D&D General It's really weird loving D&D and not loving the current rules.

[Jahydin]

A couple months ago we did just that. We played BECMI which I had relatively little experience with—by my pals has really liked. I bought all of it in pdf save immortals.

However…I missed the layers and options of 5e. I liked the story and art but missed the crunch.

Have you flipped through Worlds Without Number? Free version is free!

Similar rules to Basic, but has lots of character customization. Also tons of neat little house rules you can steal and use in other OSR games.

 

[delericho]

Yeah, I feel this!

For me, those hundreds of thousands (millions?) of hours of playtesting for the core of the game really show - I find that combat in the first two tiers runs like a charm. In that regard, 5e is probably the least painful iteration of D&D to date. And that's a great deal of what I need from the game.

But the rest of it is intensely, and increasingly, frustrating - the entire interaction and exploration pillars are barely half-baked, high level support is essentially non-existent, the adventures have been generally poor (with one shining exception), the rules supplements are worse, and the less said about the settings the better. But worse than the simple lack is all the areas where the game actively works against me in various ways - darkvision is just too ubiquitous, encumbrance is just too generous, and so on.

So it's the best version of D&D I've found, and yet it really annoys me.

That said, I have found that it feels rather better if you use the rulebook from the Essentials Kit as "the rules", and the PHB as basically a big splatbook for PC races, classes, spells (but ignoring the additional rules). The constraint of that much reduced page count forced them to drop everything extraneous, organise carefully, and generally forced them to do a good job.

 

[R_J_K75]

You've just hit on a very ... peculiar... aspect of 5e. The game is more complex than it appears at first glance. In a way, for those that like depth and variety that's good! But those complexities and nuances are frequently not well explained... almost hidden at times!

It's almost as if they wanted to have a "surface level" 5e game for some, and a deeper one for the others. 5e absolutely could be better explained.

I wish things were all in one place I think that would make things clearer. For instance, instead of putting the jump skill, associated magical items, spells and relative movement rules in 4-5 different spots maybe put them all together. IDK how functional that would be from a book layout or game design standpoint, maybe its not, but it would be nice that if Im looking up jumping that I didnt have to flip through multiple pages over the PHB and DMG.

 

[teitan]

Honestly? I still think it’s my favorite edition rules wise. I have a nostalgia for 1e and I loved 3.x when it was out but have no desire to ever DM a session of 3.5 again. 3.0 on the other hand sure, a lot less to futz with but it would take a lot of arm twisting. Which is weird because my number 2 game is Starfinder which is… 3.9… basically.

5e hits the complexity level I like as a DM and a player. I like that I can dial it up and down to suit my needs even in the middle of a session. I love how easy it is to house rule and convert things to. I just ordered a fourth PHB since they’re 23 bucks on Amazon right now. As much as I fuss about MotM I don’t even mind the changes it makes, I just wish it was after revised came out instead. It’s simple, it’s elegant and it makes no bones about trying to be realistic or simulationist. It’s just fun.

But I like DCC just as much. Probably better if I didn’t need all those charts but I forgive them because they’re so cool.

 

[John R Davis]

Am 3 sessions into a return to 1e ( after 30 year break). We are enjoying the quirks and it's " answer is in your head, not your character sheet" ideals.
A lot of the recent 5e is not for me ( I'm not target audience so that's fine).
Im also running the talisman RPG at the mo. It's is great, everyone likes the mechanics.
I will be running the Spelljammer slipcase later in year so will have recharged my 5e batteries by then I hope!

 

[Ancalagon]

Honestly? I still think it’s my favorite edition rules wise. I have a nostalgia for 1e and I loved 3.x when it was out but have no desire to ever DM a session of 3.5 again. 3.0 on the other hand sure, a lot less to futz with but it would take a lot of arm twisting. Which is weird because my number 2 game is Starfinder which is… 3.9… basically.

5e hits the complexity level I like as a DM and a player. I like that I can dial it up and down to suit my needs even in the middle of a session. I love how easy it is to house rule and convert things to. I just ordered a fourth PHB since they’re 23 bucks on Amazon right now. As much as I fuss about MotM I don’t even mind the changes it makes, I just wish it was after revised came out instead. It’s simple, it’s elegant and it makes no bones about trying to be realistic or simulationist. It’s just fun.

But I like DCC just as much. Probably better if I didn’t need all those charts but I forgive them because they’re so cool.

I'm very fond of 5e myself, and I'm still enjoying it a lot. But I only started running it 2-3 years after it was released, and I only was able to be a PC in 2020, so maybe I have less fatigue?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Threads like this are always happy reminders of just how lucky I am that game rules for me are nothing more than improv facilitators. For me D&D and all RPGs are about group improv and storytelling... and any game mechanic is there purely to give us a different "audience suggestion" for how the scene is going to go. Thus no game rules are that important that I can't make due with pretty much anything. And which is why I don't have any issue house-ruling a system to make it easier to use, or switching systems to "change the audience" and what they'll "suggest for scenes" (to go along with the lame analogy).