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

[Reynard]

If 5E is not thrilling you, there are plenty of other systems to scratch that itch, even digging out whichever old edition you prefer. I have jumped into running Symbaroum when I need a different feel. I find that I can't recover any joy from playing old editions of D&D. The little idiosyncrasies I had house-ruled away stand out much more. I have not tried going back to Basic, so that might work.

I have run many, many games over the years. it isn't really about not having the right game to run so much as WANTING to run D&D but D&D not actually meeting those desires and expectations.

 

[a.everett1287]

It's always pretty rough when you find out that a game has evolved past you, so I can intellectually understand your pain, even if I don't share it. It'll happen to me some day, I assume.

 

[Hussar]

Every 10 years or so, I get the itch to walk away from D&D for a while. It's happened pretty regularly. Shortly before 3e came out, I was playing a lot of GURPS and various other systems. Shortly before 4e came out and for about a year after, I was system hopping all sorts of systems. Lots of "Pass the Story Stick" type stuff. I find myself feeling that way again about now that I wouldn't mind a six month-1 year palate cleanser of a bunch of one shot or short adventure type games.

Might pitch this to my current group, just to see if anyone else is interested. There's just so bloody many games out there that I want to play.

 

[dave2008]

I totally get how you feel. I got left behind by the rules of D&D when they "fixed" 3.0e by introducing 3.5 and instead of being just errata for a few known issues, they broke huge portions of the rules. Then 4e came along and it was "D&D for people who never liked D&D in the first place" and I had nothing in common with the community. Then 5e came along and it was "Basic D&D 2nd Edition" and I totally get why that has been amazingly popular and they've done a great job managing the brand and making quality content and I'm hugely happy about the state of the game, but I still have nothing in common with the community and no desire to use the current rule set or even talk about the current rule set. It's great and there are some features of it I like, but the trade-offs IMO are bad.

I am very similar to you, I think, in my entry and origins of my relationship to D&D and its current community, but I have almost the opposite reaction to the game itself.

4e brought me back to game and felt like the game I loved again and 5e has morphed* into the best version of the game yet for us. However, the rules or the edition are really not that import to us.

*we have a few simple houserules that mechanical significantly change the feel of the game.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think my favorite iteration of D&D so far has been the D&D Next playtest. In many ways, full 5e feels like a big step down from those open playtest packets. I feel like 5e has solid bones, but everything on top of them is shallow and underwhelming.

 

[R_J_K75]

Have you considered using only the basic rules?

EDIT: (That is to say, the rules in the free “Basic Rules” PDF for 5e. Not the rules for Basic D&D. I mean, that would also be a perfectly valid option, just not what I was asking about.)

No, I haven't. I've seen it but never read it a little better. Is it a simpler version or just a truncated version?

 

[Reynard]

I think my real lament is that it feels like D&D is monolithic around 5e so if I want to do something that calls back to "my edition" (BECMI or 2E) I have no player pool.

 

[R_J_K75]

I think my real lament is that it feels like D&D is monolithic around 5e so if I want to do something that calls back to "my edition" (BECMI or 2E) I have no player pool.

If youre the DM, you make the rules so you can couch and bend them as 5E but make it your own, within reason

 

[Alzrius]

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.

 

[Shardstone]

I've gotten so comfortable with 5E that I feel free to modify it in any way I see fit and can usually (not always, lol) get pretty close to my intended effect without too much problem. Making up the sub-systems myself is half the appeal to playing 5E for me.