Anyone ever seen those t-shirts that say “4.0 Killed Gary”? They’re tasteless and insensitive, and kind of silly when you think about it. I mean, what is it with pen-and-paper roleplayers? Let me be clear here: I most certainly fall into this category. I have thousands of dollars of roleplaying books on one of the shelves in my apartment. There’s almost always a book within arm’s reach. I have books from countless systems, editions, companies, settings, games. I have two editions of Exalted, one of Engel, a small collection of Sword and Sorcery, some assorted book’s with Monte Cook on the cover (for the sole reason of his name), a massive collection of 3.5 books, the 4.0 core set, the Forgotten Realms and Neverwinter books for 3.5 and 4.0, a smattering of AD&D books (it was before my time, sadly, and I do not understand THAC0), a first edition Dungeons and Dragons boxed set, a monster manual that was copywritten in 1973, Vampire: The Requiem, Vampire: The Masquerade, the old World of Darkness books, the new World of Darkness books, Iron Kingdoms, Inquisitor, Ravenloft, Gurps, and several notebooks with systems of my own devising.
In short, I have no problems with many multiple pen-and-paper systems.
And truth be told, in other realms of nerdygamerness, I embrace wholly the new school and plow forward, full steam ahead. I love 6th edition 40k. I wasn’t a big fan of 5th, but I didn’t hold protest rallies and refuse to touch anything but fourth. I embrace Mists of Pandaria and fight my inner demons of Anger, Violence, Hatred, Despair, Doubt, and Fear. I have bashed my head against Horridon several times in a furious flurry of catching up to the guilds ahead of Eccentric Serenity. I have been pushing Endgame content since the Lich King opened up. I have played many a type-2 deck, and although I never let my Extended deck fall too far to the wayside, I also constantly update it with new cards.
I embrace the new-school in aspects of my real-life job, working with the newest concepts, studies, and techniques. I fancy myself a novelist in my spare time, and I work towards modern storytelling techniques and shun the much-loved and much-read classic ideals of info-dumping and overdescribing. I eat modern food like squid ink pasta and dishes with creme fraiche and shallots. I’m a tiny bit of a technophile who will be posting this from my iPhone 5. I don’t always have to have the newest tech/gadget/gizmo/edition/whatever, but let’s be real here, that’s only because I can’t afford to upgrade all the time.
So what is it with pen-and-paper roleplayers? Why is it that we resist the new editions? Why can’t they, at the very least, coexist?
I’m not going to lie. I did not enjoy fourth edition D&D. But truthfully it wasn’t beacuse of the system. Actually, the power card idea, the encounter powers, daily powers, the idea that fighters and whatnot could have once-a-day things is pretty cool. Combat is quick and bloody, leaving you more time to “role” play instead or “roll” play. Skills are highly streamlined, making them less random and more important to roleplay it out. Rules are deleted. Things are tightened. In general, it’s as good as system, as well-designed as any other. The reason I didn’t like 4.0 was the setting – I mean, tieflings and dragonborn in the core rulebook? One of my biggest pet peeves is the assertion of so many campaign settings that humans make up 70%+ of the world, and your adventuring party is going to consist of a half-elf, two elves, a dwarf, and a dragonborn. I mean, where did that come from? Shouldn’t the standard party be three humans, a dwarf, and maybe you’ll walk with a dragonborn NPC for a while? Wouldn’t that be more realistic? Woah, tangent…reel it in…
Right. So I tried the 5th Edition (D&D Next) playtest, and it’s kinky and buggy. It retains a lot of the streamlining of fourth that so many people hated, and a couple of good rules – Advantage and Disadvantage, for example – and it’s very very empty and partial right now. Hard to play an actual game, but possible if you work at it.
And just like fourth, it seems everyone hates it.
Why can’t the systems live together? Why can’t there be 4.0 games and 3.5 games and Next games and AD&D games that run side-by-side? Or don’t play the new stuff if you don’t want to. But why do we hate it? Why do we embrace newness in EVERYTHING ELSE and we shun the newer RP systems? It’s not like you get attached to your character and then find it broken – I mean, my hunter no longer uses Mana, let’s be real here, other systems break characters all the time. So what the hell, nerds? Where did this come from?
And in the wise words of a taco commercial, porque no las dos?
There will always be those that resist change. It’s especially painful when you sink a lot of money into a game, only to have the next edition completely torpedo everything. At least with changing editions in say, Warhammer, you still get to keep using your miniatures and such, which for most people far makes up the bulk of their purchases. Buying new rulebooks and codexes is annoying… But it’s not like dumping everything and starting over fresh, the way that 3.5 to 4th edition did in D&D, or a new set of Magic cards does.
But of course, there is nothing preventing you from playing your older games, if you can find groups for them. Where lies the problem… As a game changes rule sets and new people get into games, they tend to go for whatever the latest version is, especially when older books become harder to find. People tend to get dragged into new editions even if they would rather stick to an old rule set (people still love to play 1st and 2nd edition D&D). Fortunately, with the open licensing agreement Wizards did with 3.x, that version is still going pretty strong, especially with Pathfinder these days.
So in the end, there is no reason you can’t play both. It just often winds up being more difficult as time goes on to find people who want to play older versions of existing games..
And for the record, while I like some of the things in ver 4 of D&D, The over all simplification of the game and focus on miniature combat (ironically enough for me) was what made me uninterested in keeping to play it.
I was one of the ones who embraced 4th ed D&D. I had more reason to hate it than anyone, too. It contributed to the death of my game store. When a new edition is announced, sales tend to waver. Yuck.
I liked the card/powers mechanic alot! I didn’t like the ‘everyone is the same’ vibe though. I loved that it was heavily miniature based (Because I have a few…) and that new products were being made for it. Best of all, everyone was on the same level as far as the rules went. I always hated in 3.5 when a player would throw an obscure rule at me that I wasn’t aware of. There just got to be too many.
Gamers, I have found, are resistant to change on a whole. They’re loyal, devoted and sometimes rabid. I don’t know if that’s a psychology thing or what, but I’ve seen it. And lived it. Just ask me to play The Masquerade and see what happens.;)
I think resisting change is a human thing. People are in general more comfortable with routine. And when their routine changes… well, I think ‘rabid’ was the word Cami used.
It’s been an interesting experience for me learning about the different games and systems within the games, as well as learning which is ‘better’ or ‘worse.’ I come from a world dominated by sports, football specifically, and I’m finding that the loyalty people have towards specific D&D systems (or whichever game) is similar to the loyalty people have towards their colleges. It doesn’t matter how many flaws you point out to a Buckeye about their team, they are and always will be an alum of THE Ohio State… *eye roll*. Again, the word ‘rabid’ is fitting for these types of people.
Anyways, my point is that I think between comfort in a rule system people know and the sense of pride people feel to defend something they’ve identified so closely with, I’ve learned to quietly observe until I’m prepared to defend my opinion to the death… at least when it comes to these pen and paper role playing games.