D&D 5E Has D&D spoiled you on other RPGs?

[MGibster]

At this point, I enjoy playing 5E, and thinking about "the good ol' days" of AD&D, but whenever I look at other games, I just don't have any interest in them like I used to. For me, it has (almost) reached the point of D&D or nothing. Soon, my group will be playing d20 Star Wars since they are interested, and I'll run it so they can try it, but otherwise it will be back to D&D in some "5E-fashion".

When I visited Disney World in 2000, I decided I was going to eat prime rib for dinner at every restaurant we went to. By day three, something happened to me that I would not have believed was possible. I was tired of prime rib. Likewise, as much as I enjoy D&D, I want something else once in a while. I can't get the same experience from D&D that I can get from Call of Cthulhu or Alien.

 

[chaochou]

Games I'd prefer to play ahead of D&D 5e include, but are not limited to: Apocalypse World, The Veil, Sorceror, The Sword The Crown and The Unspeakable Power, Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls, Traveller, HeroWars, Paranoia, Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, Dungeon World, Blades in the Dark, Rolemaster, The One Ring, Diaspora, The Dresden Files, Wanderhome, Dread, The Sprawl, Inspectres, Orbital, Trollbabe, Warhammer FRP, Free Spacer, Kids on Bikes, Stonetop, D&D 4e, AD&D.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Maybe, in the sense that 5e is completely transparent and unobtrusive for me and my table. The system pushes everyones lazy buttons, it's simply no effort to prep and play. Well that is not completely true, prepping and DMing high level 5e sucks equus asinus reproductive organ. And it's become more and more obvious for every year that 5e is a dire mismatch for our preferred play style with a focus on rp, social stuff, intrigue and politics, where the systems implicit demands for combat and evolvement to superheroes hinder more than it helps. Yes, it's easy to adapt for it, but then why play 5e?

So for my next fantasy campaign I will probably use Savage Pathfinder. It still has implicit combat focus, but with a way better power curve and threat premisses.

 

[pemerton]

Games I'd prefer to play ahead of D&D 5e include, but are not limited to: Apocalypse World, The Veil, Sorceror, The Sword The Crown and The Unspeakable Power, Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls, Traveller, HeroWars, Paranoia, Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, Dungeon World, Blades in the Dark, Rolemaster, The One Ring, Diaspora, The Dresden Files, Wanderhome, Dread, The Sprawl, Inspectres, Orbital, Trollbabe, Warhammer FRP, Free Spacer, Kids on Bikes, Stonetop, D&D 4e, AD&D.

Interesting list. Of those, over the 5e period I've played Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, 4e D&D and AD&D. 4e is undoubtedly my favourite version of D&D, but I find that AD&D has a nostalgic charm.

 

[Emirikol]

Au contraire!
If it wasn't for dnd (a particular edition) I wouldn't have left to discover systems with more consequences than just hit points!
Now I crave more diverse systems.
Great examples include:
Cortex and WFRP3e (not the other wfrp editions). Moral consequences, scene consequences, Shame, Corruption, Obligations, Party Cohesion/Tension, Loyalty, and non-insta-heal disease/curse/psychology effects, etc.

Dnd offers an endless supply of players in a standard, mostly-simple, increasingly pop-clique-debased system. My nostalgia otherwise lies with the old art and days gone by play moments. My current play both ftf and vtt uses it for convenience, but my mind is elsewhere.

I used to love this game. I used to love houseruling and integrating Dragon Magazine (when it was in print). Now its just 'yet another edition.'
What kills it is there is less and less new or resonating (Im not talking crunch) when I turn a page. There are no more 'secrets' in the dmg to discover and Dragon is dead. There is a flood of fine/not-so-fine 3rd party "houserule" amd fluffy products out there in non-tangible PDFs that are no more than gossamer in the span of my attention--because it is still 'just dnd' and will be abandoned when yet another edition of "everything is hit points" dnd comes out.

It was nostalgia and art that held me always to D&D anyways. It's there always for use I guess, but is now just a commodity. Thankfully there are tons of successful games that arent dnd too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Honestly, what I've seen of it reminds me why I mostly walked away to other games.

 

[Jahydin]

Had some time to think about it, and I think I nailed down what bothers me the most about 5E:

Without an entertaining DM with an intriguing story, the game itself is terrible.

If I take any other edition of D&D and just generate random dungeons on the spot every session, there is a strong enough ruleset to carry the game and make the experience fun. Be it Basic and AD&D with their emphasis on clever play or 3e/4e emphasis on character builds and strong tactics, they all feel very much like "a game" that players need to put in effort in order to "win". That said, an entertaining DM with an intriguing story served only to elevate an already fun game into an even better one.

I really thought 5E was onto something when it first came out. By being so incredibly accessible, it created a game everyone could play in and tell their cool fantasy stories with. That's a great starting point for sure, but another release that focused on how to run a challenging game would have been great.

Either through the left-brain: more accurate CRs, better random tables, in-depth advice on building 6 encounter days, more complex skill system, etc.

Or through the right-brain: how to write your own "adventure path", how to challenge players via narrative and social encounters, rules on dealing with character death (because at the moment it's so awkward and inconvenient, the best way to deal with is just to avoid it), how to use skills in fun an meaningful ways, etc.

Just some thoughts of mine...

 

[Blue]

I'm the other way around - while I love 5e and it's my favorite edition of D&D, it's not even my first favorite D&D-like RPG. (That's 13th Age.)

Plus there are a whole bunch of different RPGs out there that handle different feels and/or different genres better than D&D. For example a PbtA game and a D&D game can both be great - but will be great in different ways and satisfy different itches while being great.

I mostly play 5e because of the tyranny of the masses. Most of the people I know who want to play High Fantasy have D&D as their common denominator. Again, quite happy to play it, but it doesn't replace other games for me at all. Because of how different RPGs can be, especially once you get out of the traditional DMing space, the different experiences of play that are possible from various systems make it pretty impossible for me to imagine anyone metropolitan - experienced with truly different systems - to be satisfied with only one system and feel it eclipses all other modes of play that system does not engender.

 

[Ixal]

For me its the opposite. D&D 5E is so simple and generic, both the rules and the setting, that nearly always when I play a different game I have some form of "X is better than in D&D" moment.

D&D is like Dominos Pizza. Available everywhere and so generic that when you just want a pizza without thinking much about it you order from them.
But no one would describe Domino's pizzas as the best pizzas out there, or even as paticularly good.

And that was the perfect combination for retaining all the people who got curious about the game from Stranger Things but are not interested enough in trying other RPGs.

 

[WarDriveWorley]

Slightly yes, but mostly no.

D&D has been a mainstay for me and my friends for decades. However we do enjoy other games (GURPS, Cypher System, Traveller, Palladium (don't judge), WoD, Kult, and Pathfinder among others) and try to switch up as often as possible. That said I would be lying if I said that D&D doesn't color our reactions to other games.