus on a substitute, and the rest of the group likes Pathfinder, so we keep on with it. I love the game, so that suits me fine. I'd be open to other systems, but not if it requires another huge investment of capital, as another D&D edition almost certainly will.




P6 seems like the best substitute for you from your description given that the majority of the group prefer Pathfinder. It is also less unwieldy on the DM and there is no investment of capital required at all - just follow some of the advice online for running such a game.


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## Desdichado

jasper said:


> No. I saying " If it weren't, you would need to evaluate all the unpublished choices, too, since they are themselves choices, albeit ones requiring more effort" is totally silly sentence.  His whole post sounds like his nose is in the air and he is talking down to  adamc and dismissing adamc' argument.



It's a perfectly valid sentence and a perfectly valid point, and if it seems to be dismissive of adamc's argument, then that's a hint that adamc's argument is lacking in addressing this very issue.  Because people evaluate upcoming releases all the time.  I'm in the middle of a Star Wars game right now, and we started it before the Edge of the Empire game was released.  Does that mean that we couldn't make a decision on whether or not we wanted to wait for that release before starting?  People are evaluating now whether they want to stick with the D&D game they have (be it Pathfinder, 4e, or something else) as opposed to embracing the imminent release of D&DN.  Our group is evaluating options for our next campaign, and the consensus seems to be that we'll play the Orient Express Cthulhu campaign that two guys in our group helped fund via kickstarter, even though it isn't actually in either of their hands yet.

Again; the point is totally valid.  Unpublished games have to be evaluated as well.  And it does actually make the bewildering array of options, for those who are paralyzed by too many options, more difficult.

Rather; where the argument falls flat is where you take it out of the roleplaying games sphere to others where options are already bewildering, and see if it actually holds out.  Do people not watch TV shows because they can't figure out what to watch?  To people not go on vacations because of all of the possible alternatives that they could choose from?


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## Remus Lupin

Sadras said:


> P6 seems like the best substitute for you from your description given that the majority of the group prefer Pathfinder. It is also less unwieldy on the DM and there is no investment of capital required at all - just follow some of the advice online for running such a game.




Linky?


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## adamc

I'm not surprised that not everyone agrees, but I think it's true that  there is a cost to having more choices, and that getting more choices is  not a win for everyone. If you give me more choices of coffee and I'm  already totally satisfied with my current choice, I gain nothing except  that the menu (or supermarket aisle) is a little harder to sort through.  On the other hand, if I'm interested in having more choices, it may be a  big win.

I suspect this is part of the dynamic going on wherein  some folks view the era when there was only one version of D&D and  relatively little else (especially given that there was no internet and,  unless you lived near a strong game store, fewer ways of even  discovering other options). If you loved that version of D&D, how  was having more choices a win? It just introduced dissension about what  to play.

All speculative, though; I probably lean toward having  more choices myself. And while I was the right age to be playing D&D  back then, I wasn't. (Mostly, I was in grad school.)


----------



## Cadence

Remus Lupin said:


> Linky?




Here's an implementation I'm working on...
Download from ENWorld http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=495 
or a direct download from: http://p6codex.com/AbridgedP6CodexV0p2.pdf


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## Balesir

jasper said:


> If I could evaluate UNPUBLISHED choices, I would not be posting here. I would hitting Vegas betting with the knowledge on the UNPUBLISHED choices. Then buying a mansion and a yacht! I find your  post totally silly.



I'm not suggesting that you need to predict what will occur in the future, just that if you have the belief that you must evaluate every alternative then the commercial offerings currently available _do not represent the sum total of your options_. As [MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION] has said, what is considering DDN now if not considering an unpublished option? At the extreme, you could even write a system of your own that might have any features in it that you chose - any system element that your current knowledge or imagination might come up with.

In the end, "evaluating every option" amounts to evaluating only those things of which you have knowledge - of which you are aware. The argument that "less choice is good" amounts to saying "not realising what is possible can help". This piece of advice seems to me to hark back to a much older aphorism than the "new" vogue purports to be, namely "ignorance is bliss".



jasper said:


> No. I saying " If it weren't, you would need to evaluate all the unpublished choices, too, since they are themselves choices, albeit ones requiring more effort" is totally silly sentence.



If you have an actual cogent reason why it is a flawed claim, please present it. Saying "it's silly" is barely more than an _ad hominem_, and I object to that.



jasper said:


> His whole post sounds like his nose is in the air and he is talking down to  adamc and dismissing adamc' argument.



"Looking down" at [MENTION=6691682]adamc[/MENTION] was certainly not my intention; he was quoting an argument which, as I acknowledged in my post, is currently well regarded among the "cognoscenti". This seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I was, if anything, dismissing the argument made by the learned proponents of this view. That may be a contentious thing to do, but I'm quite prepared to stand by my analysis and arguments that, in this case, the King's birthday suit is, in fact, nothing more than air...



adamc said:


> I'm not surprised that not everyone agrees, but I think it's true that  there is a cost to having more choices, and that getting more choices is  not a win for everyone.



Consider, though, that "having more choices" amounts to _being aware that other possibilities exist_. In any circumstance, this is what will circumscribe your choices, not what some other guy chooses to present before you. If some guy asks me whether I want coffee or tea, when I am perfectly well aware of the range of other possible beverages out there, my choices aren't really limited to coffee or tea. That is just what he is offering me. If I am to evaluate all my options, the list does not stop at "coffee or tea" unless I want it to; my range of evaluation is everything of which I am aware.

If I am not aware that other options exist, then my choice is limited (and simpler) - ignorance is bliss again. But, if I want a simple choice, I could generate one quite simply by arbitrarily choosing only to consider a subset of all those of which I am aware. I will always choose this second choice, if I am able to do so, since I would always prefer not to be ignorant.



adamc said:


> I suspect this is part of the dynamic going on wherein  some folks view the era when there was only one version of D&D and  relatively little else (especially given that there was no internet and,  unless you lived near a strong game store, fewer ways of even  discovering other options). If you loved that version of D&D, how  was having more choices a win? It just introduced dissension about what  to play.



The very first roleplaying games I ran for my friends - and several of those they ran for me - were not D&D, despite this being circa 1975. They were systems which, inspired by D&D, we wrote for ourselves. Being in the UK, literally an ocean away from D&D's origin, getting hold of the "sacred booklets" was a fraught and lengthy process for a bunch of schoolboys with no bank accounts (and no internet, of course). There was just one shop in the UK that we knew of that stocked D&D - and it was over 100 miles away. So we improvised.

Even in those early days, the choice was not limited to "D&D or nuthin'".

Now, I'm always keen to see new games. Even if I already have games that I like to play just fine, there is always the possibility that I'll find one that's even better. What's more, as I have got older I have found that there are several distinct things that I can get out of an RPG. I thoroughly enjoy D&D 4E, but that does not mean that I no longer play HârnMaster, or that I don't also enjoy playing FATE or 13th Age, or... All those systems have something to offer; I enjoy them all. I enjoyed playing 3.x edition D&D for several years; I would happily play it again if someone was going to run it for me. The idea that you need just one system - either as a market or as an individual - is just invalid as far as I can see. What's more, there has never been only one system to choose from, and there never will be.


----------



## adamc

Balesir said:


> Consider, though, that "having more choices" amounts to _being aware that other possibilities exist_. In any circumstance, this is what will circumscribe your choices, not what some other guy chooses to present before you. If some guy asks me whether I want coffee or tea, when I am perfectly well aware of the range of other possible beverages out there, my choices aren't really limited to coffee or tea. That is just what he is offering me. If I am to evaluate all my options, the list does not stop at "coffee or tea" unless I want it to; my range of evaluation is everything of which I am aware.




I don't think that is correct. In the coffee or tea example, you _do_ have to evaluate the other options even to find out what is offered (read the menu, hunt through the supermarket aisle). As the number of esoteric options goes up, some of the old standards (e.g., root beer) may not be offered everywhere, and you end up having to consider second and third-favorites in order to have anything at all. Similarly, if someone asks you to a Pathfinder game and you know nothing about pathfinder, you have to make some decisions about whether to invest the time. You may regard these as easy decisions, but they do impose some burden. 

If I'm a DM and half my players want to play something else, it gets worse, since I need to do enough research to decide if that's an option I'm willing to support. From what I've seen in forums, it seems like the burden grows for many as they get older -- they don't want to learn a new system and they don't want to spend more money. (Both perfectly rational, IMO.)


----------



## Sadras

Cadence said:


> Here's an implementation I'm working on...
> Download from ENWorld http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=495
> or a direct download from: http://p6codex.com/AbridgedP6CodexV0p2.pdf




Thanks Cadence. 
 @_*Remus Lupin*_ you should definitely google it and learn the premise behind creating such a game and see if its for you and your group - I can't sell it nearly half as well as others so I have copied a link below where you can see where P6 (Pathfinder version) originated from e6 (3.5e version).
Essentially it is simpler for the DM by a long way, the system becomes far less broken and characters essentially grow horizontally instead of vertically in power. 

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/E6_(3.5e_Sourcebook)


----------



## Jeremy E Grenemyer

wingsandsword said:


> Now, years later we have "D&D Next", 5e that is, on the horizon. . .and it doesn't look to be mending any fences.  Too dissimilar to either camp to draw the majority in, right now it looks like at most it will create a 3rd faction (or 4th if you count Pathfinder as an edition) to the Edition Wars.



I wouldn't call it a schism, I'd call it a diaspora. 

I say this because (in my experience) edition warring is something you do online, not in real life, and I don't think most gamers have the patience for it in real life.

People certainly have their game and system preferences, just like they have their opinions, but a preference--even to the point of flatly refusing one system over another--is nothing new (meaning such behavior took place well before 4E came along).

I and my friends play the game to have fun, not to deal with other people's BS, and it's not unreasonable for us to expect that anyone else invited to play with us bring a positive attitude to the gaming table, which means valuing the opportunity to play the game more than the need to proselytize a particular game's faults to anyone unfortunate enough to sit next to them.

And I prefer to think most gamers feel this way.

So if the 5E doesn't draw lots of gamers into the fold, that's fine. There have always been a ton of games out there and if D&D ends up going in 3 or 4 different directions then, as far as I'm concerned, it has a better chance at a long life, because the more versions there are the better the odds that D&D survives another 40 years.


----------



## Balesir

adamc said:


> I don't think that is correct. In the coffee or tea example, you _do_ have to evaluate the other options even to find out what is offered (read the menu, hunt through the supermarket aisle).



First of all  I apologise for using an example that was confusing because what I meant was similar-but-different to your "coffees in a supermarket" example. What I had in mind was a waiter guy offering to get you tea or coffee. Now, unless you have lived your life in a cellar, the chances are that you know several other options very well - and you could always ask for them (he can only say "no"). Or you could go to a different outlet. Or you could make something for yourself. To quote the great Orlanthi saying from Glorantha:

"Violence is _always_ an option!"

Um, no, wait - the other one:

"There is *always* another way!"

Yeah. That one. Ahem...



adamc said:


> As the number of esoteric options goes up, some of the old standards (e.g., root beer) may not be offered everywhere, and you end up having to consider second and third-favorites in order to have anything at all.



Or you could make your own root beer (is that the same as ginger beer?). Or you could order online for delivery. You could even set up a business making root beer, or persuade someone else to do so. This is my point - there are _always_ options. The only limit is how many you are aware of, and how many you discard arbitrarily (or, at least, with only minimal evaluation).

In practice, we almost always disregard some options without evaluation subconsciously. What the argument about "choice is bad" is saying is that it's bad if we have to make those disregards consciously - so being unconscious of options is good. I disagree with this as an assertion.



adamc said:


> Similarly, if someone asks you to a Pathfinder game and you know nothing about pathfinder, you have to make some decisions about whether to invest the time. You may regard these as easy decisions, but they do impose some burden.
> 
> If I'm a DM and half my players want to play something else, it gets worse, since I need to do enough research to decide if that's an option I'm willing to support. From what I've seen in forums, it seems like the burden grows for many as they get older -- they don't want to learn a new system and they don't want to spend more money. (Both perfectly rational, IMO.)



Now, these comments are interesting, because I think you raise another dimension here which may be the real nub of the issue. What these situations talk about is not choosing product, systems or options _for onesself_, but choosing what to play _with other people_.

The problem your "older gamer" has (and, just as an aside, I'm in my 50s, so I don't think this is universal) is not that other gamers have elected to buy and play a new and different system - it's that they decline to play the older gamer's favourite game with him or her.

I can see two ways to address this:

1) Say the "older gamer" should have some power over the other gamers' choices, so that they "have to" play his or her favourite game. Aside from the fact that I think this is totally unrealistic (because "there is always another way"), I am heartily opposed to any attempt to arbitrarily limit others on ethical and motivational grounds - so I reject this option (personally).

2) All of those involved need to show tolerance and flexibility in what they are prepared to play. Think of others and try to be accommodating - that's one of the fundamental virtues I was inculcated with as a child. Tolerance is always a good thing (it just doesn't imply you have to _*like*_ what you tolerate, which would be daft).

On the "learning a new game" thing: I honestly think this is a function of folks who have only ever really played D&D (and similar games). In my experience, the difficult bit is actually breaking out of the comfortable furrow of assumptions that you have grown to have about "roleplaying" because of the way your own specific game works. Once you have broken out of that, my experience is that learning new systems is easy - it's all a downhill slope from there. What's more, by no means all systems are as content-heavy as D&D. FATE is not hard to learn to play (I did so last year - and now I love it!). Fiasco is not hard to learn (year before last). Primetime Adventures is not hard to learn (around 2009, I think). Pendragon is not hard to learn (1990s sometime?). This year I'm lining up Savage Worlds - and that looks no harder than the others to get into. All these games have the essential rules in one book.

I could go on about how trying different games gives you different perspectives on every other game you know and is a hugely positive experience in its own right, but I've rambled enough for one post...


----------



## Ulrick

wingsandsword said:


> I've been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about the last decade and a half or so of D&D and what has happened to the gaming community...
> 
> *snip*
> 
> The sad thing is, I've got no idea what could fix this gaming schism.  D&D Next (I still want to call it 5e) was meant to bring the factions together, but it's not seeming like it will do that.  Personally I'll probably buy the PHB for it, but I've got faint hope that it will do anything other than break D&D gaming apart further.




I call it the d20 Dark Ages. Except that I argue it began back in 1989. Just as I started getting into D&D, people seemed to be leaving it. 

There really isn't anything you can do--except play the edition you like to play and try to get like-minded gamer-friends to do the same.


----------



## evilbob

People think 4E was the great schism - that it alone was responsible for the fractious nature of gaming today.  I think it's more like the match that started a fire, but everything else was already in place.

Don't forget that in 2000, few people (relatively) were playing D&D, or really anything.  3.0 did something amazing:  it completely revitalized not just the brand, but tabletop gaming.  And for 5-8 years, it dominated the space because it did such a good job of creating a game that fit the pent-up desire of so many.

But over the course of those 5-8 years, people weren't just playing D&D.  Even back then, D&D was inspiring new artists and writers to create their own games.  When 4E hit in 2008, the reason so many people jumped ship was because by then we had tons and tons of options!  Every day we get more, and it's great because there are so many different styles and ways to play!

And the other biggest factor is the internet.  In 2000, the internet was still pretty young.  By 2003 pirating was all the rage, and by 2008 the internet was everywhere.  It wasn't just that there were 50+ alternatives to D&D in 2008, but that you actually heard about them even if they didn't have a strong traditional marketing presence.  So not only were there alternatives, but everyone was talking about them and you could actually hear about them because everyone was sharing information everywhere.

People talk about 2000 as a Golden Age of gaming like the 1920s were a Golden Age of technology advancement, or the 50s were the Golden Age of comics.  Yeah:  there's something cool about being able to talk shop with any geek you met about the same stories and the same games.  It was a shared experience, and that sort of thing really is precious.  But guess what?  It was also restrictive and anti-competitive, and a lot of the crap got elevated when it shouldn't have.  Now things are more fractured, but that gives us more options!  And not just more options, but better ones, with better support, better collaboration, and better gaming all around.  That's just the nature of popular products and experiences:  success creates imitation, but also refining and improvement.

_*Our role-playing experiences are more varied but also better today than they were 14 years ago.*_  There are positives and negatives to change, but change happens, regardless.  So rather than ask how we can put the toothpaste back in the tube, let's embrace how much better things are now and see what the future will bring us!


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## JRRNeiklot

evilbob said:


> Don't forget that in 2000, few people (relatively) were playing D&D, or really anything.




I think, rather, very few people were buying D&D products.  There were plenty of people playing D&D.


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## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

evilbob said:


> People talk about 2000 as a Golden Age of gaming like the 1920s were a Golden Age of technology advancement, or the 50s were the Golden Age of comics.  Yeah:  there's something cool about being able to talk shop with any geek you met about the same stories and the same games.  It was a shared experience, and that sort of thing really is precious.  But guess what?  It was also restrictive and anti-competitive, and a lot of the crap got elevated when it shouldn't have.  Now things are more fractured, but that gives us more options!  And not just more options, but better ones, with better support, better collaboration, and better gaming all around.  That's just the nature of popular products and experiences:  success creates imitation, but also refining and improvement.




The anti-competitive and restrictive goal was that of 2008 when 4th edition arrived. 2000 and up was when the OGL came about and you would see a lot of restrictions vanish and a lot of competition rise up.


----------



## Derren

evilbob said:


> People think 4E was the great schism - that it alone was responsible for the fractious nature of gaming today.  I think it's more like the match that started a fire, but everything else was already in place.






The Schism might have been unavoidable as the open license of 3E resulted in a lot of D&D spinoffs so that many people found a game which fits their preference a lot. That makes it harder to convince them to move on to a new edition. But in the end in my opinion much of the blame lies with 4E as WotC did not try to improve 3E, but to tear everything they build up so far down and rebuild it in a radically different way. No wonder that people who liked 3E were not too happy about that.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

Derren said:


> The Schism might have been unavoidable as the open license of 3E resulted in a lot of D&D spinoffs so that many people found a game which fits their preference a lot. That makes it harder to convince them to move on to a new edition. But in the end in my opinion much of the blame lies with 4E as WotC did not try to improve 3E, but to tear everything they build up so far down and rebuild it in a radically different way. No wonder that people who liked 3E were not too happy about that.




Wizards of the Coast basically tried to tell the 3rd edition players that they were bad for liking 3rd edition and tried to force the idea that 4th edition was the right way to play.


----------



## DEFCON 1

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Wizards of the Coast basically tried to tell the 3rd edition players that they were bad for liking 3rd edition and tried to force the idea that 4th edition was the right way to play.




Only if you were personally _trying_ to be offended and blowing things immensely out of proportion.  But that's neither here nor there.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

DEFCON 1 said:


> Only if you were personally _trying_ to be offended and blowing things immensely out of proportion.  But that's neither here nor there.




Apparently, 3rd edition wasn't done and Wizards of the Coast decided it was. The market for 3rd edition was still huge but they ignored because they thought they knew better, they obviously didn't, and decided to create a game they thought people wanted and made you feel inferior if you didn't like it. Supposedly the mechanics of 4th edition were "state of the art" and if you didn't play them you weren't doing it right.


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## Remus Lupin

DEFCON 1 said:


> Only if you were personally _trying_ to be offended and blowing things immensely out of proportion.  But that's neither here nor there.




Oh you don't remember this condescending abomination of an ad?

[video=youtube;qyR2L-t87b4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyR2L-t87b4[/video]


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## Cadence

Remus Lupin said:


> Oh you don't remember this condescending abomination of an ad?




Gack.  I'm not sure if I want that to actually have been put together by WotC or not...


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

Remus Lupin said:


> Oh you don't remember this condescending abomination of an ad?
> 
> [video=youtube;qyR2L-t87b4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyR2L-t87b4[/video]




Spot on!


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## GMforPowergamers

Remus Lupin said:


> Oh you don't remember this condescending abomination of an ad?
> 
> [video=youtube;qyR2L-t87b4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyR2L-t87b4[/video]




Can someone tell me what is wrong with this ad? I thought it was funny and showed editions through the years


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## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

GMforPowergamers said:


> Can someone tell me what is wrong with this ad? I thought it was funny and showed editions through the years




If you have to ask then you need to really watch the ad again.


----------



## Remus Lupin

GMforPowergamers said:


> Can someone tell me what is wrong with this ad? I thought it was funny and showed editions through the years




Try looking at it from the perspective of someone who likes 3rd edition, and needs to be convinced that 4th edition is actually going to be an improvement worth coming over for (i.e., me at the time the ad came out -- and note that it failed to accomplish that objective, with me at least).


----------



## Derren

GMforPowergamers said:


> Can someone tell me what is wrong with this ad? I thought it was funny and showed editions through the years




Apart from the overall quality it for example depicts D&D gamers as too stupid as to remember a simple game rule. Also, even the option of grapple itself is ridiculed by that silly "hugging" image they show.


----------



## Ahnehnois

Beyond that, I think the ad commits the cardinal sin of saying nothing of substance about the thing that it is advertising. Of course, it's implied that the new game will have better rules, but it doesn't actually say that, it just criticizes the old ones.


----------



## Obryn

wingsandsword said:


> I miss when we were all on the same page, more or less.  I miss when I could talk D&D online or in meatspace and not have to ignore half the conversations because I genuinely dislike the edition they are talking about, or when I could walk into my FLGS and actually see books I wanted to buy.  I haven't bought a D&D book in about 6 years, because they stopped making anything I'd want to buy.



I know I'm responding to the OP, but this seems like rose-colored glasses. By the time 4e came out, I was already done with 3.5.  I'd grown extremely disappointed with the ruleset as a whole; the time had passed when I could overlook its flaws for its perks.  I didn't like the game anymore, and I still don't.

There's no magical scenario where 4e didn't exist where I'd still be playing 3.5.  Perhaps I wouldn't be gaming at all, or perhaps I would have moved away from D&D and played all these other great games that are around which lack such toxicity.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> If you have to ask then you need to really watch the ad again.



 I have, I even did watch it again before posting and still don't see anything wrong...



Remus Lupin said:


> Try looking at it from the perspective of someone who likes 3rd edition, and needs to be convinced that 4th edition is actually going to be an improvement worth coming over for (i.e., me at the time the ad came out -- and note that it failed to accomplish that objective, with me at least).



 I can't see it still, I loved 2e, and I make jokes about thac0 and unintuitive initiative all the time... so Those jokes were right on. 
The only 3e 'joke' was going through the book looking for an obscure sub set of rules... something that we saw all the time and didn't see anything wrong with then or now... although I don't think 4e was entirely without that problem (because printing out cards for each rule is not better)  I still don't see anything wrong. 



Derren said:


> Apart from the overall quality it for example depicts D&D gamers as too stupid as to remember a simple game rule. Also, even the option of grapple itself is ridiculed by that silly "hugging" image they show.



Well I guess I am stupid then. I could not in 2002, 2003,2004,or 2007 do any of the following with out opening a book... Disarm, Grapple, Trip, Sunder... to this day even after watching that video I do not know what steps 2-4 are on the grapple rules, but because I just watched it like 3 times I know it starts with an opp attack.

Maybe I was just the target audience for the commercial and as such loved it (although I could go with out the French accent) 



Ahnehnois said:


> Beyond that, I think the ad commits the cardinal sin of saying nothing of substance about the thing that it is advertising. Of course, it's implied that the new game will have better rules, but it doesn't actually say that, it just criticizes the old ones.



It was basically a teaser... so it focused not on the best of each edition but the worst.



now to all four of you, have you never seen any of that in play?  

by the way I have seen erasers as minis, and even "hey what does that represent" being something just fallen on the table, and everyone pulling out books to search normally ends with "Guys page XX" then everyone turning to it. And that was not just 3e, but 2e with options (especially combat and tactics) and World of Darkness (even worse when you need to read 3 paragraphs of flavor text with rules hidden within) and Rifts... the searchable databse of rules for 4e on my iPhone was a little bit better... not much.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

GMforPowergamers said:


> I have, I even did watch it again before posting and still don't see anything wrong...
> 
> I can't see it still, I loved 2e, and I make jokes about thac0 and unintuitive initiative all the time... so Those jokes were right on.
> The only 3e 'joke' was going through the book looking for an obscure sub set of rules... something that we saw all the time and didn't see anything wrong with then or now... although I don't think 4e was entirely without that problem (because printing out cards for each rule is not better)  I still don't see anything wrong.
> 
> 
> Well I guess I am stupid then. I could not in 2002, 2003,2004,or 2007 do any of the following with out opening a book... Disarm, Grapple, Trip, Sunder... to this day even after watching that video I do not know what steps 2-4 are on the grapple rules, but because I just watched it like 3 times I know it starts with an opp attack.
> 
> Maybe I was just the target audience for the commercial and as such loved it (although I could go with out the French accent)
> 
> 
> It was basically a teaser... so it focused not on the best of each edition but the worst.
> 
> 
> 
> now to all four of you, have you never seen any of that in play?
> 
> by the way I have seen erasers as minis, and even "hey what does that represent" being something just fallen on the table, and everyone pulling out books to search normally ends with "Guys page XX" then everyone turning to it. And that was not just 3e, but 2e with options (especially combat and tactics) and World of Darkness (even worse when you need to read 3 paragraphs of flavor text with rules hidden within) and Rifts... the searchable databse of rules for 4e on my iPhone was a little bit better... not much.




I'm not trying to be a prick when I say this, but are you honestly reading what is being presented and watching what we are watching? 

The point was that WoTc tried to make other editions such as 3rd edition into being crap while 4th edition was supposed to be this "state of the art bit of fresh air".


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Obryn said:


> I know I'm responding to the OP, but this seems like rose-colored glasses. By the time 4e came out, I was already done with 3.5.  I'd grown extremely disappointed with the ruleset as a whole; the time had passed when I could overlook its flaws for its perks.  I didn't like the game anymore, and I still don't.
> 
> There's no magical scenario where 4e didn't exist where I'd still be playing 3.5.  Perhaps I wouldn't be gaming at all, or perhaps I would have moved away from D&D and played all these other great games that are around which lack such toxicity.




By the tail end of 3.5 (pre 4e announcement) we had pages of house rules to work around the system, and even then were not always happy with the game. A friend just pulled up and printed a copy of our old 3.5 house rules to bring to a game tonight...(See my pathfinder thread about trying again) and it is 9 pages long. These are not campaign specific either they are classes and spells and feats and skills and books...

I am not playing 4e right now, but I was late into last year (and still may get one going soon) but if 4e never came out I would be done with D&D by now...


----------



## Derren

GMforPowergamers said:


> Well I guess I am stupid then. I could not in 2002, 2003,2004,or 2007 do any of the following with out opening a book... Disarm, Grapple, Trip, Sunder... to this day even after watching that video I do not know what steps 2-4 are on the grapple rules, but because I just watched it like 3 times I know it starts with an opp attack.




Really, you could not remember the AoO -> Touch attack -> grapple check sequence (I don't even list moving into the enemies square as that is so obvious)? Or AoO -> Opposed attacks for both Disarm and Sunder?


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

I guess those lads have never heard of an Index.


----------



## Morrus

Derren said:


> Really, you could not remember the AoO -> Touch attack -> grapple check sequence (I don't even list moving into the enemies square as that is so obvious)?




I couldn't. Guess I'm stupid, too!


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

Morrus said:


> I couldn't. Guess I'm stupid, too!




Did you use the Grapple rules often?


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> I'm not trying to be a prick when I say this, but are you honestly reading what is being presented and watching what we are watching?
> 
> The point was that WoTc tried to make other editions such as 3rd edition into being crap while 4th edition was supposed to be this "state of the art bit of fresh air".




I see it as them saying "Hey that game we all played was awesome, but always had some flaws, we want to make a new edition and clean it up to play better at the table" nothing they said =crap... they showed the flaws they wanted to fix.  If I make a new pen that doesn't explode ink ever, and say "Are you sick of pens exploding and getting ink your pockets?" that doesn't mean every pen ever exploded, or that they are crap... just that is what I improved.




Derren said:


> Really, you could not remember the AoO -> Touch attack -> grapple check sequence? Or AoO -> Opposed attacks for both Disarm and Sunder?



OK, even reading this I am a bit confused, and I am pretty smart and play ALOT of games... so lets break it down.

To grapple I provoke an attack of opp, then make a touch attack (seems straight forward so far) and if I hit is he then grappled? lets check...
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm


> Grapple
> 
> Grapple Checks
> 
> Repeatedly in a grapple, you need to make opposed grapple checks against an opponent. A grapple check is like a melee attack roll. Your attack bonus on a grapple check is:
> 
> 
> Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + special size modifier
> 
> Special Size Modifier
> 
> The special size modifier for a grapple check is as follows: Colossal +16, Gargantuan +12, Huge +8, Large +4, Medium +0, Small -4, Tiny -8, Diminutive -12, Fine -16. Use this number in place of the normal size modifier you use when making an attack roll.
> 
> Starting a Grapple
> 
> To start a grapple, you need to grab and hold your target. Starting a grapple requires a successful melee attack roll. If you get multiple attacks, you can attempt to start a grapple multiple times (at successively lower base attack bonuses).
> 
> Step 1
> 
> Attack of Opportunity. You provoke an attack of opportunity from the target you are trying to grapple. If the attack of opportunity deals damage, the grapple attempt fails. (Certain monsters do not provoke attacks of opportunity when they attempt to grapple, nor do characters with the Improved Grapple feat.) If the attack of opportunity misses or fails to deal damage, proceed to Step 2.
> 
> Step 2
> 
> Grab. You make a melee touch attack to grab the target. If you fail to hit the target, the grapple attempt fails. If you succeed, proceed to Step 3.
> 
> Step 3
> 
> Hold. Make an opposed grapple check as a free action.
> 
> If you succeed, you and your target are now grappling, and you deal damage to the target as if with an unarmed strike.
> 
> If you lose, you fail to start the grapple. You automatically lose an attempt to hold if the target is two or more size categories larger than you are.
> 
> In case of a tie, the combatant with the higher grapple check modifier wins. If this is a tie, roll again to break the tie.
> 
> Step 4
> 
> Maintain Grapple. To maintain the grapple for later rounds, you must move into the target’s space. (This movement is free and doesn’t count as part of your movement in the round.)
> 
> Moving, as normal, provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents, but not from your target.
> 
> If you can’t move into your target’s space, you can’t maintain the grapple and must immediately let go of the target. To grapple again, you must begin at Step 1.
> 
> Grappling Consequences
> 
> While you’re grappling, your ability to attack others and defend yourself is limited.
> 
> No Threatened Squares
> 
> You don’t threaten any squares while grappling.
> 
> No Dexterity Bonus
> 
> You lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if you have one) against opponents you aren’t grappling. (You can still use it against opponents you are grappling.)
> 
> No Movement
> 
> You can’t move normally while grappling. You may, however, make an opposed grapple check to move while grappling.
> 
> If You’re Grappling
> 
> When you are grappling (regardless of who started the grapple), you can perform any of the following actions. Some of these actions take the place of an attack (rather than being a standard action or a move action). If your base attack bonus allows you multiple attacks, you can attempt one of these actions in place of each of your attacks, but at successively lower base attack bonuses.
> 
> Activate a Magic Item
> 
> You can activate a magic item, as long as the item doesn’t require spell completion activation. You don’t need to make a grapple check to activate the item.
> 
> Attack Your Opponent
> 
> You can make an attack with an unarmed strike, natural weapon, or light weapon against another character you are grappling. You take a -4 penalty on such attacks.
> 
> You can’t attack with two weapons while grappling, even if both are light weapons.
> 
> Cast a Spell
> 
> You can attempt to cast a spell while grappling or even while pinned (see below), provided its casting time is no more than 1 standard action, it has no somatic component, and you have in hand any material components or focuses you might need. Any spell that requires precise and careful action is impossible to cast while grappling or being pinned. If the spell is one that you can cast while grappling, you must make a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level) or lose the spell. You don’t have to make a successful grapple check to cast the spell.
> 
> Damage Your Opponent
> 
> While grappling, you can deal damage to your opponent equivalent to an unarmed strike. Make an opposed grapple check in place of an attack. If you win, you deal nonlethal damage as normal for your unarmed strike (1d3 points for Medium attackers or 1d2 points for Small attackers, plus Strength modifiers). If you want to deal lethal damage, you take a -4 penalty on your grapple check.
> 
> Exception: Monks deal more damage on an unarmed strike than other characters, and the damage is lethal. However, they can choose to deal their damage as nonlethal damage when grappling without taking the usual -4 penalty for changing lethal damage to nonlethal damage.
> 
> Draw a Light Weapon
> 
> You can draw a light weapon as a move action with a successful grapple check.
> 
> Escape from Grapple
> 
> You can escape a grapple by winning an opposed grapple check in place of making an attack. You can make an Escape Artist check in place of your grapple check if you so desire, but this requires a standard action. If more than one opponent is grappling you, your grapple check result has to beat all their individual check results to escape. (Opponents don’t have to try to hold you if they don’t want to.) If you escape, you finish the action by moving into any space adjacent to your opponent(s).
> 
> Move
> 
> You can move half your speed (bringing all others engaged in the grapple with you) by winning an opposed grapple check. This requires a standard action, and you must beat all the other individual check results to move the grapple.
> 
> Note: You get a +4 bonus on your grapple check to move a pinned opponent, but only if no one else is involved in the grapple.
> 
> Retrieve a Spell Component
> 
> You can produce a spell component from your pouch while grappling by using a full-round action. Doing so does not require a successful grapple check.
> 
> Pin Your Opponent
> 
> You can hold your opponent immobile for 1 round by winning an opposed grapple check (made in place of an attack). Once you have an opponent pinned, you have a few options available to you (see below).
> 
> Break Another’s Pin
> 
> If you are grappling an opponent who has another character pinned, you can make an opposed grapple check in place of an attack. If you win, you break the hold that the opponent has over the other character. The character is still grappling, but is no longer pinned.
> 
> Use Opponent’s Weapon
> 
> If your opponent is holding a light weapon, you can use it to attack him. Make an opposed grapple check (in place of an attack). If you win, make an attack roll with the weapon with a -4 penalty (doing this doesn’t require another action).
> 
> You don’t gain possession of the weapon by performing this action.
> 
> If You’re Pinning an Opponent
> 
> You can attempt to damage your opponent with an opposed grapple check, you can attempt to use your opponent’s weapon against him, or you can attempt to move the grapple (all described above). At your option, you can prevent a pinned opponent from speaking.
> 
> You can use a disarm action to remove or grab away a well secured object worn by a pinned opponent, but he gets a +4 bonus on his roll to resist your attempt.
> 
> You may voluntarily release a pinned character as a free action; if you do so, you are no longer considered to be grappling that character (and vice versa).
> 
> You can’t draw or use a weapon (against the pinned character or any other character), escape another’s grapple, retrieve a spell component, pin another character, or break another’s pin while you are pinning an opponent.
> 
> If You’re Pinned by an Opponent
> 
> When an opponent has pinned you, you are held immobile (but not helpless) for 1 round. While you’re pinned, you take a -4 penalty to your AC against opponents other than the one pinning you. At your opponent’s option, you may also be unable to speak. On your turn, you can try to escape the pin by making an opposed grapple check in place of an attack. You can make an Escape Artist check in place of your grapple check if you want, but this requires a standard action. If you win, you escape the pin, but you’re still grappling.
> 
> Joining a Grapple
> 
> If your target is already grappling someone else, you can use an attack to start a grapple, as above, except that the target doesn’t get an attack of opportunity against you, and your grab automatically succeeds. You still have to make a successful opposed grapple check to become part of the grapple.
> 
> If there are multiple opponents involved in the grapple, you pick one to make the opposed grapple check against.
> 
> Multiple Grapplers
> 
> Several combatants can be in a single grapple. Up to four combatants can grapple a single opponent in a given round. Creatures that are one or more size categories smaller than you count for half, creatures that are one size category larger than you count double, and creatures two or more size categories larger count quadruple.
> 
> When you are grappling with multiple opponents, you choose one opponent to make an opposed check against. The exception is an attempt to escape from the grapple; to successfully escape, your grapple check must beat the check results of each opponent.




so there is a lot there, lets just break it down...



> Starting a Grapple
> 
> To start a grapple, you need to grab and hold your target. Starting a grapple requires a successful melee attack roll. If you get multiple attacks, you can attempt to start a grapple multiple times (at successively lower base attack bonuses).
> 
> Step 1
> 
> Attack of Opportunity. You provoke an attack of opportunity from the target you are trying to grapple. If the attack of opportunity deals damage, the grapple attempt fails. (Certain monsters do not provoke attacks of opportunity when they attempt to grapple, nor do characters with the Improved Grapple feat.) If the attack of opportunity misses or fails to deal damage, proceed to Step 2.
> 
> Step 2
> 
> Grab. You make a melee touch attack to grab the target. If you fail to hit the target, the grapple attempt fails. If you succeed, proceed to Step 3.
> 
> Step 3
> 
> Hold. Make an opposed grapple check as a free action.
> 
> If you succeed, you and your target are now grappling, and you deal damage to the target as if with an unarmed strike.
> 
> If you lose, you fail to start the grapple. You automatically lose an attempt to hold if the target is two or more size categories larger than you are.
> 
> In case of a tie, the combatant with the higher grapple check modifier wins. If this is a tie, roll again to break the tie.
> 
> Step 4
> 
> Maintain Grapple. To maintain the grapple for later rounds, you must move into the target’s space. (This movement is free and doesn’t count as part of your movement in the round.)
> 
> Moving, as normal, provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents, but not from your target.
> 
> If you can’t move into your target’s space, you can’t maintain the grapple and must immediately let go of the target. To grapple again, you must begin at Step 1.






> Step 1
> 
> Attack of Opportunity. You provoke an attack of opportunity from the target you are trying to grapple. If the attack of opportunity deals damage, the grapple attempt fails. (Certain monsters do not provoke attacks of opportunity when they attempt to grapple, nor do characters with the Improved Grapple feat.) If the attack of opportunity misses or fails to deal damage, proceed to Step 2.



so that is pretty easy, they either do or don't get an attac of opp, and then if they damage you it stops, if not continue... with you so far.



> Step 2
> 
> Grab. You make a melee touch attack to grab the target. If you fail to hit the target, the grapple attempt fails. If you succeed, proceed to Step 3.



make a touch attack check (although I agree with the video by now everyone at the table is board and mad)



> Step 3
> 
> Hold. Make an opposed grapple check as a free action.
> 
> If you succeed, you and your target are now grappling, and you deal damage to the target as if with an unarmed strike.
> 
> If you lose, you fail to start the grapple. You automatically lose an attempt to hold if the target is two or more size categories larger than you are.
> 
> In case of a tie, the combatant with the higher grapple check modifier wins. If this is a tie, roll again to break the tie.



 wait what is a grapple check? I need to double check that now...



> Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + special size modifier
> 
> Special Size Modifier
> 
> The special size modifier for a grapple check is as follows: Colossal +16, Gargantuan +12, Huge +8, Large +4, Medium +0, Small -4, Tiny -8, Diminutive -12, Fine -16. Use this number in place of the normal size modifier you use when making an attack roll.



 so now I get to back engenner the trolls grapple check...

trolls have +9 attack with there claws, and the base is +4 they have a str of 23 so that is +6 and they are large +4 so +14...ok now we roll... then what??



> Step 4
> 
> Maintain Grapple. To maintain the grapple for later rounds, you must move into the target’s space. (This movement is free and doesn’t count as part of your movement in the round.)
> 
> Moving, as normal, provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents, but not from your target.
> 
> If you can’t move into your target’s space, you can’t maintain the grapple and must immediately let go of the target. To grapple again, you must begin at Step 1.



 ok, so that doesn't matter till next round... 

so what can a troll do if grappled?


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> I guess those lads have never heard of an Index.




most of the time indexes (when they are even includd) in RPGs are the worst anywhere, they list a hundred pages and then some of them don't even have any relevance, and are not user friendly...  we laugh at WotC failed indexes a lot...


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Did you use the Grapple rules often?




I know you asked Morrus, but I think my answer is important... no

It is one of the MANY rules that became MAD work arounds... PCs only used grapple if they had characters with special class features or feats (rember in 4e we call them powers) and then they would have to just keep the page marked...

IF a DM was going to use them they would have a monster with special abilities and mark the page out ahead of time...


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

GMforPowergamers said:


> I see it as them saying "Hey that game we all played was awesome, but always had some flaws, we want to make a new edition and clean it up to play better at the table" nothing they said =crap... they showed the flaws they wanted to fix.  If I make a new pen that doesn't explode ink ever, and say "Are you sick of pens exploding and getting ink your pockets?" that doesn't mean every pen ever exploded, or that they are crap... just that is what I improved.




The problem is they over exaggerated the issue to an almost ridiculous level. The books contain an index for god sakes. I could understand if that was your first game, happens in "every" edition, but most people at that age are aware of an index. Also, what they focused on became a hell of a lot worse when 4th edition arrived, unless you had DDI. I can tell you how many books one would have to sift through in order to find facts on specific powers and actions. Now one could say that all you needed to do was write the power down, but that could also be said about the rules from other editions. Grapple was a core rule that generally effected everyone so it was a rule that should have been written down, or bookmarked for easy reference.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

GMforPowergamers said:


> I know you asked Morrus, but I think my answer is important... no
> 
> It is one of the MANY rules that became MAD work arounds... PCs only used grapple if they had characters with special class features or feats (rember in 4e we call them powers) and then they would have to just keep the page marked...
> 
> IF a DM was going to use them they would have a monster with special abilities and mark the page out ahead of time...




If a rule is barely used then of course you are not expected to memorize it and need to look it up.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> The problem is they over exaggerated the issue to an almost ridiculous level. The books contain an index for god sakes. I could understand if that was your first game, happens in "every" edition, but most people at that age are aware of an index.



I'm sorry but I only think the 'exaggeration' is the comedic effect... and if anything shorten to the length of a you tube vid. It was WORSE in my experience in play...





> Also, what they focused on became a hell of a lot worse when 4th edition arrived, unless you had DDI.



I think I said that a post or two up... I'll look...




> Grapple was a core rule that generally effected everyone so it was a rule that should have been written down, or bookmarked for easy reference.



 it was so complicated we just ignored it 9 out of 10 times... infact we would even at the table say things like "Damn, I'ld grab him but were not pulling out grappling rules here..." and that was YEARS BEFORE THE AD....


----------



## Ahnehnois

GMforPowergamers said:


> now to all four of you, have you never seen any of that in play?



Not really, no. (That includes the last part, BTW).


----------



## GMforPowergamers

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> If a rule is barely used then of course you are not expected to memorize it and need to look it up.




I can tell you in 4e to just make an unarmed attack roll to grab.... it takes 8 words... slightly more if you add unless you have a special power... so add 6 more words... 14ish...


----------



## Cadence

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> I guess those lads have never heard of an Index.




Seriously!

--



GMforPowergamers said:


> now to all four of you, have you never seen any of that in play?




Clearly it was over-the-top exaggerated though -- childish impatience and lack of attention, inability to use an index, knowing none of the rules, having no social skills to the nth degree with none of the good.  

I get the idea of the teaser and can see someone having thought it was a good idea in an over-the-top way, and maybe they were even poking fun at themselves and how they first played those editions as part of it.  

However, unless they didn't think that anyone would still like those older editions and not want a new one, then I think the teaser is caricaturing people who disagreed with them... which I'm pretty sure is definitionally an insult.   Even if they were trying to portray how a first session would go on release day for each of the games, that would only excuse the not knowing the rules part and not the others.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Ahnehnois said:


> Not really, no. (That includes the last part, BTW).




you never saw

1) Anyone confused with 2e intitative
2) Anyone confused with 2e Thac0
3) Anyone need to search a book for a rule in 3e 
4) Anyone abandon a grapple because it would take too long OoG
5) someone use non standard minis (eraser, candy, pawns form another game) and get confused by it

wow, I am surprised. I have seen all of that and then some


----------



## Obryn

Oh holy crap it's back to those commercials again.  Clockwork, ENWorld, clockwork.

Time to ignore this board for a few more months again.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

Grapple:

1: If an AoO is provoked then settle it. (Some feats allow a grapple without drawing an AoO)

2: Make melee touch attack. 

3: Maintain hold by making opposed grapple checks (Roll your BAB + Strength + any relevant feats + size mod.) vs the grappled. Do damage. 

4: For later rounds. 

Not that hard really.


----------



## Ahnehnois

GMforPowergamers said:


> you never saw
> 
> 1) Anyone confused with 2e intitative
> 2) Anyone confused with 2e Thac0
> 3) Anyone need to search a book for a rule in 3e
> 4) Anyone abandon a grapple because it would take too long OoG
> 5) someone use non standard minis (eraser, candy, pawns form another game) and get confused by it
> 
> wow, I am surprised. I have seen all of that and then some



I have seen people confused with 2e initiative and THAC0 and 3e grappling, but I've never seen it hold up play in that manner. I've certainly never seen someone abandon an attempt to grapple because the rules were also too hard. I've seen occasional use of combat grids but never any question as to what marker stood for what.

More to the point, I've also never seen a group cruising through a 4e battle without any issues (or in any other manner, for that matter). It's easy to criticize a problem, but hard to do anything about it. WotC criticized plenty, but they missed the real problems, and didn't do anything about them.



> By the tail end of 3.5 (pre 4e announcement) we had pages of house rules to work around the system, and even then were not always happy with the game. A friend just pulled up and printed a copy of our old 3.5 house rules to bring to a game tonight...(See my pathfinder thread about trying again) and it is 9 pages long. These are not campaign specific either they are classes and spells and feats and skills and books...



I have a lot more than that. One might see it as a feature that the system is amenable to that. I certainly never knew of anyone playing 2e without a ton of houserules. It's part of the game.

But even to the extent that 3.5 had problems, again I've yet to see any of them addressed (certainly not by WotC anyway).


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

I have seen more people ignore the fiddly mods during battle in a 4th edition game than anything else.


----------



## Remus Lupin

GMforPowergamers said:


> now to all four of you, have you never seen any of that in play?




Oh sure, but my problem with the ad at the time -- and still -- is that it talks down to me as a gamer, suggesting that the fact that I actually _like_ this game means that somehow I'm having badwrongfun. It's not that the rules couldn't be cumbersome, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn't negatively impact my gameplay, and I found the rule in general very pleasurable to manage.

This was by no means the only reason that I didn't come over to 4th edition. I was also incensed at the attempt to kill the SRD and the Open Gaming Licence. And, in conjunction with that, the reconfiguration of core races (dragonborn, Elderin, Teiflings as core races, but no gnomes). Obviously, other peoples milage varied considerably. But under the circumstances, WOTC made several strategic moves, in marketing and in design, that lost me as a consumer.

And, to relate this to the original point of the post, that initial period of 3.0, and to a lesser extent after 3.5 (which always felt like an effort by WOTC to make me buy the same books again because of minor rules changes, which I nonetheless did), it felt like there were 1,000 flowers blooming, and they were all part of the great D&D revival -- whether it was Conan d20, True20, Arcane Unearthed, etc. I didn't see these games as schismatic, but as part of a great resurgence of interest, and I bought them all.

But I reached my saturation point when 4th edition came out, because it felt once again like WOTC just wanted me to buy the same books yet again. Of course, I ended up doing just that with Pathfinder, but I didn't feel like they were talking down to me.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

GMforPowergamers said:


> I can tell you in 4e to just make an unarmed attack roll to grab.... it takes 8 words... slightly more if you add unless you have a special power... so add 6 more words... 14ish...






XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> Grapple:
> 
> 1: If an AoO is provoked then settle it. (Some feats allow a grapple without drawing an AoO)
> 
> 2: Make melee touch attack.
> 
> 3: Maintain hold by making opposed grapple checks (Roll your BAB + Strength + any relevant feats + size mod.) vs the grappled. Do damage.
> 
> 4: For later rounds.
> 
> Not that hard really.




look at the 2 quotes... tell me 4e isn't simpler



Ahnehnois said:


> I have seen people confused with 2e initiative and THAC0 and 3e grappling, but



oh, ok then you did see them...


----------



## Cadence

GMforPowergamers said:


> wow, I am surprised. I have seen all of that and then some




Including regularly playing with guys so dense that they can't figure out if it's their turn yet even though nothing had happened in the meantime (and needing to continually ask to boot)?


Will the 5e teaser starts where this one ends, an hour into the 4e combat with most of the group either slumped over the table in exhaustion or playing WoW on their laptops, while the other two argue about choosing which exact power to use while swinging their swords because the flavor text and name for the best power makes absolutely no sense in context?


----------



## Ahnehnois

GMforPowergamers said:


> look at the 2 quotes... tell me 4e isn't simpler



For grappling? Maybe. In general? Of course not.



> oh, ok then you did see them...



I did not, however, see them being narrated by some guy with a stupid fake accent.


----------



## XunValdorl_of_Kilsek

GMforPowergamers said:


> look at the 2 quotes... tell me 4e isn't simpler
> 
> 
> oh, ok then you did see them...




It's not really about being simpler because I understand both of them perfectly. Sure it may take a few seconds to execute one over the other but that's trivial.


----------



## Derren

GMforPowergamers said:


> look at the 2 quotes... tell me 4e isn't simpler




Simple and bland.
At least 3E takes the size of the creatures into account. And I take a little less simple and flavorful over extremely simple and bland every day.


----------



## Cadence

Whoo-hoo!  We got goaded into an edition skirmish!


----------



## Remus Lupin

Cadence said:


> Whoo-hoo!  We got goaded into an edition skirmish!




Well to be clear, my intention wasn't to criticize anyone's preferred edition, simply to note why I didn't switch over, and to explain why I can see the contrast between the division now and the (perception of) unity in the first few years after 3.0.

My philosophy is always "play the game you like!"


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Cadence said:


> Including regularly playing with guys so dense that they can't figure out if it's their turn yet even though nothing had happened in the meantime (and needing to continually ask to boot)?



not exactly, but I have (as recently as November) seen one player try to start there turn just to have the last player say "Wait, I still have a minor," take 2-3 minutes more, do nothing that matters, then when the other player starts again say "Wait I might spend an action point..."

back in 2e (before we house ruled initiative) my now brother in law then just sister's date 
used to ask after every turn...every fight...every game "Is it my turn yet?" I used to thin he thought he was funny, but when we moved to 3e and it was just roll X+Y then call out number he did fine...



> Will the 5e teaser starts where this one ends, an hour into the 4e combat with most of the group either slumped over the table in exhaustion or playing WoW on their laptops, while the other two argue about choosing which exact power to use while swinging their swords because the flavor text and name for the best power makes absolutely no sense in context?



 I would not be insulted if they did...



Cadence said:


> Whoo-hoo!  We got goaded into an edition skirmish!



 your right... I'll just end this by saying as a player of 3-8 editions of this game (depending on who does the counting) I was not then insulted nor now do I see it. Some people do take offense at it, but I do not belive it was meant to offend...


----------



## Ahnehnois

GMforPowergamers said:


> I would not be insulted if they did...



Credit where credit is due at least.


----------



## Savage Wombat

GMforPowergamers said:


> not exactly, but I have (as recently as November) seen one player try to start there turn just to have the last player say "Wait, I still have a minor," take 2-3 minutes more, do nothing that matters, then when the other player starts again say "Wait I might spend an action point..."




That was a weird 4e thing - and I'm not edition warring here - but in 3e you basically had the same system: a standard action, a move action, and if you had something a swift action - but I'd never heard people constantly complaining about people trying to min-max their swift actions as a resource.

Were there just that many minor actions to choose from in 4e?  Was that the real problem?  Because I've heard it said that it was a play-style thing.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Savage Wombat said:


> That was a weird 4e thing - and I'm not edition warring here - but in 3e you basically had the same system: a standard action, a move action, and if you had something a swift action - but I'd never heard people constantly complaining about people trying to min-max their swift actions as a resource.
> 
> Were there just that many minor actions to choose from in 4e?  Was that the real problem?  Because I've heard it said that it was a play-style thing.




I don't know if it was a 4e thing, but it was the guy who lived with me in 4e thing... he was never before like this, but for the last few years has been getting worse and worse about it... and it has carried to other games...


----------



## pemerton

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> what they focused on became a hell of a lot worse when 4th edition arrived, unless you had DDI. I can tell you how many books one would have to sift through in order to find facts on specific powers and actions.



I GM 4e and I need my monster descriptions and the Essentials Compendium. My players need their PC sheets. (Not the DDI ones, which are crap. We have home-made ones.)



Savage Wombat said:


> That was a weird 4e thing
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Were there just that many minor actions to choose from in 4e?



Not meaning to disrespect other editions (and certainly not 3E, which I have little experience with), but 4e is mechanically much, much tighter - including in its action economy. It's one of the most striking features of the edition, I think (whether or not one likes it, and I think differing responses to this tightness help explain some of that like/dislike).

I think it's natural that it then encourages the same sort of tightness or attempt at precision from players. Cetainy in my case I find most of my players, each turn, cycle through a mental "checklist" that includes possible minor actions.

It can be frustrating for those who don't know their characters well enough, and so dither at that point. Because most minors don't affect monsters/NPCs, but are self or ally buffs/heals, I tend to move on as GM and let them resolve any minor action on their own. If I need to know about it, they can let me know!


----------



## Incenjucar

Savage Wombat said:


> That was a weird 4e thing - and I'm not edition warring here - but in 3e you basically had the same system: a standard action, a move action, and if you had something a swift action - but I'd never heard people constantly complaining about people trying to min-max their swift actions as a resource.
> 
> Were there just that many minor actions to choose from in 4e?  Was that the real problem?  Because I've heard it said that it was a play-style thing.




4E comes with a lot of back-and-forth moment-to-moment in combat for all characters regardless of class, you'll often see people get desperate for just one more action no matter how small to keep from getting flattened by that elite ogre warlord that survived a critical hit despite being bloodied and oh the DM just rolled a 6 on the recharge die.

In 3E, it was mostly just the spellcasters, particularly wizards, and they were usually just firing off an extra full action instead of a specialized swift action ability.


----------



## pemerton

Incenjucar said:


> 4E comes with a lot of back-and-forth moment-to-moment in combat for all characters regardless of class, you'll often see people get desperate for just one more action no matter how small



At least for me, this phenomenon - which I agree is present - is closely related to the mechanical tightness.


----------



## fantasmamore

There is something that I don't understand. I DM a group that plays 4e and another one that plays Dragon Age. When our Dragon Age campaign comes to an end, I will tell my players that I know how to play Castles and Crusades and 4e, so if I am going to be a DM again, they have to choose one of these two games. I will be more than happy to play any other game (Pathfinder, 3.5 e etc) as a player if they want to be DMs. Actually I prefer being a player, last time that I played as such, was 18 years ago (a lifetime!) when I was playing AD&D. 
Because there are two things that make me love the tabletop RPG games. The epic story that evolves session after session and my friends around the table. The only thing that changes is a small detail. The rules. 
There is no schism if you love stories and your friends. The worst thing that is going to happen is that your wizard will have different spells. So what? I enjoyed the first trilogy of Salvatore about Drizzt, I enjoyed the LOTR and I am currently reading The sword of Shannara by Brooks. All different books, magic is different, the world is different but what remains in your mind after finishing each book, is the story. Even Elric of Melnibone, which I didn't like all that much, gave me an experience and I am never going to say that I regret reading it. 
So, in my opinion, the only thing that creates schisms and could prove fatal for the game is our ability to adapt. After all, it's just that... Rules! Nothing that can't change!
(Sorry for my english)


----------



## Herschel

Remus Lupin said:


> Oh you don't remember this condescending abomination of an ad?




The game was poking fun at itself, and the things in the game many of it's most die-hard fans complained about. You were only offended if you were consciously trying to be. 

Was this also a condescending abomination of an ad? 

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/2ebook.pdf


----------



## Herschel

XunValdorl_of_Kilsek said:


> The problem is they over exaggerated the issue to an almost ridiculous level.




Of course they did, that was the whole point. EVERYTHING in the ad was a silly exageration for comedic effect, including the cheesey accent on the narrator.


----------



## Herschel

Derren said:


> Simple and bland.
> At least 3E takes the size of the creatures into account. And I take a little less simple and flavorful over extremely simple and bland every day.





So does 4E (you can't grapple anything more than one size category larger than you), but don't let facts get in your way.


----------



## Derren

Herschel said:


> So does 4E (you can't grapple anything more than one size category larger than you), but don't let facts get in your way.




And of course you have a hard time grappling something exactly 1 size larger than you. Or have an easy time grappling something smaller than you. Oh wait, you don't. This size difference is not taken into account. But don't let facts get in your way...


----------



## Ahnehnois

Herschel said:


> The game was poking fun at itself, and the things in the game many of it's most die-hard fans complained about. You were only offended if you were consciously trying to be.



I don't really find it offensive per se, it's just a bad advertisement, and a false one. The game _didn't_ stay the same.

That being said, your comment could equally be applied to all the supposed issues it was talking about. No one is bothered unless they're trying to be by the grappling rules or the identity of miniatures the balance between classes or anything else on the list of things that suddenly became huge problems when they decided to ditch the OGL and make a new and different game.


----------



## Hussar

Cadence said:


> Including regularly playing with guys so dense that they can't figure out if it's their turn yet even though nothing had happened in the meantime (and needing to continually ask to boot)?
> 
> 
> Will the 5e teaser starts where this one ends, an hour into the 4e combat with most of the group either slumped over the table in exhaustion or playing WoW on their laptops, while the other two argue about choosing which exact power to use while swinging their swords because the flavor text and name for the best power makes absolutely no sense in context?




I have to admit, I wouldn't bring it up FIVE YEARS later as an example of why WOTC is such a bad company.  But then again, I rarely get offended by this sort of thing.  It doesn't bother me in the slightest.  But, I can see that it does bother some people greatly, so I would suggest to WOTC that they should avoid this sort of thing in the future.

Oh, and Derren, what you see as flavourful, I see as completely fiddly and pointless.  Who cares that 3e brought in some bogus arbitrary numbers into the grapple check?  All that it meant was that very large creatures with improved grab basically automatically won grapple checks.  Whoopee.


----------



## Bluenose

Derren said:


> *And of course you have a hard time grappling something exactly 1 size larger than you. Or have an easy time grappling something smaller than you*. Oh wait, you don't. This size difference is not taken into account. But don't let facts get in your way...




Evidence please? I'm quite sure you're considering the cases where people wrestle horses to the ground - wild horses, note - or such phenomena as cow-tipping, but I'm not at all convinced that the difficulty can't be explained by factors other than size - strength, agility, balance, etc being obviously important.


----------



## Herschel

Derren said:


> And of course you have a hard time grappling something exactly 1 size larger than you. Or have an easy time grappling something smaller than you. Oh wait, you don't. This size difference is not taken into account. But don't let facts get in your way...




Creature stats are based on the creature type, baking in difficulty of larger and smaller creatures difficulty of grappling. I'm sorry you don't possess this knowledge but then if you actually know/acknowledge the full information your view doesn't hold water.


----------



## Hussar

Well, the difference here would be that in 3e, creatures get a double whammy.  You get a bonus to strength based on your size, which increases your grapple check, and, your size directly increases your grapple check as well.  (Conversely, being smaller you get double penalised)

Apparently, that's somehow more believable than simply giving big creatures big strength scores with which to resist grapple checks.


----------



## Herschel

Ahnehnois said:


> I don't really find it offensive per se, it's just a bad advertisement, and a false one. The game _didn't_ stay the same.
> 
> That being said, your comment could equally be applied to all the supposed issues it was talking about. No one is bothered unless they're trying to be by the grappling rules or the identity of miniatures the balance between classes or anything else on the list of things that suddenly became huge problems when they decided to ditch the OGL and make a new and different game.




The 3E grappling rules were terrible. Even my die-hard 3E fan friends acknowledge and joke about it. They've all houseruled it out for a system that's streamlined and makes sense. It was widely panned by the fanbase and has been a great meme. 

Class balance was also an issue widely panned by a large portion of the fan base. 3E removed the balancing factors on spellcasters with Concentration, ability to bypass spell resistance, etc. while ramping up their power. Those who believe/want spellcasters to be objectively more powerful love it, those who don't, don't, regardless of the rest of the system's merits. 

The OGL was an abomination of a business decision. Sure, gamers may like it but for WotC? Dancey and whomever green-lighted that idea are lucky to have done it in the 20th century when the worst thing that happens is you get fired.


----------



## Herschel

Hussar said:


> Well, the difference here would be that in 3e, creatures get a double whammy. You get a bonus to strength based on your size, which increases your grapple check, and, your size directly increases your grapple check as well. (Conversely, being smaller you get double penalised)
> 
> Apparently, that's somehow more believable than simply giving big creatures big strength scores with which to resist grapple checks.




Yeah, every tall creature is a behemoth and ever short creature is a sluggish weakling is somehow "more realistic"?


----------



## Ahnehnois

Hussar said:


> Well, the difference here would be that in 3e, creatures get a double whammy.  You get a bonus to strength based on your size, which increases your grapple check, and, your size directly increases your grapple check as well.  (Conversely, being smaller you get double penalised)
> 
> Apparently, that's somehow more believable than simply giving big creatures big strength scores with which to resist grapple checks.



Mechanically it is a double whammy, but it makes enough sense to me. Given that two creatures have the same muscular strength, it seems like the advantages of having a larger mass and a longer reach would be considerable. At that point, it depends on whether you think those considerations are (or should be) considered as part of the creature's strength score. If they are, then yes simply giving a size bonus to strength is enough. If not, then another modifier is needed.


----------



## Ahnehnois

Herschel said:


> The 3E grappling rules were terrible.



Yes, as were many other things. But their lack of merit was never all that important.



> Class balance was also an issue widely panned by a large portion of the fan base.



Not really.



> The OGL was an abomination of a business decision. Sure, gamers may like it but for WotC? Dancey and whomever green-lighted that idea are lucky to have done it in the 20th century when the worst thing that happens is you get fired.



It seems to have worked out great for the game and badly for WotC and Hasbro, but that's only because they screwed it up themselves. That said, it's also worked out pretty well for many of the people who worked at WotC when it was introduced who have since used it to make other games and secure their professional careers long after leaving (by whatever means) from WotC.


----------



## dmgorgon

Schisms can be repaired but not fully.  There will always be those who refuse to be re-unified.  The great schism of the Catholic church between the eastern and western rites is one example of that.  The eastern rite was actually unified back into the fold.  

You might think that D&D isn't a religion, but to a large extent the community is starting to behave like it is.     Perhaps it's only natural because the community is ageing, but in IMO WotC is to blame for all of it.   

IMO, 5e must happen regardless of it's success or failure.   Even if it fails it's a step in the right direction.   If it costs an edition to steer the game back on course then I support it.


----------



## Desdichado

Herschel said:


> The OGL was an abomination of a business decision. Sure, gamers may like it but for WotC? Dancey and whomever green-lighted that idea are lucky to have done it in the 20th century when the worst thing that happens is you get fired.






Ahnehnois said:


> It seems to have worked out great for the game and badly for WotC and Hasbro, but that's only because they screwed it up themselves. That said, it's also worked out pretty well for many of the people who worked at WotC when it was introduced who have since used it to make other games and secure their professional careers long after leaving (by whatever means) from WotC.




Yeah, some context helps here.  The OGL would probably never have flown in the Hasbro days, but keep in mind that the priorities of WotC when it was owned by Atkinson and others _prior_ to the sale of Hasbro were totally different. I expect that from their perspective even today, the OGL served its purpose remarkably well.  And if they don't really like 4e, their decision can be seen as almost eerily prescient.

The only ones who got screwed by it are Hasbro.  And even then, not very  much, since they didn't buy WotC for D&D; they bought it for Magic and Pokemon.


----------



## Desdichado

dmgorgon said:


> You might think that D&D isn't a religion, but to a large extent the community is starting to behave like it is.  Perhaps it's only natural because the community is ageing, but in IMO WotC is to blame for all of it.



I think that's a conclusion that can only be reached if one assumes that D&D is the entirety of the hobby (yes, I know, someone will trot out a second-hand interpretation fo something Ryan Dancey once said about the numbers of D&D vs. other games.)  But the schism between Pathfinder and 4e was effectively and remarkably previewed by the success of White Wolf in the 90s and the minor diaspora of D&D players prior to the introduction of 3e.

And even prior to the announcement and previews of 4e, 3e was starting to show signs of an impending further diaspora of its own.


----------



## Herschel

Ahnehnois said:


> Not really.




That you feel this way its telling, but then you also implied you not being around in the 80s meant that it wasn't the Golden Age. 

Some people, like Monte Cook even, felt the imbalances were a feature. Many others felt it was a bug. The latter group was extremely large, even if they liked the rest of the system and had to ban numerous things at their tables.


----------



## Herschel

Hobo said:


> I think that's a conclusion that can only be reached if one assumes that D&D is the entirety of the hobby (yes, I know, someone will trot out a second-hand interpretation fo something Ryan Dancey once said about the numbers of D&D vs. other games.) But the schism between Pathfinder and 4e was effectively and remarkably previewed by the success of White Wolf in the 90s and the minor diaspora of D&D players prior to the introduction of 3e.
> 
> And even prior to the announcement and previews of 4e, 3e was starting to show signs of an impending further diaspora of its own.




Must spread XP, but very much this.


----------



## Herschel

dmgorgon said:


> IMO, 5e must happen regardless of it's success or failure. Even if it fails it's a step in the right direction. If it costs an edition to steer the game back on course then I support it.





The game was moving in the right direction and is now taking a step backwards and in a wrong direction. This is why I can't support it.

Isn't this fun?


----------



## dmgorgon

Hobo said:


> I think that's a conclusion that can only be reached if one assumes that D&D is the entirety of the hobby (yes, I know, someone will trot out a second-hand interpretation fo something Ryan Dancey once said about the numbers of D&D vs. other games.)  But the schism between Pathfinder and 4e was effectively and remarkably previewed by the success of White Wolf in the 90s and the minor diaspora of D&D players prior to the introduction of 3e.
> 
> And even prior to the announcement and previews of 4e, 3e was starting to show signs of an impending further diaspora of its own.





A schism within a particular religion (D&D) is not the entirety of Religion (all rpgs), so I think it's still a valid conclusion.


----------



## billd91

Hobo said:


> Yeah, some context helps here.  The OGL would probably never have flown in the Hasbro days, but keep in mind that the priorities of WotC when it was owned by Atkinson and others _prior_ to the sale of Hasbro were totally different. I expect that from their perspective even today, the OGL served its purpose remarkably well.  And if they don't really like 4e, their decision can be seen as almost eerily prescient.




The OGL (2000) was established *after* Hasbro's acquisition of WotC (1999). It might well be that WotC was still behaving like an independent when they released D&D under the OGL and that Hasbro's management culture hadn't been imposed, but it's not like the OGL was in effect prior to Hasbro.


----------



## dmgorgon

Herschel said:


> The game was moving in the right direction and is now taking a step backwards and in a wrong direction. This is why I can't support it.
> 
> Isn't this fun?




Yes, that's your opinion.


----------



## Desdichado

billd91 said:


> The OGL (2000) was established *after* Hasbro's acquisition of WotC (1999). It might well be that WotC was still behaving like an independent when they released D&D under the OGL and that Hasbro's management culture hadn't been imposed, but it's not like the OGL was in effect prior to Hasbro.



They were.  The OGL _strategy_ predates the Hasbro acquisition, and it _certainly_ predates the Hasbro interference in existing WotC strategy and business practice.


----------



## Derren

Herschel said:


> Creature stats are based on the creature type




Creature stats are based mostly on level, especially the NADs which are targeted by Grab. And thats the reason why in 4E a small Spriggan is as hard to grapple than the much larger and stronger Troll, even when you only consider forcefully moving them when you already established a grab and why you have much better chances to grapple most Giants than a Greater (still small) Flameskull.


----------



## Herschel

You mean like 3E's CR/level, 1E/2E's HD, etc.? You know, the things built in to help you decide an appropriate challenge for characters?


----------



## Eric Hughes

I'm new to EN World, and therefore new to this discussion.  I admit I have not read all 200+ posts.  But I have to wonder if the thread as attempted to address the question "What constitutes the Golden Age?"


----------



## Obryn

Eric Hughes said:


> I'm new to EN World, and therefore new to this discussion.  I admit I have not read all 200+ posts.  But I have to wonder if the thread as attempted to address the question "What constitutes the Golden Age?"



Quite often it's "How gaming was when I was twelve and/or when I had the best time with it." 

But otherwise it's a combination of the number of people playing RPGs, its level of awareness in popular culture, the quality of existing games, the variety of new games, and the vibrancy of gaming culture.  Or something like that.  At least a few of those has to hit.  I don't think we'll ever see a gaming phenomenon like we had in the early 80's again, so if you only get one chance at a golden age, that one's it.  Otherwise probably 2000-2002 or so would be fair, and I'd argue that right now we're either in another one or on the cusp of it.


----------



## Eric Hughes

Why do you say we are either in a new Golden Age, or on the Cusp of one?


----------



## Obryn

Eric Hughes said:


> Why do you say we are either in a new Golden Age, or on the Cusp of one?



A few factors, but it's driven by two big factors - Kickstarter and tablets.

Kickstarter is a game-changer - look at the successful campaigns for Fate Core, Numenera, (Timewatch!) etc.  These are games which may have had a minor profile, but thanks to the funding method, exploded.  Games are being made now (exciting games!) that would have never had a chance before.

Tablets, too - almost everyone, now, can afford a way to read PDFs.  PDFs are amazingly inexpensive for publishers to distribute, and the world has gotten used to buying them.


----------



## RedBoxDwarf

wingsandsword said:


> In retrospect, the early to mid 2000's were a Golden Age of D&D.



I registered for these forums just so I could ask, "Huh?"



wingsandsword said:


> When I started playing D&D in 1998 . . .




This would be like me saying, "I've been reading comic books only since '98, but the Golden Age of comics was 2003."

If you have been playing D&D since '98, then I'm sorry, but you lack personal experience in the hobby and its historical context.  What you mean to say is that your _favorite edition_ is 3.0.  And that's great. But the Golden Age of D&D probably occurred before you were old enough to play the game.


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## GMforPowergamers

RedBoxDwarf said:


> I registered for these forums just so I could ask, "Huh?"
> 
> 
> 
> This would be like me saying, "I've been reading comic books only since '98, but the Golden Age of comics was 2003."
> 
> If you have been playing D&D since '98, then I'm sorry, but you lack personal experience in the hobby and its historical context.  What you mean to say is that your _favorite edition_ is 3.0.  And that's great. But the Golden Age of D&D probably occurred before you were old enough to play the game.




I started to play in 2e... 1995 or so and I think the golden age was the 80's... not playing or even being able to read duringing doesn't make it any less the golden age...


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## wingsandsword

RedBoxDwarf said:


> I registered for these forums just so I could ask, "Huh?"
> 
> 
> 
> This would be like me saying, "I've been reading comic books only since '98, but the Golden Age of comics was 2003."
> 
> If you have been playing D&D since '98, then I'm sorry, but you lack personal experience in the hobby and its historical context.  What you mean to say is that your _favorite edition_ is 3.0.  And that's great. But the Golden Age of D&D probably occurred before you were old enough to play the game.




I have more context than you think.  I am quite aware of the strife between Basic D&D and AD&D players, of the edition war between 1e and 2e, and of the strife between White Wolf and D&D players in the early '90's.

You want to know why I say that the 2000's were the golden age and not the '80's?  Personal experience of what happened when I tried to play D&D in the late '80's.

I was growing up in rural Kentucky.  I had a classmate in junior high who had picked up the core 1e D&D books at a shop in Lexington, and brought them back to our small town.  Knowing that I had a lot more friends than he did, my friend asked me to see if I could recruit around to drum up interest in the game.  

So, I started asking around to my friends to see if they'd like to play D&D and that me and a friend were getting a group together.  How did that go?

Inside of 48 hours later I was sitting in the guidance counselors office, being told that my peers had reported that I had "suicidal tendencies" and "was recruiting for a satanic cult".  Apparently many classmates I'd talked to immediately ran and told the teacher that I was acting suicidal and trying to recruit people for some sort of mass suicide, or that I was trying to get people to join in some kind of satanic worship service.  The teachers, principal, and guidance counselor all thought D&D was all about satanism and suicide as well.  

They told my parents.  My mother was level headed and thought it was absurd, but my Dad strictly forbade me from ever playing D&D while I lived under his roof.  He called my friend's parents and told them he owned D&D books and should burn them.  My friends parents didn't burn his books, but he couldn't get anybody else, not a one, to play with him, everyone thought it was an evil ritual or had been forbidden by parents who thought that.  A few years later in High School we skirted around that ban by playing the Star Wars RPG, nobody cared about some kids sitting around playing Star Wars, even if they'd freak out at "Dungeons and Dragons".

Hard to see D&D as being in a "golden age" when it was basically forbidden across the entire town when I was growing up.  Now, I look at the facebook page for my old school and see pictures of their D&D club from a few years back, they started a D&D club during 2000's apparently.

So, when I went to college years later, after several years there I found the local gaming club, and joined up.  I met people who still refused to play D&D because they jumped to White Wolf years prior and thought of D&D as childish, I met people who were still bitter and refused to ever play 2e AD&D and would only play 1e, I met a guy who still swore by Rules Compendium D&D and only very begrudgingly played any other edition, and I knew some people who gave up D&D in favor of GURPS because they thought the class system was too restrictive.

When 3e came out, you know what happened?  They *all* moved over to playing it.  Not all as their favorite game, but some people who refused to play 2e AD&D because they were 1e loyalists switch their long running campaign to 3.5 when it came out.  I saw the people who only played GURPS at least dabble with 3e because it was more flexible, they still didn't like it, but at least said it was the best edition of D&D they knew.  

Don't say I lack context, I've got context.  What I lack is belief that the '80's were this mythical golden age of D&D, because from where I sit, it was a *LOUSY *time to be a gamer because everybody thought you were a satanic cultist about to commit suicide if you even said the words "dungeons and dragons" in public.

By the 2000's, nobody cared.  Public schools had gaming clubs, people who had given up on D&D years prior came back, and pretty much every gamer I knew, knew how to play 3.5 and was open to at least the occasional game of it.  Sounds an awful more like a Golden Age to me.


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## DMZ2112

wingsandsword said:


> Hard to see D&D as being in a "golden age" when it was basically forbidden across the entire town when I was growing up.  Now, I look at the facebook page for my old school and see pictures of their D&D club from a few years back, they started a D&D club during 2000's apparently.




The bad publicity D&D raked in from the Egbert incident and similar urban legends that cropped up throughout the decade were a classic example of the old chestnut that there is no such thing as bad publicity.  The game was everywhere, and if you were into that sort of thing or had friends who were, you knew about it and may even have played it.  It had a Saturday morning cartoon!  Action figures!  You could buy modules in Toys R Us and KB Toys!  That doesn't just /happen/.

Granted, if you still lived with your parents, and in a conservative community, that's another story, but Gary and Dave were in their 30s when they created D&D.  Middle- and high-schoolers are only a part of the demographic of the game, and not one with a lot of liquid cash, if you catch my drift.

My experience was much different.  I started playing in 1985 at the age of 7.  My parents were too protective to let me cross the street at the top of our suburban cul-de-sac without a chaperone, but they let me play D&D and later allowed it to utterly consume my attention.  My father railed against my love of video games but never felt D&D was more than a silly board game.  It never affected my grades (neither did video games), although I did leave Christianity because of it so I suppose I'm not a great poster child.

The 2000s were fantastic for D&D, no doubt.  The game was accessible and modern, and still enjoyed moderately good exposure.  But the 2000s were not a time when the game had true /cultural meme status/, and it is unlikely D&D will ever be that popular again.  Someone would quite literally have to die (or at least be presumed dead).


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## Sadras

DMZ2112 said:


> It never affected my grades (neither did video games), although I did leave Christianity because of it so I suppose I'm not a great poster child.




The only way I can possibly see this is if you dropped Christianity due to the fact that Christianity equated RPGs with satanism?


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## DMZ2112

Sadras said:


> The only way I can possibly see this is if you dropped Christianity due to the fact that Christianity equated RPGs with satanism?




No, although that attitude certainly didn't help.  ...Probably not a conversation for the thread, all things considered.


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## Sadras

DMZ2112 said:


> No, although that attitude certainly didn't help.  ...Probably not a conversation for the thread, all things considered.




Cool, no worries.


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## GrahamWills

_






 Originally Posted by Herschel 


The game was moving in the right direction and is now taking a step backwards and in a wrong direction. This is why I can't support it.

Isn't this fun?
_



dmgorgon said:


> Yes, that's your opinion.




And mine, and my wife's, but not my son's and his friends are about split evenly. My gaming groups mostly don't play D&D, but those who do have switched to 13th Age and Pathfinder about evenly.

It's almost like some ... _Great D&D Schism_! Maybe even _The End of an age and the scattering of gamers_.

Except that's uber-melodramatic. I don't see a lot of difference between this and the fragmenting of TV audiences. If Gilligan's Island is the only show in town, that's what everyone will watch. Even if most prefer other types of show. Once it becomes sufficiently cheap to let people watch something else, the market naturally fragments.

In the 80s/90s I had very little choice in fantasy games. Of the big 3-4 I liked MERP and Rolemaster the best, so that's what I played.  Basically my list of "fantasy role-playing games I would play in order" ran: "Rolemaster, D&D." D&D was my second choice and I played it occasionally. Now there are dozens of systems with enough support so my list for fantasy would be "13th Age, Numenera, Savage Worlds, 4e, Pathfinder, 3.5, AD&D" and that competes with a list of non-fantasy games VASTLY larger than in so-called "golden ages". That boils down to the same game moving from second on my list of things I'd like to play to not making the top ten.

A golden age is simply lack of choice forcing everyone to enjoy the same thing a moderate amount, rather than a schism age where people enjoy different things much more. Lamenting the change is like lamenting a time when everyone ate vanilla ice-cream because chocolate ice-cream had not been invented.


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## Mecha.vs.Kaiju

In my experience it has more to do with GMs than players. It's the GM who decides which system he wants to use. If you have a consistent group that has gamed together for years then they will most likely play anything that gets run. We've had both 3.5 and 4E games running concurrently, and nobody minded.


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## GreyLord

This talk about being in a counselor's office because of playing...is actually a pretty big sign of the golden age.  It was so well known (or had so much notoriety about it) that it is possible that it may have caused something like this, simply from name recognition alone.  The massive waves against it by some parents and conservative preachers probably helped the game to top selling status (the 1980s - imagine when Dragon and Dungeon had 4-8 times the number of subscribers and readers as it did in the 2000s).  

The problem isn't when D&D had it's golden age, I think that's pretty clear cut, it's that people want ALL the ages to be golden ages.  Comics had a golden age as well...and then later it had the silver age (which some consider a greater impact than the golden age).  It also has had other ages of comics, though the golden and silver ages are the most well known.  The silver age has more of the well known characters and their evolutions than the golden age I suppose.

Just because the golden age of D&D was in the 80s does NOT preclude other ages, such as a silver age or even another age.


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## adamc

Mecha.vs.Kaiju said:


> In my experience it has more to do with GMs than players. It's the GM who decides which system he wants to use. If you have a consistent group that has gamed together for years then they will most likely play anything that gets run. We've had both 3.5 and 4E games running concurrently, and nobody minded.




That sounds right to me. The DMs investment (mostly in time, but also cash) is much greater, so they care more.


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## Remus Lupin

Following up on GreyLord's point, I think it's probably fruitless to attempt to gain a consensus on what was _the_ Golden Age of D&D. Advocates for the main candidates can make a good case on very different grounds for their own preferred age and edition.

But to the point of the original post: I do think that there was something special going on in that initial 3.0 period, both in terms of renewal of the hobby and in terms of the kind of creative ferment caused by both the appearance of the new edition and the adoption of the OGL. It may have led, as some have argued, to a glut in the market, but it also led to the creation of some of the best D&D supplements by 3rd parties of any era. It led to variations in rules that were genuinely unique, and it all revolved around 3rd edition. Even the stuff that didn't directly depend on 3rd edition rules in some way, shape, or form took account of it (_Call of Cthulhu d20_, anyone?).

So yes, I do think something real was lost when WOTC moved on to 4th edition. Again, this is not to suggest that 4th edition isn't a fine game in its own right. But it definitely marked the end of an age when there was an increased unity within the gaming community, and a greater sense that we were all involved in a common project, even if that project took many and diverse forms.

And, if we are laying our credentials on the table, I started playing in 1982, so right there in the middle of that First Great Age of D&D, and I remember well the controversy and the Satanic Panic. But fortunately I was blessed with tolerant and easy going parents, who weren't the type to take that kind of thing seriously. And their general attitude was: "Well, they're sitting in our living room playing a game. We know where they are, and they're not doing drugs. What's the problem?"


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## pemerton

Remus Lupin said:


> I do think something real was lost when WOTC moved on to 4th edition. Again, this is not to suggest that 4th edition isn't a fine game in its own right. But it definitely marked the end of an age when there was an increased unity within the gaming community, and a greater sense that we were all involved in a common project, even if that project took many and diverse forms.



I think that depends very much what your perspective and context were.

During the 3E period I was GMing Rolemaster, as 3E held (and holds) little appeal for me. Since 2009, though, I've been GMing 4e. So my sense of unity in the RPGing community hasn't really changed at all!


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## Ulrick

Once Mike Mearls or somebody else high up in WotC starts excommunicating gamers, then we'll have a true schism. 

Until then, its just a bunch of people either bickering over how to play the game, or just sitting down and playing it.

We really don't have to be one big happy family. In fact, I think the greatest strength of RPGs is that gamers don't get along and come at these games from different perspectives, argue about it, exchange ideas, and develop new things.


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