D&D General Making and surviving the break…

[Stormonu]

Up until about 4E, I and my group(s) pretty much kept up with whatever the latest version was as we generally found it to be better in some way (5E brought me back, but I'm not much interested in OneD&D). I have had instances where I've gotten bored or otherwise burned out on D&D, and striking out to try new systems has always helped.

I like to learn and play a lot of different games and editions, far afield from D&D. D&D does a particular thing fairly well - zero to hero fighting fantasy - but it's pretty poor in other areas. You see that the more game systems you try out, and its often pretty enlightening. I've known several folks that upon having tried another system, refuse to come back to D&D. For me, I find myself often learning lessons I take back to D&D - or simply enjoy a completely different way of tackling a RPG.

In short, there's more RPGs than just D&D out there, and even in D&D no "one true edition". You don't have to keep on the treadmill or even justify what system you're playing. Make or find a good game with folks who have similar appetites, and the mechanics are generally secondary.

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

I think the meat of the question is not just an older edition - it's playing anything outside of the current edition of D&D. The answer is that you don't lose anything - as Stormonu says above there are a ton of great games out there and restricting yourself to one is just a shame. I've been running Deadlands for most of the last two years and will likely finish that up in the next month or two. A few weeks ago I ran a tryout session of the new Marvel game. Over the weekend I ran a tryout session of WFRP 2E because it's what I have rather than the current 4th edition version of that game.

I'd say we stay with an edition of a game or a particular game until it feels like we've run through all of the immediate possibilities with the system or the setting. I've run d6 Star Wars and FFG Star Wars both in the past year because that's what felt right for the players at the time and the campaign we wanted to play. We stuck with 3E well past 4E's release. We stuck with Pathfinder for quite a while as well. Then we stuck with 4E well after 5th's release - if we're in the middle of a campaign we're probably not switching rules just because some new ones came out. It's -our- game, not the company's.

The only time it can be a problem is when you're playing with strangers at a store or trying to start up a new group or possibly playing online. I've had at least one regular in-person group going back to the 80's and some of my current players go back to then or the 90's and some have joined in the past year so maybe it doesn't matter all that much. Some conversation between the DM and the players is really all it takes to run through some good options. There's really no benefit to saying "I only play the latest edition of this particular game".

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I think the meat of the question is not just an older edition - it's playing anything outside of the current edition of D&D. The answer is that you don't lose anything - as Stormonu says above there are a ton of great games out there and restricting yourself to one is just a shame. I've been running Deadlands for most of the last two years and will likely finish that up in the next month or two. A few weeks ago I ran a tryout session of the new Marvel game. Over the weekend I ran a tryout session of WFRP 2E because it's what I have rather than the current 4th edition version of that game.

I'd say we stay with an edition of a game or a particular game until it feels like we've run through all of the immediate possibilities with the system or the setting. I've run d6 Star Wars and FFG Star Wars both in the past year because that's what felt right for the players at the time and the campaign we wanted to play. We stuck with 3E well past 4E's release. We stuck with Pathfinder for quite a while as well. Then we stuck with 4E well after 5th's release - if we're in the middle of a campaign we're probably not switching rules just because some new ones came out. It's -our- game, not the company's.

The only time it can be a problem is when you're playing with strangers at a store or trying to start up a new group or possibly playing online. I've had at least one regular in-person group going back to the 80's and some of my current players go back to then or the 90's and some have joined in the past year so maybe it doesn't matter all that much. Some conversation between the DM and the players is really all it takes to run through some good options. There's really no benefit to saying "I only play the latest edition of this particular game".

In my youth we dabbled with some military rpgs, Star frontiers, gamma world and a slew of others.

We also played a lot of dudes on a map games , some tactical infantry games and fantasy games.

In terms of rpgs, we really are just into D&D. Like all of us. I in no way feel deprived or that i am missing out.

But I think if the edition really flips there is a sense of being left behind in some discussions and some chats. When people are all buzzing about the new releases and you can just shrug, it can be a different feel I think:

Novelty for me to delve into 3e or we might have stuck with 1e until 5e. After I quickly bailed on 4e (I bought all the stuff) I found the online world to be different along with my response to it.

I think it will be less the case with 5.5 since ostensibly I will still understand the chatter and who knows? May incorporate bits. But it seems different when you are genuinely on another plane.

Seeing how many devotees wax nostalgic in many discussions about 5e I assume it has to be a different experience?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So...this one was a bit weird for me. I'm sure for anyone that's seen me post for any length of time, I'm a big 4e fan and unapologetic about it.

That wasn't always the case. Indeed, originally, I was a dyed-in-the-wool 4e hater.

My original exposure to it was through (now-former) friends...who hated it. Openly loathed it. I'm pretty sure they'd never even cracked the books open. They condemned it as a cash grab (as though the 3.5e "revision" wasn't), as being antagonistic to story and RP, an MMO on paper, a boardgame not an RPG, a rollplaying game not a roleplaying game...basically, if there was a screed you could shout at it that didn't actually require you to know anything about it, they said it. And I believed them. What reason would I have to doubt their word?

So I stuck with 3.5e--because I thought it was merely an imperfect implementation of a wonderful idea. Because I thought if I could just find the right little bit of homebrew or house-rule or combination of ACFs or (etc., etc.), that I could get from it the experience I wanted. I wasn't satisfied with it, but I simply assumed that that was on me. That I was just looking for the right angle, and if I could find it, I'd truly be completely content with 3.5e.

Of course, there were discussions, and I parroted the things I had heard from others I trusted (at the time, anyway.) I gave my two bits. Eventually, at some point, I made an argument, and someone pushed against it--with citations. That of course required that I actually sit down and read the text, right? Can't meaningfully respond to citations unless you actually know what's being cited. So I did.

And the more I read, the more I realized I loved what I was seeing.

4e wasn't a cash-grab. In fact, it wasn't any of the things I'd been told it was. It was a game that married both serious design--with actual testing, and sometimes really quite clever solutions--and loving design--with heart, and sincerity, and a genuine desire to make something bursting at the seams with flavor and mythic resonance and pure potential. Moreover, as I read it, I realized precisely why I'd been so frustrated with 3.X for so long with no end in sight. I wanted something the game categorically couldn't provide.

I could go into deeper detail, but the point here isn't to crap on 3e, it's to celebrate 4e. 4e truly offers a game where teamwork actually matters, you can't afford to not use teamwork. A game where cold, bloodless calculation is actually not that useful, and flavor-first choices can be perfectly acceptable, even good. A game where you can stop worrying about whether you're hyper-optimized (because it is well-balanced), and instead focus on what makes sense for your character. A game where you can try weird combinations and funky builds without fear that you'll hold your party back. A game that rewards lateral thinking, non-combat tasks, setting and completing personal goals.

And, of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't say, it's the game that gave us not just in-the-PHB-dragonborn, but specifically Arkhosia and the story thereof. It gave us the Raven Queen, and Erathis, and the Dawn War and War of Winter, the Feywild and Shadowfell, and a zillion other brilliant lore and cosmology elements. All of which are designed for how useful they are as part of play, not just as navel-gazing academic cosmology construction that couldn't even in principle have an impact on 99% of campaigns.

All those things combined are why I stick with 4e. Or, at least, I would if I could find people playing it. Because that's the price I pay here. I haven't had a game of 4e at all in something like four years, and I haven't had a really good game of 4e in something like six years. Even then, games were few and far between.

It's frankly pretty miserable, loving something so much and being just genuinely unable to ever get it, and having most people happily and eagerly $#!+ all over it and tell me to my (digital) face what badwrongfun it was. I would love to love 5e. I would love to be able to look at it and say, "Awesome, this is something that can at least get me part of what I want." But it doesn't. It constantly reminds me just how much it repudiates the things I love. Again, I'd rather not digress into talking about something I don't love, so I'll just leave it at what I've said before: "5e was supposed to be the 'big tent,' but I've always felt like that so-called 'big tent' pointedly excluded my interests."

As a fan of the TSR editions, I sympathize (although in a lot of ways you have it worse I admit). Perhaps no game can really be that big of a tent. Too many ideas over the years have been peddled by the IP holders under the name "D&D" for any one game to be able address them all.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I started with Red Box Basic, and dabbled in AD&D but never got too into it. I switched to World of Darkness in my teen years and looked down on stodgy old D&D at the time (mostly). 3e brought me back - core 3e was so direct and easy to run! After a few years I kinda fell out of regular play. When 4e came out I was super-excited for it - but couldn't find anyone to play with. Discovering online play helped a ton, though I wasn't able to get more than one campaign of 4e in. I was able to play Pathfinder and 13th Age and SWSE and Fate, and I was able to dive into 5e early because of that.

I like 5e. I think it's a brilliant system and extremely robust, although by now I've done everything I want to do with it and new material isn't really expanding the game's horizons. I have no interest in OneDnD because it feels like a regression in play options that fixes a bunch of not-problems. I'm playing PF2 and liking it a lot, but some of my groups would be really bad fits for that system. I'm keeping an eye on 13th Age 2E and Daggerheart, which go in the other direction (from 5e) compared to PF2, so they might work better for groups who wouldn't appreciate the crunch as much.

 

[payn]

I think it will be less the case with 5.5 since ostensibly I will still understand the chatter and who knows? May incorporate bits. But it seems different when you are genuinely on another plane.

Seeing how many devotees wax nostalgic in many discussions about 5e I assume it has to be a different experience?

I believe the idea behind "no more editions" is that the game will slowly change over time like an MMO. There will be UA updates or some such. So, I imagine like the boiled frog. Past edition changes were the water boiling at entry, in the future the water will be heated while folks are already in it. The game might look and play differently in 10 years but there isn't going to be a 6th edition. A lot of this will have to do with digital tools and changing of how folks play D&D, much to the chargin of physical book folks.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I believe the idea behind "no more editions" is that the game will slowly change over time like an MMO. There will be UA updates or some such. So, I imagine like the boiled frog. Past edition changes were the water boiling at entry, in the future the water will be heated while folks are already in it. The game might look and play differently in 10 years but there isn't going to be a 6th edition. A lot of this will have to do with digital tools and changing of how folks play D&D, much to the chargin of physical book folks.

God, I hope that isn't true. To be saddled with the weaknesses of 5e eternally would be truly terrible.

 

[Oofta]

I've played D&D pretty much since it's inception, I've pretty much just always gone on to the new edition because, for the most part, the rules were an improvement. That, and it's easier to find people to play with if you're playing the current edition and I haven't had the luxury of sticking with the same group for decades. I've played other systems here and there, mostly one shots. But nothing has ever been better enough to lure me away.

All versions of the game have had good and bad things, things I liked and didn't like. We went from 2E to 3 and really liked the cleaned up math and getting rid of things like negative AC. I thought 3 and 3.5 were pretty good, but they started falling apart at higher levels. Starting at around level 15 or so it became a game of "The caster and supporting cast".

At first I was a big supporter of 4E, but eventually I burned out on it. In part it was certain aspects, everyone using the AEDU structure, the nature of how powers and skill challenges changed the nature of play. High level play and a single round of combat that could take an hour or more is what really did it in. Probably didn't help that I ran a campaign to 30th level and played in another campaign (twice, long story) to 30th. It was the first edition that by the end of my campaign I was ready for another RPG and was starting to look at PF.

Then 5E came out and it just clicks for me in a way that 4E simply didn't, it feels like pre-4E games cleaned up with a dash of 4E concepts that integrate well. There's something about the structure and variety of character implementations that just works better for me. Throw in the fact that while it is far from perfect, it still holds together for me even up to level 20. I have a handful of house rules that fit on one page to balance things out

That puts me kind of on the fence about the 2024 edition because 5E works for me in ways that previous editions didn't, it's my favorite version of the game so far. I'm taking a wait-and-see approach, it just depends on whether or not there's enough improvement to justify changing.

Last, but not least there's public play. If it weren't for public games, I'd likely be a forever DM and, while I really enjoy DMing, I like to play as well. Also a good way to meet new people for home games.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I only hated one edition out of the gate and it really was not because of the game.

I was just a teen. We bristled at the change of devil and demon to new designations and also to not seeing “Gygax” on the cover.

Many people say good things about 2e but I really was not a part of it. I did not hop to 3.5 since it felt like a money grab. I don’t really know how much it changed.

But that alienation was mild compared to 1e to 2e. I was out of the loop a good long while though my dm bought some adventures we used with 1e.

And 4e was a weird time for me. I bought up a ton of stuff. I just could not get into it. Maybe had I given it more time it would have clicked? But I don’t know. My expectations for magic were not met. There were other issues with skills.

I would say that was the first time I really bowed out of D&D due to the rules themselves and I only just now realized that. Funny talking out loud and and online just made that very conscious/explicit.

(I am not disparaging that game or it’s fans at all…it honestly was just not a match for my expectations and taste).

But it was a bit of black hole with online interaction. I specifically did not like stacking bonuses of pathfinder and did not like prestige classes in 3.0/3.5. I might have enjoyed 3.0 with just core books! But not sure how many folks played that way.


But i digress. Going to cons, online discussions etc. we’re different for me as a “noncurrent” player. I suspect skipping 5.5 will be a much softer landing.

I have minded it less depending on my play volume. I need to discuss less the more I seem to be playing at the time and the 4e years were a black hole with kids being born etc.

 

[payn]

God, I hope that isn't true. To be saddled with the weaknesses of 5e eternally would be truly terrible.

Dont know what to tell you. I dont see any radical change for D&D on the near horizon.