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

[Medic]

Listen. I get it. The world moves on. My GenX butt needs to get out of the way. Intellectually, I understand that.

Nah, I came on board with 5e and I developed an adversarial relationship toward it after a few years. I imagine this post will receive numerous polite replies, but I find that running 5th Edition is kind of a chore when measured up against some other systems. I'll still play it, though I find the DM support lacking

 

[theCourier]

I was into 5e for like... idk, a year or so? Then I got hard into DCC and that, to me, feels like what I originally wanted from D&D so I just stick with that.

 

[a.everett1287]

Nah, I came on board with 5e and I developed an adversarial relationship toward it after a few years. I imagine this post will receive numerous polite replies, but I find that running 5th Edition is kind of a chore when measured up against some other systems. I'll still play it, though I find the DM support lacking

Your statement doesn't negate his.
People are able of developing adversarial relationships towards well designed things .

(I tried to fulfill the polite reply prophecy)

 

[dave2008]

I mostly DM & have the same experience that @Reynard described. Need to "nerf" something in 5e to recover an aspect of an older edition & you've declared armageddon declaring their PC unplayable no matter what benefits you intend to include with the nerf. Players who started with past editions are probably going to be willing to hear you out & decide or even give input based on the whole even if they aren't sure if they are onboard. Players who started with 5e are likely to interrupt with a hard pass the second you start explaining what needs to be cut back or why.

I liked to hear from @Reynard; however, this idea is odd to me. PC abilities have little affect on how I enjoy / experience the game as a DM. But we all have different likes, tolerances, annoyances, etc.

 

[tetrasodium]

I liked to hear from @Reynard; however, this idea is odd to me. PC abilities have little affect on how I enjoy / experience the game as a DM. But we all have different likes, tolerances, annoyances, etc.

Expand your view of "PC abilities" to anything that might be needed to get cut in order to recover the feel of some element of past editions. Death at zero/-10 & cutting darkvision/devils sight/base stat caps at18/etc are a few trivial examples that don't need much into the other elements that might go woth them while other elements are more complex than it takes for them to be useful for this discussion. sometimes getting rid of a change that 5e made is a critical component of recovering the feel of an older edition & sometimes that systemwide change 5e brought carries enough that getting rid of it could be considered a "nerf".

 

[dave2008]

Expand your view of "PC abilities" to anything that might be needed to get cut in order to recover the feel of some element of past editions. Death at zero/-10 & cutting darkvision/devils sight/base stat caps at18/etc are a few trivial examples that don't need much into the other elements that might go woth them while other elements are more complex than it takes for them to be useful for this discussion. sometimes getting rid of a change that 5e made is a critical component of recovering the feel of an older edition & sometimes that systemwide change 5e brought carries enough that getting rid of it could be considered a "nerf".

I guess I can see that. We use death at 0 in 5e and do other things that give us that "old school" feel. However, we did that same thing in 1e to get the "feel" we wanted. We always, and have always, modify the game or adjust how we play to get the feel we want. The actual written rules are less important than how we play. To me, that is the heart of D&D. Not the RAW, but how we play. And we play 5e (and 4e) pretty much how we played 1e. I know rules/editions matter to some people, they just don't much to us.

 

[Blue Orange]

Given the popularity of house rules back in the day and Gygax complaining about 34th level characters, I would say disagreements over the rules are as old as the game itself. You could try to find players into OSR games, or modify rules you don’t like like death saves. But I wouldn’t feel bad-complaints about the ruleset have always been with us, and probably always will be.

 

[tetrasodium]

I guess I can see that. We use death at 0 in 5e and do other things that give us that "old school" feel. However, we did that same thing in 1e to get the "feel" we wanted. We always, and have always, modify the game or adjust how we play to get the feel we want. The actual written rules are less important than how we play. To me, that is the heart of D&D. Not the RAW, but how we play. And we play 5e (and 4e) pretty much how we played 1e. I know rules/editions matter to some people, they just don't much to us.

Yea it's not helped with how wotc keeps pushing starting feats in ravenoft /strixhsven/fizbsns but doesn't bother with a sidebar or even a simple UA with accompanying stepdowns that a gm could choose to require.

 

[timbannock]

Nah, I came on board with 5e and I developed an adversarial relationship toward it after a few years. I imagine this post will receive numerous polite replies, but I find that running 5th Edition is kind of a chore when measured up against some other systems. I'll still play it, though I find the DM support lacking

Same, though it took me longer.

I now find the minutia of 1) remembering the corner cases in various procedures -- which themselves are opaque as it is, because they aren't spelled out in an organized fashion without flipping through a half dozen pages across 2-3 books -- and 2) the prep of refreshing myself on the semi-opaque tactics emergent from multiple stat blocks' rules interactions before a game session both tedious and unfulfilling as I invariably forget or miss something in play. 5E is by far my favorite official edition but it's like JUST BARELY half a step too complex for my brain. Without fail I forget one game-changing rule or interaction in each combat encounter, downtime period, or wilderness exploration day. So every post-session reflection is yet another "Oh man, I forgot about THAT!" moment.

I'm building a Knave hack that utilizes 5e's combat engine and action economy and it just feels right. I'm still working out monster stat blocks but they seem infinitely more easy to memorize and run during game time, even with a few tweaks I'm doing: nearly every monster has resistances and vulnerabilities to make weapon/attack choices more strategic; bloodied condition triggers a reaction or minor action boost in lots of cases. The mental overhead is just significantly less, and having procedures fit on 1-2 page spreads is the bees knees. Not too mention easier 5e and OSR conversion to open up so much adventure material for on-the-fly conversion.

I'll never forget how much joy 5e has brought to the gaming table, and I'll gladly play it, but its days as something I'll run are probably up.

 

[Cadence]

Over the last 10 years I have just kind of soured on 5e. I think it is a perfectly serviceable D&D game, but I just don't think there's actually a lot of "there" there. But here's the thing: Spelljammer coming out, the movie, Dragonlance, these things all tickle my D&D love and I WANT to engage D&D on its own, current terms and... just don't.

Listen. I get it. The world moves on. My GenX butt needs to get out of the way. Intellectually, I understand that. But emotionally, I just want my love for D&D "stuff" to match my love for the D&D game again.

Feels like a long term fan of the Avengers and not liking the way the actual comics have been going. (Except that's been true for most of the Avengers runs since I started to reading in 1981... and that the Avengers comic books have pretty much never been as popular as 5e is.)

In any case, thankfully in comics there are always back issues and in D&D there are old editions.