D&D General Edition Experience - Updated Survey Results, Jan 2021 (All Surveys)

[Lanefan]

You don't have to be 45+ to find & enjoy a good game you know.

I don't know how other 1e fans go about it, but in my circle we actively recruit new/younger players into our 1e games.

We would too, if we weren't already full.

Just before all this disease crap broke, one of our long-time players was just getting her own campaign started. Of her players, one was a veteran of our system, two (or three?) had played other versions of D&D, and one is new to RPGs.

The player new to RPGs is older; everyone else playing in that game is - I think - 40 or younger or much younger.

In our established crew, everyone is 40-60.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Actually if you read it again you will see that there are sometimes two rules for the same thing. They are printed side by side and it is up to the DM to decide which version he prefers.

Dark Dungeons is a clean up version of RC. Here is the final draft of the new second edition.

https://gurbintrollgames.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/dark_dungeons_final_draft.pdf

I am an enormous fan of the Rules Cyclopedia; it's literally the game I run now with my now-6yo. I came into D&D in the mid 90s with 2e and had an RC experience similar to many: I loved the book but everybody was playing 2e so there seemed no real place for it. Luckily, 25ish years later I had my chance with it.

Dark Dungeons is great except for one glaring flaw: the writer rightly decided to jettison the outdated and counterintuitive combat system, but for some reason chose to replace it with a different but equally counterintuitive combat system. I don't really understand why. It seems such a bizarre choice in light of the rest of the book's superior organization and modernization.

But it did prompt me to begin work on my own Rules Cyclopedia cleanup/revision/modernization, so I guess I owe them thanks for the inspiration!

 

[TwoSix]

It is strange the AD&D1e is so popular when the numbers Morrus just showed us says that 45+ are almost absent from the forum. 111 votes like it. Did we get a bunch of old grognards come back to EnWorld shortly to boost AD&D1e ?

I would point out that Morrus's numbers aren't about the forum, they're about the news site. I'm pretty sure Morrus has said that the large majority of site visitors do not post to the forum at all.

I'm pretty sure that the forum regulars skew older and grumpier than the average site visitor.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, it was something like less than 1% of visitors actually post. :wow:

It does show that 4e was probably the most divisive edition. We'll likely have to get a couple of editions down the road before that's no longer true and it will be possible to talk about 4e without Moderator actions.

 

[MNblockhead]

Like you, it has to do more about where I was in my life. But I feel fortunate to have some of age during hte BECMI / 1e era when D&D was a massive cultural force and to get back into it again when it was once again a cultural phenomena, perhaps more popular than in the 80s.

In the 80s it was important because of friendships made. In the mid-2000s it is important because of old friendship rekindled, new friendships made, but also because I was able to introduce my children to TTRPGs.

 

[atanakar]

The current numbers in the How Old Are You thread explains why AD&D won the popular contest in the surveys. We are top heavy on the 45+ categories.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

The current numbers in the How Old Are You thread explains why AD&D won the popular contest in the surveys. We are top heavy on the 45+ categories.

Interesting point.

I am quite an outlier: 51, 39 years of D&D, and 4E is my favourite edition by a country mile.

 

[atanakar]

Interesting point.

I am quite an outlier: 51, 39 years of D&D, and 4E is my favourite edition by a country mile.

Good for you. 4e is very good at doing classic dungeon crawls without the outdated rules and weak characters of D&D Basic. Correct?

(My favorite is 5e)

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Good for you. 4e is very good at doing classic dungeon crawls without the outdated rules and weak characters of D&D Basic. Correct?

(My favorite is 5e)

Yep.

I do understand why 5E is so popular: It's basically the third edition of AD&D and it actually works!

 

[atanakar]

Yep.

I do understand why 5E is so popular: It's basically the third edition of AD&D and it actually works!

Yep. It is what 3e should have been, and what I wanted all along.