How many people do you know who haven't switched to 5e, and why haven't they?

[TheFindus]

Not surprising to me at all, considering that Paizo has consistently gathered good will from its customers over the past 5-6 years, and WotC has not, up until the 5e release. Plus, clearly 5e and Pathfinder are serving very different audiences, those who prefer heavy crunch versus those who don't.

Really? Speak for yourself only please. I have been a great customer of WotC during the 4E years. They had my good will until it was clear what 5e would look like. The same is true for many people I play with. Some (or even most?) of them are still customers of WotC because of 4E and not 5e.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I haven't because...

(snip) For me, 4E was the perfect version of the game. I recall reading through the 4E Player’s Handbook and thinking to myself “This is the D&D I’ve always wanted!” (snip)

... 4E is the edition that suits me and my group the best, and it remains my favourite iteration of the D&D rules since I began with Holmes in 1981.

(snip) To me, 3rd edition was the first system that made sense. (snip)

I agree with that statement. I sometimes describe 3E as the necessary edition because it's the one where the designers really started to ask Why? and try to answer that question with something other than a non-sequitor. Sure, it got frustrating to run as it grew but it was such a breath of fresh air when it was first released. (I'm not a fan of EGG as a designer so that may explain why I am not a fan of AD&D.)

 

[innerdude]

Really? Speak for yourself only please. I have been a great customer of WotC during the 4E years. They had my good will until it was clear what 5e would look like. The same is true for many people I play with. Some (or even most?) of them are still customers of WotC because of 4E and not 5e.

First off as a disclaimer, I literally have zero skin in this game. I've not bought a single WotC or Paizo product of any kind since 2011, which is the last time I played a "D&D" game of any fashion, and probably won't play one for at least another 5 years. So when I make this comment, I'm not making any judgment about the quality of any product produced by either company, because I have almost zero interest in purchasing product from either.

As I mentioned previously, my comments were not directed at any one particular individual or group, but to the general body of RPG players collectively. But even if you're a big fan of 4e, it doesn't mean that WotC has been above reproach for a litany of missteps around customer PR and good will.

It's entirely consistent to say that 4e is a good system, while also saying that WotC generally performed badly at customer outreach and PR between 2008 and 2014. In my opinion the worst offense was the yanking of PDFs from legitimate digital distributors, directly affecting customers who had already paid for the product. It was exactly the kind of knee-jerk, short-sighted corporate arrogance and transparent self-interest that I find distasteful.

 

[Talmek]

While I would be hard-pressed to disagree that 5e was the best thing that has happened to the hobby, my group and I are at a crossroads of sorts as to which game to play (D&D 5e vs. 13th Age). To be fair, my group consists of 75% true novices (never played a TTRPG before) with one other player that has been in the hobby for around 4 years. The narrative role playing aspect of 13th Age combined with the simplicity of the rules seems to be our group's biggest draw away from 5e right now. My entire group is aligned that the narrative aspects and the combined storytelling is what we are looking for, and that means for us that fewer rules allow us to play a more story-focused game, rather than trying to remember the rules.

Don't get me wrong; I love 5e (for the most part); however, as an owner of both systems and having read both and played both it appears that we may be moving away from 5e as our preferred system for the next campaign.

To answer the OP's questions directly:

- 1&2 are both accurate for 5e appealing to me; and
- 4) my group would prefer less rules and more story for the next campaign, and we just wanted to try a new system.

 

[GrahamWills]

For us, our group liked 4e, and 13th Age did a nice job of taking good bits of 3.5 and 4e and making a coherent whole. Especially nice is wholesale ditching of rules that are just not worth including and replacing them with narration (grappling, pole-arm tricks and gridded combat). You could also make a good case that it's better supported that 5e is too. The recent Stone Thief campaign and the year's worth of free playable campaign (which I think takes you through all the level ranges) combined with a mix for things like Book of Loot, 13 True Ways, and 3rd party items like Thule and Midgard may well outweighs WOTC offering.

5e still just seems OK. No issues with it, just that it doesn't seem to hit any particular need. our group has played and enjoyed it at cons, but we;ve enjoyed other things more, so for us, it's not really any reason NOT to play it that is in question, rather lack of reason TO play it.

Preferred systems:

* 13th Age for faster, narrative high fantasy
* Numenera for sci-fi/fantasy exploration adventure
* One Ring for Tolkienic fantasy
* Trail of Cthulhu for cerebral horror investigation
* Call of Cthulhu for randomly dying in a fun way horror
* Night's Black Agents for modern espionage
* FATE for most anything where we want to focus on narration

Still on the lookout for a non-operatic sci-fi system. Bulldogs, Mindjammer, Alternity were OK. Must look into Eclipse Phase ...

 

[Starfox]

Best thing that happened since the d20 (from the OP) - that is quite a long time now: http://www.cnet.com/news/ancient-d20-die-emerges-from-the-ashes-of-time/

 

[Campbell]

Personally, for me it's not about switching or not. I tend to prefer playing more games in short form over multiple year long campaigns. I just have not yet found a compelling reason to play in or run a 5e game over some other game. 5e is mostly just non-objectionable. For dungeon bashing I find Basic D&D to be a better game. For tactical fantasy I'm starting to like Shaintar/Savage Worlds*. For high octane character driven fantasy I like Dungeon World, the way I play 4e, and it looks like Exalted 3e. Add other games I like including Vampire - The Requiem 2e, Apocalypse World, Masks, Stars Without Number, and Edge of the Empire into the mix and I just ain't got no time for 5e.

* Caveat: Tactical fantasy isn't really something I like that much as a regular experience. Savage Worlds can be a lot of fun for that particular play experience.

 

[Campbell]

First off as a disclaimer, I literally have zero skin in this game. I've not bought a single WotC or Paizo product of any kind since 2011, which is the last time I played a "D&D" game of any fashion, and probably won't play one for at least another 5 years. So when I make this comment, I'm not making any judgment about the quality of any product produced by either company, because I have almost zero interest in purchasing product from either.

As I mentioned previously, my comments were not directed at any one particular individual or group, but to the general body of RPG players collectively. But even if you're a big fan of 4e, it doesn't mean that WotC has been above reproach for a litany of missteps around customer PR and good will.

It's entirely consistent to say that 4e is a good system, while also saying that WotC generally performed badly at customer outreach and PR between 2008 and 2014. In my opinion the worst offense was the yanking of PDFs from legitimate digital distributors, directly affecting customers who had already paid for the product. It was exactly the kind of knee-jerk, short-sighted corporate arrogance and transparent self-interest that I find distasteful.

This is mostly true from my perspective. The 4e core rule books were poorly organized, the DMG had weak unfocused directives on how to use the thing, and there were a host of bad business decisions made during its life cycle that left me with some poor impressions. I'm probably still bitter about Essentials turning the bus around just as the Dark Sun provided us a compelling glimpse of what 4e play could be like.

 

[Necrosnoop110]

3.5E has so much more depth of resources. We are running one 5E game. So far so good.

 

[Zathris]

I don't hate WotC in the general sense, I just hate them right now. The iTT debacle, the slow content death followed by actual death of Dragon magazine, the absurd mismanagement and lack of support for the RPGA that almost killed LFR, the uncoordinated messes that were events at major conventions, the selfish intentional mismanagment of 4e in general ... Yeah, I'm not happy with Mearls and Co.

Maybe next edition they won't push "The classes aren't balanced, and that makes them more fun" as a design Feature.

edit: Lets not forget Closing down the Forums, because dismantling your connection to the community is a good way to keep them around.