Edition Changes and updates

Hello to anyone that reads my blog. I have had a bit of trouble coming up with ideas but recently I actually managed to come up with something that might be interesting, game edition shifts and updates. They always tend to cause frustration in people as well as hope, hope for improvements and streamlining. Hope that major issues in the current game will be fixed and that the new system will emerge stronger and better organized. In essence the players hope for a more evolved system, and just as often people fear the changes. They fear the system that they've grown comfortable with changing into something foreign. They fear a system that makes players too strong or weak, that radically changes how things were done. Every time that a game changes editions there is a barbeque of sacred cows.

Talk to anyone that has a favorite game or system, when D&D changed from 2nd to 3rd edition, and when 3.5 came out, and again when it became 4th edition there were complaints on each one, some loud, some quiet. Some reasoned, some simple rage, but the complaints filled blogs and forums. The same is true for the new world of darkness and the new versions of the settings that were brought forward, when Deadlands became Savage Worlds the same thing happened. It happens regardless, but the big question should really be what creates the hostility, and for that matter why do some people jump forward to the new system, only to leave it later?

I already mentioned some of what caused my group to jump to 4th edition when it came out. It created a system where all the classes were in fact playing the same game, gameplay was more streamlined, and overall the system was far more balanced. Now this opinion changed over time, as you can see by going through my archives. What I find interesting is that looking back at it 4th edition seemed to fall apart as fast as it produced new things to fix itself, but I digress. The stuff for Deadlands between the original formats and the Savage World settings are also worth studying. Armor and toughness are different so are the concepts of arcane backgrounds and power growth. While I can see some definite advantages in the new system I find myself preferring the old one.

Gamma world is another example, look at each edition, each one had a different attitude and style, some more serious than others. I will say I quite like the latest incarnation that uses the 4th edition model, and uses it much better than the 4th edition game IMO. What is it that brings us to keep an edition or leap to the new one, I have a few guesses.

1) Fear of change or desire for it can motivate the migration or staying with an edition. In some cases people are comfortable with an older system and are more willing to use a few houserules and argue that a new edition will either be unnecessary or will introduce new problems and headaches, aside from having to relearn the mechanics. Similarly, there are people who get frustrated with a system and having to alter it, remake it, and in some cases have entire books devoted to clarifying rules (The Rules Compendium of 3.5 was a great argument for 4th edition let me say). For world of darkness it could have been trying to juggle rules between different 'settings' like Werewolf, Vampire, Mage, etc. It also could have been the fact that their tabletop and larping systems reacted very differently and had a lot of balance complaints.

2) Sacred Cows, once again this is an area that causes people to want to change or want to keep. People will sometimes look at a game and say "This isn't X" people would say that 4th edition wasn't D&D, that the products for the New World Of Darkness weren't 'really' Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, etc. The usual reason for it was that the sacred cows had ben barbecued, vanican spellcasting was gone, class distinctions were annihilated or reshaped. Principles that had guided design for supernatural beings in the world of darkness were suddenly wildly different. Some people hated these things, I will say that Vancian Spellcasting is probably one of the biggest problems for game balance in 3.5 D&D and in the current Pathfinder. I will also say that getting rid of it as they did also probably helped create some of the problems that 4th edition faced. Some people are afraid of losing something that's been part of the system from the get-go, and others see those things as either anachronisms or bad design choices.

3) Cash, a simple one, and more towards keeping to an older edition. If you have a game that runs well the idea of forking over more money for new books that essentially invalidate your old ones can be infuriating. And it can also be annoying that things you would have been happy to pay money for (expansions on a few new power systems, books for greater customization levels, etc.) are no longer being made for your game of choice, at least in the incarnation you have most of the other stuff for.

4) Simplicity, another argument in either direction. A person familiar with an edition will usually know all the necessary rules or at least have houserules and rulings to deal with hiccups. That being said there can be huge rule cludges that are either avoided or rewritten, things that come up after multiple sourcebooks and errata colliding with one another as well as the ubiquitous problem of player inventiveness. New editions tend to be fairly simple to start off, rules are streamlined and USUALLY the books don't have too many glaring errors or problems, but you usually have to relearn the system and rules not to mention the problem of dealing with new errata and rulebooks adding new features and changing things.

Now playing groups and the like are part of it too but those are a bit more subjective and this is more based on personal desires one way or the other. Any other ideas, comments, etc. are welcome. I hope to hear from someone.