Roleplay Ramblings: Switching Systems part 2
Converting to a New Edition
Going into greater detail from yesterday’s discussion, it is an inevitable fact of life that if a RPG system is successful, it will likely get a new edition sometime in the future.
With these new editions come wonderful new ideas, like a fancy new 20-sided dice, or taking races that were considered monstrous in previous editions and exploring the nuanced truth behind them. Either way, the hope is always there that the annoying parts of the system which were more bothersome than fun are redone or cut out.
On the other end of the spectrum, new editions are often so drastically different from the previous one that they can feel very different not only in terms of feel, but also in terms of assumptions made about the system’s universe and metaphysics.
Hell, some systems outright kill off their old lore and replace it with a similar but new set when the next edition comes out (See Classic World of Darkness vs Chronicles of Darkness, or previous D&D lore vs 4th edition), much to the chagrin of fans of the old lore.
Honestly, I would be remiss not to rant for a bit about how much I wish that the progression of changes between editions of games was more gradual than it usually ends up being. The gradient between D&D 3.0 to 3.5, and then to Pathfinder 1st edition suits me fine, as it would make moving from one edition to another so much easier if I was inclined to move at all, but instead each new edition of most games likes to try and reinvent the wheel and change up the assumptions of the system, which I suppose gives us greater innovation, but is a pain in my behind.
As mentioned yesterday, one of the biggest challenges of updating to a new edition, should you decide to do so, is that new editions of the same game, by virtue of their youth, have not had the time to develop the depth of content of their predecessor. As such, fans of the previous edition with their characters drawn from splatbooks and supplementary options found in the back of adventure books and the like might not see those options appear again in some form until much later, if at all if they proved not very popular. Meanwhile, some options from supplementary materials might make a return in the core rulebook, and might even work much the same way as before, or entirely different. As such, unless you’re willing to wait and gamble on the decisions of the system’s developers, you may have to make compromises in the concept and mechanics of your character in order to convert them over to the new set of rules.
Perhaps that doesn’t bother you, though. Maybe the idea that your character’s abilities subtly or drastically changing in nature between sessions isn’t as important as the fun of portraying them, and that’s perfectly fine. I personally cannot relate, but I can respect it.
So, through an amount of effort that may vary between miniscule and titanic depending on the editions of whatever system you are switching between, you’ve converted your character to the next edition. May you have a wonderful time exploring the possibilities that the future has brought, and perhaps those who had less-compatible characters might find egress in the future of the new system.
For now, that does it for today, but tomorrow we’ll dive into conversions between completely different systems entirely!
