D&D General D&D Editions: Anybody Else Feel Like They Don't Fit In?

[EthanSental]

The latest Sly Flourish video is also complaining about some 2024 changes, among them also the Fey Warlock (the whole thing starts around 9:50, the Fey is around 17:30)


To me, if you get Sly Flourish to wonder whether that is still a game for him, it certainly stopped being a game for me.

I like Sly but don’t think of things in the same light. Every edition has quirks that as a DM I’ve had to get used to when building fun encounters for the group, pc based or monster based. I’ll wait and look it over when the books are released and go from there.

 

[Stormonu]

The latest Sly Flourish video is also complaining about some 2024 changes, among them also the Fey Warlock (the whole thing starts around 9:50, the Fey is around 17:30)


To me, if you get Sly Flourish to wonder whether that is still a game for him, it certainly stopped being a game for me.

Quickest way to get something banned? Annoy your DM.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, this may feel like a strange thread, but I hope people will bear with me.

I have been playing and DM'ing "Dungeons & Dragons" since the early-80s, and I am feeling more and more like there is no place in the hobby where I truly "fit" anymore. I grew up with the mechanical simplicity of B/X D&D, starting with the 1980 B/X Boxed sets supplemented by an AD&D Monster Manual. We quickly abandoned "race as class" and cherry-picked rules from the hardcover books (I read them all, and still have my Dungeoneer and Wilderness Survival Guides, but that basic game continued. I had some enduring campaigns as 1st-Edition turned to 2nd, and I kept playing D&D, but I always longed for a better skill system; as the combination of "wing it" and Nonweapon Proficiencies never quite cut it for me.

When 3e dropped, I loved it at first, but the longer I played, the more something became clear to me. Dungeons & Dragons had become more "over-the-top fantastical" than I liked. Cook and Tweet basically had turned the default setting of Dungeons & Dragons into a high-magic Monty Haul campaign. The magic system still grated and the constant embrace of making characters MORE magical was taking it further from the kind of fantasy stories I want to tell.

I grew up on Arthurian legends, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Conan, and a bunch of other "Sword & Sorcery" stuff. I didn't want my fantasy game to let me play the medieval equivalent of the X-Men, where every character has magical powers. I've thought about going back to the OSR, but the truth is that I want a game that has more rules guidance than those games offer. I just don't want one where every character can teleport, cast spells, and all of the other high-magic shenanigans that D&D embraces from the get-go.

The 5.24e embrace of this flavor has me turned off more than anything else. But I don't see a home for myself. Part of me wants to go backwards, but OSR type games are usually either too lethal (or grim-dark), too enamored of outdated game mechanics (OSE), or they're overly enamored with tables and whacky subsystems (looking at you DCC). I want there to be more fun combat options, but I don't want a lot of fiddly rules that will slow the game down. I see promise in something like DCC's "Mighty Deeds of Arms," or DMScotty's "Luck Dice" (or Professor DM's "Deathbringer Dice") or whatever you want to call them. I see some fun sub-systems in DC20, but I also see it getting way too fiddly.

Shadowdark speaks to my tastes a little (I love "roll to cast"), but I'd have to houserule some additions and alterations to it to really get the game I want. There's some other heavily house-ruled versions of OSR or "simplified 5e" that work for me, but they aren't there. But while I love the d20 resolution mechanic, I may need to walk away from a D&D that is becoming increasingly fantastical. And I don't know where to go.

Sorry for the wall of text, but is anybody else in this boat?

I recommend adventures in middle earth or whatever they called the second version of that.

It’s 5e D&D without The hyper-fantastical vibes.

 

[DarkCrisis]

The latest Sly Flourish video is also complaining about some 2024 changes, among them also the Fey Warlock (the whole thing starts around 9:50, the Fey is around 17:30)


To me, if you get Sly Flourish to wonder whether that is still a game for him, it certainly stopped being a game for me.

Quick rundown for those who cant watch atm?

 

[Belen]

So, this may feel like a strange thread, but I hope people will bear with me.

I have been playing and DM'ing "Dungeons & Dragons" since the early-80s, and I am feeling more and more like there is no place in the hobby where I truly "fit" anymore. I grew up with the mechanical simplicity of B/X D&D, starting with the 1980 B/X Boxed sets supplemented by an AD&D Monster Manual. We quickly abandoned "race as class" and cherry-picked rules from the hardcover books (I read them all, and still have my Dungeoneer and Wilderness Survival Guides, but that basic game continued. I had some enduring campaigns as 1st-Edition turned to 2nd, and I kept playing D&D, but I always longed for a better skill system; as the combination of "wing it" and Nonweapon Proficiencies never quite cut it for me.

When 3e dropped, I loved it at first, but the longer I played, the more something became clear to me. Dungeons & Dragons had become more "over-the-top fantastical" than I liked. Cook and Tweet basically had turned the default setting of Dungeons & Dragons into a high-magic Monty Haul campaign. The magic system still grated and the constant embrace of making characters MORE magical was taking it further from the kind of fantasy stories I want to tell.

I grew up on Arthurian legends, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Conan, and a bunch of other "Sword & Sorcery" stuff. I didn't want my fantasy game to let me play the medieval equivalent of the X-Men, where every character has magical powers. I've thought about going back to the OSR, but the truth is that I want a game that has more rules guidance than those games offer. I just don't want one where every character can teleport, cast spells, and all of the other high-magic shenanigans that D&D embraces from the get-go.

The 5.24e embrace of this flavor has me turned off more than anything else. But I don't see a home for myself. Part of me wants to go backwards, but OSR type games are usually either too lethal (or grim-dark), too enamored of outdated game mechanics (OSE), or they're overly enamored with tables and whacky subsystems (looking at you DCC). I want there to be more fun combat options, but I don't want a lot of fiddly rules that will slow the game down. I see promise in something like DCC's "Mighty Deeds of Arms," or DMScotty's "Luck Dice" (or Professor DM's "Deathbringer Dice") or whatever you want to call them. I see some fun sub-systems in DC20, but I also see it getting way too fiddly.

Shadowdark speaks to my tastes a little (I love "roll to cast"), but I'd have to houserule some additions and alterations to it to really get the game I want. There's some other heavily house-ruled versions of OSR or "simplified 5e" that work for me, but they aren't there. But while I love the d20 resolution mechanic, I may need to walk away from a D&D that is becoming increasingly fantastical. And I don't know where to go.

Sorry for the wall of text, but is anybody else in this boat?

Have you tried Castles & Crusades?

 

[Aldarc]

Pondering more directly my plans, I have downloaded all the suggestions y'all gave that I could find free pdf's of (OSE, Low-Fantasy Gaming, Dragonbane, Hyperborea, and several others). When I have some more dough, I'll make sure to send my cash to the ones I end up using the most, as I do like to support independent RPGs.

In addition to that, I already had Castles & Crusades (1e), Five Torches Deep, Knave, Deathbringer, ICRPG, Crown & Skull, the quickstart rules for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and of course, Shadowdark. I also still have ALL my books from older editions of Dungeons & Dragons (Moldvay/Cook B/X, Mentzer Basic, AD&D 1e, 2e, plus 3e, 3.5e, 4e, Essentials 4e); and of course 5e.

After reading all of this, I have come to the conclusion that the OSR community is probably a better bet for me than embracing 5.24e, switching over to something like Pathfinder, Tales of the Valiant, DC20; or picking up a new game like Daggerheart. As an aside, I've done some pondering and realize I really like my d20s, and prefer a "roll high" mechanic to "roll under" ones, which is a weird idiosyncrasy I've noticed in some games. I realize it's totally arbitrary, but I simply can't quite muster the same excitement for rolling a "1" as I can for a "natural 20." And despite loving d6 Star Wars, bad play experiences with Shadowrun and Hero totally soured me on dice pools.

So here's my plan: Use Shadowdark as a framework, because Kelsey's done an excellent job of writing a modern ruleset that (mostly) suits my tastes, and is compatible with a long history of adventures and existing old-school mods. For example, DMScotty's "Luck Dice" are already sort of part of it.

Shadowdark is also well-supported by the community, and I think it will be relatively easy for me to houserule anything I need to do to make the game work even better for the tastes of me and my players - to the extent it hasn't already been done by someone else.

A shame that I couldn't get you to try Dragonbane, but I understand if you psychologically don't like roll under systems or the excitement of rolling a "dragon" on a 1. It may still be a fun one-shot for you later when you are not playing Shadowdark, and I would still recommend it. But I'm glad that you got something out of this thread and that you have a game for going forward.

Those books needed a lot more editorial work than they got, but were still great fun. I'd love it if Blizzard greenlit another RPG, although Shadow of the Demon Lord would be the most obvious way to go with it.

I would probably just pitch SotDL or SotWW with some minor tweaking if I wanted to run Diablo for tabletop.

 

[Voadam]

I grew up on Arthurian legends, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Conan, and a bunch of other "Sword & Sorcery" stuff. I didn't want my fantasy game to let me play the medieval equivalent of the X-Men, where every character has magical powers. I've thought about going back to the OSR, but the truth is that I want a game that has more rules guidance than those games offer. I just don't want one where every character can teleport, cast spells, and all of the other high-magic shenanigans that D&D embraces from the get-go.

If I wanted a lower PC magic sword and sorcery D&D sort of in the vein of Conan the Barbarian the movie as D&D I would go with 4e D&D martial classes using the inherent bonus option from DMG 2.

A party of fighters, rogues, warlords, and martial rangers is fully functional D&D able to handle typical D&D encounters as well as most any PC group with clerics and psions and paladins and warlocks and sorcerers.

Inherent bonuses means the math works for combat without needing any magic items or saving magic items for special flavor only stuff instead of combat bonuses.

The skill system is broad with more functionality to cover general stuff that comes up than piecemeal AD&D non weapon proficiencies.

It provides action movie thematics so 300/Spartacus/Legolas from LotR style PC warriors kicking butt without overt magic.

If you wanted a little bit of PC magic there are plenty of 4e options too.

Ritual magic means PC magic can be thrown in if you want without it being combat magic, similar to the Conan movie where the only friendly wizard magic was completely non combat stuff.

You could also allow in minor PC magic with multiclassing feats which means allowing a PC ranger-wizard to essentially throw an attack cantrip once per fight and at medium levels an option to throw a lightning bolt once per fight instead of a ranger maneuver.

 

[JohnSnow]

If I wanted a lower PC magic sword and sorcery D&D sort of in the vein of Conan the Barbarian the movie as D&D I would go with 4e D&D martial classes using the inherent bonus option from DMG 2.

A party of fighters, rogues, warlords, and martial rangers is fully functional D&D able to handle typical D&D encounters as well as most any PC group with clerics and psions and paladins and warlocks and sorcerers.

Inherent bonuses means the math works for combat without needing any magic items or saving magic items for special flavor only stuff instead of combat bonuses.

The skill system is broad with more functionality to cover general stuff that comes up than piecemeal AD&D non weapon proficiencies.

It provides action movie thematics so 300/Spartacus/Legolas from LotR style PC warriors kicking butt without overt magic.

If you wanted a little bit of PC magic there are plenty of 4e options too.

Ritual magic means PC magic can be thrown in if you want without it being combat magic, similar to the Conan movie where the only friendly wizard magic was completely non combat stuff.

You could also allow in minor PC magic with multiclassing feats which means allowing a PC ranger-wizard to essentially throw an attack cantrip once per fight and at medium levels an option to throw a lightning bolt once per fight instead of a ranger maneuver.

I ran a 4e game back in the day, but I was not enamored of it, and the disconnect between player and character bothered my players, some of whom I still game with.

They especially didn’t like the per-encounter and per-day martial powers: “I get the gamist reason, but I don’t get the in-world rationale here.” It didn’t “make sense.”

So that’s a no-fly zone.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

OP here.

A Fey Warlock can Misty Step without spending a spell slot 4 or 5x/day at 3rd-level. I thought I heard Crawford say the Goliath’s growth power got bumped back from 5th-level to 3rd. If not, I take it back about growing to giant size at early levels, but the Warlock thing is 100% accurate. Those are absolutely superhero powers. A Tiefling Fey Patron Pact of the Blade Warlock resembles a certain character…a LOT. Uncannily so.

Super hero would be Nightcrawler "Misty Step at will, DImension door 1/ long rest" and I doubt we will see that.

But I too feel left behind, long ago.

 

[Voadam]

I ran a 4e game back in the day, but I was not enamored of it, and the disconnect between player and character bothered my players, some of whom I still game with.

They especially didn’t like the per-encounter and per-day martial powers: “I get the gamist reason, but I don’t get the in-world rationale here.” It didn’t “make sense.”

So that’s a no-fly zone.

You had mentioned per day abilities in a different post so I figured.

For some the encounter/daily mechanics for a physical maneuver are a huge impediment to their immersion.

I have no problem with the digging deep metaphors for a special physical maneuver you can't do all day every round like the ranger interrupt movement to get away from an attack or their interrupt or reaction counterattacks. Often encounter and dailies were usually just "do the same thing but better/harder/more" which in world just means a peak moment of doing what everyone agrees they do (attacking or whatever).