I’m an old-schooler, thus I run into edition war crap a lot, unfortunately in real life at least, it seems to come doubly from other old-schoolers.

You see, my favourite game is classic 1981 Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert D&D. But that’s it, it is a preference. I could tell you why I prefer it and why I dislike AD&D1e. But it’s not something I get into when I can avoid it. Because I love gaming in general. I also play in a Pathfinder campaign and love it. I recently played in a 3.0 PHB-only campaign (no Monster Manual, no DMG), it rocked on fucking toast. Not just on toast, but on fucking toast. Hell, I play those new-fangled indie RPGs also because once again, the toast, it ROCKS.

The problem is that so many people feel that they can’t say good things about their game of choice without saying bad things about other games of choice. I prefer basic D&D because… I prefer basic D&D. That’s really what it comes down to. I had bad experiences with AD&D1e (and with a few other games) and those remain on my “meh list”, but I’ll only talk about it if someone ASKS me to, and I still understand that some people actually prefer to play using rules and systems that I don’t enjoy.

Nothing turns me off Game X more than a description of how it is better than Game Y. Well, except for deadEarth – the whole back cover of that damn rule book is it belittling other RPGs.

Game Fans need to learn to promote their games without dissing everyone else’s. If you dislike an edition, a rule, or whatever, why spend your energy attacking it when you could spend your energy doing something awesome instead? Why are you wasting your energy on negativity? Attacking how someone else is having fun does nothing to make them think your fun is better, it becomes a case of you being an cockmongler and trying to ruin someone else’s fun. Seriously. Read that again. When you are being an edition or system warrior, you are trying to ruin someone else’s fun.

SHOW ME THE AWESOME OF YOUR GAME, SHOW ME THE FUN, DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME TRYING TO RUIN SOMEONE ELSE’S FUN.

Oh, and if you actually are one of those cockmonglers who go up to people who are playing a game you don’t like, or who are buying books for a game you don’t like and start telling them that their game sucks? Yeah, get the fuck out of the gene pool already.