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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aberzanzorax" data-source="post: 5967331" data-attributes="member: 64209">I was thinking about how my group, which is largely the same group of people from college plays D&D and I realized, in the context of different groups having different styles, that we all learned to play together. Hence, we all have the same style, whatever the rulebooks guided (or future editions of rulebooks guide) us to do.  Then it occurred to me that the DMG of any edition could say just about ANYTHING (as could the PHB) but since most people are introduced to D&D by one person (and indeed, in my group, one person learns most of the rules and then helps guide others to master them)...there will be a heavy influence by the teacher.  And then, then I thought about D&D next. Forgetting that it is modular for a moment, 4e DMs with a certain style will introduce new players to it with that style. 4e DMs with a different style will do the same. Ditto for 3e dms of varying styles, and 2e and 1e, etc. I think that's one reason I disliked 4e pretty intensely at the start. I didn't have a group for it, so I....and this is important...getting to the crux of the point I'm making... learned about 4e "in play" from Keep on the Shadowfell. I hated it, and thought that was all 4e could be. But since then I've been taught by people on these boards and my 4e DM (who was also one of my 2e and 3e dms) that it's a fun ruleset with its own pros and cons...and I could play it in the style I learned so long ago.   So here's the point I'm making (which is two pronged). The first part is that how you learned to play (which is malleable, but influential still) might just influence your acceptance or nonacceptance of new editions and even other games. The second part is that there is not always a teacher. While the DMG is an important core book... EVEN MORE IMPORTANT is having a great example of the system in play. For that we either have someone else run it for us or look for another entry point...to an exemplar of play...which we find in a published adventure.  Here's my tl;dr point: Write the first adventure for 5e to sell the game. It needs to not be "simple so people can learn the rules." That is an adventure that should be in the back of the DMG or somesuch similar to playing the first round of a new card game...just to get the rules down. The first adventure needs to exhibit the wealth of the experience...it needs to be solid, it needs to be fun, it needs to not be boring or repetitive. In my mind, there are 4 core books needed for D&D. PHB, MM, DMG, first adventure.</blockquote>

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