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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9390384" data-attributes="member: 18">2E Era.Started playing AD&D 2E in 1989.Almost immediately found out about other RPGs.By 1992 2E was looking pretty bad compared to other RPGs, in just literally all ways except sheer amount of books. We started playing it a lot less.By 1994 we'd stopped playing it entirely in favour of stuff like Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020, Rifts, Earthdawn, and the World of Darkness games.But Planescape got us to start buying D&D stuff again, and to stay interested in D&D. Literally if it wasn't for Planescape we'd just have been entirely done with D&D then and there. We actually mostly didn't play PS, rather FR, but that wouldn't have happened without PS. Also D&D would have been abandoned by say, 1992 if it wasn't for Dark Sun.3E Era.Started when it came out, converted our existing campaign. Conversion was a disaster because 3E didn't play nice with multiclass or the like. No-one had fun.Tried a number of abortive 3E campaigns, none went anywhere fun.WotC kind of got lucky as d20/OGL caused absolute carnage in the RPG industry generally, with loads of companies abandoning what they were doing to try and jump on the bandwagon. Also helping WotC, other companies made some pretty ill-advised decisions - early nWoD for example didn't really have the same zeitgeist-y appeal oWoD had.We moved to other RPGs (many of them d20 and not very good, sadly) and boardgames for the most part, but played a bit of 3.XE at the end with stuff like Book of 9 Swords and Gestalt characters.EDIT - Also this was the most frustrating era, because it was where it felt like we were putting huge effort into trying to make D&D work, but it wasn't outputting fun for us. And it was the last era (for the moment) where we had a ton of free time and could do things like sometimes play 8-10 hour game days and the like. I think we'd have been a lot happier if we'd just ignored 3E entirely and gone back to some '90s RPGs.4E Era.Got back into D&D hugely. A lot of people might not have liked 4E, but for my main group it had the exact opposite effect - we loved it. We started playing D&D regularly again, and for several years we didn't really play any other RPGs, because none of them could offer the sheer fun that 4E did. The DDI was a major asset too, as people could update characters between sessions ands and look up rules at their leisure and so on.Unfortunately we hit the levels where 4E drastically slows down, and whilst we tried to press though them, the endless Action > Reaction > Interrupt > Immediate Action swamp slowly drained the fun out of things.So we switched over to Dungeon World, which we really enjoyed for quite a while. Played quite a few other RPGs as well in this era.5E Era.Largely stayed out of 5E until about 2017, still playing DW or other RPGs. Played 5E a bit as a player but absolutely none of the main group were enthusiastic about 5E.What changed this was D&D Beyond, which at least made it possible for everyone to access characters and rules online. We started up 5E and had an okay time, but enthusiasm with it wasn't as high as other RPGs like DW, other PtbA games, or Spire.However I did play a ton as a player, especially during COVID, which was probably the most 5E we played in a lot of ways. Beyond was vital here (with the Roll 20 Chrome extension).I don't currently run D&D (I do play in a couple of campaigns though) and aren't hugely enthusiastic to do so (2024 looks "fine" - lots of minor improvements, a few minor screw-ups - but unlikely to change this). I'm basically waiting on a couple of Kickstarters/Backerkits to produce results before I'm likely to want to DM again (though I might run some more Spire or a PtbA game or something), specifically the MCDM RPG (unfortunately he seems to have entirely forgotten everyone but his Patreon supporters even exist so will probably forget his promise to have something for us to play by mid-2024 - I don't even mean that in a mean way, I literally think he's honestly forgotten MCDM RPG has any supporters/interest outside of the Patreon, despite being quite active on this for a few months after the Kickstarter) and Hollows by Grant Howitt et al.</blockquote>

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