D&D General Making and surviving the break…

[AnotherGuy]

BECMI to 2e - Mystara and only Mystara.
I did get the 1e books and loved them too but our group carried on with 2e mostly as I was the primary DM until we eventually converted to 3.5e. I missed the whole 3e debacle because I enjoyed 2e and I was too stubborn to change.
3.5e burnt me as a DM and as much as I loved the edition at the time I could not cope with the ever expanding rules. Took a 6-12 month break and that is when 4e came out.

Found a new group that was running 4e, sibling-DMs. Their playstyle was far different to mine and the only silver lining of that experience was being able to poach 3 of their players when I started up again with my old play group. We quickly transitioned into Next and 5e and that is where we are now, at level 15 with some house-rules. Our 5e experience has predominantly been Forgotten Realms.

Once the story for this campaign is done, and we are inching there, I'll probably drop 5e and I'm not at all concerned about not keeping up with the brand and newer releases.
I have far too many un-played RPGs on my shelf, on my PC and ideas in my head to worry about the brand or D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I started with the B in BECMI and quickly moved on to 1e. When 2e came out we all bought it and I fell in love with the settings (perhaps to a fault, as recent events have shone), and we used a lot of it in our 1e games, but never officially switched. We played 3e and 3.5, and I certainly bought a lot of it, but we were never completely on-board and often went back to 1e/2e.

I was living away from my hometown and all my friends when 4e came out, and that led me to cling to it more than I probably would have otherwise. When I came back we gave 4e a real shot, and I ran and played it for over a year of weekly games, but eventually we all decided it was not working for us (although we did use it for some fun weekly arena battles).

When 5e came out we switched over and had a good time, although I never felt quite as good about it as the TSR editions. Then my best friend passed away and our group shattered. I've since formed a new group and we play 5e, but with a wide variety of 3pp added in to make the experience more of what I enjoyed out of classic play. We use Level Up, which I greatly appreciate, as a base.

I've also become very interested in the OSR in the last five years or so, after I began to feel that WotC was actively moving away from what I wanted out of D&D. Ironically, my favorite OSR game is ACKS, which is based on B/X, an edition I never played. Unfortunately, my group does not care for classic play (at least not enough of them do), so I have to work with a 5e base. I'm thankful for Level Up, but generally I do feel very much on the outs regarding my preferences, particularly in the online discussion community. I really wish I could get my group to try an OSR approach.

 

[Oofta]

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.

One of the things that was fun/broken in 3.x was stacking buffs and the finicky nature. What made it worse for one of my characters was that the PC was a two-weapon fighter and each weapon had multiple energy types at higher level. Add in power attack and penalties for multiple attacks. It was a lot.

The option on top of option was just too much for a lot of people. I worked things out so that I had a worksheet - a cheat sheet that I would use to check off which buffs I had up, what they added. I then had literal handfuls of color-coded dice that I would roll. I think I was up to over 50 dice for a full attack, but I could roll them all at the same time (towards the end it took 2 handfuls) and then add them up before it came to my turn. If something changed, I knew what order the attacks happened in so I could just ignore subsequent changes if they didn't happen.

But without my spreadsheet? If I rolled one die at a time like so many people still do? Would have taken forever. Still a bit of an issue with multiple attacks, but still a magnitude fewer number of dice involved.

 

[Oofta]

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

When the game is selling better than previous editions, possibly every other edition, there's not a lot of reason for them to make radical changes. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Make that the marketing opportunity to the many outweigh the marketing opportunities to the few.

 

[billd91]

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.

This reminded me, I don't think I really addressed the question of experiencing gaming when I didn't move ahead with the next edition (4e for those of you who missed my earlier post).

For me, it was relatively easy. Thanks to the OGL and Paizo, I shifted to Pathfinder, as did one of my gaming groups. We played through multiple APs until the COVID lockdown really ended the group (don't worry, I play with most of them via another group that started up as a remote game during the pandemic - but not for PF). The Pathfinder Society organized play structure also filled in the gaps at game conventions, particularly in the packed Sagamore Ballroom at Gen Con. My participation on ENWorld continued unabated (so much to talk about), and I added more discussion on Paizo's boards, which were pretty vibrant at the time.

The other group I play with was less interested in PF and in the wake of our attempt at 4e, we just happily retreated back to 3.5e. (We also played quite a bit of Star Wars Saga Edition.) And even though we didn't shift over to PF for the rules, when we rotated DMing duties, I would sometimes trot out PF adventures I had because they converted extremely easily so we still benefited from 3.5e's ongoing survival in 3pp support.

Now, however, in a way I'm in a similar situation with PF2. I don't like it nearly as much as I liked PF, nor do I like it nearly as much as I like 5e. So I do somewhat exist in the realm of being left behind on that game. Fortunately, 5e more than makes up for it since I'm playing it with both of my game groups now AND running Adventurer's League at Gamehole Con. I have more or less abandoned the Paizo boards, but they are largely a ghost town outside of the forums specifically about PF2 rules and publications.

 

[payn]

This reminded me, I don't think I really addressed the question of experiencing gaming when I didn't move ahead with the next edition (4e for those of you who missed my earlier post).

For me, it was relatively easy. Thanks to the OGL and Paizo, I shifted to Pathfinder, as did one of my gaming groups. We played through multiple APs until the COVID lockdown really ended the group (don't worry, I play with most of them via another group that started up as a remote game during the pandemic - but not for PF). The Pathfinder Society organized play structure also filled in the gaps at game conventions, particularly in the packed Sagamore Ballroom at Gen Con. My participation on ENWorld continued unabated (so much to talk about), and I added more discussion on Paizo's boards, which were pretty vibrant at the time.

The other group I play with was less interested in PF and in the wake of our attempt at 4e, we just happily retreated back to 3.5e. (We also played quite a bit of Star Wars Saga Edition.) And even though we didn't shift over to PF for the rules, when we rotated DMing duties, I would sometimes trot out PF adventures I had because they converted extremely easily so we still benefited from 3.5e's ongoing survival in 3pp support.

Now, however, in a way I'm in a similar situation with PF2. I don't like it nearly as much as I liked PF, nor do I like it nearly as much as I like 5e. So I do somewhat exist in the realm of being left behind on that game. Fortunately, 5e more than makes up for it since I'm playing it with both of my game groups now AND running Adventurer's League at Gamehole Con. I have more or less abandoned the Paizo boards, but they are largely a ghost town outside of the forums specifically about PF2 rules and publications.

This mirrors much of my experience too. However, I'm more likely to stick with PF1 then jump to 5E. I think the Paizo boards have died off in favor of discord, reddit, etc... Sad, as I dont like having conversations in those places.

 

[Voadam]

I started with 1e and B/X. When 2e came out I got a really good deal off a mistakenly priced ad in a comic for the 2e PH so my brother and I put in orders for everyone in my group who was interested. I kept using my 1e DMG and PH and just got new 2e modules and sourcebooks. It was fairly interchangeable between 1e and 2e stuff and I allowed stuff from both editions in my game.

When 3e came out I figured I had enough 2e stuff to last a lifetime and I was happy with it but I preordered the 3e PH at a discount to check it out. I also heard about the OGL stuff and checked out the SRD and I really liked it. I mostly adopted based off of the PH and SRD but did not get the DMG or MM mostly sticking with the SRD and my DMing experience, but I did go in pretty hard on a lot of sourcebooks.

When 3.5 came out I checked out the srd liked it and went with that, not picking up any of the core books but going with supplements and modules.

When 4e came out there was no SRD and not really a discount on core books on sale. I was happy with 3.5 and did not check out the new edition stuff directly. I picked up the concept of monster solos, elites, and minions and applied them to my 3.5 game and it worked well. It was not until years into the edition when I guest played in a game that I checked 4e out directly. At that point they had finally released the fast play rules from H1 Keep on the shadowfell as a free PDF so I checked that out and read it. I liked it. I bought the Christmas big discount PH I&II set off of Amazon and read the PH. I really liked a lot of it. I played and had fun. I joined a new group and 4e was their game of choice.

Before that though I had been doing a bunch of Paizo stuff and so I checked out their Pathfinder playtest and really liked it and used that as an update for my then 3.5 group. When Pathfinder 1e came out it had an SRD and I used that and started buying Pathfinder sourcebooks and modules and integrated them into my 3e/3.5/d20 stuff. I was in big when I joined the 4e group, they eventually got burnt out on 4e when I got into it and so we did Pathfinder and I both played and DMd and was happy with it when 5e came out.

We checked out the playtest a little but did not go in at first, doing a bunch of Pathfinder and White Wolf and Mutants & Masterminds and d20 Modern and being happy with that.

Eventually 5e came out with a bit of an OGL and srd and some of us got the books and were interested in trying it out. I liked it and it has been my system of choice since then.

For me in recent D&D editions SRDs are a big factor in whether I check out a new edition right away or not.

 

[pogre]

I have a steady group of players who will play whatever I am running. I plan on buying the new stuff and trying it - then my group will decide if we like it better than 5e.

I've played D&D almost since the beginning, but I skipped 2E (WFRP instead) and only did one campaign of 4e.

I ran a "dead" game (WFRP 1e) for years - being left behind is not a big concern for me.

 

[Scott Christian]

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

I think you are discounting the fact that eventually Perkins, Merls, and Crawford will retire. Some new young blood will come in and want to make it their own. They will have enough sway to convince everyone to get on board, and voila, you will have a new edition. It may not be in the next three or four years. But once leadership leaves, things can change pretty drastically over a short period of time.

 

[dave2008]

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."

I've probably asked before, but have you tried PF2? It has a lot of the design mojo of 4e but actually even tighter design. If fixes some of the flaws in 4e design but it is not a 4e clone. So if you want the precise 4e feel it might not do it for you, but it might be worth a look and you can probably find a group!