I played one campaign using 4E - I loathed it, and abandoned D&D as a system for a long time and went over to Pathfinder, 7th Sea, and others.
Then, extremely recently, someone got me into a 5E campaign. MUCH cleaner, more intuitive, and definitely friendly to newer players when we’re fortunate enough to have some come to the table. Definitely a good one to start with!
Man, I wish I had a group
Play online, it’s pretty much the only way I can get my RPG on these days.
Yep. And several online platforms (Roll20, say) have extensive pre-built support for 5E in a way you definitely don’t see for other games. (Though you may find at least some support. And a lot of the convenience D&D stuff costs.)
Made me laugh the other day when people were posting the remade for 5e modules like B1-2. I still have all the originals of most of those.
4E D&D is the Phantom Menace (or is that Highlander 2?) of the D&D world. That thing best left unspoken and forgotten about. Someone in marketing had a great idea- “MMOs are so popular and on fire, let’s make a tabletop game based on that concept”. Not so much…
I can’t remember all the minutiae and quirks of 3.5E/Pathfinder, despite recognizing that they can be awesome. I think anything that’s not purely skill-based (plus feats) is too hard for me.
:(
I think you’ll have lots of fun with the D&D Starter set and “Lost Mine of Phandelver,” which is a terrific little campaign. I do think there are lots of other good systems too, but D&D 5th edition has a polish and elegance all its own.
Thanks all - I am heading into town today after work, to pick up both the Starter Kit, and the Essentials kit. I LOVE reading Roleplaying game rules books, so I am having that great nostalgia feeling that I had the first time, back when I was 12, and my father drove me into Aarhus town to the only shop that had games like this, and purchased the red D&D boxed set!
Awesome. I think you will love it. My wife and I recently joined a new D&D campaign where we play one evening every 2 weeks and we are having a blast.
It really doesn’t hurt that 5E is so streamlined that it wasn’t stressful at all to learn and get into. Out of the 300+ pages of the player’s handbook, only about 35 are game rules. The rest are races, classes, spells, gear, … All the stuff that gives you more information to create and grow a character. But the base rules are really well thought out and streamlined. All you need is already in the started / essentials kit. It’s also cool that one gives you premade characters and the other blank character sheets. You can go either way for your game. Also, the essentials kit comes with a DM screen.
And if you need a 5’ video to teach you any of the D&D concepts, I highly recommend Handbooker Helper. It’s a video series started by Critical Role where each video explains 1 concept / rule. Easy to digest and really well explained:
I’m having so much fun with D&D that I also bought both sets and am planning to run the mines for my wife and daughter within a few weeks.
There are tons of resources for DM’s for those adventures online and on Youtube. So if you need help with your prep, it’s all there for you.
Critical Role and others are fun to watch, but they are the Hollywood big budget production of D&D. Don’t expect all games to measure to that. :)
If you want more cool video series on DMing or playing the game, I can heartily recommend:
Running the game by Matt colville. The guy is awesome and is fun to listen even simply in audio form like a podcast.
Dungeon Dudes
2 Canadians who talk both about running and playing the game. Lots of interesting chats there too:
Another great thing about DnDBeyond, in addition to looking up rules and such, is the ability to create your PC online and for the PC to join into a group that the DM can view. I’m old, but its the first time I’m been in a campaign where I have no printed character sheet full of almost completely erased through paper, bad handwriting, coffee stains, etc. I’ve gone complete electronic!
Why does he need so many wristbands to explain D&D?
Ask yourself this instead: Would you trust a DM with fewer wristbands?
I’ve only watched / listened to a single one shot from Critical Role: the search for Grog. I don’t have time for 4 hours long weekly streams.
Fitting in a play session with our group every 2-3 weeks is already challenging enough for my wife and me.
But those 5’ videos are awesome when you need a refresher on an aspect of play.
That’s exactly it, LOL! You’re completely right on with that analogy.
It makes me sad when people shit on 4E. Or go with the over-hyped, under-supported MMO-alike assertion. It was a damn fine tactical minis game that happened to share a name with an eternally middling roleplaying game :)
And it addressed a bunch of longstanding issues with the game. Not necessarily in the optimal way, sure, but addressed. Sadly, some of them got right back into gear with 5th. Like the differential between fighters and casters. 5E fighters definitely have more going on than some earlier versions, and casters are a little toned down, but the disparity is still real.
I just picked up the Essentials kit recently to play with my kids. Last time I played was over 20 years ago with AD&D 2nd Edition. 5e looks good but the slimmed down rules book isn’t complete with explaining some concepts which I had to go to youtube or look on DND beyond to figure out.
How did it go with your gaming, @Super_D
As for us, we have a regular group going once a week now. Due to the location of one of the group members, its on Roll20, but , standard online hiccups aside, it works fine.
Both my kids and my GF and her brother, which is the group, are pretty enthusiastic, and the best group a DM could wish for, so thats great!
Anyways - just wanted to update this thread, and say thank you all for the great ideas and insights in this thread!
To my substantial amusement, I’ve wound up in not one, but two ongoing 5E campaigns now, played online with IRL friends. My oooold 4E group reformed with a couple of new members after a 3-year hiatus and transitioned the game to 5E. I really miss how my character functioned in 4E, and if I’m being honest, this GM’s combat-heavy, plot-nonexistent style worked a lot better with the tactical sophistication of 4E. The games can be a bit of a slog now, but it’s largely a group of guys I don’t get to talk to often, or see at all (damn you COVID-19!), so I stick it out for the social element.
The other is my usual Monday group, that switches GMs and games fairly regularly. We had tried to spin up a game set in the Absent Gods world of Louis McMaster Bujold using Chronicles of Darkness as the base, but it was extremely RP-heavy and character-focused, and wasn’t really gelling with online play, so we put it on hiatus, and another one of the group’s GMs started running “Curse of Strahd” for us.
I don’t particularly like horror, and am rapidly growing annoyed with 5E compared to the storygames and lighter systems I strongly prefer nowadays, but the Monday group includes 3 of my closest friends, who I desperately miss seeing routinely, so I’m just kinda going along with it to at least be able to “hang out” with them every week. Sadly it looks like the campaign is quite lengthy, so it may well last us through the remainder of the lockdown.
Still better than Pathfinder, though!!
We are entering our 3rd quarter real time of Curse of Strahd weekly play. I think about a week of in-game time has passed. We are nowhere near any kind of resolution. So yeah, I’d say you are in it for the long haul. Or you could do something silly and easily get the whole party killed. It’s a deadly game after all. Not your fault. :)
That said, I do love that there is a lot of storytelling in this game. We often have 2-3 sessions go by with us investigating stuff or talking to people and no combat. When combat comes, it tends to be explosive and eventful. So it’s a good mix.