From 3e to 4e and Back Again or a DM’s Journey Through the 5 stages of grief
Hey all: This is a guest post from the famous “Randy” you’ve all heard so much about. I’m hoping to make his visits a regular feature. Make sure to comment, let him know what you think! - Bob
Losing a game like DnD to a new edition is a lot like losing a loved one . Of course, I can only speak for myself on this ,but I have taken a journey lo these 8 months since the ” ANNOUNCEMENT”. I have followed a path akin to the five stages of grief as defined by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross :
1. Denial and Isolation.
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
I will try my best to describe my journey through these stages. Being a mathematician and general dork, I do love anything sequential and/or numerically coded. Thus lists such as these are quite enjoyable to me.
1. Denial and Isolation-at first, we tend to deny the loss has taken place, and may withdraw from our usual contacts. This stage may last a few moments, or longer.
Oh yes, I lived this one. Luckily, I was all ready in isolation( family vacation in Indiana) when I heard of the impending announcement of 4e from my buddy Bob. He called me from home (Michigan) to let me know. For my poor wife and daughter the whole day was just a barrage of me saying, ” I can’t believe this is happening!” I thank them both profusely for not killing me.
I don’t think I completely believed it to be true until I saw the YouTube videos of the announcement upon my return home. Even then, I secretly hoped the designers would soon say…”gotcha”….no new game. But, they never did.
2. Anger - the grieving person may then be furious at the person who inflicted the hurt(even if she’s dead), or at the world, for letting it happen. He may be angry at himself for letting the event take place, even if, realistically, nothing could have stopped it.
Talk about pissed off. I was beside myself at the notion that after the financial debacle that was 3.5 ( my own debacle, they got me hook-line and sinker) that WOTC was planning on bilking me for another $3-4K. I had spent thousands on this version of the hobby( forget that I had spent almost as much on 2e and 1e before that) ,but this time blast it all …I was done!
And of course , I just knew that my support of 3.5 had caused this upheaval in my favorite RPG. If only me, and others like me had just said NO to 3.5 then they wouldn’t have been bold enough to dare to attempt a re-boot again.
3. Bargaining.- Now the grieving person may make bargains with God, asking, “If I do this, will you take away the loss?”
Here, I began taking comfort in message boards and listening to endless speculation about the failure of 4e. I often found myself thinking that if I do not support 4e then it just won’t happen. Or better yet, if we complain enough WOTC will stop this madness and just produce a 1-book update for all the needed fixes of 3.5 . Yeah, I never said grief was sane…just well,…sad.
4. Depression.- The person feels numb, although anger and sadness may remain underneath.
I most recently worked my way through this stage. It showed itself through apathy. I found myself not wanting to play any DnD at all. I dropped my current DnD campaign some 6 months back and evenly openly wondered if I had lost my desire to play RPG’s at all.
But not long after that short hiatus, I decided to try a different system to try and get my mind off of DnD’s treachery .(FYI: Savage Worlds…try it if you can…it’s a great rules -lite game- ran a bit of a campaign using the Rippers setting…loads of VanHelsing-ish fun). I found that I had the desire to GM ,but just not DnD.
I still watched the web for snippets of 4e and generally would be called to religious anti-4e zealotry on some nugget of info about 4e that I found “stupid” or “too video/board gamey”. But for the most part, I realized I still had the desire to run and enjoy role-playing once again.
5. Acceptance.- This is when the anger, sadness and mourning have tapered off. The person simply accepts the reality of the loss.
I have recently slowed the amount of time I spend on my part-time job ( as a 4e discussion board lurker) and am trying to take the 4e thing in stride. I’m trying to live by the most logical position possible:
“If I like it, I will play it . If not then back to 3.x.”
I believe the current crop of designers are truly trying to make a good game and I am giving them the benefit of the doubt until after I have read and played the game. There are still things that bug the crap out of me ( pcs that can teleport right out of the gate and smite attacks that give some ally a bonus to AC?) ,but most of me is at a wait-n-see stage.
The fact of the matter is that I am a DnD-er. I want to play and collect things for my favorite hobby. I want to like 4e and , if it is not for me, then I wish no ill will towards those who do like it, just as I have no hard feelings for those who hung on to 2e, 1e, or even OD&D when each new edition came along.
My tendencies are to stick with the new and shiny versions of things that I like , so I imagine I will give 4e a fair shake. But the rest is up to WOTC ……convince me! ( oh jeesh, I may have just warped back to stage 2 for a minute…sorry)
If you’d like more information on the five stages of grief just google the phrase or check out this site to begin with:
http://www.memorialhospital.org/library/general/stress-THE-3.html
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3 Responses to “From 3e to 4e and Back Again or a DM’s Journey Through the 5 stages of grief”
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Like you, I’m ready to accept 4e. We’ll see if I like it or not. If not, well then I’ve invested a ton of money into 3.5, so I’ll be sticking with that. But I think I’ll still try to keep up with 4e so I can converse with people who are 4e players. I recently had a guest 2.0 player in my party and he had no idea what was going on and kept trying to call me out on stuff.
Kimmie’s last blog post..Metagaming
Terrible, horrible, less blogging more gaming! Just kidding brudda. I found this entry very entertaining, good job.
I have dabbled as a DM but find I enjoy playing more than storytelling. So I give my perspective from the player side.
As a player I found myself going through all those same emotions. While my investment isn’t near what yours is, it is still significant. I have shelves and shelves of supplements from AD&D, 3.0 and 3.5. As I was telling Randy’s mistress yesturday, as mature gamers our games are/were around a 70/30 split… 70% role play, 30% rolling dice. It really shouldn’t matter which system we use as long as it don’t get in the way of the story. It needs to make some kind of sense to be able to suspend disbelief just a little.
I guess thats my way of saying as a player i’m at the acceptance stage. Then again all I have to buy is a PHB. I can say now that the chances of me running a 4.0 game are slim to none… THAC0 ftw =P
Apis
I tried 4E and I’m already back to 3.5. I was crushed when I first opened those 4E manuals. I figured I’d give it a try anyway. We did. It wasn’t good. As a gamer of over 25 years I was very sad when I shelved those books and took down my 3.5 ones again.