The real problem with Edition Warring isn't that it's jerks saying mean things about a game you like and they don't - it's that it shits the bed of conversation whenever it crops up.

So you're talking about your favorite 3rd Edition adventures, or which clans in Vampire the Masquerade are the best, or whatever and some dude comes along and declares that your brain is obviously broken because you're not discussing 4e or Requiem, or that you should just fuck yourself and use Fate or GURPS. Then the thread or conversation becomes about yelling at that guy, not about the original topic.

Welcome Rom!

Id love to say I'm an edition warrior for Gamma World. But each edition has been at times so radically different from the previous that they essentially are seperate games that just happen to share some names... I'd rather focus on the edition changes rather than demeaning someone who likes XYZ version.

But in general I just look at each edition of "whatever" and note what works and what does not. I just dont get why people feel some deep seated need to demean the edition that guy over there likes. Especially when someone playing the other edition can be playing it radically differently from the next person playing the same edition.

Id rather look at broken rules and things that just dont click.
Id rather look at how the setting has been changed, sometimes radically so. And THIS is what is important to me. The setting.

Star Frontiers vs Zebulons Guide
Gamma World vs d20 GW and D&D GW (Nano World and Wacky World)
Shadow Run vs 3rd ed (Never seen, but others keep mentioning various things that were changed for the worse.)
Dragonlance vs 5th Age
Metamorphosis Alpha vs New MA
WOD vs NWOD (Havent seen it personally. But to date havent met anyone who plays NWOD who likes the changes to the setting.)

etc.

Others just seem to like to tout their personal favorite and demean anyone elses just to piss people off.

Then you have the cattle who hate/love this or that edition because someone told them to hate/love it.

And lastly the really weird cases. People edition warrioring who have very obviously never played the game, or even read the rules. This is where it stops being edition warrioring and leaps headlong into the loony bin.

Such is gaming. You see this with board gaming too. Though usually its more cases of "I hate this game because my snob buddies told me to hate this game." syndrom. I think Descent was the closest example of edition warrioring as it changed the rules enough to cause fraction.

And that children is the real crux of the problem. Change the rules or setting too much and invariably you are going to cause a fraction of the players. About the only people who like that are the edition junkies who are salivating for the next edition a day after the current one is out.

One time 30 years ago when we were playing D&D, someone asked me:

"Would you like some like diet like cola?"

To which I replied:

"Do you mean: 'like diet like cola' or like, 'diet cola'".

To which they said:

"Diet like cola."

and I was like:

"No."

What I dislike about this talk of "edition warriors" is that it creates a standard where basically hobbyists have to sing kumbaya with everybody else, all things are equal, criticism in any shape or form is bad and "against the hobby", and you're not free to basically like what you like, dislike what you dislike, say so, and explain your reasons for saying so. It's basically a "one true way" argument where all things are basically the same and you can't talk about differences on their own merits. This is bullshit.

I think the term "edition warriors" means jack shit. It's a made up term to basically say "these are the people whose opinions we don't like and whom we want to brand as bad for the hobby." It's basically a bullying term. What you've got instead in the real world is people with different opinions and takes on different things, different games, whatever, and either they make cogent arguments about what they think and how they think about it, or they don't.

No need for a new term for that.

There's also a heavy dose of irony in these types of discussions. The same people who will tell you that "game balance" is "objectively better game design" or who tell you that "ascending AC is objectively superior to descending AC because" are the same ones who will bitch at others for saying this or that is "objectively" superior to what they like. Sounds to me like some gamers need to take a healthy dose of their own medicine before ranting about "edition warriors".

Quote from: Benoist;728852What I dislike about this talk of "edition warriors" is that it creates a standard where basically hobbyists have to sing kumbaya with everybody else, all things are equal, criticism in any shape or form is bad and "against the hobby", and you're not free to basically like what you like, dislike what you dislike, say so, and explain your reasons for saying so. It's basically a "one true way" argument where all things are basically the same and you can't talk about differences on their own merits. This is bullshit.

I think the term "edition warriors" means jack shit. It's a made up term to basically say "these are the people whose opinions we don't like and whom we want to brand as bad for the hobby." It's basically a bullying term. What you've got instead in the real world is people with different opinions and takes on different things, different games, whatever, and either they make cogent arguments about what they think and how they think about it, or they don't.

I think the term gets applied more to people who stop discussing the pros and cons of this or that edition vs the other and who start attacking the people who like this or that other edition. Or take their dislike of some other edition too far.

Or at least should mean that. I agree the term, like alot of gaming terms, has lost its meaning as people apply it to things its not meant to.

It's basically a question of politeness and etiquette.

It's okay to have polite discussion about the pros and cons about the games.  The difference is where people start putting emotion into it.  There is absolutely no reason to demean or dismiss the actual players of the games, for instance.  Dislike 4e all you want, for instance, but don't call players who like it 4ons.  Same with OSR Fans, don't call them insulting terms (I'd use the term Grognards but its debated if that's insulting or a badge of honor in some camps).

There's a reason why we have rules like civility, etiquette, and manners.  That seems to get lost lately on message boards.  

When people are complaining about edition warriors, they complain about two things.

• The people who are the warriors are the people who are being rude about their own opinions.
• A battle between editions is something a lot of people get sick of.  We're dealing with a hobby where people are averaging between 30-60 years old.  If a person is so passionate about games that they forget how to be decent to other human beings, most of the public, as well as a lot of the gaming peers, will think people are taking it too far.

Quote from: Benoist;728852(snip)

Come on.  Are you genuinely claiming that you don't see the difference between:

Player A)  No, sorry, I like this edition, not that one.  I prefer X, Y and Z features, and I don't like how the other edition changed V, Q and W features.  I'd really prefer to play the edition I like.

Player C)  What the hell is wrong with you?  Only a moron would like THAT edition!  Don't you know that it's the {older, obsolete piece of crap/newer piece of crap that the bastards fucked up}?  Get with the program!

For my part, I'm quite happy with calling a bully a bully, I'm not into "blame-the-victim," and I don't automatically presume that the one at fault in an argument is the first person to complain about the other's egregious behavior.  What is, in fact, "bullshit" is the straw man presumption that failure to rip someone a new asshole for having different preferences than you is tantamount to imposing bland conformity and suppressing likes and dislikes.  Seriously, man, do you really feel you can't tell someone you disagree with him without cussing him out?

Quote from: JRT;728858It's basically a question of politeness and etiquette.


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Its not at all a question of etiquette. It's a question of facts.

"I fucking hate everyone I've ever met who fucking plays that fucking game" is not necessarily a lie or edition warring. It's reportage.

"If you like ____(1e, AD&D, 4e, Pathfinder, whatever)____ you're a retard" is a lie.

You can have a conversation that makes sense with someone who would type the first thing. You can talk about that.

The person who would type the second thing either:

-has irrational beliefs (so fuck them, they're useless)
or
-is willing to type things even they don't think are true (so fuck them, they're useless)

...politeness is no part of it.

Quote from: Ravenswing;728935Come on.  Are you genuinely claiming that you don't see the difference between:

Player A)  No, sorry, I like this edition, not that one.  I prefer X, Y and Z features, and I don't like how the other edition changed V, Q and W features.  I'd really prefer to play the edition I like.

Player C)  What the hell is wrong with you?  Only a moron would like THAT edition!  Don't you know that it's the {older, obsolete piece of crap/newer piece of crap that the bastards fucked up}?  Get with the program!

Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn't. But this thread wasn't about that. This thread is not about expressing opinions about games, no matter whether the opinions are nice (Player A) or vicious (Player C).

This thread is about Player D -- assuming Player D is really a player at all -- who interrupts every thread with something that basically translates as "I WILL FIGHT YOU ALL!" A thread derailer. And my point was that, although there are some "Player Ds" who interrupt threads to say "THAT EDITION SUCKS!" there are many times more "Player Ds" who interrupt threads to say "I CALL YOU AN EDITION WARRIOR!"

And I see no difference between the two.

I'll spell it out again, a different way:

If Person X says something about a game, and Person Y accuses Person X of "edition warring", unless Person X is going around derailing discussions, Person Y is the bastard who should be shunned.

Don't be Person Y.

Quote from: talysman;728946Person X is going around derailing discussions,

As soon as someone says something verifiably untrue, they've derailed the discussion.

You then have to stop building rational arguments up from agreed-on, known premises and address (already clear) premises ("People are different, different games are going to be better for different groups blah blah blah"). You literally have to go backwards in the conversation. Sophisticated goals are sacrificed because x number of the people in the conversation will take up the problem, of addressing the low-on-the-pyramid obvious that the edition warrior brought up.

So the edition warrior is, by claiming objective superiority for their game, by definition derailing. And if everyone can identify them, they can simply cut this process out of existence and their ability to derail.

Quote from: Zak S;728948As soon as someone says something verifiably untrue, they've derailed the discussion.

No, as soon as someone says something verifiably untrue, and someone else notices, whichever one of them makes a big deal about it derails the discussion.

In real life, people say all sorts of things that are verifiably untrue. But the vast majority of these are in passing and often unnoticed. Conversation moves on. Most of the urban legends, for example, or things like "Eskimos have X words for snow" or "The Chinese symbol for 'crisis' is 'danger' + 'opportunity'." And thousands of other little snippets of fake truth. And also, in real life, people say stuff like "Prog Rock sucks", or otherwise try to project their feelings and opinions onto the thing they have feelings about.

But these are just rhetorical devices or sloppy speech or other BS that's part of chitchat. If someone comes back with "your statement is verifiably untrue and I am going to prove it with this extensive list of facts," ordinary people think THAT guy is the jerk. Unless you are actually in some kind of debate environment, like a political pundit show, you aren't supposed to dominate the conversation with your massive demonstration of brainpower.

It's the dickish behavior, not the content of the conversation, that is bad.

Quote from: talysman;728956No, as soon as someone says something verifiably untrue, and someone else notices, whichever one of them makes a big deal about it derails the discussion.

Incorrect, because...

QuoteIn real life, people say all sorts of things that are verifiably untrue. But the vast majority of these are in passing and often unnoticed.

...and that's a problem in RPG discussions because whatever they are about to say after that is usually built on that false premise. Particularly because, in this case, it's directly related to the RPG topic.  So until it's addressed, the conversation is not going to go anywhere.

This is why threads can go on for pages and pages and go nowhere: because people politely ignore the underlying bullshit that supports a false idea. Because they're not really talking about the root problem that that willingness to lie indicates. The root problem is usually something like "Dipshit refuses to believe their RPG group is not the only one on earth, or absolutely representative of most groups".

QuoteBut these are just rhetorical devices or sloppy speech or other BS that's part of chitchat.

Or, more often, it's part of rhetorical devices or sloppy speech that's lead the person to their dumb worldview in the first place. Like for instance "The game's about what the rules are about". So sloppy. So wrong. So often repeated.
http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-games-about-what-game-has-rules.html

QuoteIt's the dickish behavior, not the content of the conversation, that is bad.

It's definitely the content of the conversation that's the problem. If someone could be a dick edition warrior and say true, interesting things, that'd be great--but that doesn't happen. Taking all the trouble to register on a forum and play a game and read about it and then type about it to some total stranger and then--after all that investment--not even have the sense to try to make sense? That's a deep deep psychological problem. It's like saying someone carries wet fish testicles everywhere and prays to them every 15 minutes but says true, interesting things.

The only insight the edition warrior ever produces is insight into the psychosis and trauma that causes them to edition war.

Quote from: Zak S;728937Its not at all a question of etiquette. It's a question of facts.

"I fucking hate everyone I've ever met who fucking plays that fucking game" is not necessarily a lie or edition warring. It's reportage.

"If you like ____(1e, AD&D, 4e, Pathfinder, whatever)____ you're a retard" is a lie.

You can have a conversation that makes sense with someone who would type the first thing. You can talk about that.

The person who would type the second thing either:

-has irrational beliefs (so fuck them, they're useless)
or
-is willing to type things even they don't think are true (so fuck them, they're useless)

...politeness is no part of it.

Actually, I believe you're wrong here.  If you start off with a sentence like that, even if they can have a conversation, it really starts it off on the wrong foot.  It's not just irrational arguments that cause problems, it's emotional ones.

Quote from: talysman;728956It's the dickish behavior, not the content of the conversation, that is bad.

When people say someone is an edition warrior, i think really that is basically what is meant, it is very specific kind if dickish behavior.

I think there is a fine line here, because passion and opinion can be good. Gamers tend to have strong views about gaming, which is fine. At a certain point though, it becomes dickish (and most of us propably inadvertantly veer into that territory when we get frustrated in rpg discussions). Its the folks who do this regularly, loudly crapping on every thread and derailing discussions that get on my nerves (the folks who will endlessly debate minor side points in a discussion). I have no problem passing judgment on people who engage in that sort of behavior. I agree though, you dont want to establish rigid rules that make expressing any negative or positive opinion about an edition an act of edition warring. I strongly dislike fourth edition and will gladly tell people why it doesnt feel like D&D to me. But i dont jump into threads where people are discusding their latest 4e campaign or discussing aspects of the system, to announce my dislike and prove that their latest campaign sucked.