3 comments on “The Art of Falling Behind

  1. 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.

  2. 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.;)

  3. 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.

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