I love D&D.....but.

[Ratskinner]

Its not you, D&D, its me.

Well, maybe its you a little bit.

Am I alone in this sentiment? Is this a symptom of being a player of rpgs? Is there a cure? Must I endure this sense of wrongness? Should I seek professioal help?

I feel your pain. There's several things that lead to this phenomenon, I think. First, D&D, at its best, is an incoherent mess of playstyles and goals. Its a cruddy strategy game, a cruddy simulation, "lets pretend", and a cruddy storygame all rolled into one somehow-not-as-cruddy-but-actually-kinda-cool ball. So, you come for the parts you like, and suffer through the parts you don't.

Try getting your group to play one-shots of other systems. Exploring them is the only way to find out what your group will groove on best.

Fate and Savage Worlds are both popular, but for very different reasons. Try BOTH. They'll give you a starting direction. Fate (especially the Accelerated version) can play a lot like very Basic Versions of D&D. Fate also doesn't have "baked in" values for armor and weapons so you have to (or get to, YMMV) put those in if you want them. Try it plain, first. You might be surprised at how your group reacts.

Savage Worlds is more "complete" lout-of-the box. It has rules that, in many ways, are reminiscent of 3e and is closer to a traditional rpg. You'll find list of equipment and rules for how various spells and abilities work right in the text. It does use a point-based character creation system and you will face the learning curve of all that crunch.

Savage Worlds also leans more heavily on traditional GM prep, whereas Fate can be run "on the fly" even by relatively new GMs.

If your group liked Fate, you might want to try more freeform "narrativist" games. Try Dungeon World, it can often change your perspective on how to role play.

There are also lots of free (or nearly free) games available. Ill toss in a recommendation for a little game called Old School Hack. Sheer brilliance, mechanically.

If your group thinks Savage Worlds is better (IMO, its like 3e character crunch with a different resolution, initiative, and damage system, with an emphasis on quick resolution.) That points toward many crunchie systems.

The point is, if you're ready to move on from D&D, you need to see what it is that actually like in Role-playing. Humans are amazingly bad at actually knowing this about themselves. I've got a guy at my table who will swear to you that he is in it for the story. Thing is, by observation, the story he wants to see is always the same: "I have bigger numbers and my character is the ossomist." That's a legit play goal, but it isn't what he thinks it is. The only way to figure it out is to try different games.

The cool part is...you don't have to keep playing any particular game or even be a purist about the game your playing. There's no real need to be loyal. If you find a mechanic you love in Savage Worlds and can figure out how to bring it into D&D...go for it. If you figure out what's bringing you down about D&D, drop it and keep the rest. 5e is a very forgiving version of D&D.

Anyway, I hope that helps.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Can I suggest the OSR Beyond the Wall? Its a game that keeps the old school D&D feel, but cut those rules that were carried over from other edition for the sake of tradition over fun. The players create their characters through playbooks, meaning that they dont chose a race/class combo, they chose a concept like: The Adventurous Trader, the Village Hero, the Village's Bear, the New Guardsman, the With Prentice, the Assistant Beast keeper etc. Those playbooks make you roll on a bunch of tables that are going to give you your stats, class, skills etc. Also, all playbooks are rolled at the table and automatically creates link between each characters: no more brooding orphan with no ties to anyone. The games also encourages you to share world building and adventure building with the table. It really keeps the players engaged with the game.
Some strong points (mind you, these are based on my personal appreciation, YMMV)
- Fixed Initiative
- No move action: if you're near the target (in roughly the same ''room'') you can act with it on your turn.
- No spell slots: minor cantrips (no damage), spells (1/level/day, more or less lvl 1-2 classic D&D spells) and rituals (long to cast, costly to cast, classic D&D spells level 3-5). No world warping magic, fire ball is a siege spell that takes 6 hours to cast.
- 3 classes with each their domain of specialization fighter fights, rogues have a bunch of skills and mages cast (can mix arcane, divine and druidic magic without any problems)
- level 1-10 progression. No Epic levels.
- A big focus on friendship, hope, cooperation, the relation with the unknown world and their own place within it, the importance of the Village and how your relation with it once you've seen the world.
- Really easy to homebrew to fit your style.
- New player friendly, but the rules stay focused on fun. This is not a game of rule mastery, there's nothing to optimize or abuse.

 

[toucanbuzz]

... I will definitely still play, because people play it...?

It's all about the people who play it. I'm not sure anyone says "I'll give up my Friday night to hang out with people I don't like because I love so much the game mechanics."

Good players make you look forward to the next session. A good DM makes you fall in love with a story or setting and want to see where it goes next. If you're missing either one, it's easy to turn to the system and express you're bored, dissatisfied, or that it's just not working. But...

I'll give that it could be the system. I got burned out as a DM running PF games because of the Rules Bloat and because high-level combats were taking 1-2 hours, which was too much time for players to be sitting watching others take a turn and doing nothing. In the end, we split our group and parted ways (as friends). But my folks wanted a forum for more roleplay, less character number crunching. D&D provided that forum.

Since it's about players, one of our gamers runs a DCC game from time to time where we run a mob of 0-level losers who no skills through a dungeon. Maybe you need a change of pace, a chance for a goofy, hilarious run where if "Dirt Diggler" the guano farmer bites the dust, you end up having fun regardless. I think several people have speculated that your complaints don't appear to highlight any fundamental flaw in the game itself but rather a dissatisfaction with the setting or theme of the games you've been playing in.

 

[Wulffolk]

[MENTION=42437]Wiseblood[/MENTION] . . . You are not alone. This is a natural progression for many of us that love this hobby. I have cycled through this state of dissatisfaction with D&D multiple times throughout the the last few decades. I have tried numerous other systems, some of which have influenced my preferences in significant ways.

Like many others, I too have dabbled in writing my own game system to match my vision of an ideal game. The primary obstacle to overcome in that quest is finding others willing to play your game over a published game. Most people want to own copies of the game they play. D&D is the most easily accessible game and has the greatest name recognition, and therefore is the easiest to find others to play with.

And that is the point of the hobby, to find a group of good friends with whom you can have fun while engaged in a specific type of social activity structured around a game system. When you find those good people HANG ON TO THEM! In the long run it is that group of friends that may be open to helping you develop the game that matches your vision.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's all about the people who play it. I'm not sure anyone says "I'll give up my Friday night to hang out with people I don't like because I love so much the game mechanics."

I've never said that...
...out loud.

 

[Satyrn]

I would consider taking a look at Savage Worlds. It is a generic RPG system which emphasizes speed of play and reduced preparation time. There is a Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion as well as numerous published settings in many genres. Probably the fantasy setting with the most setting support is Hellfrost. The world is slowly being overtaken by ice. Beasts and Barbarians offers a more Conan-esque setting. Sundered Skies is a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting in which the world exploded and everyone is forced to live on floating islands and travel by airship. There are several others worth exploring.

My choice would be Savage Borderlands.

I'm bringing some of the stuff from those video games into my D&D, but it'd be freaking sweet to play in the setting with what look likes a decently accurate adaptation.

 

[MNblockhead]

I left gaming for over two decades and my love for 5e hasn't faded yet. But 5e and I are in an open relationship. I still like to play other systems. I occasionally rune one-shots from the new Paranoia system. I've also run one-shots of InSPECTREs and when my kids were younger we played a lot of Hero Kids and No Thank You, Evil! One nice thing about "dumbed down" kid games is that they really high-light distinguishing mechanics because there are not many rules to worry about about in the first place. So you'll know very quickly how much you like or hate dice pools, for example.

I also use Meetup.com to find games to join when I'm traveling. Often I'll find myself with an evening free (such as the final day before flying back the next morning) and often in cities that don't offer much in the way of tourist destinations. So, instead of hanging out at a bar or in my hotel room, I'll find a game to join for the evening. That allows me to play some pretty obscure games, which is fun.

But I still come back to 5e for the campaign that I run. I know the system well and there are so many adventures and campaigns I still want to run in 5e. So we are still together even after all trysts I've had with other systems.

 

[BookBarbarian]

It's understandable. 5e is my first TTRPG game (though i did play some Baldur's Gate and NWN on PC so I got a small insight to how some older rulesets work).

I'm playing Adventures in Middle Earth right now, but it still uses the core 5e rules.

Now I want to try other systems like Fantasy Age and Savage Worlds and see how Fantasy RPGing can be done based on different assumptions.

 

[Wiseblood]

Thanks everyone. I knew I could count on you. I will be taking a look at a couple of these. Other systems Savage Worlds, Beyond the Wall, and Dungeon World. I watched a video with one of the Dungeon World creators....wow I was blown away. I may delve into Shadowrun which I have or ICRPG since I like Hank.

I am almost always the DM. This weekend I will be a player in Rise of the Runelords. I don't really care for Pathfinder but being on the player side of the screen is like a vacation.

I had a terrible session last Saturday. It put me into a funk. Some of you pointed out that it might be my group. I have tried homebrew for my group. I have tried published modules (I struggle mightily with those and that was what we were doing Saturday). I gravitate towards sandbox as a player and GM but I think my group lacks the player types that can take advantage of those. Maybe the groups is just a bad fit for one another. Can it be that a railroad would actually help?


And when I say I struggle mightily with running published modules I am not overstating it. In fact that may be why I felt so bad abut the situation. I feel deficient when I try. I put probably twice the effort into it compared to any adventure I design and it falls flat. It's Costanza-esque it's so bad.

 

[iserith]

I would suggest going back to basics: A small town. A dungeon. A party dedicated to exploring the dungeon, killings its denizens, and taking the treasure. No overarching plot to follow. No investigations. No quirky, cagey NPCs to interview. No town adventure of any kind or mundane errand-running.

That is, essentially, a very small sandbox. It's easy to manage, easy for players to understand, and I haven't found anyone that didn't totally love a dungeon adventure that I have run. (And it's not necessarily due to whatever skills I bring to the table, that I'm sure that helps.)

How would you describe your group of players, both together and as individuals? Other than "not great at sandboxing," I mean.