Should I give D&D 5th Edition another chance?

In the last few days I have been thinking long and hard about my current gaming struggles and my obvious inability to make up my mind. In the last months I have considered running multiple OSR games but in the end I shelved all my plans. I even considered writing my own rules. And we all know how well this will go. As you can probably imagine this is a pretty frustrating situation.

I really want to be able to run games again and I constantly run into the same issues. This is made worse by the fact that it’s hard to convince my potential players to invest into every exciting and new game I happen to stumble upon. But I remember that it was pretty easy to get everyone on board when I suggested we play Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Unfortunately I made a total mess out of things back then, bit off more than I could chew, and eventually cancelled the whole thing.

Why am I now considering to give the game another chance? First and foremost it is – undoubtedly – the most popular and well-supported RPG out there right now. Secondly I played Curse of Strahd for about three years and currently feel much more confident when it comes to the rules. Lastly there’s a lot of material out there for 5th Edition: new classes, new monsters, exciting settings, adventures. There’s a lot to pick and choose from which might help me to find a combination I am comfortable with.

I am also intrigued by WotC’s plans to make some serious changes to how D&D depicts humanoid races. I really would love to see where things are going, and running a 5th Edition game at this time sounds almost exciting!

Michael Wolf is a German games designer and enthusiast best known for his English language role-playing games blog, Stargazer's World, and for creating the free rules-light medieval fantasy adventure game Warrior, Rogue & Mage. He has also worked as an English translator on the German-language Dungeonslayers role-playing game and was part of its editorial team. In addition to his work on Warrior, Rogue & Mage and Dungeonslayers, he has created several self-published games and also performed layout services and published other independent role-playing games such as A Wanderer's Romance, Badass, and the Wyrm System derivative Resolute, Adventurer & Genius, all released through his imprint Stargazer Games. Professionally, he works as a video technician and information technologies specialist. Stargazer's World was started by Michael in August 2008.

4 comments

comments user
Marcus

For me it’s also tricky. I would play 5e in a hear beat. But running it? Encounter building and wrangling enemy stat blocks is enough to take my enthusiasm whenever I consider it. There is so much overhead. Maybe a premade campaign but I usually get stuck up on details with those. Sigh.

    comments user
    Stargazer

    Personally I think avoiding too much premade stuff is the way to go. I have had pretty bad experiences with premade adventures and campaigns as a GM and I think I am better when I am forced to think on my feet. I don’t worry too much about encounter design because a) balance is overrated and b) if everything else fails there are online tools for that. The hard part for me at this point is dealing with my DM anxiety.

comments user
Jeffry Willis

Whole different experience reading this post now!

    comments user
    Stargazer

    Oh yes…