D&D General Does Dungeons & Dragon ever make you feel overwhelmed? (Letter about 1E that could be about any edition)

[MichaelSomething]

How could it overwhelm people? Weren't you suppose to ignore most of the rules and use rulings for everything?

 

[Blue Orange]

Maybe if they sold books in some kind of "deluxe" binding folders that you can insert pages that you print on expensive photo paper when errata(patch) comes out it would be a good compromise.

This was actually tried with the Monstrous Compendium in 2e--it was a three-ring binder and you could insert monster sheets on three-holed looseleaf paper. You can guess what happened--the thing fell apart and the pages got torn.

 

[Rabulias]

This was actually tried with the Monstrous Compendium in 2e--it was a three-ring binder and you could insert monster sheets on three-holed looseleaf paper. You can guess what happened--the thing fell apart and the pages got torn.

Even before it started to fall apart, the best aspect of this system was lost. Being able to have a single source of monsters in alphabetical order (or a custom, personalized order of your choosing) was a great thing in the day of multiple books and the pre-WWW Internet. But then they ruined that by printing monsters on both sides of the page.

 

[haakon1]

I feel the this one. I spend a lot of time on D&D, and played since 1982, but there’s just so much stuff I’ll just never ”catch up” on.

I only fully get AD&D 1e, 3.0/3.5e, AD&D Oriental Adventure, and Greyhawk. And I don’t fully know 1e UA (edition 1.5) or 3/3.5e splatbooks - it’s a conscious choice to not have a ton of splat, splat being the main criticism of 2e & 3/3.5e.

I feel underinformed on Forgotten Realms and 5e.

I know some 2e, 4e & Nentir Vale, PF1 & Golarion, and the Basic D&D Known World. Perhaps “enough” but it’s not deep.

Zero knowledge or interest of Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, or PF2.

I’m on,y getting to the Witcher and Wheel of Time because they are on TV.

is it possible (or advisable?) to be up to date on all these things?

 

[Lyxen]

is it possible (or advisable?) to be up to date on all these things?

I honestly don't think it's possible, considering that you added fantasy books on top of D&D itself. D&D is extremely vast, thousands of hours of reading at the very least, and if you start on massive series of books like the Witcher and especially Wheel of Time, it will take you a while more (although both of these are definitely worth reading - way more than D&D books - if you have the time and the inclination). With all my other activities, I even have trouble following all the publications of Brandon Sanderson, despite him being my favourite author these days. Also, D&D, as a game, is meant to be played. Over the years, I think I've read most of what has been published, but I have not even experienced it, although I've played thousands of sessions (in engineering school only, I played 6 sessions a week for 3 years, although it was certainly a bit too much). And there is no need for it, just enjoy the game as it exists in the tables that you have fun with.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

From the current examples of the new stat blocks, they won’t.

The best we can do if we would rather that stay (unless you‘re a personal friend of those in charge and call up and say “Yo man, what the crap? If you haven’t heard the issues some people have with this, lemme explain“) is to make sure to give useful feedback on every survey that comes out.

I am totally torn between both approaches.
A big problem of casters as enemies always has been, that they are encountered fully rested in most cases. So they always punch way over a non caster. And if you know the system as a DM well, it is a boring fight: fireball, shield, fireball, shield, fireball, shield. (Or something like that).
At least with the new approach, you get some variation.

Actually, In the playtest there was a rule that yoi can't spam the same spell over and over again.
Probably some recharge mechanic for PC spellcasters could be nice too. That would greatly nerf some over the top spells.
Something as simple as: you can't cast the same spell twice in a row as your action a prepared spellcaster (wizard/cleric/druid/paladin/Artificer).
You might allow casting the same spell twice in a row if you prepare it twice and so on.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It wasn't until all the splat books of 2E that I felt like things were getting out of handle with creating too much material which IME would see very little use.

Since then, I rarely buy new material because it just isn't worth it to me. I like to keep the core of the game simple and develop my own game world. Occasionally a player will buy something, like Ravenloft or Frostmaiden, and want to run it or have me run it, which is fine.

So, while I am glad to see the continued success of D&D, extremely little of the material is for me anymore. Fortunately, I never felt it was necessary for me to enjoy the game.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Every edition along a long enough timeline gets fat.
It’s honestly time for a new edition/fresh start just to clean up some rules and make entry easier.

That being said, nothing stops you from playing only the core 3 (plus whatever you I want to allow) from any edition.

Next D&D game I run will probably be 2E with just the core 3.

 

[Lyxen]

That being said, nothing stops you from playing only the core 3 (plus whatever you I want to allow) from any edition.

I think that's the right spirit. There are great things in every edition, and it's not hard to find those, if only by asking here. But considering the whole of any edition is usually way too much, including 5e at the time.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I honestly don't think it's possible, considering that you added fantasy books on top of D&D itself. D&D is extremely vast, thousands of hours of reading at the very least, and if you start on massive series of books like the Witcher and especially Wheel of Time, it will take you a while more (although both of these are definitely worth reading - way more than D&D books - if you have the time and the inclination).

The question is, do you need to read all of something to be "up to date", and I'd definitely say you do not need to.

You just need to be aware something exists, and to find a good summary/analysis of it, maybe read one book of it (if that). If you read around the subject you're likely to simply absorb a lot of the information. This isn't just true of D&D, it's true of most subjects. If you're going to go into depth on something you probably need to read/research more on it, but that's going way beyond being "up to date". The only major exception I'm aware of is tech, particularly IT management stuff, where things are moving so fast it is genuinely probably humanly impossible to be "up to date" even in a light way, on everything you might be expected to be.

With D&D, it's absolutely possible to gain a decent understanding of pretty much all of D&D and maintain that understanding to an "up to date" standard without huge hassle. Whether you want to is another question entirely!

As for being overwhelmed, those closest I've come was in 3.5E (specifically), when splatbooks were coming very thick and fast, and I just lost interest in keeping track of them. But I think that's different to being overwhelmed. Even with 4E's errata, I never felt like it was "too much, too fast". I've definitely played videogames which updated so much so fast I was overwhelmed, but never a tabletop one.