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

[Reynard]

No specific game is my spouse, then.

I am a hobbyist. I have been playing RPGs pretty steadily since 1982 or earlier. The gaming is what persists, while the individual games come and go for various lengths of time.

You will see that I edited this. I thought I was replying to the "I need less" thread, so your post felt like a non sequitur. Sorry about that.

 

[Bill Zebub]

5e brought me back (hadn't really played since 2e) but now I play Shadowdark.

 

[Umbran]

You will see that I edited this. I thought I was replying to the "I need less" thread, so your post felt like a non sequitur. Sorry about that.

S'okay. I edited my own post too, to refine my point.

 

[Umbran]

I mean, I still called my PF1e games D&D but people do leave systems if their needs are not met and return if that changes.

Yes, but my point is that "needs not met" is not the only reason to change games.

I have scores of games within physical reach that will meet my needs. My choice of which I play isn't really about "needs".

 

[Voadam]

No specific game is my spouse, then.

I have scores of games within physical reach that will meet my needs.

Are you saying that you are quite the player?

 

[Emerikol]

I don't think we can make broad statements about GMs that way. I know folks who love running crunchy games.

But crunchy for their players or for themselves. That as the point I was making. They may love to provide the complexity to their groups but in my view they don't want it just for themselves. At least not on a regular basis.

 

[TwoSix]

But crunchy for their players or for themselves. That as the point I was making. They may love to provide the complexity to their groups but in my view they don't want it just for themselves. At least not on a regular basis.

All things being equal, I would like a game with modular levels of crunch for the players (and that level is tunable for each player), and relatively simple on the DM side, but with some opt-in crunchy monsters.

 

[ezo]

I came back to D&D with 5E. Not by choice, but by necessity. The people I met who wanted to play were new to D&D and had a little 5E experience. So, despite my misgivings I hopped on board along with a couple other experienced players I knew -- joining the newbies.

Since then I have enjoyed playing D&D again, albeit a heavily house-ruled game (mostly through @DND_Reborn) most of the time. Frankly, most of the stuff about 5E in particular I am not a fan of, but to keep playing I sort of suck it up most of the time and implement only the house-rules which to me make 5E better (not less-5E, but a better 5E and a better D&D).

The trend towards more power, more features, more, more, more for PCs hamstrings the game experience more than it helps it. I've done a lot of in-depth analysis of the classes, features granted, etc. along with a couple other old timers and found, more often than not, much of the more-more-more becomes simply overkill IMO.

Power creep is the bane of good game design IME and 5E is riff with it. For example, we have a rune knight fighter in one of my games who is just more powerful than the fighters in general. The concept (not appealing to me personally) is sound enough, but just too strong in general. At least, that is my experience and observation. YMMV.

I am not using anything so far from the 2024 material. 9 out of 10 times it just seems like further power creep and the 1 out of 10 times it isn't it is a nerf which I have already implemented in my house-ruled games in some fashion or just don't agree with.

I would love to find a group that wanted to play AD&D (1E or 2E), but since that isn't what is on the shelves (so to say), that isn't what newer players are seeing.

The general shift from adventure/campaign-focus to character-focus just seems like making the game more about "me (the player)" and less about "us (the players and DM)".

Again, just my experience and insight. Cheers.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I came back briefly and occasionally played 5E (it definitely answered my criticisms of 4E, which was the edition I checked out after) and even some of 3E. But I had already kind of figured out, I didn't need official D&D anymore and mostly played other things. I think that happened with a lot of people. I have continued to buy books on occasion. And I purchased the new PHB recently (one thing I will say: I like that they let you pay in three monthly installments on amazon, that really tipped the scale in me making my decision to pick it up). I expect I probably won't be enthusiastic based on the changes I have been following here in teh forum to the new books. But I will give it a read and see what I think.

 

[Reynard]

But crunchy for their players or for themselves. That as the point I was making. They may love to provide the complexity to their groups but in my view they don't want it just for themselves. At least not on a regular basis.

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.