D&D General How Long Does It Take to get Sick of an Edition?

[S'mon]

Third party 5e material is definitely a bit skimpy - Kobold Press are hit and miss though I like Tome of Beasts and got good use from Streets of Zobeck. I have all the 5e Primeval Thule stuff from Sasquatch and love it. But most publishers seem to think in very 3e terms and generally it is best just to take 3e/PF or OSR stuff and convert it myself. Ease of conversion is a 5e strength.

 

[digitalelf]

I played 1st edition from 1981/1982 up until 1989 when 2nd edition was released. I switched from 1st to 2nd edition only because that was the new edition. I certainly wasn't tired or bored with 1st edition.

I played 2nd edition from its release in 1989 until the release of 3rd edition in 2000... Again, not because I was bored or tired of 2nd edition. I switched because it was the new edition.

I played 3.0 until the release of 3.5 in 2003, and when 4th edition was released, I stuck with 3.5. I did so because, for the first time, the new edition did not appeal to me.

So, I continued to play 3.5/PFRPG (PF1e) until 2012 when I finally tired of not just 3.5, but d20 in general.

In 2012, I returned to 2nd edition, and while I did sign up for the DND Next playtest, I didn't see anything that made me want to leave 2nd edition. Not that I thought or think 5th edition is bad. I just don't see any reason to leave 2nd edition. I have enough 2nd edition material to last me and my group until we're well into our senior years!

 

[gyor]

Well Pathfinder 2 is about to land. They had a good run of 10 years. Old D&D tended to last over a decade in print and 3.X had active support for 19 years a D&D record although on paper Basic also lasted 19 years but was more like 17 with several reboots.

My personal record is BECMI 2 years, 2E 5 years, 3.X/Pathfinder 12 years, 2 years OSR, 5 years of 5E. 12 years of 3.X but it was also 3 takes on it to keep it fresh. Early Pathfinder was more 3.5 errata. We played a bit of 1E and 4E but they didn't stick as I don't DM 1E and 4E didn't stick.

Anyway I kind of feel done with 3.X, haven't played it for 5 years, no real desire or nostalgia. 12 years though. The big one is 2E, never really felt done and I fell for the 3E marketing I suppose. In 2000 I was still happy with 2E and played it until 3E landed. 3E was new and shiny though but by 2002 early nostalgia was setting in. 2E art looked better IMHO and the fighter players missed their 2E equivalents. And we figured out haste was busted.

When 4E landed I still wanted 3.5 as I had a heap of books but barely used most of them. 4E arrived to soon, 3.5 was only 5 years old, same age as 5E now.

Getting sick of parts of 5E, can be mitigated by playing more vs DMing. I suspect in 5 years I'll be ready for 6E and are getting to the point I'll play something else on occasion but I think I'll be good for another 3 years at least.

I suggest trying Chronicles of Darkness for now from Onyx Path, starting with Changeling: The Lost.

 

[alienux]

I don't think I've ever gotten tired of an edition. While I pretty much only play 5E right now, I still like BECMI and 2E (the other editions I've played since the 80s/90s) as much as I ever did.

 

[TwoSix]

Third party 5e material is definitely a bit skimpy - Kobold Press are hit and miss though I like Tome of Beasts and got good use from Streets of Zobeck. I have all the 5e Primeval Thule stuff from Sasquatch and love it. But most publishers seem to think in very 3e terms and generally it is best just to take 3e/PF or OSR stuff and convert it myself. Ease of conversion is a 5e strength.

You have to be willing to broaden your search criteria a bit, but it's out there. DMs Guild, Unearthed Arcana on Reddit, and Patreon all have a lot of good 3rd party providers.

 

[Oofta]

Thinking about this a bit more, I think the main reason I burned out on previous editions was high level play. Pre-3rd edition we never got to high level (I'm assuming other people used different methods for handing out XP and did). Then in 3rd, you had casters that could end just about any fight in a single round if they were built right. My high level fighter was fun but when the cleric could just tell everything to go away I felt kind of extraneous. Don't get me started on the wizard that would quicken never-skitter time-stop call in the artillery or whatever it was he did to wipe out small armies. For 4th edition, I enjoyed it for a while at lower levels until all the classes started to feel the same with different labels (to me). High level was just painful. An hour or more per round is not fun.

I'm not saying 5E is perfect, no game is. But I've played in and run games up to 20th level and for the most part it works. I might banish Banishment or a handful of other problematic spells if I get to that high a level again (although that's partly just based on campaign themes of planar travel being difficult). But in my experience it works better out of the box than previous editions. That's a big win for me because if I don't want to go on a mission to develop my own RPG by doing significant rewrites of the rules.

 

[Raith5]

I mostly play one or two long campaigns per edition, but I measure my time with editions with levels rather than time IRL. 1e- 3e campaigns all petered out by about 12th-13th level. I remember being really burnt out with DMing by the end of 3e. I played up to 30th level in 4e and absolutely loved it - it worked really well at high levels. It is the only previous edition of D&D that I would play again.

I continue to enjoy 5e - but I do think that I am starting to find that there are limits on my ability to customize and equip my characters. So I will have a look at PF2 and any future edition of D&D.

 

[pogre]

The only edition that fatigued me was 3.x. Creating the stat blocks for NPCs and monsters just wore me down. High level play was great, but the prep time was killer. I was ready for a new edition.

4th edition was not enjoyed by my groups, although I enjoyed running it.

5th edition is fun and I am in the middle of running a long term weekly campaign. It's going well, but after it concludes, I may switch systems to freshen things up.

 

[Garthanos]

You have to be willing to broaden your search criteria a bit, but it's out there. DMs Guild, Unearthed Arcana on Reddit, and Patreon all have a lot of good 3rd party providers.

They have active criticism feedback and people refining their material and re-presenting ... it seems to help on quality.

 

[Mepher]

I dabbled with B/X in 1984 and then got into the game big in 1988. Exclusively DM'd a 1E/2E hybrid ever since until 5E came out. Dabbled with a little 5E with HotDQ and hated it. Went back to 2E for a campaign. Back to 5E for LMOP and loved it. New group with DragonHeist and really loved it but our game bogged in Undermountain. Rose tinted glasses of nostalgia told us all we should go back to 2E. 6 sessions into 2E and we realized that our "old school" group just enjoyed 5E much more these days and this is where we are now.

We happily played AD&D for 30+ years and never got sick of it. 3E and 4E just didn't appeal to us so we never game them a shot. Something about 5E was different and we gave it a shot and ultimately loved it. Us changing from AD&D wasn't because we got sick of it, it was just that 5E seemed to fit our changing play styles more. I don't see myself "getting sick" of the edition. If they evolve into a 5.5E I will continue to buy it. If they make drastic changes and go with an incompatible 6E then I will remain. Change and evolution are good but I don't change because I am sick of something. If that were the case I would just stop playing.