The 5 Stages of New Edition Grief

[darjr]

I gotta say, around here, if you announced you were going to run an older edition of D&D, any edition, you’d have players, maybe lots.

I get it about other games but I see people around my local area willing to play other games and definitely older editions of D&D.

I ran a game night at our FLGS where I’d run a different game for a few sessions and I never lacked for players, the opposite I had to turn some of em away.

A friend ran a campaign that started with ODD, just the first three books, and worked their way to second edition and he had similar turnout.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I get it about other games but I see people around my local area willing to play other games and definitely older editions of D&D.

I get that this is not true for a lot of people in a lot of situations, but when I bailed out of OD&D decades ago, I never had trouble filling slots in games like RuneQuest and even Aftermath! The fact so many people have gotten into The One Game To Rule Them All mindset is just so strange to me.

 

[JThursby]

While I suspect the intent is more about humor

Obviously.

I gotta say, around here, if you announced you were going to run an older edition of D&D, any edition, you’d have players, maybe lots.

I get it about other games but I see people around my local area willing to play other games and definitely older editions of D&D.

I've seen the same. It looks like overall medium literacy beyond "current edition D&D" is at an all time high in the online spaces I'm in and the FLGS I run games in. I think people just like getting caught up in the hype of playtests an edition changes, because right now there doesn't appear to be a reason to claim the sky's falling. If anything I've seen the most legitimate skepticism about the proposed D&D Beyond VTT, and how D&D is going to be treated as a brand and business more so than the game itself. The actual rules changes in the playtest so far seem pretty sane and geared towards making the game as sold closer to how people want to play it now. I know everyone getting a feat at level 1 is an incredibly popular home rule, so fixing feats and standardizing them makes perfect sense to me. I'd rather have a better functioning game than one that attempts to achieve maximum backwards compatibility with an older, lesser game.

 

[aramis erak]

Or occasionally, step four being "Well, don't really like much of what I see in this new edition, guess its good I have other games I like."

that's step 2 for me.
Step 1 being, "What does it change?"

 

[Retreater]

2. The price we spent on those books vs the hours of entertainment we got out of them is still exponentially better than any other form of entertainment, so it always strikes me as a bit odd when someone complains about wasting money on books that we've been using for almost 10 years.

I think my new edition grief comes from having bought a lot more than just the core rules that I've been using for 10 years. It includes purchasing a collection adventure modules I haven't run, optional supplements that have never been used, and monsters I've never put in adventures. It's also time: stacks of notes for adventures I'll never run, countless hours put in the development of 3PP material that (probably) won't be published now, and years of experience developing familiarity with the system.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think my new edition grief comes from having bought a lot more than just the core rules that I've been using for 10 years. It includes purchasing a collection adventure modules I haven't run, optional supplements that have never been used, and monsters I've never put in adventures. It's also time: stacks of notes for adventures I'll never run, countless hours put in the development of 3PP material that (probably) won't be published now, and years of experience developing familiarity with the system.

I shouldn't chuckle, but as I look over at the pile of 1e stuff to my left I never ran, I am chuckling a bit

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Gotta say, I’ve never felt all that compelled to switch editions, regardless of game. If I don‘t like a system, I don’t buy the books.

I have been known to buy RPG rulebooks when I have no intention of either playing or running the game, just to see "how other people do things." But I won't buy a new edition I don't like just to "keep up" with playing or running.

 

[Mezuka]

I think my new edition grief comes from having bought a lot more than just the core rules that I've been using for 10 years. It includes purchasing a collection adventure modules I haven't run, optional supplements that have never been used, and monsters I've never put in adventures. It's also time: stacks of notes for adventures I'll never run, countless hours put in the development of 3PP material that (probably) won't be published now, and years of experience developing familiarity with the system.

Adventures, monsters and notes are always reusable in my experience. Not long ago I used parts of B4 The Lost City, C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness and L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, in a D&D5e campaign created from notes I scribbled in the late 90s. Also, adapting 5e stuff to 5.5 should be easy.