D&D General Did You "Return" because of some Edition of D&D?

[DND_Reborn]

You would think with all those options I could choose one, but I can't LOL!

The title of the thread implies I returned because of some edition, which isn't true. I returned because I finally was able to organize a group to play with again...

Now, we started the group with 5E, which satisfied the poll, itself, but that is not in the same spirit as the thread's title implies. If the group wanted to play B/X or AD&D, we would have played that. But, some of them already had 5E books since it is the current edition, while only I had books from earlier editions.

 

[Mull Ponders]

Played AD&D, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, the I was one of those that really tried to like 4th but it never worked for me. So we continued on Pathfinder until 5e came out.

 

[Reynard]

This makes perfect sense to me. AD&D was a riot of separate disunified mechanics. It is a hard sell compared to more modern games with unified mechanics. The latter is far easier to learn and to intuitively grasp.

I don't know how many 90s games you played, but "easy to grasp mechanics" was not a hallmark of the era, even if they did tend toward "unified core mechanics." Vampire was famously opaque and completely mathematically flawed.

 

[Reynard]

Also, I'm not sure how to answer the poll. I haven't ever stopped gaming, though there certainly has been long periods of me not touching D&D...

The question isn't about you leaving D&D, although it appears most people are taking it that way.

 

[Synthil]

I started with 4E, switched briefly to 13th Age before our group fell apart. Ithen put together a new group with 5E after being inspired by Critical Role. But I would've done so no matter the edition. The main reason to choose 5E was that I knew the basics of the rules from watching CR and that D&D beyond just launched their online tools in 2017, just as we were getting started. So it was more out of convenience.

I think I do prefer 4E overall. But mostly on the DM side and not by a large margin.

 

[Jer]

I don't know how many 90s games you played, but "easy to grasp mechanics" was not a hallmark of the era, even if they did tend toward "unified core mechanics." Vampire was famously opaque and completely mathematically flawed.

For all of its flaws if you tried to run Vampire by the book, it had a consistent core that required almost no mastery from the player side to grasp. A player had only one thing to worry about - how many dice am I rolling? Then count up the successes and tell the GM how many you had.

Trying to decipher the rules was not as bad as trying to run Palladium by the rules, but it was bad. However that consistency meant that it was actually easy to ignore the rules for the most part and just wing it because in the end you were always asking players to do the same thing - figure out how many dice to roll, roll them all, count up successes and tell the GM how many you get.

D&D had places where you wanted to roll high. Places where you wanted to roll low. THAC0 if you weren't using an increasing AC variant (which we did, so that wasn't an issue usually). d20 rolls for some things, percentile rolls for others. If you made the mistake of using non-weapon proficiencies (or skills in BECMI) you had two different kinds of skill systems in the game that both worked differently. For new or casual players it was a mess - and once they knew RPGs didn't have to be like that IME they preferred to play the flawed but consistent Vampire over any flavor of D&D. At least until 3e came along.

 

[Zardnaar]

Never stopped playing D&D if you count Pathfinder but I went from Pathfinder to 2E and clones then to 5E.

So I left 4E for previous editions and clones does that count?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Cannot vote. I have in fact essentially stopped playing D&D specifically (and the hobby at large, other than as DM) because of the current edition, which pretty openly told me "all the things you love suck, and you should feel bad for liking them."

I still run a game. But I haven't played any D&D (nor PF) in something like 5 or 6 years now. Finding a game, ANY game, that actually does stuff I'm interested in is damn near impossible these days.

Prior to 5e, I never left. So I guess the closest thing to my position is either "No, I never left" or "No, it was an entirely different game that brought me back" (Dungeon World or Werewolf 20th Anniversary, depending on whether you count DMing or only playing.)

 

[Zardnaar]

Started with 2E and never stopped.

I have RETURNED to 2E though because I'm quite tired of 5E at this point.

I would do that if it was an option aka finding the players or location.

I wouldn't abandon 5E maybe alternate. the campaigns. And I would pick playing 5E over DMing second.

Would love to play a 2E game nearest DM I know of is 1400+ kilometers away.

 

[Stormonu]

Sure but 97 is really late to drop D&D for either WoD (91?) or MtG (93?).

Well, for my groups it started a year after each came out, but by '97, even I wasn't playing.