Ruined FOREVER (Darth Wiki)/Tabletop Games/Tabletop RPG

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.



  • Tabletop games in general tend to suffer from this over time, partly because of a very simple dynamic. If a game gets some success, fans tend to like its traits. The designers may not: they probably had numerous kludgy hacks and flaws that irritate. Regardless, a 2nd edition usually expands and smooths over game. Designers will then become somewhat less tolerant of the things they couldn't get rid of previously. A 3rd edition will become somewhat more complicated in ways which often mystify players but also overly-simplify many of the more fun aspects of the game (frequent and often over-used nerfing tends to occur). A 4th edition often sees the designers (possibly an entirely new crew) rip out the entire game and rebuild it. This can utterly change the game, and the dynamic is not always improved by the fact that the later designers often started as fans of the game. Major examples include Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, and The World of Darkness.
    • This also happens to video games: Civilization slowly got more complex, with more techs, until the fourth game reduced the number of techs by redoing everything.
  • Every time Dungeons & Dragons changes editions, a large amount of the fanbase decides to rise up and complain about how everything has been ruined. This is more true for the changes from 2nd Edition on up, but people complained about the switch between the first and second editions as well. 4th Edition has prompted more shrieks of "D&D IS DEAD" than ever before due to an extreme case of They Changed It, Now It Sucks fueled by pure Internet Backdraft. All that said, this isn't the place to discuss whether it has in fact been ruined, or not. Please Take It to the Forums.
    • Gamers don't even need to wait for edition changes anymore. Wizards of the Coast, the company that currently owns D&D, publishes "rules updates" every few months, which include genuine errata (i.e., corrections to mistakes that have been noticed since the last update, changes made in the last update, or books published since the last update), as well as changes to things the game designers have noticed that players have been taking advantage of, changes to whatever the online fanbase has been complaining the most about recently, and - most controversially - changes to things the game designers have just kind of decided they'd like to work differently. Those last three elements often involve completely revamping popular character options and frequently invalidate popular character builds, making Dungeons & Dragons 4e Ruined FOREVER every few months. Now the Essentials release has fans up in arms all over again.
      • 5th Edition has been announced, with most being hopeful it will be more like 3.5 (with better balance and some rules reworked), though fans of 4e are in arms about how they'll have to buy all new books any no one will want the old ones - much like older fans had done previously.
  • BattleTech has had many of these. Depending on the specific fan, these include (working roughly backwards):
    • The entire setting of Mech Warrior: Dark Age (but this is all complaining about a game they don't like)
    • The Jihad (oddly, the same folks who previously decried the unrealistically small armies in the universe screamed the loudest when one Genre Savvy faction went ahead and built a large force)
    • The Fed Com Civil War (specifically, its end, with both nations remaining separate)
    • The Twilight of the Clans and the destruction of Clan Smoke Jaguar (at least for the Smoke Jaguar fans, even though the Clan had been set up as clear bad guys)
    • The breakup of the Federated Commonwealth (some folks just wanted a winner, even though it'd mean that the storyline would've effectively ended)
    • The loss of the rights to the "Unseen" images (despite a major legal battle that established several precedents in copyright law. Also, this complaint has effectively disappeared -- one hopes -- now that the Unseens have been licensed again and are available for use in Battletech artwork.)
    • The Clan Invasion (despite it being planned by the original authors from the very beginning, and very clearly foreshadowed)
    • The "timejump" of the Twenty-Year Update (mostly in retrospect, and despite new material being produced for that time period)
    • The Fourth Succession War (though it was the lead-off storyline)
    • The rebranding of the game from "Battledroids" to "BattleTech" (despite that it only existed as the former for about six months, and the threat of legal action from George Lucas)
    • Most perplexing, some fans decry events that only occurred in the off-screen backstory, such as the destruction of Clan Mongoose or even the Amaris Civil War, even though the latter is the entire foundation of the universe.
  • Every time a new army is released in Warhammer Fantasy Battle or Warhammer 40 K, cue cries about how said armies rules are ridiculously unbalanced, how every other army is now worthless, how their upgrades are so incredibly unfair and, yes, how Everything Is Ruined Forever. Because gods forbid you might actually have to rethink your strategy for once.
  • Shadowrun 3rd Edition to Shadowrun 4th Edition. Several forums had to rewrite the rules to stop the rampant rant-threads.
  • New World of Darkness - especially Mage and Werewolf.
    • Even before nWoD, this was happening - notably with the revised edition of Mage and Kindred of the East.
    • However it seems like there's some agreement that Changeling and Wraith/Geist completely invert this trope, as they are often seen as better... though the older games still have their Ruined FOREVER people.
  • Exalted - especially with Dreams of the First Age's Solar Charms (universal) and with about half the Ink Monkey articles (opinions widely differ).
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