D&D 5E Why do you play 5e? What game did you come from?

[Mallus]

That's an interesting history- and you wrote WotC-era... were you around for the TSR times?

I have to ask, why the skip from 4e to 1e to 5e?

I started playing back in high school during the mid-1980s; AD&D and then 2e. One of my first DMs was my math teacher. He and his buddies started with OD&D. So I'm like a 2nd generation D&D nerd.

Why switch? Our 4e game was losing a player who was finishing his PhD, and by that time, around 14th level, we were ready for a change. We had a good run with it, but I never really ran 4e well, and combats took forever. A faster, less technical system sounded good, so on a lark we went back to AD&D, the game most of us started with. This lasted 2.5 years. Those old modules are great -- especially with some good, new OSR material mixed in.

Around hitting 7th - 8th level we were ready for a change again, so we resurrected the 4e campaign, converted the PCs -- which was easy. I imagine we'll keep at it until the players get bored, or they destroy the campaign world in an apocalypse of accidental rebirth. Whichever comes first.

 

[jmd]

I started with 2nd (summer of '97), moved on the 3rd/3.5/Pathfinder, skipped 4th entirely (I've never played it, it just didn't click with anybody in my group), and started 5th last year.

 

[Draamal]

Um, all of the above?

 

[ccooke]

Hard to pick, there. I went with 4e, since I was running two 4e games and only playing in one 3e.

 

[MG.0]

OD&D, AD&D 1st and 2nd.

Never played 3rd, 4th or Pathfinder.

 

[arjomanes]

2e in high school. . . ten year gap until 2004. . . 3.5/4e/PFRPG/OSR/5e

When I got back into AD&D, it wasn't called AD&D anymore, and there were a ton of new features. I'd completely skipped over 2.5 with the Skills & Powers books, and early 3e, and fell right into D&D with a bunch of splatbooks already available. I started with simple characters, but quickly started min-maxing along with the other players in my group, and scouring the messageboards to try to make a more survivable character.

When 4e was announced I was excited since I like Tome of Battle, and thought it would be similar. In a way it was. I loved low-level 4e, but when I tried running a paragon campaign, combat slowed down, and it was hard to keep track of all the counters and areas of effects. I made magnets for every condition and put them on the initiative white board, but I couldn't keep up. The campaign and the gaming group dissolved.

I tried Pathfinder for a bit, even competed one year in RPG Superstar. I liked a lot about the system, and Paizo is a super cool company. But by then I was looking for something simpler. I was getting busier with work, and I didn't have as much time to plan a game. All the feats and builds and buffs/debuffs were just wearing on me.

A friend of mine was running Labyrinth Lord. I played in his game a couple times and it was a lot of fun, even though his propensity for killer dungeons meant high character attrition. His game transitioned to LotFP and now AD&D 1e. I still occasionally play in his game, but he has a big group and characters and campaigns don't last long, so it's not that regular.

When I started a new campaign, it was BECMI. I remember my old D&D Rules Cyclopedia (sadly lost long ago) with great nostalgia, so it seemed natural. Also I recruited a bunch of people who hadn't really played tabletop RPGs, and I wanted a simple system.

When 5e came out, we transitioned the 1st-3rd level characters over, using the Basic Rules. Now, I have the core 3 books and spellbook cards. I even experimented with minis, but it takes too long to set up, so we switched back to Theater of the Mind. Every time I get too close to that 3e-4e feel, I take a couple steps back.

I'm not sure where I'll go next. To me, 5e does live in that sweet spot between 2e and 3e. I house-ruled away a few of the innovations (healing up overnight, some of the easy healing spells, the fast XP system, individual initiative), and I may tweak it more to bring it closer to that 2e-3e range that I like. On the other hand, it's my players' game too, so I'm looking for feedback from them. They love the spellbook cards, so I'll have to keep getting those. I may let them choose options from the new Swords Coast Adventurers Guide when that comes out if they want to.

I'm very happy with where everything is right now. I have a foot in the OSR still, and I also pay attention to Pathfinder. I'm using a hodge-podge of OSR and PFRPG modules. All in all, I'm pretty solidly on board with D&D 5e.

 

[MerricB]

Most of the above?

The year before 5E came out, I was involved in a Pathfinder campaign, a 4E campaign, an AD&D campaign and a D&D Next playtest campaign...

My path since beginning D&D in the early 1980s goes like this:

AD&D + Basic D&D together
--> AD&D
--> AD&D 2nd Edition
--> Amber Diceless, Star Wars WEG, Marvel SH (TSR)
--> AD&D 2nd Edition Players Option
--> D&D 3rd Edition
--> D&D 3.5
--> D&D 4E
--> D&D Next, Pathfinder, AD&D, D&D 4E
--> D&D 5E.

Cheers!

 

[Mistwell]

So, the title encompasses the subject, but I thought I'd describe what I was looking for in the body. Generally, why do you play 5e? And what game did you come from?

Let me explain, briefly. I have always loved D&D. It's hard to explain why- not in terms of RPGs (I'll get to that), but in terms of why D&D. I've played a bunch of different role-playing games at various times, but I've always come back to D&D. The only other comparable long-term campaigns I've run have probably been in Warhammer FRPG, but I've probably played at least 20+ other RPGs at various times for multiple sessions.

I wouldn't say that D&D has the "best" rules. I think that various other RPGs I have played have had better mechanics for play.

I wouldn't say that D&D lends itself to the best fantasy role playing. The long-term (multi-year) WFRP campaigns I ran probably had the best atmosphere.

I wouldn't say that D&D provides the best one-shot experiences. For the life of me, nothing can compare (in a single sitting) to some of the Paranoia games I played in the 1980s.

But it's the one I always return to. It has the right balance and community - the Goldilocks, if you will. And having played 1e on and off for most of my life, I took the plunge into 5e. Why? Because 5e was the most like 1e, and, well, it was time to try something new.

So it's sort of a two-parter (tied into the poll question). Why do you play 5e? And what system did you come from?

Uh, this is a weird poll. It implies you had to come from just one other system. But...that doesn't define a LOT if people.

For me, I "come from" OSR, and 3e, and 4e. What am I supposed to answer for that?

 

[Pants]

My introduction to D&D was Baldur's Gate back in 1998 I think. From there a guy I worked with at the time was planning on starting up a 2e AD&D game with the intention of switching to 3e once the rules were released. I happily joined up with a bunch of other people I kinda sorta knew from school at the time. I started off as a player but after a while I wanted to DM since we didn't have a 'default' DM at the time, just a couple of different people running one shots. We played 2e VERY regularly (about a year, two years maybe) until 3e came out and then we almost immediately switched to that. I have some pretty fond memories of those 2e games we played even though I thought the rules were not my cup of tea.

During the 3e I became the default DM, and I ran games for the same group pretty much weekly up through 3.5, with new members occasionally joining and others dropping out. Near the tail end of 3.5, some people got married or moved off so our 3.5 games started to dry up. Plus, 4e was announced and no one had any desire to switch after the first bits and pieces were released to the internet.

After a brief dry spell, I read about Pathfinder, got really jazzed to see that Paizo was going to attempt to patch what had become some very noticeable holes in the system. Around that same time, some friends from my previous groups were itching to get a new game going so I of course, obliged and offered to run what were at the time, the Pathfinder beta rules. So I ran a horrid amalgamation of 3e and beta Pathfinder material... in the Forgotten Realms. Some ridiculously broken characters resulted but it was still a lot of fun. I think that game got up to around 15th or 16th level before imploding, mostly due to some members having kids and being unable to commit.

Sometime during this period I ran a very, very short-lived game using the WHFRP rules. It was great. I really liked the rules but I couldn't handle running a math-intensive 3e/PF game and a WH game at the same time especially because I was very new to the WH rules and I was the only one at the table that was familiar with them. I'd really like to run that system again but none of my players have been interested.

The campaign fell apart but after a few months I started up a full Pathfinder game for two of the old players. I think this was around 2011 or 2012. That game lasted about two years I think before finally falling apart because one of the players (half of the 'party') had to go off for 3 months for work training and the other was getting married soon and couldn't commit anymore. It was actually probably a good thing the game fell apart when it did. The players were about 11th or 12th level at that time and Pathfinder was so rules and math intensive that running two characters at that level was worse than running the five players plus the npc in my PF/3e abomination at 15th level. Just too many random modifiers and the characters were just flat out way too powerful. I don't know if that was due to the system or my inability to DM it properly but I was getting pretty fed up with PF at that point.

The PF game collapsed and I went through almost a year long RPG drought until, almost randomly, one of the players from the 3e/PF Forgotten Realms abomination campaign asked if I'd read anything about 5e. I said no then he proceeded to extol its virtues and he asked if I'd be willing to run a 5e game. I said I'd have to read the rules a bit but I'd be interested. I read the rules and I was very impressed how it managed to take some of the good stuff from 4e, mix it up with a rules-lite 3e and somehow end up with something that was almost 2e-ish. I said I'd run the game, we cobbled together a group consisting of half old players and half new players and voila! That's how I got my 5e campaign.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I always felt overwhelmed by all the big rulesets, so I always wrote my own ruleset and played with friends. When the 5E basic rules were released I used the opportunity to read through them and eventually felt confident enough that I could DM a game based on that ruleset. So now I'm here. 5E is really great because it's easy to learn.