Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So my friends started bitching and complaining because D&D started development on a new edition and they all threw their hands up and said they'd quit. While its refreshing to see that that kind of negativity isn't isolated to 40K, it actually really annoyed me. They all took the position they they were going to have to discard all their old books (Burning them was one of their quotes) when D&D is one of the few systems that doesn't force you to update if you like the old rules.

Try going to a GT and say you want to play Warhammer 7th or 40K 3rd and see how far that gets you. Magic the gathering and Warhammer can be played on the competitive scene for prizes and profits. You can play a friendly game with old rules, sure, but there will be few takers probably but the situation is not the same for D&D players. Anyway, I'm not sure how other people feel about this but this was my response to their pages of bitching and the sky is falling-ness:

"So, Wait, wait, they just STARTED working on 5th ed. They're a big company sure, but it will still take a long while to get everything together into a form that will be presentable. We're looking at a year or two until it starts getting released. There's a while still. Most games like this are on a 4-6 year cycle anyway. When did 4th ed come out? 2009? And we're looking at a 2013 release earliest, (Probably) So that's normal for game sets.

Plus, this isn't Magic or Warhammer 40K, they don't actually force you to buy new content to keep playing. (Damn army of painted minis) If your game group enjoys playing 4th ed, then you get to keep playing it. It's not like there isn't already a tonne of source books for that so you'll have almost endless variation to continue. If other RPG fans are indication it should be fine. (Did you know I was invited to play in TRAVELLER 1st ed, that rule set is nearly 25 years old and people still play it.)

They're not making you upgrade, you should consider yourself lucky actually. DnD is about the only game system that DOESN'T force you to upgrade/refit/rebuy everything every half decade or sooner. No one's mad when a new Call of Duty or Final fantasy comes out because they don't burn every previous version of those games when they're released. You shouldn't be mad when a new DnD comes out, it may have cool new rules in there that you like. If you don't like them, you DON'T HAVE TO PLAY IT.

It's not a competitive game. You can play 2nd ed if you want or 3rd (But you shouldn't) you don't have to get rid of your old stuff. It should be a happy time to expand your game library or experience new things. So don't throw up in your mouth, don't burn your old books (Mostly cos people will think you're a nazi and it's bad for the environment) if 5th comes out and you don't like it, don't play it and play 4th to your heart's content.

People who should be upset are miniature war gamers who have their entire 450 dollar army invalidated when a new rules edition comes out and if they want to play AT ALL, have to start from the ground up. So calm down people, we don't live in Africa or South East Asia and we're not black people who lived in America in the 40s. We have decent lives and the ability to bitch and whine about something that really doesn't matter. Enjoy 4th ed for a decade and a half if you'd like.

I'm out, peace."

If they had any books from 4th Edition, they were better off burning them anyway.

Hear, hear. I (and my friends) actually used to play a lot of D&D back in 3.5e, and we gave 4e a fair try when it came out. The majority of us didn't like the new rules, and you know what we did? No, we didn't post on the internet bitching about how 4e ruined Dungeons and Dragons, we continued playing 3.5e. Weirdly enough, this is a game that allows for some choices to be made in what edition you play in. Hell, we always considered grabbing the old AD&D books and trying a game in that system.

Although I'll say this, D&D is not exclusively a system that forces you to update - pretty much every RPG system on the planet that has multiple editions can do that as well. I've heard people disliked the latest edition of the Shadowrun rules, so they simply played campaigns in the edition prior.

This seems appropriate

purplefood wrote:This seems appropriate

I was just looking for where I saw that posted earlier. . .

I've just gotten home from an evening of 3.5e. It's the version we've used since it's release and now have most of the books between us. We tried 4e on its release, a friend of ours ran a FLGS at the time and stocked it so he let us borrow it, and decided to save money and stick to the system we both know and prefer.

We'll probably do the same with 5e. Try it and see whether to stick with 3.5e or not.

kirsanth wrote:

purplefood wrote:This seems appropriate

I was just looking for where I saw that posted earlier. . .

Off-topic is useful sometimes

Wait. . .that was in off-topic?

I visited off-topic?!?!

WTH

Does it wash off?

I'am not into DnD myself, but I and my friends did buy into the STAR WARS RPG and when you've bought all of the supplements it can proove annoying since they are invalidated.

Sure all your friends can agree not to buy into the new edition, but my experience was that one of them would go 'oh shiny' and buy the new rule set. Once that happens you're obliged to move to the new ruleset and consequently all your expensive supplements are invalidated. To be fair, taking Star Wars as an example, the new ruleset did have some major benefits in terms of simplicity, overall fun and incorporating NPC stats from episode 3. For me it was just that some supplements that I had invested in, like the Alien adversaries and Dark Side supplement books were not incorporated in the new ruleset but instead I had to wait over a year and buy more supplements to get those rules back. It isn't and wasn't the end of the world; we still play a lot of Star Wars so yeah they are over-reacting by burning their books. In fact, given the additions to the lore many (though some were crap) of the supplements were far richer and diverse: including rules for The Old Republic and Legacy eras than those that came before.

BTW I think this isn't a 40k General Discussion topic but should have been posted elsewhere; I think theres a miscellaneous forum somewhere.

you don't have to play the latest edition of any game as long as you get someone else to agree, my game group still plays 7th ed warhammer and will not update to the new 40k when it comes out either. we refuse to on principle. Games Workshop doesn't force you to update anything at all unless you want to play in their 'ahem' competions, like warhammer is a good competiton game anyway (it isnt)

3.5 is my faveourite D&D set, 4th ed is just pointlessly compliated and is just Mathhammer.

If they want to burn their books let them, it's their books they paid for with their money, The makers of D&D don't care, they got their money.

If the bitching gets too much, tell them to shut up.

Simples

kirsanth wrote:Wait. . .that was in off-topic?

I visited off-topic?!?!

WTH

Does it wash off?

Use fire. Works everytime

Totalwar1402 wrote:BTW I think this isn't a 40k General Discussion topic but should have been posted elsewhere; I think theres a miscellaneous forum somewhere.

At the high level of the conversation you are correct, but what the OP is talking about is the similarities between people in other gaming systems complaining about new editions messing with their ability to get their "game on." So, the OPs point is that it is silly for them to complain when they are not forced to make a change in the format that they play in like table top gaming is.

Seems like a legit point to me, but one hardly worth discussing to this length. I find things like that ironic and only worth smiling about over a cup of coffee.

That was my intention.

40K can be played in a competitive environment and anyone who wants to try will have to play the new editions. I don't even know how you'd play DnD in the same way.

That being said, I think new editions can be fun as long as it doesn't invalidate an entire army. We all have niggling rules complaints and we all like to see what new things are going to be included in a new game, what new mechanic has been added to make it fun or more balanced.

(Thank you not being able to sweeping advance into a new combat, thank you. Screw you True line of sight with badly written cover rules!)

The thing about D&D and GW is that it is not a fair comparison given that house ruling and personal customisability is encouraged more so than GW.

In a D&D setting, if players want to use a house rule or play an earlier edition, as long as there is a DM to moderate it, anything goes. Even still, D&D can only be played in a localised setting therefore it is sort of encouraged to stick to an edition everyone is comfortable with. The new vs old edition thing only becomes an issue with D&D as far as source books are concerned (prior to 4E, older sourcebooks were fairly compatible with 3.5E anyway). Finding players who either play an older edition or extensively house rule ala D&D is a lot harder when it comes to 40k.

With a tabletop wargame like 40k, an edition change is a bigger issue as it tends to invalidate (to a lesser extent) most armies that use army books from a previous edition (because of extensive power creep). As well as this, GW currently doesn’t release errata to ensure older army books are fully compatible/balanced with the newer books. In most cases with an edition change with GW, when an edition changes, your pretty much limited to army books that are either built with the newer edition in mind (unless you enjoy the handcap of using an older army book).

I’ll agree with the OP in that with D&D, there’s not as much justification for “edition change rage” as there is with GW. Even still, if 5E uses the same format as 4E, most 4E sourcebooks could probably be used with 5E anyway (it is only an issue if 5E changes the format as much as 4E did).

When 4.0 came out I played it with a group. No one really liked it. We went back to 3.5

Same with Warhammer. I have some friends I play 4th ed with.

Dang, this is annoying, by the time I manage to teach my friend's brother how to play 4th Ed. and now I'm gonna have to teach him how to play 5th Ed.

I gave 4th edition a fair try but tbh i did not like it at all. So now im playing Pathfinder or was since our group has not been along for ages...(work, family, etc) But its true you dont like the x edition go play y edition, you will find several players that want to give a go

All of your comments about 40k apply equally to D&D. There are formal tournies run for D&D at cons every year that you *must* use the current rules for. There are tools and things they offer that are all geared towards the new rules instead of what you'd like to use anymore. There are formal events run by WotC for D&D through the year in local shops that also require the current ruleset.

So 40k players are no worse off than D&D players will be when a new edition comes out. My group *never* played D&D 3.5, and continued playing a 2nd edition AD&D hybrid version of our own tweaking for years. 4e really bugged me, but then I realized it wasn't the game, but the way people were approaching the game. 4e really made D&D combat exceptional. It is great and takes away all the nebulous confusion of earlier D&D versions. Where the problems came in for me were the people who then focused solely on the combat. I am now running a 4e campaign for a group and running the same exact way I've always run D&D: Heavy on the role playing and having combat encounters to support the story instead of the other way around. It works fine. I will have to say that unless something magical happens with 5th edition I think I have bought my last edition, though. Just don't need to do it.

That said I can play any of my games at any time however I want with willing participants. No matter what game you are discussing a new version causes panic, but the only people who need to even care are those who attend those events that are listed in the first paragraph. I started playing Magic the Gathering again regularly. I don't care about the banned cards, and the specific types of deck options that are forced on tournement players. I just play with friends. I still play the original version of Necromunda and the 2nd edition epic Space Marine game with regularity as well, despite newer versions appearing in the world. Same with D&D. Given the suck job I thought WotC did with Gamma World for D&D 4e, I even broke out my 3rd edition Gamma World boxed set and ran that for a while. That boxed set came out back in the early 80s. Still works just as well with a willing group of players as always.

I don't mind new editions of games coming out, especially when they actually *improve* the game. I hate new versions coming out that are just there because someone thought they needed to come out with a new edition.

A related comment I have is that given the push they are making for "player" feedback on this version I expect it to take a lot longer than 2 years for it to start production. Players can't agree on anything. Hahahahahahahaha! Also it seems like they are setting things up so that if people are unhappy with a new version they can blame their fellow players instead of WotC. Talk about win for WotC.

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Celtic Strike wrote:That being said, I think new editions can be fun as long as it doesn't invalidate an entire army. We all have niggling rules complaints and we all like to see what new things are going to be included in a new game, what new mechanic has been added to make it fun or more balanced.

The problem with GW rules is that they don't *fix* the rules, they *change* the rules. These rules should be super streamlined and near perfect after 5 previous editions in 40k and 8 current editions in WFB. Instead we see old complaints disappear only to have new problems introduced by pointless changes to things that already worked pretty well. That is my biggest issue with new GW editions. We don't usually get *better* games we get *different* games and different does not mean better.

Skriker

At least WotC tell people they ate working on a new game unlike GW who refuse to say anything at and are happy to sell you the old game when they know it only has a life of a couple of months in it.

Howard A Treesong wrote:At least WotC tell people they ate working on a new game unlike GW who refuse to say anything at and are happy to sell you the old game when they know it only has a life of a couple of months in it.

Are any of us really surprised once a new GW version finally comes out? We all know the signs by now...WotC will still *happily* sell 4th edition books until a 5th ediiton is created and has multiple new 4th edition products due to come out this year. I understand your point though. They aren't hiding the fact that 5th edition is coming at all.

Skriker

However,

Multiple, playable editions of the game does hurt DnD.

My group was playing 2.0 when I joined, but we could still use 1.0 books. We eventually moved to 2.5, then 3.0 and 3.5. The transition between games was pretty easy.

4E is a different game. It is a skirmish game with the elements of a story thrown in. Moving from 1.0 to 3.5 is like starting off with a tricycle and moving to a motorbike. Going from 3.5 to 4E is like moving from a motorbike to a helicopter.

How does this hurt the game? By making a version that did not appeal to the broad DnD audience and by not encouraging them to switch over, you fractured the player base. 4E's sales have been tanking, because so many more people stayed with 4E or switched to Pathfinder. Bu hurting the sales of the company, you eventually kill it off.

What they need to do with 5E is make it a game that jumps from 3.5, not 4E.

You also have to recognize that DnD is a niche game and a small hobby and you can't keep restarting the game every couple of years. Adnd lasted from what...78 to 2001? You also can't expect players to keep buying poorly conceived supplemental books. Adventures and miniatures, yes, you can keep selling them.

The best thing Wotc could do to support DnD is to make a Fantasy Batttle Game based in the DnD world. You attract the WFB/Warmachine crowd, and they eventually would get into DnD.

The only thing that really hurts a new version of a game is long standing players not buying into it anymore and the more often that a new version is released the more likely people are going to get tired of the marketing game. I stuck with 2nd edition for so long because they kept adding interesting things to it. When 3rd edition came out I had no interest in "reinventing" the wheel and kept playing 2nd edition. Only started playing 4E when friends wanted to give it a try. At my age buying yet *another* version of D&D is just not in the cards and doesn't interest me in the least. Pretty much the same for Warhammer 40k as well. At this stage about the only thing that could make me want to buy another edition of 40k would be a brand new army that, pointswise, wouldn't work in the current edition or some amazing improvements, and sadly, amazing improvements is not something I've come to expect from new GW game editions.

I am still happy about the upcoming FoW v3 release, because it sounds like they have made some actually useful fixes to the way the rules work and also they are offering to give me a free paperbound version of the new rules if I already own the V2 hardback rulebook. Can't beat that. Don't expect WotC or GW to ever do something like that.

Skriker

Veteran Sergeant wrote:If they had any books from 4th Edition, they were better off burning them anyway.

Can not agree more. 3rd is were it's at. I've met people who still love 2.0 DnD. You need three books to play DnD, three cheap books. Once you buy them you can forget wizards of the coast even exists.

epil wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:If they had any books from 4th Edition, they were better off burning them anyway.

Can not agree more. 3rd is were it's at. I've met people who still love 2.0 DnD. You need three books to play DnD, three cheap books. Once you buy them you can forget wizards of the coast even exists.

I'm glad we got all the way to the second post before the edition wars started.