And why aren't there more CoC edition wars?  :mad:

Sure, only an incredibly anal-retentive nitpicker with tons of free time and an eye for meticulous levels of detail could even tell the difference between the editions.  But this is the Internet!  There should be hundreds of people out there that fit the bill.

Quote from: SgtSpaceWizardIt reminds me of how the US spent a ton of money to create a fountain pen that would work in zero gravity while the Soviets just used pencils...

Ballpoint, surely.

Anyway, I think Spike's account makes perfect sense, and furthermore it explains a great number of other geek wars.

Basically, it comes down to network externalities.

Quote from: jgantsAnd why aren't there more CoC edition wars?  :mad:

Because nobody can read the question "which CoC do you prefer" without giggling, and it's impossible to fight a war when you and everyone else in the foxhole with you are tittering like school girls.

Quote from: MoriartyI would never log onto dragonsfoot.org and drop a "You folks need to get over this new edition thing," bomb.

Sheepishly, I have to admit that I did do something somewhat like this, though unwittingly. Specifically, I reviewed some old school Arduin supplements at DF and was dogpiled for not reviewing them solely as AD&D 1e supplements. Basically, there was an unclear guideline that ended up being enforced as a rule, essentially stating that all products, regardless of their actual content, must be reviewed as AD&D 1e supplements and only AD&D 1e supplements.

Pretty much, they didn't want actual reviews of products, but opinions about how a given product would work with AD&D 1e. Of course, this isn't at all the same thing as a review, hence the confusion. If it had been handled well, my reaction would have been less extreme than it was (I got very  pissy), but as I said -- I was immediately dogpiled and basically flamed to hell and back right off the bat by two mods.

I tried to explain the confusion and was basically told that, in reality, reviews are not about examining what products actually contain or what they were designed for. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I don't know what reality that is, but it's certainly not this reality. So, I basically fell into an unintentional trap that was the result of a very unusual definition of "review" (do note that I reviewed products professionally at the time, so the definition that I used was the industry standard for such things).

In retrospect, I'm ashamed that I let the DF mods push my buttons like I did, which pretty much sums up the situation -- there was a simple misunderstanding that got blown way out of proportion by non-standard use of the word "review", overly aggressive moderation, and my tendency to react poorly to very aggressive moderation. As I understand it, the DF review guidelines have been updated, but still use the same non-stanadard definitions of commonplace words, so I suspect that I won't be the last well-meaning individual who falls prey to the aforementioned confusion.

[Note: This isn't quite the same thing that we were talking about early on, because it wasn't intentional and because DF ostensibly welcomes all old school game discussion (I found this to be less than true after joining, but it is the image that they try hard to cultivate on forums other than their own).]

jdrakeh: the purpose of the reviews section on Dragonsfoot is indeed to examine products from an "old-school" viewpoint. Its aims, like the aims of the site in general, are more specific than, say, RPG.Net. That's not something to complain about - that's just the way things are over there. There are several general-purpose sites where these restrictions don't apply.

The first RPG I ever played was Basic D&D, the redbox 1983 edition. Then I 'upgraded' to AD&D 1st edition. Then I moved, 2nd edition came out and I found a new gaming group and we played mainly AD&D 2nd/w some 1st edition stuff thrown in. We also played many other games, from Robotech, Rifts, and 2300AD to Paranioa and Tales from the floating vagabond. We saw 3 editions of White Wolf's products come and go with nary a word said......

Then 3rd edition D&D showed up...... and...... well..... I think the phase "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" was everyone's first response. To us, it looked like a bad fusion of Basic D&D, AD&D and some cheesy video game.

I almost despaired over a game we had so much fun with, for I knew it would be harder to find new players who played 2nd/1st edition AD&D.

Then Hackmaster showed up. If you can ignore the silliness (which isn't much) it's a solid game.

I really, really don't like 3.x at all. Bu you know what? Whining on some forum will not get it fixed.

Bitching at people who actually like the new edition will not get it fixed. (And will make damn sure they'll never try the 'better' edition you keep ranting to them about will be played by them)

Luckily for me, this is the computer age, with PDFs and Ebay. I can stock up on my 'old school' books and ignore 3.x till it either goes under, gets an edition I can stand, or they revert (Yea, I'll be holding my breath for the last one)

Quote from: Melanjdrakeh: the purpose of the reviews section on Dragonsfoot is indeed to examine products from an "old-school" viewpoint.

I get that now. The thing is that it wasn't clearly stated as a rule at the time and, to complicate matters, there is a misleading remark about reviews of all products being welcome (this is not the case, as I found out). Point is, the official FAQ was poorly written and misleading.

Also, while I caught some flack for reviewing a few products that weren't "old school" due to the aformentioned poorly worded direction, I also caught flack for reviewing Arduin supplements on the grounds that they weren't "old school" -- and if Arduin supplements aren't "old-school", then nothing is.

Point is, the Dragonsfoot reviews section isn't about some of the things that it claims to be about (welcoming non-biased reviews of all products), but almost exclusively about supporting AD&D 1e (as opposed to general "old school") with the reviews specifically biased in that regard.

I'm not saying that (i.e., the bias) is bad, mind you. All I'm saying is that the explanation of what the forum's purpose is suffers from contrary and unclear statements, as well as poor organization. For example, this is the first post in the Reviews forum FAQ thread:

QuoteWelcome to the Reviews forum!

A few groundrules:

Let's have each product under it's own topic heading. If there is already a review for the product, post your review in the same topic.

The topic heading should state the name of the product and the system it is for. It also may be useful to have the product code and year it came out, if you know what they are, to differentiate from similarly named products.

It's perfectly O.K. to criticize products and to disagree with previous reviews. But PLEASE give us reasons why. "This product sucks" type criticisms will not be tolerated. Similarly, "this product rules" type praise will also not be welcomed unless you tell us why. I don't expect print-worthy essays, but give us a sentence or two at the least.

MOST IMPORTANT!!! Reviews of all kinds of RPG products, new and old are welcome here. But, I won't let this forum become a proxy for a new Editions Wars forum. Keep things polite.

Questions as to the rules should be addressed in this thread.

This post says that reviews of all products are welcome and does not mention a specific context that they must be presented in. Nothing about being limited to "old school" reviews. Nothing about being limited to discussions about compatability with AD&D 1e. None of that. As it turns out, nearly the entire substance of this post is contradicted in the second official FAQ post:

QuoteHis vision fits mine, and we're looking for reviews from an "'old school' perspective" in line with the rest of the fora on this site. Reviews of the latest d20 products are fine, but please let us know how, and to what extent, it can be used with OOP D&D.

Those who simply wish to post a review of a d20 product without addressing its utility to the grognard are encouraged go to [other sites].

Herein, the earlier statement about all reviews being welcome is voided, very specifically. Now, only reviews which examine a product's compatability with OOP D&D editions are welcome. So which post takes predence? Both still exist in the FAQ and neither is clearly marked as superceeding the other. Why wasn't the original post deleted to edited to include the specific conditions of the second post?

The FAQ thread is disorganized and contradictory, as well as somewhat vague where what constitutes "old school perspective" -- I was told that Arduin didn't and that only AD&D 1e and OD&D did. So why isn't that made clear in the FAQ? Why is this stipulation not made clear in writing?

My mistake was an honest one, caused by my reading the FAQ thread which raised more questions than it answered. I suspect that it still does. My point was that my posting "inappropriate" reviews at Dragonsfoot wasn't the malicious act that may of the mods painted it as, nor were my attempts to illustrate what I have herein (the misleading and contradictory nature of the FAQ thread). Rather than have a discussion, though, most of the mods imemdiately dogpiled me and accused me of being some kind of sabateour which, as mentioned earlier, caused me to get pissy in response.

And, as I mentioned, that wasn't my intent. I just wanted to post some reviews.

jdrakeh: that's a fair point. While I like DF (being a regular), I have some issues with their moderation - nothing like the abuse of power at RPG.Net, but rather a sort of inconsistency and vagueness that often makes it unpredictable... and sometimes hard to determine what the mods really want. Maybe it's a Brit thing, having an unwritten constitution and all.

Quote from: jgantsAnd why aren't there more CoC edition wars?  :mad:

Sure, only an incredibly anal-retentive nitpicker with tons of free time and an eye for meticulous levels of detail could even tell the difference between the editions.  But this is the Internet!  There should be hundreds of people out there that fit the bill.

That game has been a disaster ever since they got rid of the Botany skill!

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWhat's infuriating about bad editions is very simple: they're too close to good editions. Like Highlander 2, they sully a good thing with the expansive aura of their badness. But this is easily remedied--don't watch Highlander 2.

I think you've got it.  Don't watch Highlander 2.  But how plausible is it to be active in the RPG community and ignore d20?  When the 900lb. gorilla in the room has your game's name on it, it's not exactly healthy to pretend it isn't there.