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

[Older Beholder]

I started with 2E, played up until about the time 3.5 came out.
Was gone about 10 years before 5E brought me back.

I'm still enjoying 5E and will hopefully move on to 5E24 at some point.

 

[Greg K]

I picked up 5e after skipping 4e. However, since COVID, I have not been able to run/play due to concentration issues. I am keeping my core 5e books, but leaning more towards Barbarians of Lemuria/Everywhen (either with Sword & Sorcery Codex), Conan (Monolith), Savage Worlds, Honor + Intrigue, and, possibly BASH Fantasy for my fantasy needs when I get around to running something.

 

[cranberry]

I played 1E and 2E and then stopped playing for a long time because I couldn't find anyone else interested, and eventually gave up.

Then by chance, I came across my current group when the GM was looking for people to play 5E which had just been released about a year before.

 

[R_J_K75]

I started playing D&D in 1982. I've always played various RPGs on and off over the years. I stopped playing again in 2011 after switching to Pathfinder for a while. I bought 5E when it came out in 2014 but it was June of 2015 before I got a game together, but that only lasted a few sessions. I didn't play it again until 2018, and this group played on and off until 2022, when we decided to stop playing it for good to play other games. I was never a big fan of 5E and I don't recall anyone I've played it with saying it was a great game. Even new players who never played any TTRPGs that came from a CRPG background didn't think too much of it. In the next few weeks, we're going to give 5E2024 a shot to see if it's better than the 2014 game. Honestly though after briefly looking over the characters my players made it reminded me why we stopped playing it so I'm not expecting much. Hopefully I'm wrong.

 

[Oofta]

I'm not your target demographic, but I have tangential experience.

I played every edition all the way through, through the transition into each next edition. I looked forward to every change, because I felt the pain points of the late-stage of each of those editions, and was happy to try something new.

I hated aspects of 2E (THAC0 and Saving throws and race limitations were nonsense.) I looked forward to the streamlining of 3E (loved the narrative sense of the 3 saving throws, for instance). Then, over time, 3E became a nightmarish, tangled, unbalanced, mess. So when 4E came along I was looking forward to a new interpretation. I enjoyed the stories told, the ideas and concepts that were introduced, and it expanded my horizons. But I was feeling the deep pain points with 4E by the time we hit Paragon tier, and we played 2 campaigns to complete Epic Destinies). The bloat and monotony was inescapable. And when I left 4E to play 5E, I loved 5E. And still love it.

I am glad that the 2024 books are just a tune-up. I'm staying with 5E, and will use all my older edition books as inspiration to develop content for my 5E games.

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.

 

[JEB]

Background: Started with 2e, sorta continued into 3.0 (our 2e campaign continued with some 3e mods like ascending AC). Switched to playing Mutants & Masterminds during the 3.5 era, but still paid attention to 3.5 products - though less as time went on, and bought far fewer. Checked out of D&D completely with 4e.

After our M&M campaign waned, got into Pathfinder Society and DCC funnels at a local game store, but enthusiastically returned to D&D for the Next playtest. We started a 5e campaign shortly after the launch in 2014 that ran until Covid - probably the best one I've ever participated in, TBH.

Did you then stay with 5E? Not necessarily exclusively, but just did 5E hold your interest? For how long?

5e was our primary game until Covid - so about 5-6 years. (There were some one-shots of other games, but never plans to drop 5e.) After that, a combination of Covid-era logistics and waning enthusiasm for official D&D pretty much killed plans to resume. I did run a one-shot anniversary game this year, but it's generally agreed that we're done. (Unless you count the hybrid OD&D vs. 5e game I'm running this Saturday... but I digress.)

If you left 5E, what did you leave it for? After how long? For what other game(s)?

Technically, I haven't left it for anything else... yet. But no one among us is interested in the 2024 rules, and a new 2014 5e campaign isn't really being considered either. However, my brother may be starting up a DCC campaign next year. I may also do some one-shots of stuff like Shadowdark - so who knows where we'll go from there?

 

[tetrasodium]

Played 1e a couple times as a kid but quit for many years because we moved to a rural area where it wasn't really an option for many many reasons. Found some players in the 90's after we moved to a third state & got back in with 2e. That was off & on due to things like school work & so on but remained fairly regular lasted up through 3.x & pf. Fled the 4e years & ran a lot of things like fate paranoia dcc modiphious' 2d20 stuff etc.

Eventually came back to d&d around the time stk came out. Played a few games & pretty quickly started running games regularly. There are a lot of things that grate on me in it's design & around the time ToA came out I was actively looking for something else but still running it. That kept up until covid shattered the AL community at the FLGS I frequented.. After covid I started running Levelup but the elements in 5e that get under my skin are still prominent enough that I burned out on that shortly before the oned&d playtest. Given the 2024 PHB✩ 2024 DMG✩ & general lack of GM advocate type led content aimed at the GM's needs I'm mostly waiting to see what the 2025 monster manual & possible early UA type stuff does there since the release of that book aligns pretty well with the expected availability of nond&d stuff I'm actively looking forward to.

✩Yes I've read or skimmed both and the one session I played reminded me of the joys causing so many 3.x groups to just houserule away/ban spiked chain trip builds but cranked to 11

 

[el-remmen]

Yes and no.

Yes, because the homebrew ruleset I am working on for future D&D campaigns is based on 5E (with a bunch of previous edition stuff grandfathered in)

But also, no. . . because I felt like I had to create a whole new ruleset to achieve something close to my preferred playstyle while keeping the 5E basis that the folks I tend to play with are most familiar with.

 

[R_J_K75]

10 years is a long run for an RPG. I would certainly at least entertain the idea of a 6th Edition

Ten years is definitely too long for an edition. I was pretty disappointed that they only revised 5E instead of making 6E. I think D&D Beyond and the VTT they are developing has a lot to do with that decision. I don't foresee a new edition for at least 5, maybe even 10 years, unless sales tank drastically in the next few years which doesnt seem likely.

 

[Cruentus]

Started with B/X, then quickly into Ad&d, then 2e, 3e, skipped 4e, then stopped playing DnD until the pandemic. Played about 4 years of 5e, online, then dropped it to go back to B/X and OSE Advanced. Those, and Beyond the Wall are my go-to RPG rulesets now.

Though I’m playing in a 2e online game currently, I am also running an OSE game set in Greyhawk. I prefer B/X and OSE due to their relative simplicity, ability to be hacked/houseruled, and the speed of play and that we can easily put emphasis on what we want - exploration, resource management, combat, social encounters, domain play (or all of the above).

We have also tried out ShadowDark, DCC, Black Sword Hack, etc., but we’re sticking with OSE and B/X.