Jeffx wrote:
This is something I can certainly agree with. If there is no need to upgrade, don't. If you like what you have, stay with it. I don't think Hasbro is going to come to anyone's door and demand their 3.X books. Nevermind, anything prior. We are all safe in our edition of choice.
But see, that's not the point. I never worry about what WOTC does. I do my thing, and if God himself incarnated before my eyes and said "You must play 4E", he'd get the same rude answer as anyone else who said that to me.
But WOTC does both gaming as a hobby and society in general a disservice by retaining the name "Dungeons and Dragons" when 4E is unrelated to the original game in all but the name.
It's not an upgrade, it's a downgrade, hence my quotations around the word upgrade.
Make no mistake. 3.5 is what D&D is now. 4th Edition is what it is going to become. This IS D&D. Hate it all you want, it won't change. All the bile and disgust you muster doesn't change anything. Maybe no one will make the move. Maybe everyone will stick it to Hasbro and not buy a single book. Then Hasbro will see the error in their ways and go "old school". I doubt it.
First, it is
not D&D. Dungeons & Dragons is a pen and paper fantasy roleplaying game based on archetypes. 4E is a computer simulation game that merely borrows certain concepts and terminology from actual D&D. Now I've heard all the arguments about copyright and how the copyright owners call it D&D and so it's D&D and so on and so forth back in the 3E debates, and my answer still stands when it comes to that issue with 4E. Bullshit! It is a derivative computer game that shares the same name, but the feel, style, purpose, design, intent, and spirit have all been changed. Therefore it is not the same game. I have never seen a 3E game played that looked at all familiar or in almost any way similar to my 1E and 2E games. Being different does not automatically condemn it. I just personally think it's pathetic, because it's an emasculated game pretending to be the real thing.
And for the record, I don't care how wildly successful 4E is, and I don't care if it flops to badly that they can't sell 50 units in the first year of release (though admittedly, the latter would be a lot more fun to laugh about!). No matter what it does, it doesn't affect me. Never has, never will. I just enjoy commenting on the crapification of a game (notice I said
a game, not
the game).
D&D lost. The role-playing game community has evolved passed them.
Sorry, but you won't get any agreement from me there. It's not a matter of losing. Mankind on every level achieves lofty heights, only to then fall from grace, so to speak. This happens whether we're talking about games, songs, or even societies. America was once truly the land of the free. Now we've become a socialist state that the founding fathers would sooner raze in a conflagration than support. The fall from grace. And so it happens in every society at every level. The basic mechanism is this...
People strive for something better. They create some thing better. They develop that thing until it reaches heights of greatness never imagined by those who originated the thing. Its influence spreads and people enjoy the fruits of those lofty heights. But then most people get lazy and take things for granted, while others get greedy and abuse the system or thing. They all get weak and complacent and they allow that greatness to erode and decay, until it all comes crumbling down.
And so it is with society and so it is with D&D. In fact, this universal law even happens within the cells of our bodies, and we die.
So it's not like there was a vote between AD&D and 3E and AD&D lost. It was a gradual, inevitable erosion of quality that afflicts everything in time. Entropy at work if you will.
It is actually more the fault of TSR than WotC or Hasbro. Somewhere in 2E there was a snapping point. I don't know precisely where that point is but it happened. This is when three camps formed.
I think we agree there, and I think that point was the Player's Options books. That was when they started listening to the whiners and the power gamers and started ruining the game.
The first camp, myself included, drew a line in the sand and said "This is the last PHB I will ever buy." To us, D&D has no future after that. We will dig around on eBay, buy our $4 Paizo PDFs, or download original new content from the web but that is where it stops. We are resistant to change. But we still read the news and complain about how they bastardized the game. They haven't 2E is the same today as it was when we drew the line in the sand.
That'd be me. I bought a lot of 2E stuff, as there was plenty of great material out there (Ruins of Undermountain, Labyrinth of Madness, City of Skulls, Return to the Tomb of Horrors, a bunch of Ravenloft and Forgotten Realms stuff, some Planescape stuff, Birthright, etc). My old gaming group split up a couple of years before 3E came out, and I was curious to see whether 3E was worth getting, sort of a new group/new edition sorta feel. It sucked. I hated it and refused to endorse anything 3E or beyond.
The second group, my DM mentor included, left D&D and moved on to something "better". Is it really nerdy that I have someone I consider my DM mentor?
LOL!
Didn't we
all have one, though?
Okay, I did got to a hockey game tonight. That makes me slightly less of a nerd. Right? Okay where's the tape for my glasses? My mentor, Ed, switched from D&D to Ars Magica. This was a HUGE blow to the D&D community. There are lots of people like this. These are the people who see that D&D is really not mature in terms of todays modern RPGs. These people didn't want to be left behind and wanted the advancement of the larger RPG community.
I never did, and pray I never will, understand the whole "D&D is immature" complaint. It's worked fine for me for 30 years, most of then spent playing with adults. I've never met a person who's complained about this and seen it not be a case where the person just wanted to do something different. It's akin to saying "Monopoly is immature" and then moving on to playing Life.
The third group was small but is growing in numbers. This is the group that Hasbro appears to be catering to. It is a large group and it is why Hasbro is trying to get as many of them as they can. They are the people coming to the game from WoW or from Magic. This is the group where the large amount of money can be made. Hasbro is going to milk it for all it is worth.
So true. Disposable and obedient sheep who buy what's shoveled out to them. Faithful consumers who will pay for the privelege of owning overpriced toilet paper. That's what they want. Love of money is the root of all evil. We don't need the Seven Deadly Sins. Just one...Greed. The other all stem from Greed.
Just keep playing the game you like. When you play, pull out your 2nd Edition books and play. When people laugh or chuckle (I've never had it happen) invite them into your game. If they still laugh or mock you, just give 'em a smile and let 'em know you will be there when they are complaining about the 4.5 upgrade. invite them back. When you DM a game, make as much new content as you can and make it available. If not, all D&D is going to go away.
D&D (the true game) will always live as long as there are people intelligent enough to appreciate an intelligent game, as long as there are people who understand the mythological roots of the game, as long as these people keep it alive. About the only thing that can stop me from playing is an apocalyptic situation where the entire country is in survival mode and I have to go into hunter/killer mode just to survive and protect loved ones (and I truly do see this coming, sooner than we think). Even then, I'll be playing now and then around the campfire to relax. I may even fashion the bones of my enemies into dice!
Wow, what a rant. I probably should go back and edit but I am not going to. I am lazy and I need another beer. Second Edition D&D is a great game. Nothing about 3.x or 4e is going to take away from that greatness. Complaining about how horrible everything has become isn't going to make 2E any better or make 4E any better either. All WE can do is create as much quality content for the game we love.
No argument there. But I still love ripping on a greedy company that insists on churning out crap for the masses and keep lowering the standard by catering to the ever-lowering lowest common denominator.
Actually, I just want to make sure my line in the sand is still secure. I want to make that decision on my own. It isn't the type of decision that can be made by flipping through books in the book store. It isn't the type of decision I can make on other people's impressions.
I am still in the first camp. I just might be throwing $62.97 away to be certain.
Wow. I'm glad I know my tastes well enough not to waste the time and money to verify it that way!
In my eyes, it's too costly to have to buy everything before knowing how I feel about it. I've developed an almost sixth sense for sniffing crap, and I know it right off the bat. Saves me lots of time, aggravation, and money!
Seriously, that was the point I was attempting to make. No one is directly forcing anyone to change their game. Thankfully my books don't have a shelf life. They stay durable and will last me longer than I will ever need them for. Except for that damned Unearthed Arcana. That book was horrible, in a physical sense.
