D&D General Folks Who Came Back With 5E: Did You Stay with 5E?

[ersatzphil]

I'm pretty much in this group - I started playing in the mid 90's with second edition, played through 3.5, and left the hobby for personal reasons in the early 00's. Didn't play at all until 2018, when I heard the interns talking about the "cool, underground game that you probably haven't heard of". Got back into the game with 5e, and it felt like a hybrid of 2e and 3e - you have a 3e style skill list, but a binary "proficient / nonproficient" like NWPs from 2e.

That being said, I haven't played 5e this year at all - I still have a weekly gaming group, but it's all OSR systems, Call of Cthulhu, and Free League stuff. I don't really have anything particularly bad to say about 5e: it's just that I played it for years, and... just kind of want to play something else at this point?

For the record, I also really enjoy board games. If someone approached me about joining a new board game group with the pitch, "We're going to play 'Twilight Imperium' for the next checks watch FOREVER", I would die.

 

[darjr]

How long had you lapsed, and did you play other stuff or not RPG?

I was playing DCC mostly.

But also FATE and The One Ring. A lot of other games.

 

[The Soloist]

I stopped GMing D&D six months after 4e came out. It wasn't for me. Restarted with 5e in 2014. It was a Frankenstein group of people found on the internet: half the group were 2e veterans, the other half newbies. It went well until we finished Hoard of the Dragonqueen.

After that, the group fizzled out. The veterans wanted to play D&D 5e with their old groups. The newbies wanted to start 5e groups with their friends. I stopped playing all RPGs and played wargames instead.

In 2018, I was introduced to an already-formed 5e group. Brought in one of my friends and we played until the first summer of Covid. Then the group exploded because two players divorced and it created animosity.

In 2020, I started playing with my current group. We play anything but D&D. Instead, we've played Fantasy AGE, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Dragonbane and many other RPGs. We've all played 5e, but we choose to play other systems. They refused to play Old School D&D.

 

[Theory of Games]

Did you then stay with 5E?

Nope. I play-tested it, then ran two adventures, then dumped it.

Not necessarily exclusively, but just did 5E hold your interest? For how long?

Held my interest until '18.

If you left 5E, what did you leave it for? After how long? For what other game(s)?

For anything D&D, the Rules Cyclopedia does it. GURPS is a great alternative.

 

[CleverNickName]

Yep.

Started with the red-box Basic in 1986, expanded to Expert, then Rules Cyclopedia by 1992. Played BECM all through the 90s, as often as I could, but all of the books were out of print and things like "electronic format" and "internet" weren't viable options yet.

In 2000, accidentally stumbled on a copy of the 3rd Edition Players Handbook, bought it immediately, and joined the D20 Renaissance. We played 3E for years, then switched to 3.5E and stayed with it for most of a decade.

In 2008, my gaming group had a choice to make and we chose Pathfinder. That didn't last; we switched back to 3.5E again in 2011.

In 2014, my gaming group switched to 5E and we've been here ever since. There's discussion about whether or not to adopt the 2024 revisions, but they've stagnated. I think our incoming DM is waiting until the Monster Manual has been released before making that call.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes.

When it became clear that 4E wasn't for me -- I got as far as buying the PHB after increasingly feeling that the game wasn't going be my cup of tea -- we switched from 3E to Castles & Crusades.

By 2018, though, C&C's own issues were becoming clear. I got the Stater Set, read through the stripped down rulebook, saw that many of the best ideas of C&C were also in 5E, loved the Phandalin adventure, and talked my group into switching.

We also play other stuff -- we played Shadowdark this weekend and look likely to do so again this coming weekend -- but that's in addition to 5E, rather than replacing it. (Scary dungeon stuff works much better in Shadowdark by default, as does creating replacement characters, because bad stuff happens in the dungeon.)

 

[billd91]

I started with Holmes Basic in 1981 but shifted pretty soon to 1e AD&D. Transitioned to 2e AD&D (but really played it as a hybrid with 1e). Shifted to 3e largely thanks to Eric Noah's site selling me on the changes. Moved up to 3.5 when it came out. Tried 4e for 9 months but if that was D&D, it wasn't a D&D I wanted anything to do with so one group I was playing with stayed with 3.5e and the other shifted to Pathfinder. 5e brought me back and I'm still playing (though now with the 2024 flavor).

Throughout, I also played a variety of other RPGs, but D&D was a constant in my life barring the 4e timeframe.

So, yes, 5e brought me back to D&D proper rather than adjacent games and I'm still playing it.

And the reference to 5e being 2e but with better math? It's more than just better math, but it's really not a bad way to look at it.

 

[Li Shenron]

My question is Did you then stay with 5E?

yes

Not necessarily exclusively, but just did 5E hold your interest?

Yes

For how long?

Until Tasha. And it still interests me as long as it is pre-Tasha.

 

[Queer Venger]

A lot of lapsed D&D plyers returned to D&D with 5E. Some had left for other games (Pathfinder is common) while others had not played any RPGs for many years.

I am interested in the experiences of people who:
Had either left D&D specifically or left the hobby for some measurable length of time (years at least) and who came back to the hobby with 5E.
If you discovered D&D and/or RPGs with 5E, that's awesome but not really what I am looking for. If you continued to play D&D all the way through to 5E, that is less interesting and also not what I am looking for,

With that out of the way: So you rediscovered D&D via 5E. My question is Did you then stay with 5E? Not necessarily exclusively, but just did 5E hold your interest? For how long?
If you left 5E, what did you leave it for? After how long? For what other game(s)?

Thanks.

Yes & yes.
Why is this not a poll?

Anyway, to answer your question, I started with 1e then 2e (I actively played D&D when I was active duty in the USAF, it coincided within the same year that 2e launched) then basically 5e.

5e still continues to hold my interests not just as a DM but as a player; its given me a robust stable of players so I finally get to be picky enough to show the door to shitte players. It's also the edition with the best damn art, even if the lore is redacted I still have many of my 2e box sets and wikipedia is my friend. I plan on running 5e (yes, that includes 5.5 or 5.25 or 5 ½ or whatever) even after I retire from my professional career (already setting up contacts at middles schools in my area to start D&D after school programs). I basically plan on dying playing 5e unless 6e really, really blows me away in which case then I'll die playing 6e D&D.

 

[Emerikol]

It's also the edition with the best damn art, even if the lore is redacted I still have many of my 2e box sets and wikipedia is my friend.

What do you mean? If you buys something old as a pdf they cut out the parts they don't like? or is this a hypothetical?