D&D 5E Dungeons & Dragons Boom!

ad_hoc said:

I actually think the greatest contributor is what you think is lacking. I think 5e is easy to teach and people are becoming DMs and starting new groups shortly after introduction to the game. The new table has new players, some of whom will start new groups and so on.

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Bitbrain said:

This right here is what I believe is 5e reason for success. It is amazing just how easy it is for a new player to figure out the basic mechanics of 5e.

I had an absolutely new player join my homebrew campaign four months ago.
Up until the day he joined our group, he had never even heard of D&D, and knew nothing whatsoever about it.
All I needed to do was tell him which dice to roll, when said dice were meant to be rolled, what numbers to put where, what these two particular class features meant, and he was able to keep up with everyone.

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ad_hoc said:

I actually think the greatest contributor is what you think is lacking. I think 5e is easy to teach and people are becoming DMs and starting new groups shortly after introduction to the game. The new table has new players, some of whom will start new groups and so on.

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JeffB said:

By their nature RPGs will always require GMs to do far more work than players. There are newer games though that require far less GM prep work (or almost none at all because the games are focused solely on narrative at the table and not focused on intricate rules/mechanics to adjudicate everything)

I also agree that 5E's success is in large part to a game that is much easier to teach and play than anything since Mentzer's BECMI sets (And probably easier- because of unified mechanics, higher always = better rolls, A/D vs. multiple small modifiers, etc.) but WOTC's adventure path business model makes for a large and intimidating burden for new DMs. "Here is 900 pages of rules, and oh yeah- here's another 300 pages of adventure material....have fun!" That will always be a barrier to making new DM's. New DM's need adventure material in much less intimidating "bite sized" pieces.. I.e. "modules"-however we know WOTC doesn't find that profitable enough. Products like Tales and Ghosts are a good thing IMO, but I believe that new DM's need more books like B1/2/3/4/5 and T1. Not more like POTA,OOTA or SKT.

As I have said many times- If in 1977 I had to learn the game from 3 giant hardback books, and a 250 adventure path, I would never have got into the hobby. D&D has become less intimidating for new players, but not for new DMs.

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nobody69.420 said:

I do agree that being a DM is easier in 5e, however I just recently started playing D&D on Discord, while also using roll20 and D&D Beyond. What I have discovered is much more players looking for DM's than DM's looking for players.

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Zardnaar said:

This one starter set doesn't cut it. Sure you can go find shorter adventures but you don't see WotC ones in store shelves for cheap.

Most APs don't seem to get completed either.

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JeffB said:

Techincally, I guess there are two starter sets now

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