Us Playing 5E

We’re enjoying board games, though it’s actually more expensive than D&D (provided we don’t buy a new book every week).

We try to give every person a chance to play every game, which allows those who spent their money on the game to get some fun out of it.
The one we all seem to like is Settlers of Catan, so it’s kind of our go to game when we can’t agree on what to play.

But when you play the same board games with the same people, the games start to repeat themselves. So you need to buy a new game or get new players.
New players are few and far in between, so we get new games. The cost to that is a little much when the games start at $40, and the pool of games left to choose from is shrinking a bit.

We research games we buy to make sure it’s something we will all enjoy. It’s pretty disheartening to buy a game to only play it once or twice because it wasn’t to our liking (I’m looking at you Small World), or one player just hates the game (Dale hates Munchkin, and I won’t play Arkham/Eldritch Horror again).

That’s not to say that we haven’t bought any RPGs that have been played (or one that has only been played once).
For Dale that would be DCC, Mage, and 4E Essentials.
For me that would be Basic D&D Rules Cyclopedia, Mechwarrior, and Pathfinder.

Nonetheless, board games may be unsustainable as we are now.

This brings us to D&D 5E and whether or not we want to return to D&D.

When I joined this group 15+ years ago, AD&D 2E was being played (2 campaigns alternating every three weeks and one used the Skills and Powers options).
A couple years later 3E was released and we switched to it after we finished the current campaign.
Switching to 3E was a bit of a learning curve, but we enjoyed it.
Then the people in the group changed drastically. One of our core members moved away and some new members were trying to control the group (rarely a smart thing to do), making it easy for me to say bye. The group then collapsed because my leaving gave others an opening to bow out.
Not six months later Dale and I started to get the D&D itch and got a few new people, and that went well for quite a while.
Yes we had the usual cycle of people joining and some leaving. If someone lasted for more than 3 months they usually left because of work.
We were a stable group with several core members that all enjoyed the game and our friendships.
I created the blog and wrote about our various adventures.
We had fun for years.
Even when 4E came out we enjoyed it.

At some point I saw 4E D&D as an exercise in doing something that I had to do rather than I wanted to do. And you’re reading/hearing this from a guy who has spent hours creating spreadsheets, making electronic maps, spent a lot of money on making game aids. It stopped being fun.

I tested the waters to see if the group wanted to switch to another game or fix 3.5, but that went nowhere. After a while I ensured the group had enough people, and then I left.

I don’t regret that decision, but it was about a year or so later that I wanted to play again.
I love fantasy roleplaying, and I get the itch to play often enough to keep me interested.

So I sent an email to several of the group and asked if they wanted to play.
After a lot of back and forth, we compromised on 2E, and were able to get a few others who wanted to go back and play it for nostalgic reasons.
We had fun for nearly a year, but work once again hosed us when I had to stop running. Dale volunteered to take my place, but he then had a series of cancellations due to sickness.
So we called it quits on D&D.

I think we had kind of burnt out on the nostalgia, the trouble of getting the group to play consistently, and trying to get new players.
It had become too much work.

Thus we switched to board games.
And now 5E had begun its rollout.

Is our burnout over?
Is six months and a new edition enough to lure us back?

I’ve read that 5E plays like older editions (as in not like 4E), so that’s a plus.
Being a new edition may make it easier to get new players, so that’s a plus.
I’ve read that the combats are fast, so that’s a plus. Hell it’s a big plus to me.

Our current plan is to wait until January to determine if 5E is for us.

First we want to wait and see if people’s positive opinions of 5E change after the shiny newness have worn off, like it did for 4E.

Three months is usually enough for that, but add the holidays and that would bring us to January.

That brings us to five months of others’ experience for us to listen to, longer if you account for playtesters’ opinions.

It’s all really up in the air.
I want to give this edition a fair chance.
I don’t relish looking for players again.

Also, I feel if WotC released an SRD (even more than what they have now), it would be a good faith gesture to the player base that they all but scared away with 4E.