Player or DM?

[MrStabby]

So this is the first edition where I have really, really enjoyed being the DM.

The expectation that you can rule as a reasonable responsible person, the flexibility to ad hoc rules to provide player freedom, the scope for magic items or there absence and the forgiving nature of the rules make DMing great fun.

Instead of generating encounters using spreadsheets, calculus and other esoteric arts you can do encounters more by what fits the story and characters. Plotlines are coherent as you can generate characters with given abilities needed to support their actions with greater consistency. Players can all contribute without the need to introduce huge equalising factors.

Am I the only one that thinks this is the edition most fun to DM? Am I the only person that now find this has tipped the balance and now represents a game that may be even more fun to DM than to play?

[LaserFace]

I've DM'd 3.0, 3.5, 4th and 5E, and I find my 5E experience to be the best among them. Not that I didn't have lots of fun with previous editions, but I do think some of the latest design decisions are better suited to how I like to run my games.

Not just the raw mechanics, though, but presentation of the materials is also well done; for example although many people still seem to find enjoyment in preparing character builds, the PHB seems very keen on enticing players to just pick things that are cool, and go with it. It helps that the power gaps between characters seem narrower than in the past as well. But basically, it seems like players aren't forced into taking specific feat trees just to be effective and whatnot; they can focus on cool stuff, and I feel that in a sense liberates me as well. If everyone at the table has a mood of "do what's cool", I think creativity has a greater chance to shine.

[JakOfAllTirades]

I love to DM 5E, and that's something I haven't enjoyed at all since the days of 2E.

[Zman]

It is definitely my favorite edition to DM, the youth my heavily modified E10 3.5 was close.

[R.Shackleford]

4e Modified E10 was my favorite time as a player and DM.

5e is a close second with the house rules below. Hopefully the classes will enhance it past the 4e experiences.

Close third is 3.5 D&D, tier 3 (some 4) e6. Super fun.

As abolayer and DM I miss the customizations of 3e and 4e, I really hope we can get back to that someday. 5E's core simplicity or bounded accuracy mixing with 3e and 4e would be fantastic.

[Dark Ass4ssin 1]

I have only ever been DM for 3.5, Pathfinder, and 5e. From those editions, 5e is, by far, my favorite to DM. Not only because of the reasons you mentioned, but because of how it resonates with new players. It is a simple system with tons of cool examples that talk about how to build a charcter beyond the numbers on a sheet of paper, and REWARDS you for doing it. Its lax enough in combat so new players can make mistakes and live, and flexible enough for veterans to be challenged with minor tweeks on the DMs side.

Most of all, it flows really well. The way you pace the players in that iconic DnD game of attrition. The system is also flexible enough to allow any brand of storytelling without needing to dig up facts on how things work, or make it up.

[2D8HP]

I've long prefered exploring a fantastic world, to creating one, so in every edition, I'd rather be a player.
But when forced to DM?
By far I prefer just using the 48 pages of the "blue book" authored by John Eric Holmes, from the 1977 "Basic Set".
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/D%26d_original.jpg/200px-D%26d_original.jpg
It's just so much easier for me to remember all the rules in it than the 316 pages of the 5e PHB (I simply don't know later "Basic", 2e AD&D, or 4e at all so can't make any judgements on them, and I've only glanced at 3e which just seems too unwieldy to me).
As player? Except at character creation, I give the edge to 5e, just because my PC survives, and all the extra options are kind of fun, even though there kind of a pain to keep track of.
But if I had every rolled 3d6 in order well enough to play a 1e Ranger? Then that would be my first choice because the class was AWESOME!

[ProphetSword]

So this is the first edition where I have really, really enjoyed being the DM.

The expectation that you can rule as a reasonable responsible person, the flexibility to ad hoc rules to provide player freedom, the scope for magic items or there absence and the forgiving nature of the rules make DMing great fun.

Instead of generating encounters using spreadsheets, calculus and other esoteric arts you can do encounters more by what fits the story and characters. Plotlines are coherent as you can generate characters with given abilities needed to support their actions with greater consistency. Players can all contribute without the need to introduce huge equalising factors.

Am I the only one that thinks this is the edition most fun to DM? Am I the only person that now find this has tipped the balance and now represents a game that may be even more fun to DM than to play?

Many of the reasons you point out here also existed in some form in 2e. That's why, to me, 5e is the the 3rd Edition AD&D we should have been given to begin with. So, it's definitely one of the best editions.

[2D8HP]

Many of the reasons you point out here also existed in some form in 2e. That's why, to me, 5e is the the 3rd Edition AD&D we should have been given to begin with. So, it's definitely one of the best editions.The more I read about 2e, the sorrier I am that I missed it. By the the time it came out in the late 80's, after "Unearthed Arcana", I didn't know anyone else who still wanted to play D&D in my area. The closest I could get was "Rolemaster" or "Runequest", and by the 90's no one wanted to play any Sword and Sorcery genre RPG's at all.
Where were you guys?

[manny2510]

All I know as a DM is that I hate feats, because none of the monsters have CR balanced around feats.I end up giving the monsters "feats" just to make combat less of a blender of GWF, the most unbalanced feat in the game because as soon as you get advantage the -5 means nothing. But it is an optional rule so there's that.

[DivisibleByZero]

I love to DM 5E, and that's something I haven't enjoyed at all since the days of 2E.

This, to the letter.

[R.Shackleford]

All I know as a DM is that I hate feats, because none of the monsters have CR balanced around feats.I end up giving the monsters "feats" just to make combat less of a blender of GWF, the most unbalanced feat in the game because as soon as you get advantage the -5 means nothing. But it is an optional rule so there's that.

Many aspects of 5e seem... Rushed and put on after the fact... This is one of the reason I think this.

[ruy343]

I've been playing since I was 8 under the 2e rules, and I've been DMing since I was 13, starting with 3.0. Although I've never had a problem with more complicated systems, I really enjoy the simplicity and accessibility of 5e. However, most importantly for me - since I have a hard time visualizing scenes and such in my head, I need some extra help with roleplaying, and 5th edition really has captured that for me by making simple backgrounds a part of the character creation process.

The other things that I like: PCs can survive, but aren't infinite bags of hit points, monsters still feel deadly, combat doesn't take forever, DMs are allowed to rule on the fly ("Please make an Intelligence (Deception) check!"), and no character is truly useless.

[R.Shackleford]

I've been playing since I was 8 under the 2e rules, and I've been DMing since I was 13, starting with 3.0. Although I've never had a problem with more complicated systems, I really enjoy the simplicity and accessibility of 5e. However, most importantly for me - since I have a hard time visualizing scenes and such in my head, I need some extra help with roleplaying, and 5th edition really has captured that for me by making simple backgrounds a part of the character creation process.

The other things that I like: PCs can survive, but aren't infinite bags of hit points, monsters still feel deadly, combat doesn't take forever, DMs are allowed to rule on the fly ("Please make an Intelligence (Deception) check!"), and no character is truly useless.

Umm... There was nothing stopping DMs from ruling on the fly before. Even in 3e and 4e.

Actually both systems had specific rules for this.

4e specifically said to give a bonus or penalty equal to + or - 2 and then deal with it after the session... This is pretty much the same thing in 5e but with advantage and disadvantage.

[Kurt Kurageous]

The more I read about 2e, the sorrier I am that I missed it. By the the time it came out in the late 80's, after "Unearthed Arcana", I didn't know anyone else who still wanted to play D&D in my area. The closest I could get was "Rolemaster" or "Runequest", and by the 90's no one wanted to play any Sword and Sorcery genre RPG's at all.
Where were you guys?

I started in 1979 with AD&D, thought the earlier works were limited (Blue Box, Chainmail), they were still valid descriptions of the "game" which was so unlike all others.

What happened next was computers, message boards (BBS!) and then the internet. Computers got so much better at simulation, then it kinda morphed RPGs into MMORPGs. But them MMORPGs became grind-fests and infested with asoles...

DnD became passé, then cultish, then nostalgia or legend. All I saw was a lot of new rules I would have to learn to buy back in to the game. The talk about 5e convinced me that I would have to do a lot less of that compared to previous incarnations, so I bought back in last year.

I am enjoying my 5e DM experience very much. It does feel to me a lot like Gygax's AD&D, but with everything much better organized, far better balanced, and easy to immerse myself into. If there are gaps, I have PDFs of those long gone AD&D books from 1977-1980 that I can refer to for any details not found in 5e (hirelings, favorite monsters, etc.). Given the massive online support/inspiration now available, IMNSHO these are the good old days and this is a golden age.

Breathe deeply, my friends.

[old school man]

I love 5th a lot.

For me B/X is just as fun.




John

[Knaight]

I generally choose the system when GMing, so that means D&D isn't happening. That puts me in the player camp. With that said, I did run a few games during the playtest and while it's not really my cup of tea I didn't despise the experience; it's a step up from all the other editions - particularly the ridiculously convoluted ones that get lumped into 1e.

[MaxWilson]

All I know as a DM is that I hate feats, because none of the monsters have CR balanced around feats.I end up giving the monsters "feats" just to make combat less of a blender of GWF, the most unbalanced feat in the game because as soon as you get advantage the -5 means nothing. But it is an optional rule so there's that.

I hate the term "feat". A feat, in English, is a specific impressive act. Balancing a rhino on your head is a feat of strength; building a bridge is a feat of engineering; surviving a dragon's breath weapon is a feat of agility and toughness. But "feats" in 5E aren't feats, they're abilities. They should have been called "perks".

I quit playing (A)D&D somewhere around 1999, and occasionally I'd hear people talk about "taking" "potion brewing feats" or "shield master feats" or whatever. Never made sense to me until I picked up a video game (IWD2) and learned the jargon. Now I understand the term but I still think it's a bad one.

To the OP: I don't mind DMing 5E, but it's a lot of work, because 5E lacks rules for almost everything that doesn't involve combat. Most monsters don't even have stats for things I consider important, such as what terrain they live in or how large their social organizations are. When I'm feeling lazy (or busy with other things) I can get away with handwaving these things at the table, but it's not fun to do so because I know at some point my handwaves are going to have to be reconciled and rationalized. 5E is a pretty good game for basic casual dungeon crawling ("you open the door and three displacer beasts roar in fury and attack you!"/"you find a necklace worth 300 gp on the displacer beasts's body"), and if your game is all about violence it's fun to DM, but there's an awful lot of room for improvement at the campaign level.

So, when it comes to 5E, I'd rather play under a good DM, because it's less work... but I won't consider him a good DM unless he basically reinvents 5E first and makes it work as a campaign. And if no one else will do that then I'd rather DM, because at least then someone can do it right.

[Knaight]

I hate the term "feat". A feat, in English, is a specific impressive act. Balancing a rhino on your head is a feat of strength; building a bridge is a feat of engineering; surviving a dragon's breath weapon is a feat of agility and toughness. But "feats" in 5E aren't feats, they're abilities. They should have been called "perks".

By 5e they were pretty locked in - the term already had a system specific meaning, and deviating from it would have made switching editions marginally more difficult. It's 3e that should have used a different term.