D&D General Folks Who Came Back With 5E: Did You Stay with 5E?

[Emerikol]

Again you seem to be applying your preferences as universal truths. There are people who enjoy running complex games that are complex even for the GM. I'm not sure why you think that is impossible.

I think it is vanishingly small if you are following my point. Of course I can't say it's ever zero for anything. And yes, that is my opinion and yes I do think it is right which is why it is my opinion.

 

[Cergorach]

Started D&D with the Dutch version of the 'basic' (Red box) about 35 years ago (but actually started pnp RPGs with 'Oog des Meesters', also called 'The Dark Eye' in English), moved to the English version of AD&D 2E not that long after. Our 2e campaign eventually petered out, but thanks to Eric Noah's site we started playing D&D 3E before it was even out, just based on the collected rumours. Eventually our 3.5E campaigns also petered out, people got real busy with work and families. I tried to get into 4e (have the whole collection), but it just lacked 'something', while Pathfinder was great, it wasn't D&D and just functioned as good reading material for D&D, not something we actually played. We got back not long after the introduction of 5E, but that run didn't last long either (again, lots of bussy people).

A couple of years ago we got back into playing 5E, but because one of our members wasn't often in the country we didn't play often. That became more problematic when he moved to the other side of the world, we only played a few times per year. That changed almost two years ago when we used a tablet with video calling as a stand in for our player on the other side of the world, it worked betten then expected, but not ideal. Then I found Foundry VTT and we started playing about twice per month, until about a month and a half ago, where I had to bow out (way to stressed and was not a friendly person). I intend to rejoin them early next year (2025) as by then the biggest stress factors will have been resolved by then. In the meantime they are still playing 5e in a different, but related campaign.

We've played other RPGs, The Dark Eye, Vampire: The Masquarde, Shadowrun, and Kids on Bikes. Personally I've also played Mage: The Ascension, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Mechwarrior, etc. But D&D is our main game, even though I had been looking often at Pathfinder 1e, and even now at Pathfinder 2e, I don't realy see that happening with our group, D&D has a high nostalgia factor for us. Although I do hope that we might make some sidesteps in the future to something entirely different, like Mothership, Spire, Heart, Blades in the Dark, and I've been reading a lot of Ars Magica...

 

[enrious]

Our group started off in 3.5 then switched to PF1 when 4e came out and started playtesting 5e and switched to it until the OGL fiasco last year (although as the forever DM and having just finished running RotFM I was pretty done with 5e anyway).

We switched to PF2 and are all happier, I think.

 

[Reynard]

I think it is vanishingly small if you are following my point. Of course I can't say it's ever zero for anything. And yes, that is my opinion and yes I do think it is right which is why it is my opinion.

Ok. I just don't know how you got there.

 

[cbwjm]

Yes and no, I've been playing OSE as well as 5e and I'd love to get a 2e game running. When playing I'll typically work with whichever system people like running and with another group, if I run a game they'll probably expect 5e so will run that (I had an attempt at savage worlds star trek but scheduling was a nightmare).

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I'm much the same, except I'm really old school and started out with OD&D, and upgraded (and played) most versions of the game as time passed. While I enjoyed the TSR versions of D&D, some of the choices, THAC0, weird rules on when you wanted to roll high or low, negative AC ... I was happy for 3E. But that version started falling apart when they kept adding bloat and then at a certain point the game just started to fall apart for us around 14th or 15th level.

When 4E came along, at first I was excited about it and dived in, DMing, running public games, the whole 9 yards. But after a couple of years? I was totally burned out on it and was debating going back to 3.5 with limits on allowed books and a level cap or go over to PF. Technically I never left, but only because I wanted to finish my epic level home campaign and I was playing in another. If 5E hadn't come along, I'm not sure what I'd be playing, if I was playing any TTRPG. I've looked into some others, but PbtA games for example just don't work for me.

So I'm still playing 5E, we've all switched over to the 2024 version. But in many ways I'm less focused on the rules of the game as long as they don't totally fall apart. Do they support my building worlds and directing stories as a DM? Can I build a character that suits my vision of a character? Is play smooth enough or does it get completely bogged down? So far I'm happy with 5E and going to another ruleset wouldn't really buy me much.

It seems like what I want out of the game has always been a bit different from some people, especially some of the old timers. I was never into killer dungeons, I'm perfectly happy if a session is 90% RP but I still want interesting, reasonably tactical fights.

I'm right there with you. I don't really want to dedicate years to master another system, so I only play other systems as one-shots or mini-campaigns, like Monster of the Week.

5E does what I need to play games my group wants to play. And now it has 10 years of feedback being used to tidy it up a bit more. I'm comfortable with it and can make all the alterations and new content I want on DDB.

 

[jdrakeh]

I came back to D&D with 5e after a long lapse (I only played a bit of 3x and no 4e). That said, I'm ready to move on from 5e. I've been playing Vampire and Werewolf this year and having a blast. I plan to run some Barrowmaze next year using an OSR system.

 

[MNblockhead]

I got into D&D in the early 80s with Basic, played AD&D and a lot of other TTRPGs from that era. When I went to college in '89, I think I played one game of D&D but other than that didn't play any TTRPGs from '90 until 2014/15. A few years before I had moved back to my hometown from overseas and started hanging out with a couple old friends from high school and we started having board game nights. I started thinking about running a game of D&D and went to my local FLGS, but the 4e books were not the game I remembered and didn't speak to me. I looked at Pathfinder and was intimidated by it. So I stuck to board games.

When 5e came out, I went back to the game store to check it out and it was love at first sight. I took a few months to get comfortable with the rules, played a few games at a local con and Adventurer's League games at local game stores, while working on my homebrew world and campaign. Started running games in early 2015 and ran 5e until the end of last year.

I've since moved on to running Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 4e and my current campaign will likely last another year or two. But I bought the 2024 PHB and DMG for D&D and like what I see. I plan to eventually run 5e 2024, but it may be a while. After my WFRP4e campaign wraps up, Foundry's Ember game should be out. If they are able to mature their Crucible System for Ember, I'll likely run it using the Crucible rules instead of the 5e rules.

Then again, if WOTC releases Project Sigil by the time I wrap up my WFRP4e campaign, and if I like the VTT, I may run a D&D game between WFRP4e and Ember. I measure my campaigns in years, and with work and family responsibilities, I don't have the time to run or play in multiple campaigns. I do, however, like to run one shots in other game systems--generally more rules light games.

5e will always hold a special place in my heart for bringing me back into the hobby and I still enjoy the system enough to be happy to run or play games in the system.

 

[CellarHeroes]

I stated with the mishmash of B/X and 1e that many of us played. Then played a little bit of 2e, but bounced pretty hard off of that. Moved on to GURPS, ShadowRun, and White Wolf's stuff.
3e entered the scene and I enjoyed that for a while...until it started getting bloated. But continued playing other games.
4e came out while I was in the midst of enjoying other games, and it just seemed to have disappeared as quickly as it arrived, so I never had an opportunity to play it at the time.

So, I guess you could say that I came back with 5e. I purchased the core books, ran a few year-long campaigns, and did some AL. Then I started seeing signs of the bloat that eventually drove me away from 3e.
I'll still run 5e, if it's appropriate for the style of game I'm interested in running, but I won't play 5e.

 

[Staffan]

First version of D&D I played was 2e. I had encountered the Swedish translation of Mentzer Basic/Expert (which contained some things from the Companion rules, I understand), but never got around to running or playing it. I played it on and off, mixing it with other games until the release of 3e at which point I switched and did not look back (though I've still never been D&D exclusive). Switched to 3.5e later. My group tried 4e and didn't like it, so we kinda went back to 3.5e for a while until Pathfinder showed up. After some time with that, I got weary of the crunch level, particularly at higher levels. It also felt like much of the newer material had a whole lot of complexity for complexity's sake, and I was getting kind of disillusioned and looking around for an alternative. I briefly tried 13th age, but I kinda need more support than that game had at first.

So when they started to playtest 5e, I took a pretty keen interest, and was originally pretty active with it, but the group wasn't too interested in keeping up with playtests so I kinda dropped it until the actual release. But on release we ran with it, and after a while I got a Princes of the Apocalypse campaign going which we almost finished... when Covid hit. Moving to online gaming for a while, we decided to try Pathfinder 2e, with me running Extinction Curse. But after the first two parts, I got a bit bored with the extreme dungeon focus in the adventures, particularly after already having run a really big dungeon in Princes of the Apocalypse. So I've been kind of off of D&D and its ilk – I've been a player in some campaigns in both 5e and PF2, but the last game I actually ran was Infinity, and right now I'm casting eyes at both Fabula Ultima and Savage Worlds. I have not gotten the 2024 books – I might at some point, but I currently feel that while the changes seem to be a net positive, I'm not sure they're positive enough to justify getting a new set of rule books.