The EN World boards are great for discussing 5E

[Tales and Chronicles]

I came to play D&D more seriously during 4e and I spent most of my time on WotC's CharOp forum, thinking it was the only official forum for 4e. I was constantly attacked for asking question about what to do if I my Dm didnt gave me Frost weapon so create the famous perma-frost cheese or other thing in the same vein. I honestly thought that playing D&D was doing the same as those big names with 2500 post on the CharOp forum. After a time I quit D&D because I had no fun in creating cookie-cutter cardboard character taken directly from optimizing guides. We played other games for a time until we got our hands on the 5e PHB and had a big crush on it.

I looked to find another community and ended up on Reddit and another forum that is defined by a large person in a place where people usually have fun. I rapidly found out that those forum where, again, more focused on the player side, with a huge emphasis on optimization and rapidly got bored. After a time I found an old post on one of these forum saying that people over at Enworld were much more accepting of diverging opinion and was more focused on the DM side.

I had a look, and stayed.

I love you guys.

 

[the Jester]

Why do you think it works? The XP system, the moderation, or is it some factor of 5e itself?

It's absolutely the moderation. ENWorld has had periods of greater and lesser civility, and the mods work hard, very very hard, to keep it within reasonable limits. Just because much of the work is invisible to us doesn't mean it isn't happening.

 

[Shiroiken]

If you'd been around right after the WotC forums closed, it was a different experience. I'm much happier with the current regular posters, even if I don't agree with them.

 

[Warpiglet]

If you'd been around right after the WotC forums closed, it was a different experience. I'm much happier with the current regular posters, even if I don't agree with them.

Exactly

 

[Rhenny]

I like to think that we all have mutual respect for each other and even if we don't agree with a comment, we still maintain a respectful tone. The moderators help set the tone, but I also think that most of the people who post here regularly have been around the block a few times so they are pretty conscious of what can be constructive and what can be destructive.

Also, the tone of 5e "rulings over rules" really goes out of its way to be pretty inclusive and accepting of DM table to table variations. That makes it much easier to just try different ideas or entertain other ideas without getting defensive.

 

[Mistwell]

If ENWorld got even close to the amount of posting traffic Paizo's boards do,

Uh, I think they get pretty similar numbers these days actually. Do you have some reason to believe otherwise?

 

[guachi]

I agree.

The amount of experience on this board is fantastic. There must be dozens of regular posters with 30+ years of gaming experience. ENWorld is my go to discussion forum for 5e. I regularly read three 5e forums but this is my favorite.

I think it's because this board, as mentioned above, is more DM focused. The benefit of that is being a good DM requires flexibility so I think there's more of a tendency for acceptance of difference and changes.

I know I've learned a lot about DMing.

My single favorite thing (and I think I've mentioned it before) is something iserith wrote a few years ago and I found it very useful in my early days of getting a grasp on 5e rules. And that is iserith's posts on Adjudicating Actions. I went so far as to put it into Word, edit it, make a pdf of it, and give it to new players. My edited version is 14 pages long and it's basically an entire adventure done with nothing but Ability checks (or no checks at all if the DM rules auto success or failure).

The Combat portion of the game has lots of rules. But the Exploration and Social portions of the game can be quite tricky to adjudicate in a fun, exciting, and engaging way as the rules are sparse (relative to combat) and require a reasonable bit of extrapolation to get to a point the DM is comfortable with.

 

[TwoSix]

Yea, there are a few other places to talk about builds and optimization, but this is definitely the best place to discuss DMing and overall RPG theory. And I've been coming here almost every day since 2000. It's good mods and good, active posters that make a community.

 

[akr71]

Make no mistake, the atmosphere on these boards is closely monitored and cultivated by the mods (who do an excellent job, IMO). That being said, I think there are a lot of folks here who have been around the block a few times, and you tend to be more philosophical about things when it's the third time you've seen an argument.

And likely have been around long enough to have better sense than to poke your nose into a thread that is just going to get you riled up. Usually.

A few more times around the block and you learn to respect those different opinions rather than get riled up about a different opinion about a game.

 

[Jonathon Robinson]

I agree.

The amount of experience on this board is fantastic. There must be dozens of regular posters with 30+ years of gaming experience. ENWorld is my go to discussion forum for 5e. I regularly read three 5e forums but this is my favorite.

I think it's because this board, as mentioned above, is more DM focused. The benefit of that is being a good DM requires flexibility so I think there's more of a tendency for acceptance of difference and changes.

I know I've learned a lot about DMing.

My single favorite thing (and I think I've mentioned it before) is something iserith wrote a few years ago and I found it very useful in my early days of getting a grasp on 5e rules. And that is iserith's posts on Adjudicating Actions. I went so far as to put it into Word, edit it, make a pdf of it, and give it to new players. My edited version is 14 pages long and it's basically an entire adventure done with nothing but Ability checks (or no checks at all if the DM rules auto success or failure).

The Combat portion of the game has lots of rules. But the Exploration and Social portions of the game can be quite tricky to adjudicate in a fun, exciting, and engaging way as the rules are sparse (relative to combat) and require a reasonable bit of extrapolation to get to a point the DM is comfortable with.

I am intrigued. Can you share your PDF or what iserith wrote?