TTRPG Editions Don't Die

EricMesa

- 5 minutes read - 896 words

Continuing my recent spate of posts documenting my evolving thoughts on TTRPGs as I learn more about the hobby, I wanted to share my thoughts on people playing older releases of TTRPGs. As I’ve mentioned this week (and previously) I started off with D&D 5e 2014. For the beginning of my time in fandom all I ever heard was that a lot of the greybeards thought that D&D 3.5e was the last good edition and either kept playing that or moved on to Pathfinder 1e (which was based on it and has been nicknamed D&D 3.75). Tainted by thinking about this in the same way as software, I thought this was like people who were still using Windows 95 or MS Office 2003 because they refused to learn the latest interface and hated dealing with change.

Between looking into Pathfinder 2e (due to a mix of learning that Cosmere TTRPG took inspiration from it and from loving the heck out of the Starfinder audio drama podcast No Quest for the Wicked) and “the algorithm” pushing D&D 4e content onto my feeds, I started to evolve a different understanding of the TTRPG space.

In a way, it’s unfortunate that we use “editions” to mark new releases of TTRPGs. In my mind this brings up connotations of software versions, as I said above. Instead, the different editions of TTRPGs is more like different videogames in the same game franchise. New Super Mario Bros and Mario Galaxy are both Mario games, but they’re pretty darn different. Even looking at the original NES games - there’s a huge difference in game design between Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 3 - even if they’re both recognizably 2D Mario platformers.

In the TTRPG space, this was most evident to me with D&D 4e and with the Pathfinder 1e and Pathfinder 2e differences. Sidebar: who knew D&D 4e was still being played? The “official” narrative on the net was that 4e was a disaster and 5e was the correction back to “real” D&D. People are only playing 3.5e or 5e. This couldn’t be further from the truth - the dnd4e subreddit is pretty active and now that I watched one D&D 4e video on YouTube, it keeps surfacing new 4e content.

Back to the main point, D&D 4e had different design principles and ideas behind it. The designers were trying to evolve the game based on new ideas of what the space could do. I don’t know if it’s true, since I wasn’t there at the time, but it’s said that it took some partial inspiration from MMORGs like World of Warcraft. Similarly, until I started looking into it, I had no idea there was as big a rift in Pathfinder 1e and Pathfinder 2e players as there is in the D&D world. Pathfinder 1e is about “correcting” D&D 3.5e (similarly to how I see Tales of the Valiant as correcting D&D 5e). Pathfinder 2e is about evolving TTRPGs to have things like the 3 action economy.

Although I don’t have direct experience (just perusing through books during humble bundle sales), there’s also the OSR movement. There is Dungeon Crawl Classics that seems to take a winking, sarcastic view of D&D 1e and 2e and provide updated versions of those rules. And, if I understand correctly, Old School Essentials is a modern remake of the D&D 1e rules that came out alongside or just before 2e. (The Basic and Expert books)

Ok, so what’s the point of all this? The point, as I see it, is that we have gotten things wrong when it comes to TTRPG editions. All too often we talk about those who play the older versions as “stuck” or “stubborn” or “reticent” to come join us with the new versions. While the players MIGHT be those things, you certainly wouldn’t say the same of someone who loved to play Super Mario Bros: Yoshi’s Island or Dragon’s Quest 5. When it comes down to it, instead of viewing D&D editions as versions, we should view TSR/Wizards as having released 5 games. Pick the game that matches your style and play that one. (And, of course, this also holds for Starfinder and Pathfinder)

Sure, there won’t be new modules published (or maybe there will be some 3rd party modules if the SRD or equivalent is written to allow it). But it seems more and more like there are 2 main types of Game Masters - those who need published material to work from and those who create their own worlds. I think most of us start as the former and some (vocal) number of us move on to homebrew. And so as long as you can be the GM or find a GM who is willing to create new adventures, there’s no reason to NEED to move to a newer version of any TTRPG. In fact, when it comes to exploring OLDER versions of a TTRPG, you can do the same. Many people recently have been saying that Draw Steel is almost a spiritual D&D 6e, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t play D&D 5e. So, if you’re curious, why not check out 4e or 3.5e or 2e or even 1e? Maybe you’ll find a system that works better with the way your mind works or maybe you’ll come away with a deeper appreciation for the version you play.