D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?

[GrimCo]

Personally, I hate edition change. Too many bad changes and infighting.

Some changes are for better, some are for the worst. As for infighting, never saw that in person, always online.

To me, system mastery is for the DM - you need to understand it deeply to run it, so a new edition is another bloody tax on my time.

As for differential system mastery among players, I feel (as DM or player), it’s the job of more experienced players (and DM) to teach the rules to new players in any version. If your concern is players “out mastering“ others and therefore lacking “balance” between players, ugh, I’m so tired of those discussions here. The party should be a team, helping each other. If it’s a competition, I think someone is being a jerk, imho. Or just playing in a different way, I suppose.

Mastery is good for players too. When you master it sufficiently, character creation process speeds up drastically. If you know what class does what you can cobble together any character concept (within confines of presented character options ofc) pretty damn fast and easy and at the same time, you know which combos work well and which don't really work. Also, it speeds up games.

Yes, it's up to more experienced players to teach less experienced ones, but they shouldn't create characters for them. FE i joined in PF group with people that like to optimize their characters for maximal combat efficiency. They know all the broken combos there are and they use them. DM prepares encounters with that in mind. I wasn't new to game and i like to create competent characters but i'm not hyper focused on optimizing. I was feeling that my character never was on par with rest of party power wise. Until i gave my sheet to one friend and he reworked my bard, drawing from all sorts of sources. He just had deep level of understanding of system.

IMHO, that started with 2e, the edition that invented the term “splatbook”.

And my solution to loathing 2e was to revert to 1e Core Rules Only.

You don’t have to incorporate - and imho definitely should avoid - all the late in edition rules bloat.

I think 5e has been admirable in avoiding splatbook-itis. (I also think 3e & 5e were both very needed clean of previous problems, whereas I think 5e doesn’t need to be cleaned up.)

You don't have to, but sooner or later people will want it, at least that is my experience. Specially when they get bored and want new shiny toys.

Imho, there is exception to late edition bloat. Tome of battle-Bo9S was by far best late edition splatbook in 3x Ed. It finally gave option to play pure martial class in higher levels and not be stuck with same old I attack. Warblade was by far the best fighter i ever played.

Rules are NEVER where I get my jollies in D&D. Rules change just gets in the way for me. Some D&Ders are crunch centric, some are fluff centric.

I’m all about fluff, stories, and the 3 pillars.

Yes, some people love fluff, some like crunch, but i would speculate that most like combo of both to various degrees.

Rules change split the community. But what you say did happen in 3e and 5e, at least.

Split the community in what way? Make it harder to find people that still play older editions?

Yeah, probably.

Yeh, probably. But i wouldn't bet on it. Being logical isn't WoTC strong suit.

 

[mamba]

IMHO, that started with 2e, the edition that invented the term “splatbook”.

yes

And my solution to loathing 2e was to revert to 1e Core Rules Only.

I just stayed with 2e core

You don’t have to incorporate - and imho definitely should avoid - all the late in edition rules bloat

agreed, I am not even sure 5e needed a Tasha’s, but I certainly do not think we should get more than 2 or 3 such books

5e resets with the new PHB and we probably get a Xanathar 2026/27 with the rest of the subclasses and some new ones, and that should be it as far as I am concerned, no continual bloat

 

[haakon1]

Split the community in what way? Make it harder to find people that still play older editions?

I guess mostly just here. Splitting into different sections, and conversations that miss each other (like labeling a generic topic “5e”).

I have never had a problem getting people to play whatever edition I want to play, which has, more enough than not, not been the current one.

 

[haakon1]

5e resets with the new PHB and we probably get a Xanathar 2026/27 with the rest of the subclasses and some new ones, and that should be it as far as I am concerned, no continual bloat

I wonder if there will an Unearthed Arcana?