First, I’m starting off this thread with what might seem like a blog post. ENWorld might not be the best place for it. If it’s inappropriate for me to write this here, then I hope it will drift like a Feather Fall to the bottom of the threads. Maybe someone will “necro” it in a decade for a good laugh. But ENWorld has been my home for discussing TTRPGs for 17 years, and it’s still my favorite place to come talk about this hobby with like-minded friends and strangers.

Second, I’m not putting a “(+)” on this thread: some of you might have strong opinions about this, and I welcome the discourse. However, I’m not trying to start an argument. Mostly this is my effort to make peace in my own mind with my thoughts about something that is kinda weighing heavily on me.

Across various online sites and in-person venues, I share my experiences with 5th edition D&D to the bewilderment of others. My experiences seem out of sync with the majority of the community. It’s like a mischievous fae removed the innards of my 2014 Player’s Handbook and replaced it with GURPS or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I feel like my games don’t line up with a typical 5e experience and I have a large disconnect communicating about it.

I do have a long experience in TTRPGs. I started with AD&D 2e in 1989 and ran that for years until going through the trajectory of 3.0, 3.5, 4e, Pathfinder, and finally to 5e. And there are other games as well (GURPS, TMNT, WFRP, Savage Worlds, OSR, Traveller, PbtA, Year Zero, Cthulhu, Pathfinder 2, and more).

Before starting with 5e, my most immediate system experiences were Pathfinder 1 and 4e D&D. I think I was unable to shake off those expectations: magic item economies, tactical combat on a grid, robust encounter design guidelines, pre-published modules that covered up to high level play, etc. Judging 5e by these expectations was unfair. (After all, did Call of Cthulhu provide Encounter Levels? Is there a magic item economy in Monster of the Week? Didn’t I do okay in 2nd Edition AD&D without gridded combat and robustly defined rules for disarming and tripping?)

My expectation with 5e was that it would continue the legacy of modern d20 design from WotC - that it would be a follow-up to 3rd and 4th editions. (In my defense, I think the marketing kind of led me to believe this.) In actuality, maybe my expectations would have been more tempered if I thought of it as a successor to 2nd edition. No chart about how to award magic items, no scientific approach to encounter balance, no real purpose for anything but the most basic maneuvering in combat (compared to 3.x and 4e), etc.

I noticed a historic growth in the hobby, like many of you. I live in a small, conservative town, and in the past, I was lucky to be able to find four other players to play every other week. That changed, I think due to 5e and to other pop culture factors (Critical Role, Big Bang Theory, Community, Stranger Things, Baldur’s Gate 3, etc.) This week alone, I am running three games for fifteen different players. Frankly, it’s exhausting. The only extended break I’ve had from running multiple weekly games in the past three years was two weeks last month, when I took time off for my dad’s passing and funeral.

I do enjoy playing/running games, just as I enjoy reading a variety of gaming books and spending time on forums such as ENWorld. The assistance I seek to help me run these games are pre-published adventures and robust rules-sets so I don’t have to memorize potentially three different sets of table rules, engage in rules debates with fifteen different players, and worry about how to tweak the perfect balance of encounter difficulty and treasure to make thrilling adventures that aren’t too easy or deadly.

I know this is rambling and it seems that I should try to pull this together into something coherent. I guess my thesis is I would be fine to create original, artisanally crafted gaming experiences if I had one group every one or two weeks. I don’t feel like I have that luxury with the demands on me to run so many games for so many players. I need a system with strong support and rules that can withstand a lot of activity without a) boring the players; b) leaving me to experiment through trial and error with magic item awards and encounter balancing; and c) opening up the potential for arguments as I scroll through X (formerly Twitter) for posts made by Jeremy Crawford what the rules actually are.

I wish D&D was that game. It sure used to be.

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