I like the release of actual sales figures for the Starter Set. 126,000 in North America in 2014 (from the July release); 306,000 in North America in 2018. I wonder what we can extrapolate from that!
There was, and it didn't go over so well - got derided as 'Player Entitlement' & 'not really D&D' - in part for precisely that reason.
Part of the D&D mystique /is/ that gulf between player and DM. Narrow it too much and you get a backlash.
Note to self: find thicker veils.Ha! A veiled edition jab!
Experiences differ, of course. 5e is familiar to returning players, and if you have a mixed group of experienced, returning, and new players the new players get plenty of help learning the D&D Way.I’d say that 5e is MUCH easier to pick up and run, it’s certainly far more forgiving to a DM, imho.
You're assuming the issue is that DM'ing 5e is hard when there may be a simpler answer... more people just want to play than DM. If that is the case no amount of making DM'ing easy is going to entice them. I have players in my group like this, it's not that DM'ing is too hard it's that they just want to play. (snip)
(snip) EDIT: IMO 5e is the easiest edition of D&D to DM, especially when using something like the Starter Set or Essentials Kit as a jumping off point. If anything it may be that 5e is just a victim of its overwhelming success and that player growth has just outpaced DM growth for now since I would assume most people get into rpg's by first playing.
I don't think 5E is the easiest version of D&D to run. That would be B/X and various OSR clones that use ascending ACs such as C&C and Basic Fantasy.
Condensed rules for 5E are 2 pages long, for C&C new players more or less have to remember 2 numbers, 12 and 18.
That's kind of 2E. 2E is way easier to understand for modern players. They also seem to like the art last week I took the 2E phb 1989 and 1995 along with the Druids hand book in. Encounter design and pacing are way easier in the OSR games as well.People are fundamentally lazy so playing is the easy way out. By contrast, DMing requires effort and accepting responsibility: That clashes with the innate laziness of most of us.Honestly, I don't think 5E is as easy to DM as 4E. With 4E, everything is there on the stat block. With 5E you still have to look things up. And then there is...... which are arguably even easier to run. B/X, in particular, is a dream to run or play and everything you need to know is so easy to find. If only the people behind B/X had been able to rewrite Gygax's impenetrable prose and poor design so that AD&D had been playable as written....
The classic games they imitate didn't even /have/ encounter design, so that's... odd.Encounter design and pacing are way easier in the OSR games as well.
New players don't notice 'inflation' /relative to past eds/.5E makes things a bit harder along with hit point inflation and damage inflation.
The classic games they imitate didn't even /have/ encounter design, so that's... odd.
Not that encounter design guidelines in 5e are simple, intuitive, or, well, work, but they /exist/.
New players don't notice 'inflation' /relative to past eds/.
People are fundamentally lazy so playing is the easy way out. By contrast, DMing requires effort and accepting responsibility: That clashes with the innate laziness of most of us.
.
Possibly:
- No interest in video games (like me)
- No knowledge of the game (of the people I play D&D with I am the only one who even knows the game is coming)
- Dislike of the Baldur's gate series of games
- Dislike of CRPGs
The classic games they imitate didn't even /have/ encounter design, so that's... odd.
Not that encounter design guidelines in 5e are simple, intuitive, or, well, work, but they /exist/.
New players don't notice 'inflation' /relative to past eds/.