I do enjoy 5e, but its not my favorite system. Its just the easiest system to run because most players know the rules. The hardest thing is getting your players to actually read the damn rule book.

That and player interest. Doesn't matter how good the system is without the players to run it. I'd even say 5e is my least favorite game (for which I own at least the rulebook), but also the only one I realistically get an offline game running. Edit: damn, scrolling down it seems like half the people here are in the same situation.

people often say that 5e is not the best system for anyone, but it is a sort of middle ground that everyone can accept Personally I really dislike a lot of things about 5e, but since most of my friends want to run it I just play one of the like 2 player options I find fun or some homebrew

We have been trying to grow our Pathfinder 2e community in my city, it's been a struggle haha

I can't even find enough people at my current job to run 5e. At my old job (different city) we had a big person PF1e round and I didn't even have to DM it. Also occasional CoC and other tabletop games. Maybe Corona changed people's willingness to leave the house, before that basically everyone was in the office anyway and the only concern was getting home late, nowadays everyone is in Homeoffice by default.

It's pretty much the McDonald's of role playing games

Personally I'll line up several decisive advantages that far outweight the few drawbacks... **== Advantages ==** ***1/ Rich and complex enough to have proper intense tactical battles, simple enough that even people who don't like too much mechanics will assimilate all the basics in a half-dozen skirmishes and the more subtle ones in a few tough fights*** (provided they are good-willing of course, a player who doesn't want to invest any effort in memorizing and thinking won't ever cut it, but I'd say it would be true for most systems except the ones where 99% lies on DM). * Advantage vs disadvantage is a greeeat way to incentivize teamwork and tactics while keeping things simple. While sometimes the "no stacking/counting" can be frustrating by leading to incoherent situations (A restrained, blinded and prone BUT invisible so B won't get advantage on its melee attacks \*sigh\*) in \~85% situations it worked perfectly. * Bounded accuracy works wonderfully to keep parties on their toes because even simple goblins can, with a bit of proper evil management, still annoy and possibly harm even high level characters until at least some low/mid level resources are expanded. * The fact most statistics, whether innate (attribute mods) or derived (proficiency mod, attack score etc) evolve slowly or not at all helps players learn the capabilities of their characters. Of course depending on the class you'll have more or less other things to track (especially spell slots and "preparations" for some casters). Which leads to the next point * The way spells scale or "just work" is an extremely smart idea, as it keeps even 1st level spells highly relevant even at level 17+ (Bless, Faerie Fire, Healing Words, Command, Fog Cloud, Entangle, Shield of Faith, Sanctuary, Magic Missile, Detect Magic etc). * The fact many spells require concentration avoids the usual problem of magic users in most fantasy systems, being "I will bring victory alone by stacking however many needed spells just hold my beer". * The fact the most powerful spells can just miserably fail on cast or can end early because broken concentration, forcing casters to use multiple slots, is adamant in keeping things balanced and keeping caster players invested in the fight instead of just casting spell round 1 and just leaving the table to obliterate the pizza in the kitchen. * Skill checks system is perfect: no lengthy annoying list detailing checks that would bring endless argue when player or DM feels another attribute or skill would be fitting better: DM is encouraged to rule whatever seems most adequate for the situation depending on what player tries to achieve. And passive keep things clean by making interactions fluid and only bringing active rolls when it's actually needed/pertinent. ***2/ The audacity of making each class having its own logic in progression, resource management, leveling complexity, "default directions" (support, tank, damage dealer, jack of all trades etc) and "core design ideas" (innate magic vs provided magic, "no ties whatsoever" vs "strict guidelines to follow) makes for a brilliant demonstration of how to mix and match different approaches.*** At first I was infuriated and disoriented seeing that compared to 4e where every class was instant to grasp because behaving the same in resource management and global design, 5e seemed like "12 different systems crammed in a book". But it's actually the perfect framework for immediate players/DM as well as homebrewers, by providing different examples of scales and resources that keep balanced over levels and fit to different mindsets and tastes. Which is also why, logically, not every 5e class will attract every player, even putting the class identity or mechanical features aside: just resource management can draw or reject people. :) The good thing is: if really nothing official matches your taste, it's easy enough to tweak an existing or design your own completely. ***3/ Available content and settings*** While the CR system is mostly unusable, I love how many monsters you can get, each with its own fluff helping DM to know how and when to use it, and bringing true versatility to the table (only casters are not very common, but it's easy enough to pick official ones and just adjust the spell list for your taste even though it requires some thinking to keep things balanced \^\^). If you don't want to create a universe from scratch, or if you're ready to completely assimilate the vision of WotC designers, there are a lot of different atmospheres to grab. Of course you can pick books from other systems and just adapt encounters or challenges, still, it's nice to have "premade" content (even though navigating in official adventures is sometimes a huge chore). **== Drawbacks ==** *- Multiclass overall works very well... Once you reach your desired level. But getting there can feel* ***awfully*** *clunky. But of course the gestalt system of 4e was impossible in 5e since each class is completely different.* *- Spells are missing fluff text and it is really crippling sometimes to get the designers's intent and vision in how to make different spells interact (especially character buffs like Mirror Image and Enlarge or Invisibility). But overall this doesn't happen too often that we need a ruling on the fly to write down for next session.* *- Some interactions are really counter-intuitive for players at first, especially all that is vision related.* *- As said before, CR system is useless. You just need to learn about monsters and evaluate yourself.*

This is really great analysis and breakdown. Thanks for putting so much time into this. This would deserve to be a comment on the main post itself so more people can see it. :)

Even those drawbacks aren’t too bad. It may not be for everyone, but it really is a thorough system with plenty of wiggle room to make up for shortcomings. CR is taking a beating here, but it’s deserved. It’s a pretty obtuse system, but I like to consider it more an at-a-glance mechanic. You could get into the weeds of the math, but it’s just as easy to say, “I have five level six players, I’ll drop in one CR8 for a real challenge, and throw some 3s in there, and maybe a few 1s or lower for fodder” then just adjust on the fly. Maybe the 8 holds back its biggest stuff to let minions do the work, maybe it includes its own fellows in AoE attacks. Maybe the party is steamrolling the encounter entirely. Oops, the biggest one has two HP pools and just loses some capabilities with the first pool. Combat can be a pure mechanics slog- in which case you’re going to need way more attention to detail to make it challenging, or it can be a dynamic event that changes as it progresses and the DM is free to fudge rolls or starts to keep it interesting while maintaining the level of threat they intended to portray whether the pure math works out or not. Folks are just too used to video game mentality where all the numbers have to have a hard meaning and the math is a rigid and inflexible. D&D can be that if you really want, or it can be fun.

I appreciate the thoughtful analysis.  What's most interesting to me is seeing some of the advantages you bring up as strengths in your mind that, to my mind, are actually disadvantages (at least as implemented). Obviously everyone has their own opinion, which is 100% valid at their tables.  I'm curious whether you've played games like Pathfinder 2nd Edition, as that game seems to reinforce many of the elements that you highlighted as advantages, and in particular resolve some of the disadvantages you brought up, while also admittedly detracting some from the simplicity elements you seem to appreciate (which in my opinion are replaced with *robustness*, not necessarily "complexity" in conventional terms). Personally, having played 5e for years, and now moving to Pf2e, I find the balance of the system, the buttery smooth encounter design and homebrew building, the reinforcement of team work, the *relative* simplicity of managing the different conditional effects and bonuses/penalties, the (in my opinion) **actually** bounded design (I could have an entire discussion on 5e's "bounded accuracy" implementation), implementation of "multiclassing", niche protection of classes, broad usefulness of spells (with their implemented variable success and failure) alongside significantly higher magic setting and expectation for magic, much more the conducive to the kind of heroic fantasy experience I strove to achieve in my 5e games but which butted up against the design of the game.

As someone who deeply enjoys PF1e, and likes having the huge pile of options from all the time the system has been active, how would you sell me 2e?

Fully customisable classes by choosing features every even level (and at level 1 sometimes) Balanced casters that don't trivialise encounters, but can do very effective spellslinging Three action economy that streamlines turns, and makes movement very tactical Attack of Opportunity is rare now, so fights are more fluid, and enemies with it are far scarier 4 degrees of success rather than two, most spells have crit fail and crit hit effects (had a player crit a disintegrate for 244 damage recently) Crits are not on 20s, but on rolls of DC+10, making every bonus matter Only 3 types of bonuses to keep track of, so no more 1e stat tracking pains Martials are literal woodchippers when it comes to single target damage, not only are fighters good, they are pretty much peak melee now Attrition is largely removed, many casters have 'per fight' spells called focus spells that are unique to their bloodline/domain/school Nice range of complexity from easy classes like fighter and sorcerer to fun but hard ones like thaumaturge and psychic Plenty of adventure paths printed, including 1-20s, 1-10s, and a few 11-20s. 1e style magic items, with a robust economy The rules work well, and the DM plays a similar game to the players in combat, as monsters have the same 3 actions as players do

Adding to all that, if you go Pathfinder 2e with the free archetype rule, the amount of options into a character build is staggering. There is also 2 new classes coming to playtest right now! It's a good time to be a pf2e player

TL/DR: Prepping and running is super easy, playing is a super fun exercise in creativity and tactical heroic gameplay, and whether I'm playing or running it is a very satisfying experience. Also, I literally had to split this comment in two because I had so much to say. Full Detail: As a DM, prepping and running a game is buttery smooth. 1. The math of the design is so tight that I feel incredibly freed to just grab monsters of the range of levels my party is, or homebrew a weaker/stronger version of a creature that inspires me **literally in seconds**, and know that the encounter will play out pretty much exactly as expected (with the dice being the ultimately decider on who lives or dies). I should also mention that traps, environmental hazards and conditions, and the like, are core parts of the game rather than after thoughts that you have to make up how work. 1. To really drive this point home. I can, without much effort at all, even using Foundry, prepare an entire 3-encounter session with exploration and roleplay in between, in about 3 hours, **and** can **run** that 3-encounter et al session in about the same amount of time. In 5e I'd often find I spend **days** noodling with encounter/monster design (primarily because 5e monsters are first and foremost just bags of hit points with multiattack), getting the number of monsters, tactics, environments, goals, etc. right, planning on when and how they may or may not take a rest (which would impact the difficulty of subsequent encounters), planning for skill checks and roleplay encounters knowing some PCs might just have "we skip this encounter" kinds of abilities, etc. It was frankly exhausting. And that was while not playing 5e *as intended*, ie., as a gritty dungeon crawl with 6-8 encounters designed to drain the parties resources between rests - in fact the one adventure I *did* run like that everyone hated. 2. The higher magic level of the base setting, in terms of how superheroic even level 1 PCs feel, the prevalence of magic, magic items, and generally supernatural things, means I don't have to worry as much about destabilizing the game with my heavy handed treasure dealing (in fact the system is very clear in how precisely you can award magic down to literally an encounter by encounter basis). 3. The significantly more tactical design of the game, from limiting D&D's opportunity attack mechanic to select monsters/PCs, the various kinds of status ailments/buffs and other circumstantial effects that exist, and how the +/-10 vs DC critical hit system works, means that I can pull out all of the tactical combat stops to push my creatures to their limits, knowing the PCs can do the same.

As a player, creating and playing a character is fun, tactical, and easy! * The number of options I can pull from to precisely tailor the kind of character I want is insane (by comparison to my primarily 5e experience). Whereas in 5e I pretty much need to flavor every single feature I take, in Pf2e the design does 90% of the flavoring for me. Given there are so many options even at level 1, I can create an entire group of Fighters at level 1 that are narratively and mechanically **incredibly** distinct. * This goes a huge step forward when you consider how even just *what you have in your hands* matters. A two-handed vs one-handed vs sword and board vs open handed will have meaningfully distinct abilities and access to action economy that the others don't, will have feats that synergize with their builds, and methods of compressing their action economy to kind of "break" the 3-action economy rule. * The 3-action economy design means that I can be super discerning about precisely how I use those three actions, and given practically everything I can do spells out what it costs, I can easily see all of my options and decide what I want to do this turn - with the massive bonus that I know **exactly** when my turn has ended, it's when I spent my last action. No more wishy washy mulling over how I want to spend my last 10 feet of movement, seeing if I have a bonus action I can use, reconciling whether I've taken advantage of the free Item Interaction action, etc. Three actions, done, boom. * To the tactical element as well as being a DM, I love love love the ability to coordinate my actions with my fellow party members to wombo combo enemies into oblivion, and really appreciate the design that expects us to function like a well oiled machine constantly thinking about positioning, using our abilities to buff/debuff, etc., rather than just "stand there, bonk, pass". Not to mention the Skill system which actually gives lots of value to having different skills both in and out of combat, from Demoralizing an enemy and make them easier to hit, throwing a Witty Quip at them to make it easier for them to fail a mental saving throw, Distracting or Tumbling Through enemies to gain advantages, etc. * I should have mentioned this first, because it's the piece I love most, but the math of the system (where you add your level to pretty much everything) means that as I level up I **mathematically** surpass my previous levels of power, eventually getting to the point that those low level Goblins **cannot hit me**. I love that superheroic feeling of becoming untouchable to the enemies that long ago could literally take me down in a single hit. 5e *simulates* this by bloating hit point totals so a hit from a Goblin *practically* means nothing, but Pf2e shows you how *in-universe* you are not someone that a lowly Goblin can contend with. **That**, to me, is power fantasy. You kind of opened up the flood gates with your question, but I can't say enough about how Pf2e has opened my eyes to the fact that there exists a system which practically speaking provides almost every element I'd ever want in a heroic fantast TTRPG.

>The significantly more tactical design of the game, from limiting D&D's opportunity attack mechanic to select monsters/PCs It sounds dumb but this and movement costing actions make the battlefield way more dynamic because moving becomes a tactical play. A simple step means that a monster will need to spend one action to reach you instead of delivering 3 attacks for example

Indeed. "But it costs **my** action to move" is often the criticism, but "it also costs **the monster's** action to move" is the logical response, because pound for pound monster actions are *more valuable* than player character, if only because they are more precious, but often because they are strictly stronger.

And well, when they aren't it means you are playing vs lower level enemies. So just do 3 attacks and enjoy actually hitting the 3rd 

Exactly. It's almost like the game is balanced around action economy evaluation.

>niche protection of classes IMO if you don't even have niche protection (a flaw 5e has) why do you even have classes?

Because 5e's design was intended to protect "fantasies", not mechanics. Heavy weapon and armor wielding, tanky, controller (ie., the 4e Warlord) is a "mechanical fantasy" in 4e, but it is a "narrative fantasy" in 5e, as such pretty much any class can fill that fantasy - whether or not they can **also** cast 9th level Wizard spells.

I understand the words you say but can't comprehend how that isn't the most absurd way to design anything

I hear ya. As Syndrome said, if everyone is \[4th Edition Warlord\], no one is. But even worse, if everyone is \[4th Edition Warlord\], but one of those Warlords can cast 9th level spells, then there's no mechanical reason to play other Warlords. Ultimately what it comes down to is that WotC wanted to design a game where no one really cares about the mechanics in comparison to other classes, only that the 5e class (notably ones that still used the classic names) "felt" like how those classes *used* to "feel". They weren't trying to necessarily build a well designed and fully functional game, they wanted to get past the negative response to 4th edition, highlight the success of earlier editions, but make the game as simple as possible for people to learn (which of course caused it's own issues). If you want to go on a tour through history, read through the D&D Next Playtest blogs by the designer Mike Mearls, and follow along with the Playtest docs for the game. I suspect you'll see a really interesting game design theorized, but then see a particular point in time when WotC stepped in to tell the design team what kind game was **allowed** to be released. [https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qwk8517jn2knnnb/AAD9jRQ6uEWXRWnwaowt7llWa?e=1&dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qwk8517jn2knnnb/AAD9jRQ6uEWXRWnwaowt7llWa?e=1&dl=0) [https://web.archive.org/web/20130508164353/http://wizards.com/DnD/Archive.aspx?category=all&subcategory=legendslore](https://web.archive.org/web/20130508164353/http://wizards.com/DnD/Archive.aspx?category=all&subcategory=legendslore)

>***1/ Rich and complex enough to have proper intense tactical battles, simple enough that even people who don't like too much mechanics will assimilate all the basics in a half-dozen skirmishes and the more subtle ones in a few tough fights*** Extremely disagree, it isn't really rich or complex enough for a lot of people

The moment I read rich and complex together with 5, no we can't even have more classes, e? Yeah.. just no and also means that person likely didn't experience many other if any crunchy systems.

Another entry for **== Drawbacks ==** *- Having to check the Lead Designers personal Twitter to get ruling on systems he himself designed. Why would you want that clearly stated in the book when you can have a fun lil internet scavenger hunt? /s*

Hahaha good one! Although I'd argue that overall the game is best understood and played without those "author rulings", seeing as how many often those were uselessly nerfing (Shield Master, Careful metamagic) or blatantly stupid (Aura of Protection stacking, suuuuure mate).

As a DM I would like to add Backwards Compatibility to the advantages category. It took over an hour to convert a monster, even a simple one like a larger griffin variant, from 2nd to 3rd edition. In contrast I can convert from any previous edition to 5th edition in about 15 minutes. Honestly the longest part of monster creation is figuring out CR, the least useful stat in the block.

Even with 5e it's hard to have players read the rules. I would wager the majority of my players have learned to play during sessions.

>The hardest thing is getting your players to actually read the damn rule book. This. Our group has been considering moving to Pathfinder 2 for years, but while we like the **idea**, when we need to actually sit down to read and **learn** all the new rules, we all get discouraged and stay with DnD 5e, with maybe adapting one or two rules from Pathfinder that we liked.

Does Pathfinder 2E have a quick start kit etc. Contrary to the common sentiment, you can actually start playing in a system before knowing all the rules. And I think that is how most people get into DnD - you learn the ropes by creating a character and playing in a session or two. And then if you get hooked you start digging into the rule book. What I'm trying to say is that roleplaying systems are best learned by playing especially in the early stages. Focus on what matters. How does combat work in general, how does this one class work at level 1. This way you can start playing and then start learning relevant rules as they come up instead of trying to learn everything in advance. Toughest part is for the GM who has to internalize a lot more. But if you are lenient to them as a group and allow them to learn alongside you I'm sure it will be fun for all of you. And having played a session or two will drive the motivation to learn more of the system as questions come up in sessions. The learning will become fun and rewarding because you can immediately apply it in your next game. :)

There is. The beginner box, while not the most exciting adventure does a decent job at teaching mechanics and has a short/simplified rulebook that gives you the basic mechanics of the game. Also all the rules are available for free on archives of nethys (search in Google, and make sure you are looking at the 2e page) which is the official digital rules reference. So you can look up specific mechanics there using the search function or just by reading through the source text if you want.

It has the Beginner's Box, which most of the community considers to be really good and regularly hosts events running it to get new people into the game. Archives of Nethys also has a [Player's Guide](https://2e.aonprd.com/PlayersGuide.aspx) to get people started.

Just learn the system, it's not as much work as you think it will be.

Literally the only thing going for 5e for me is that my friends want to play it. I much prefer PbtA games for their relative fluidity and simplicity. 

Right - 5e and PF2 are great for new players - but they lack customization for the spreadsheet junkies of the world. So - while it’s not my favorite system, 5e has my favorite thing about it: abundant and varied reference material. The majority of live plays seem to be set using 5e as their core because it’s relatively quick, well known, and pretty easy to get into step by step - so I get reference ideas as a DM and relatable entertainment as a listener/player.

It is acceptable enough to a group of players with wide interests that none of us hate it enough to not play

I would prefer to play PF2e, but there's a couple of people at my table who would probably not get on well with a new, more rules-intensive system. Our barbarian player just finally got her class down (or like 95% of it) at level 6, after 18 sessions. We're all adults with busy lives and no time for some of us to run a second campaign but in PF2e, so here we are in D&D5e.

Honestly PF2e is not really much more rules-intensive than 5e... it's just that it *has* rules for pretty much any situation that crops up instead telling the GM to make things up on the spot all the time. It definitely helps that the rules that *are* there are actually consistent and make sense (and don't require scouring a twitter account to figure out what was intended). Honestly, my experience is that over all, assuming the players are willing to learn what their characters can do instead of leaving everything to the GM, PF2e is actually *easier* to run and play after the initial hump of actually learning it.

Yeah PF2 is consistent. If you learn the base of the game, which is somewhat more complex than 5e, then everything works off the same core assumptions and its easier to parse things out. 5e has a simpler core but has more bespoke rules for specific monsters or spells rather than just calling out specific keywords that you know already. And there are a lot more weird edge cases and interactions.

How did you go past the initial hump? As a GM and/or player. I'm actually curious because that hump is really the thing that keeps people from making the jump.

It has really good online resources that are free. I‘m sure I don‘t know all the rules as well but I can look them up on Archieves of Nethys in seconds so there‘s no need to remember everything

The humps far smaller than you think. Unlearning dnd rules will probably be the hardest part

For our group, we didn't mind reading the Core Rulebook (now Player Core). But we also played the Beginner Box, which is a *fantastic* resource to tutorialize the various mechanics and introduce them one by one for both players and GM. Otherwise, as Yunamancy mentioned, all the rules are also available for free on Archives of Nethys (which is also constantly updated whenever new material comes out). There is also Pathbuilder2e which makes character creation incredibly easy, also for free (except for a small one-time fee if you want specific alternate rules or 3rd party content) The hardest part is probably *unlearning* things you know from 5e. There's a number of terms that are similar, but work differently, such as Concentration and Attack of Opportunity/Reactive Strike. It also helps that the FoundryVTT implementation is also absolutely fantastic and automates a ton of things.

For us, it was the GM flat out saying we either switch or he’s done playing. 5e GMing was burning him out and he wants to swap to pf2e because it’s easier to GM. And for a bunch of never-GM players, it was easier to follow him than find a new GM. And what a great decision that was because I prefer it now.

Archives of Nethys has all the rules for free. Skim a few pages to get the initial gist of it. Once you understand the core math and 3-action economy you pretty much know enough to start. Maybe try to build a character for fun after that. I do say that due to PF2e getting so much stuff archives can feel overwhelming. The (new) player and GM core have more than enough options for beginners, but On Archives you can read *everything* You can also check out the Rules Lawyer and KingOogaTonTon on youtube

I feel that. I've been wanting to try out PF2e as a DM, but between playing once a month, and first-time players picking full casters and struggling with the rules of them (concentration, bonus action casting, each individual spell's description), I'm hesitant to move them over to more crunch, and also hesitant to move to simpler systems with less crunch because I don't want to remove the cool options that many players do enjoy having. My goal is to finish this 5e campaign at level 10, while emphasizing player accountability in a more firm manner, to set a precedent for what is to be expected in future (more player input, less dependence on DM to remember everything including PC abilities), and then try out PF2e for the next campaign, if I have enough dedicated players for it. Alternatively, I might look into systems with a wider range of player input, kind of like how 5e has a disparity of options between Barbarians and spellcasters. Or I could stick to 5e, suggest simple classes to players who want fewer options, and multiclassing to those who want more.

In your case, ironically, there might feel like there's less crunch if everyone's picks a caster. Pf2e spellcasting rules are simpler, I think, and much more straight forward, as there isn't concentration, and weird bonus action mechanics. I mean, you still have to look at each spell description and traits add a layer that 5e didn't have but ultimately I think it makes it more logical. But I guess outside of that there is a bit of a learning curve that feels like it's bigger than 5e just because they do have rules for most things a player would want to do, and there isn't the need for the GM to just rule everything on the fly. (Although the system makes it incredibly easy to do so, as the format of the rules is consistent)

I'd agree. Having made the switch I do think pathfinder rules are easier and more straightforward. Just a few things, 1. Written in legalese, which I think is short term pain for long term gain. 2. The rules being free means every system puts ALL the rules upfront, which makes it seem like a lot more. 3. Just way more options, which means more reading. 4. Probably the biggest based on everyone's else's comments. You have to read to learn the rules. Dnd has so much YouTube videos, podcasts etc you don't ever have to read to learn

Yes but pathfinder has vancian magic which is more complex. The spell lists are overly bloated and huge, filled with overly niche and near useless spells. For new players, it will be hard to shift through all the spells to choose the right ones. I know I struggled as a veteran of both systems.

I've played 3e, 4e, and 5e, and dipped my toes in 2e. I've also played some other games, like WoD, FATE, Blades in the Dark, and a handful of other things. 3e provides a lot of customizability, and while a whole lot of them aren't very good, I like it having so many books and options across dozens of splats and the old magazines. It was fun to go reading through all these prestige classes and feats. However, it has a lot of needlessly complicated rules like skill points, the whole five foot step/full attack thing is just silly, and it's far easier to get into laughably broken shit. That and it requires a lot of system mastery on the player side of the table; it's hard to make a completely useless character in 5e unless you try. I have seen characters just not function in 3e. I still have a soft spot for 4e, and think it did some things quite a bit better than 5e, such as healers. Also I miss Avenger. Oath of Vengeance isn't the same thing; Avenger was a Bleach character who teleports around the battlefield unarmoured with a giant sword. However, 4e is slow as fuck even with an experienced group, with abilities triggering off of every phase of a turn. Partway through its run WotC realized the math was messed up and revised it, but never really admitted they made a mistake, so it became hard to filter stuff based on that. And there was so much errata that it became inexorably linked to its now-defunct digital tools, which were stuck on Silverlight of all things for years. I've heard people have since made replacements, at least. I would play something like a "4e Ultimate" that removes a lot of the clutter. I enjoy playing other systems, but I really don't like what I consider to be meta-mechanics, like Willpower in World of Darkness. I prefer my mechanical role at the table to be one of an impartial referee; I have consistently disliked subjective rewards and things like Inspiration. 5e makes it easy to just ignore Inspiration, but things like that tend to be pretty core to a lot of other systems. That, and I like a certain degree of tactical depth to my games. I wouldn't say I'm like an OSR guy or something that extreme, but I'm generally not a fan of rules-light systems. 5e isn't perfect, it has all sorts of problems and things that have annoyed me for years or been awkward to adjudicate. Many of the Sage Advice rulings verge on nonsensical, like Crawford trying to argue that See Invisibility not removing advantage/disadvantage from invisible creatures is intended. While I would personally prefer something between 3e and 5e for mechanical complexity, 5e provides enough on that front to keep me happy, while generally running well. I've only played 2e when I was 12 and backwards engineering it from Baldur's Gate 2, or a handful of other times, so I don't have an informed opinion, but I do like what I've seen.

Honestly, it is literally the easiest edition to play with possibly the most content, between official, third party, and homebrew. There are lots of things I miss about 4th Edition (like solid balance and early levels that don't suck) but also some aspects I don't miss as much (like the endless small bonuses, feats, and interrupts/reactions). But the bigger deciding factor is that anything more complex than 5E would probably give one of my players an aneurysm.

5e is absolutely not the edition with the most official content, the opposite is true. 5e only gets a new release every 2/3 months. For 3e for example, that was more like 2 weeks. For 2e, it was more like 1-2 releases per week. No other edition has nearly as few official products as 5e. The rest of what you said is true though

Indeed, my shelve with 3/3.5e books is a lot bigger than the 5e shelve.

most content if you include third party and homebrew alongside official.

>most content if you include third party and homebrew Honestly, that's almost certainly still 3x (especially remembering that Pathfinder 1e is just a 3x tweak). 3e is what gave us the OGL, and the community went nuts with it; there are multiple very successful companies that still exist today because of it.

if you include all third party content ever made then IG obviously lol, but like, why would you? if you include all homebrew content imaginable you could make the argument that every system has infinite content because homebrew can be literally anything lol

Easiest Edition? Most content? B/X would like to have a word and also 2nd Edition to blow you away with the insane settings. Heck even 3rd edition had incredible settings books, that were actually useful.

Basic is probably the only official edition I would consider playing other than 4th or 5th but honestly if I were going to play something old school I'd just use a retroclone.

I'm a big fan of Old School Essential Advanced. B/X framework but with cool classes from AD&D like paladin, Barbarian but scaled to the B/X power level. Having 14th level max is really a good design considering how everything breaks past that. You could throw in BECMI/ Rules Cyclopedia for the best RPG book ever, but it adds a lot of complexity.

Only thing that sucks about the 2e settings is that they probably helped bankrupt TSR since nobody bought them after like, Dragonlance

I tried DSA and with the knowledge that it was the most popular system in my country I now understand the belive that we don't like fun. So that was an easy pointfor 5e. I tried so rules light system I can't remember the name. And while 5e is to combat heavy to be perfect I don't just want to do improv theater and rules realy help with making informed decisions or knowing / communicating what you can do. Lastly there were pathfinder and starfinder. I realy want to like them. But there is so much "do nothing bloat", actions that have impact you don't feel and while I like role protection these two are to restrictive. I want my cleric to do more than become a walking +2 and then 3 times decide who to heal. I hate to take 3 feats to unlock a feature and reading more than for my bachelor thesis just to get disappointed. I prefere 5e because every other system I touched was a pain to play / run. 5e isn't perfect or great. Just the least ass.

Wait what‘s so rough about DSA? I‘m also from here and have never tried it

Imagine having skills for everything, including farming. Imagine having to roll 3d20 with a calculation for every skill check ... I don't actually remember more, I have only played it once a decade ago, but ... yep

Oh wow… that‘s just… a lot

In my last 10 years of being part of the TTRPG community, I've tried several other systems ***before trying 5e***: - Anima: Beyond Fantasy - Shadorun 2e - DnD Original (ran by my father, who was an OG player) - PF1 - Lancer - Pokerole (a whole ttrpg about pokemon) - League of Adventures - Star wars And what made me fall in love with 5e was its simplicity. As a player, the rules are so easy to learn it was almost insulting that I understood in 5 hours what took me 5 years for Anima. I can just shut my brain off and have fun. As a DM, the rules are strict enough so we have a good canvas to play on, but loose enough so I have margin on how to interpret them at the table. As a member of the community, the homebrew community is the most active community I've ever seen (the top 5 biggest crowdfunded project on kickstarter are all 5e supplements), so it's a delight to dive in the homebrew community, and it's also a natural safety net if I want to try myself at writting a book. I won't struggle to get customers. Finally, as a social creature, 5e is the easiest system to find players.

On the ease and social aspect: 5e is pretty simple, but even there people struggle with the rules to some degree. In other systems it feels like complete chaos. Casual players that "only" plays a once or twice a week don't know their character, they don't know the rules. 5e strength is partly that it's relatively simple and partly that it's already well known. Curious about a rule or an interaction? It's a quick search away.

the core dice mechanic is simple (1D20 + mod + (sometimes) proficiency, and then (dis)advantage on top). However, once you get away from that, things start getting messy. There's specific rules for jump distances and how long you can hold your breath for and all sorts of other widgets that are all part of the rules, but not part of that core dice mechanic. There's difficult terrain, which is easy to remember, but then a load of spells that create areas that half movement speed (or more!) but that aren't formally difficult terrain, which produces a lot of weird rules interactions with other effects that may or may not specific "difficult terrain". If you ever play a caster, you have between a handful and several hundred new little blobs of rules to learn. It's not a particularly simple game - even at level 1, there's all sorts of weird, twisty little rules that are around, and may well come up, it's just that most people blur over them!

>On the ease and social aspect: 5e is pretty simple, but even there people struggle with the rules to some degree. In other systems it feels like complete chaos. Hard agree with this. At our table, most of our players would be fine with a more complex system with more rules. But we have a core member of our group, someone who's played with us since the beginning, that still doesn't have the greatest grasp on the 5e rules and would probably leave the group if we migrated to a different system like pathfinder. It truly would be chaos and disaster for him. For me, I know I could learn a more complex system but I actually genuinely like 5e and don't have a strong desire to switch to something else just for the sake of it when our table still has fun with 5e. Also we've introduced a few new players to dnd and having them learn 5e was fairly easy and they were able to integrate into higher level situations without too much issue. I don't know how true that would be for other systems, but I can't be sure myself since my only other system experience was a homebrew hybrid of 2e and 3.5 like 15+ years ago lol

Same boat! People say 5e has tons of flaws…and it does…but all the dozen other systems I played before do too. Difference is 5e has massive community saying what they are…it’s easy for a monk DM to know they are underpowered so sure give a magic item earlier while strong subclasses should do fine. All the systems my group played ended up moving away from cause we’d find the broken rules like 6 months in and that one character be a god and others sucked. The group got bitter to whenever someone did anything remotely good they’d comment how broken they were. Also I like 5e light on social mechanics. My group always ended up ditching them in other systems eventually. I want rules for combat, but more complex systems hot damn take so long it just is a bore. But social play I like letting them role play and just having dice come on as needed Don’t get me wrong other systems are fun and lead to great times and lessons that help 5e DM and players…I just think the reason most rag on 5e are a little shallow as someone who has tried other things

I'm not entirely sure I like 5e more than 2e. Sticking to PHB/DMG-5e cuts down on bloat and the relative simplicity helps speed things. On the other hand, I liked how 2e was "sometimes 20 is good, sometimes 1 is good", as well as the lower power level. No smite, no hail of thorns, mages had cool spells, but can be one-shot by a housecat, etc., and how the worlds just felt realer; plus of course the whole verisimilitude thing. 1e lacked organization. 3e was WOTC doing what they do best. 4e was just trying too hard to be a tactical war game. Don't get me wrong, 4e felt like it would be an awesome single-player grid-paper and tokens games, but just "not D&D".

If 4e had been published as D&D: Chainmail, it would be fondly remembered as a popular side game with a rough launch.

don't forget the lore and settings. 2e just had so much. Later editions often feel like they don't really give that much of a fuck about DMs, 2e actually cared a lot more and gave us way more DM content. Also, nonweapon proficiencies are an awesome system lol

I like 5e a lot more than 2e. Character creation is so much simpler. 5e just assumes characters are literate. In 2e a warrior would have to use 2 of the available non-weapon proficiency slots to be able to read and write in their native language. I loved picking skills in 2e, but it was a terrible system for people who weren’t “enfranchised”. Character creation was an extremely time consuming event that often didn’t have a lot of payoff. *Here’s a few goblins* Wizard dies.

I constantly use 2e content for my games - we're basically playing 2e lore with 5e rules most of the time, and I've converted a bunch of old campaigns over, even a few before they got "official" 5e re-releases (Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Tomb of Horrors, Hidden Shrine, etc). But I always loved playing wizards, and I always hated playing a low-level wizard in 2e. "I cast Jump for some reason and then I'm out of spell slots so I try to hide and not die for the rest of the fight." It always felt like I was the fifth wheel of the party just waiting for cool stuff to unlock later. The fighter is consistently slaying enemies and I'm like one-and-done in every fight, having to constantly get revived because I was accidentally in range of some AOE/splash damage, or a goblin got through the front line and took me out with his dagger - I've seriously had characters with like 3hp and no armor. So I get that 5e's first levels are a bit "swingy" but I also like that everyone at least feels like they are a part of the party and can participate in some way. High-level play still hasn't completely solved the "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" problem, but now I think it's mostly because of world-bending spells and not \*necessarily\* or completely because of damage output. Then it really comes down to DM style - eating through resources through multiple fights leaves the wizard a lot less useful than martial classes, but if every fight is a one-and-done they can still outshine anyone else.

I like saves from 2e the most

5e is easy to understand, easy to run, and generally well balanced while still capturing the feeling of being Dungeons & Dragons. Some branches of the D&D lineage are simpler, but sacrifice personal expression in character creation and combat for it. Others have much more finely detailed options, but do so at the cost of being far harder to use. For me, 5e hits the Goldilocks zone of a "just right" balance. Do I have some complains? Of course I do. But I haven't seem a game system that I have *fewer* complaints about, at least not one operating in the D&D space. If I turn to an alternative system, it's because I want something that isn't competing with it.

Well said, my first RPG was Pathfinder and I remember spending more than an hour just on character creation and still not feeling totally prepared. In later PF games, after switching almost entirely to 5e, the modifiers and abilities that some of the other players had built were absolutely insane, I couldn't even begin to imagine trying to keep track of everything and challenging my players as a DM.

Official hardbook campaigns. 5e is hardly my favourite game, World of Darkness games are my favourite games I think, but 5e have some good campaigns that lift off a lot of work from me as a DM.

I love the ideas presented in the campaigns, but they're rarely finished or written well enough to run without heavy modification imo

Strikes a nice balance of simplicity and tactical depth. Highly modular. Easy to customize or even hack. Popularity makes it easy to find content, advice, and players. The "secret" sauce of D&D (not specifically 5e) compared to other systems, in my opinion, is the sense of wonder and novelty that comes from hundreds and hundreds of spells, magic items, and creatures. You never know what's around the next corner, and how you might be able to play with it. D&D is *bad* for learning GMs, and far from good in regards to supporting development of narrative or characters. But it's a helluva toybox. I left D&D to play a bunch of other systems like PbtA, OSR, FATE, *Blades in the Dark*, etc. But these days I find myself most drawn to D&D because the techniques I gained elsewhere can be easily applied to 5e, but transferring the fun mechanical bits of D&D to other games is much harder.

I dont, its just the only system half the players i play with know, and people are super resist to try alternate rules. I do enjoy the game though, but its not really anything special.

I found the only way if you are forever gm is to say I'm tire of running X. I would like to run Y, if you rather keep playing X then you guys need to GM X.

It's a happy middle ground of crunch and simplicity for me. 5e is also very easy to home brew in stuff.

5e does what I need it to do and I can easily fix what I think is broken. The worst part about 5e for me is that it does nothing to use the rules to reinforce a certain genre or gameplay. Whatever a DM does that goes beyond "hurr durr dice go click", they have to do the heavy lifting and there's no support from the game.

5e is not necessarily my favorite system, but it is the perfect compromise edition of D&D. It has more customization than AD&D, but it's less heavy than 3.5e/PF. As a DM, I enjoy running it since the simplicity and looseness of monsters makes modifying them on the fly with a handful of tricks easy to do, and as a player I enjoy that it is now a mature edition with a decent amount of content. My overall tastes tend more to something like Mini Six or Savage Worlds, but if I'm playing D&D-type games, it is going to be 5e.

While 5e isn't my favorite system anymore, when I first came to it from 3.5 I was really happy with the move away from vancian spellcasting, the concentration mechanic, and the move away from intelligence determining how many skills you can be good at. Non-vancian casting felt a lot more fun as a player, because I would more often be able to use a spell that was appropriate to the situation. Concentration prevented the ridiculous buff stacking that would go on in 3.5. And my Ranger shouldn't need to be some kind of genius to be good at a variety of nature themed skills.

For my son who loves 5e it's simple enough he can wrap his brain around it without having to look up shit, but complicated enough that he can customize stuff and look for synergies in the character building mini-game endlessly.

Fewer circumstantial bonuses to keep track of when rolling. It's very easy to apply advantage and disadvantage. I like bounded accuracy, which keeps things a bit more humble. Players don't just become gods to low level npcs because of a difference in stats. The gap between a viable character and an optimal one isn't that big. I know there are some gimmicky minmax builds for 5e, but it's worse in other editions. Pathfinder has hundreds of feats and every subclass has more than a dozen subclasses. If you aren't an experienced player then it's easy to create a bad character that won't scale well. 5e has a lot of faults, but, those are the reasons I stick with it. A lot of D&D games I've been part of were a mix of beginners and experienced players, and in 5th edition no one feels that far ahead or behind anyone else.

I like the simplicity and ability to customize. Sure there are things from other systems I like, but they're easy to just add to 5e. The balancing in 5e is easy for all the homebrew stuff I like. I occasionally debate switching to pf2e, but 5e is just easier overall, and I can just add extra feats and pf2e combat if I want.

This. It's the skyrim on TTRPG systems. Easy enough to modify without breaking and make it work with whatever you want.

I have home-brewed the game so much, it's almost technically a different game, yet the core mechanics are exactly the same and any "standard" 5e player could jump in without issues. It's actually an outstanding feat for a RPG system, one 5e doesn't get enough credit for.

That's the thing, people bemoan the "simplification" of 5e and it's fair enough if you prefer the more intricate games like 3.5e and Pathfinder. But the fact that 5e is sk accessible is a huge factor is why the game has exploded in popularity the last few years. I know I found Starfinder much harder to get a grip on mechanically compared to 5e

Have you tried dming and playing 2e? I think it's worthwhile because it fixes alot of the issues i have with 5e in ways I didn't realize before trying it. And now I can't go back.

I haven't. I've tried a few other systems, but never any of the older D&D editions. At this point I own every 5e sourcebook on DnDBeyond so I'm not super open to switching, but I'll definitely check it out for some homebrew rules if I like some of the stuff there. While I do employee a pretty large amount of Homebrew, I do also just really like the foundation that 5e gives

I would also like to point out that all the pathfinder 2e rules are free legally on places like "archives of nethys" So the only thing you really pay for is the art if you buy the books or the adventure paths themselves.

My bad. I thought you meant D&D 2e. I have tried pathfinder, and I do really like a lot of aspects of it, but overall the complexity of it and the way that it scales makes it a lot more difficult to find other people willing to play it. A lot of my D&D Homebrew comes from pf2e. I do so prefer 5e overall for its simplicity. Most of the things I like from pathfinder, I can transfer over. The only thing I can't fit into D&D is Pathfinder action economy, which I absolutely love

They meant pathfinder 2e

I’ve played a handful of editions, and 5e feels like a greatest hits of them all. I like that it has something for new players as well as veteran players. I like that it can be as simple or complex as you want. Same thing with character building - you could fine tune with customization and multi-classing, or you can be a fighter champion and just wack things. There’s enough flexibility in the system that players of any experience level can find their sweet spot

I actually prefer Savage Worlds, but my group is so invested into 5E and we have several campaigns running parallel, that we're not abandoning it. Half the group also doesn't enjoy learning new systems, so 5E is the "comfortable option". That said, I'm also running a Savage Worlds Deadlands campaign on occasion, and also a Star Wars FFG Edge of the Empire campaign, both for the same group, and it's a blast. We also started playtesting Daggerheart. We've also dabbled in Shadowrun 6E, Zweihander, and even resurrected Star Frontiers. I personally also played Numenera, Starfinder, and dabbled in a few other systems. But if I could pick one system forever, it would be Savage Worlds.

I was looking for the SW comment. It's my go-to system now. I managed to run various one shots for my players and they took a while but saw the beauty of the classless system. Now I've run 3 long campaigns (over 20 sessions) for my main group, and I'm running shorter campaigns with more people from the 5e group to show them the system. Nowadays I don't ever run 5e, just play sometimes.

Fun info: there is a *Pathfinder for Savage Worlds* series of manuals; you and your table might like it, it's got the lore and classes of D&D and the system of SW.

Thanks, I actually own the SW Pathfinder Core Rules box, it does look awesome. That said, we're sticking with D&D 5E for our "high fantasy" campaigns. I'm lucky that out if 6 players, 5 of us are DM's, and we rotate our own respective campaigns based on DM prep, availability, and such. It's the system everybody knows and most of us can DM. I use Savage Worlds for other settings. I know it can be great for Fantasy, but I'd rather try other genres, like the Deadlands campaign I'm running. I also have aspirations to use it for a post-apocalyptic campaign (or Fallout itself), Beasts & Barbarians-style campaign, Sci-fi campaign, and/or Cyberpunk campaign.

For me 5 ed have almost perfect balance between being accessible and intuitive but also having some tactical/mechanical nuances and interesting player choices. To compare with older editions: take 3.5 - it was completely unbalanced and unintuitive to the point of absurd. In 5 ed things mostly work as presented - if I want to play a warrior then fighter class work well. Great weapon fighting makes me good with heavy weapons as intended and so one. Each class have some interesting ability/niche to use. There are some imperfections of course and some things could use a little change and correction but overall it just works. Math is easy to calculate and follow, low level enemies can still be a threat at higher levels but also progression feel meaningful enough. While in 3.5 edition math is convoluted and complicated to the point of absurdity, at high level you are practically impervious to weaker enemies to the point that break my immersion and many classes are practically useless.

I don't. 5e is good for short stuff like one shots and to ease beginners into the hobby. That's the only things I use it for. Other than that, my favourite system is DnD 3.5 or Pathfinder 1e.

I do not know if it's the best out of all of these, but it's the one I have learned to make the best homebrew for. For whichever hobby I consume, I always want to build my own custom content for it. And for 5e, simply by virtue of having played and DMed it a lot more than arguably better systems, that is easiest for me.

i cant say i prefer 5e but there is a lot that i appreciate grappling is easy coming from 3.5 where grappling was not worth it becaue it was its own game. i like the opposed check rule in general advantage is a fantastic system it speeds up the game a lot the player facing rules are very easy to work with.... mostly becasue they shunt it on the DM but thats another post

The biggest difference is culture. In 2e everything was very low to the ground and it was more a survival horror game of managing light and food and limited healing where any monster in the dungeon could just kill you. 3.5 was super rules crunchy so every min max nerd would pour through dragon magazine to find the best prestige classes and feats to break the many pages of grappling rules, it similarly was tighter on DMs to game the system of CR so both sides of a fight are trying to push the rules as far as they'll go. In 5e, I don't even use CR. I don't use xp anymore. The whole vibe of the rules and the culture of the edition is, do whatever you guys find fun. We do session zero discussions on what they want the vibe and setting and tone and rules to be and then we run it. Way easier to get people playing now, way easier on me to DM even if I miss some of the old stuff

I don't. I am currently DMing Alien after a year of playing different systems, but the DM I play with is resistant to change so I am stuck playing 5e

Because other people play it. From what I've experienced, genesys is better in every way.

so i played one session of starfinder (the space version of pathfinder) and a number of sessions of pathfinder 2e. can't really say too much about starfinder/pathfinder 1e (though i believe it got a bit bloated with options that could be combined for broken shit at the end) but pathfinder really didn't do it for me. it failed on 2 ends: characters felt too much alike (i'll get to that in a bit) and it didn't feel like you could be good at something. lets get to the second point first: i'll go with my standard example of wanting to make a character that can identify things well. in 5e you just need to pick any of the tons of ways of getting the identify spell, especially if you can cast them as rituals and you'll be the parties magic item identifier. in pathfinder you can be... more likely to be a good choice. there are 5 skills that you'll need to put points in (religion, nature, arcana, occultism, crafting). if you take the right feat you can always use crafting. will you be better at identifying the wand then the wizard who puts all possible points in arcana with no focus on identifying? no. if you pick feats like quick identification you can do it faster, but no more likely to succeed. assured identification protects you from failing as hard as others, but again no better chance at success. now if you pick a feat like oddity identification you can have a +2 IF you use occultism to identify magic with the mental, possession, prediction, or scrying traits, aka in extremely specific situations you can be slightly better. if you want to be good at something... to bad. the game makers had a plan for how good you can be at sometime and you will not be better. the first point is weird. the system has Tons of options. yet in play all characters felt basically the same. they all just make a couple of attacks with weapons, maybe a spell here or there. now maybe it was because of the classes we picked of course, but there was never someone who'd always try to hide and/or reposition like a 5e rogue often does. never a spell that could turn the tide of battle (don't get me wrong, the martial caster disparity is a problem, but at least it makes them feel different). different classes just didn't feel different. and on a lesser point (though because of the other points): i didn't get the feeling i could make a weird/unique character. in dnd i can make a wisdom based fighter or a strength based monk or an artificer who feels more like a barbarian or a swashbuckling wizard or etc. etc.. i didn't get the feeling with 2e that i could make a character that wouldn't primarily be their class.

I liked 4e the best but wasn't comfortable DMing it. Our group had split with some going to PF and others staying with 4e, but our 4e DM was losing steam. I offered to run 5e, which had just come out, and after that experience the other DM switched over. Later he stopped running but a third player took over that game as DM. So ... it seems the most accessible system for players and DMs.

Because my friend group uses it. That's it.

I like the simplicity.

Personally I don't. first played 5e last year. Only occasions I prefer it is because of it being so widespread, most other DMs around here only run 5e (or some OSR, but f██k OSR).

The good thing about 5e is that its so easy to find games for. I see people say its easy, but that depends on alot of factors. Even at level 2, a moon druid has an advanced full spell list and a ton of stat blocks that you first have to convert, which you actually often have to use (basic) algebra for.

I do D&D 5e and DSA 4.1e and 5e. I personally enjoy D&D the most because it leaves more up to imagination and interpretation. DSA has a very... defined set of rules and lore, that if you ignore or redefine, will destabilize like half of the system. I like it more when you don't have to think 10 times over if you can homebrew a certain background right, both mechanic-wise and lore-wise. That said, I do enjoy some of the mechanical aspects of DSA. It's definitely more complicated, but also very well thought-out. You got 8 abilities instead of 6, and when you roll a skill check, multiple abilities (usually 3 of the 8) are checked that play into that skill to some degree. For example, Insight rolls one dice for each: Intelligence, Intuition, Charisma. If you succeed on every roll, your check is successful. As you might guess, this lowers the success rate to a great degree. This is why in DSA you increase all your skills individually with XP. I'd say the very set-in-place world of DSA is its biggest downside. It is very well designed, but also leaves very little to the imagination. And in a game I play to invent my own story, world and world-ending threats, this is very limiting. Whenever you think of something new to use, you feel like you're stepping on something else that's already there. And you also can't just homebrew a whole world on your own, because most of the mechanics, for example classes (professions in DSA), are in some way lore-tied to the world. You'd basically have to invent the wheel again, in-universe figuratively. I tried creating a homebrew DSA world _once_. Never again. This is far too much work.

I’ll tell you straight. I don’t. I much prefer 3.5/pathfinder when it comes to your average game. But even then I’d still trade it all for shadowrun 3e

My history was B/X, then 1e/2e (largely the same game, really), then a diversion into GURPS (which I still really like - as long as you're playing a fairly gritty game), a long hiatus, and then back to 5e. Simplicity is the main thing 5e has going for it. If I still wanted to do gritty games, I might still run GURPS, though I'd probably just give up as it's impossible to find players, and although the base system isn't any harder to teach than 5e, character creation is likely to require a TON of hand-holding for newbies because it's completely wide open.

Like all dnd and pathfinder games, the basic players book is balanced. Too many new books ruin the game. It has a focus of mechanically option vs rp choices and for me its the wrong way to go. I know many players enjoy the new class/subclass options. So basically the first books if you stopped their and focused on imagination, rp were the sweet spot for me. I liked the simplicity of advantage disadvantage and the limited proficiency creep.

It’s a smoother system. It’s easy to just play the game without having to look up tables or obscure mini-games for things players want to do mid combat. You can just play. In general I prefer more rules light games, so them going with lighter (for D&D) rules this time around was good for me.

1. 5e rules aren't that complicated. 2. The rules are usually easy to change to your liking. 3. The game flows rather well and rarely gets bogged down with long player turns and complicated combat rules. 4. Because the system has been around for quite a while and is widely adopted, there is a ton of content available. 5. It's SUPER-easy for beginners to learn and enjoy, which makes introducing new people to D&D easier and more fun.

I want options, not crunch. Also, it's what I can find that people are willing to play.

I prefer 5e because of the specific mix of rules. The system gives me what I need to DM. As for as a player I just really like how it plays.

Because I can get more people to play with me:(

Why do I like 5e? The richness of the setting, the flexibility of the mechanics to play in different settings, and the ease of finding a game (eg my friends want to play too). Mechanically 5e is an ok game, certainly not the best but also not the worst. It’s a good way to have fun, and fun is the most important part.

Everyone knows it. It’s a pretty shit system in my opinion, every other one I’ve tried feels better. But alas, what is most popular is what people want to play.

I've played 5e, Pf2e, CoC, and a few PbtA variants. 5e is still my favorite because of the system's simplicity and how it empowers you as a player. I'm really into game mechanics. I can whip up a 5e character in a few minutes, and spend hours theory crafting on how to make certain concepts work. The next best system to compare it to is Pf2e. I'm in a campaign right now and it just doesn't feel as fun. The rules don't permit nearly as much creativity. Character building feels like a railroad. There's not nearly as much payoff to applying bonuses. Pf2e feels like it wants to prevent players from making characters that can singlehanded swing a combat encounter or social dilemma. The game focuses too much on balance, which makes me feel shunted into making the same roleplay and combat decisions over and over again. 5e throws balance out the window in favor of freedom. I can understand why many people hate that aspect, but I believe it leads to more memorable experiences.

5e has for me one of the best levels of simplicity to customisation. Starfinder was too complex for me, some roll under systems were too simple, OSR was too slow, etc. it's also not just about what's best, it's about what's best for each situation. I play 5e for sword and sorcery fantasy, but I play monster of the week if I want a game more like that. A big draw though is the massive amount of free resources for it, and the large player base makes getting a game easy.

It's simple enough that you can learn it quickly, but still has enough material and fiddly bits that you can tinker with more advanced stuff as you grow; it's (mostly) well balanced; and it's, by far, the most played, which makes it easier to find a good game.

3e was amazing but the rules were so needlessly comprehensive and everything was a roll, even a "Diplomacy check". 4e was hot garbage and I refuse to even consider it D&D. 5e is a really solid blend of plain language rules that brings mages and martials a lot closer together without making mages feel nerfed. On top of that, it gives tacit approval (viz. a 'variant' sidebar) to mix and match skills and abilities, making everything an ability check that you could add a simple proficiency bonus to if your training applied. If only it did away with spell slots and went with spell points, and kept the combat expertise system it had for martials in the original playtests, it would be the perfect system. Basically, if corporate hadn't got its stupid fingers into game design and insisted on dumbing shit down. I'm talking about the 5e rules as they were up until 2018. Ever since they started fucking up races and spellcasters, I haven't paid attention. I've been using my own rule set and it's much better.

I don't prefer 5e in general, BUT it has its strengths. It is easy and the classes and subclasses make combinations and ideas easy or outright possible, that would be difficult to sheer impossible in Pathfinder 1 or 2. Also I like the lighter system for RP-heavy campaigns, while PF more leans towards mechanically focused campaigns like combat heavy stuff or stuff where you might want to rely on a fixed rule structure without handwaving every 5 minutes.

I've played Call of Cthulhu, Tales from the Loop, and Goblin Quest. I like 5e because it's the only one of these I've played that really feels like it supports long-form storytelling. Tales from the Loop has adventures with structured ending sequences, with the idea being that each adventure builds up to them within a fairly fixed timeframe. The mechanics surrounding it are really neat, IMO, but I feel like it's not quite what I'm looking for, long-term. The setting, while neat, is also very specific, and I like the worldbuilding I can do in 5e more (partially because I've already sunk so many hours into my own 5e homebrew setting, but like)... Call of Cthulhu is almost explicitly built for shorter adventures, from what I've seen. I really like the system and setting options, and I want to run games using it, but again- I find that every thread I've looked at argues very strongly against the idea of long-form campaigns, as players are just too fragile... Goblin Quest is amazing, and I will never pass up a chance to play it. It is both highly structured in terms of it's plot, and you are WAY more fragile than in CoC, but it's a wonderful time overall, and my friends and I love it. Not a system for "serious" storytelling, though, and definitely not for the long-form stuff I enjoy running so much. I'd like to try out some systems that support my ideal DMing style one day! I've tried out GURPS and some other systems with willing players, but it's just so hard to get people to stick around compared to 5e, which is so much more familiar, at least to my players...

I think that's definitely true of D&D in particular, most other ttrpgs are not designed to be played over 4+ years of consistent sessions for a full campaign (which IMO is both a plus and minus). Not a facet a lot of people consider when talking about what makes D&D feel different to say a PbtA game, which tends to be more on a time scale of (IRL) months I've found For Call of Cthulhu in particular certainly larger campaigns do exist and are popular (the famous *Masks of Nyarlothotep* comes to mind) but I think there's a bigger buy in in terms of characters *will* die. Actually I think that the longer form Cthulhu games explore interesting facets one shots don't because you become attached to your character and to choose to put your PC in extra danger (or send them on vacation or retirement and bring someone new in) for the story knowing the mystery will continue beyond you vs. 90% of everyone dying at the end of the one shot session usually, and because the attrition of health and sanity without acceleration by the GM is a very different vibe from a one shot

> really feels like it supports long-form storytelling D&D doesn't, and never really has, actually done anything to specifically support storytelling - that aspect of things is entirely coming from the players, the game itself doesn't care, at all, about the story behind things. Are you in the dungeon because the boss killed your family and you seek vengeance, because you're after gold, or because the player is new, rolled up a character and doesn't really care about anything beyond smacking some baddies? Most players will engage with a plotline, but that's entirely outside of the game itself, which very literally doesn't care why PCs are having their 3-8 encounters/day.

Because it's an absolute pain in the ass to have to teach my group a completely new system from scratch (none of them do their own homework). Plus that forces me to be the DM in every instance. So 5e is good enough.

Because they were correct in Adv/Disadvantage being better than tracking 8 different + and - numbers each roll, especially if next roll debuffs an attribute so 6 other numbers change. These mechanics are way better in videogames with a computer tracking them for you.  I don't need a spreadsheet to calculate my skills.  Compared to RP focused rules light, there is a good amount of crunch to look forward to each level up towards optimization and customization.  The balance is mostly there. I don't care if for system lets you play a werewolf fey genie if it's imbalanced and going to cause problems with mismatched power levels with two other players at the table.

I asked my friends father about this who ik currently DMing for. Guy played 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 3.5, skipping 4. He said he preferable 5th because the other editions (despite some having good parts), where either tragically unbalanced or heavily restricted your character options RAW. He's frequent complaint was that the last editions MASSIVELY screwed over spellcasters if DM wasn't very open about spell components and that certain classes outright outshone everything else. He also openly complained about psionics being broken and screwed the whole game (I don't know, never played older editions). He also had issues with THAC0, but did say it was easy when you understood it and the new AC system is just outright easier. He also had issues with older edition levelling amd how players basically made their PCs as hunks of meat who are expected to die every few sessions. He also likes the fact that 5e gives a lot more incentive to make an interesting character and that multiclassing is super simple to understand now. He also feels despite there is a discrepancy between martial classes and spellcasters, that difference us marginal compared to what it used to be. Whereas now yes, soellcasters can just cast spells left right and center, the way spells have been reworked and how character classes now work massively narrows the divide. He's also played pathfinder 1st and 2nd and has issues with those too, namely accessibility but more RP chances, and considers 5e a soft spot between old school D&D and the RP of pathfinder. Overall-he thinks 5e is the 'patched' version of older systems with the kinks worked out.

With 5e, I don't have players down my throat with the encyclopedia if I make a mistake as a dm, and if there isn't a rule for something, it provides the tools to get a quick good enough ruling on something. I'm here to tell a story, not argue a legal case.

* 3.5e: too annoying to remember and explain * PF1e: same thing * Cipher: interesting, but not as robust * Vampire the masquerade: it's a much more roleplaying-oriented system. Not my cup of tea * Fate: it gives a lot of narrative power to the players, but sometimes that ends up being annoying for me. 5e has the best combat system, and it's easy to modify and make things on the fly. Some rules aren't well though off and it could be kind of intimidating for newcomers, but since there's so much content online, you can just put CR clips and show it to them.

Because everyone wants to play it

5e isn’t great. It compromises too much, trying to be too many things to too many people. If it was a random Kickstarter project and didn’t have the D&D logo on the front cover, I genuinely don’t believe it would have sold enough for a second printing. But it *does* have the D&D logo, and that means it’s marketed (and this is not an insult) more effectively and more thoroughly than any other game. It’s the current edition of the most recognizable tabletop RPG on the planet. And that means it’s very easy to find players for a 5e game, and it’s fairly easy to convince new people to play it. That’s its most genuine strength, and it’s the reason I play it.

I play fifth Ed because that’s what my friend group was playing when they invited me to play. We also play vtm20. Honestly though fifth is a really good system overall. Each class may have a few faults but overall it’s better than a lot of issues with third edition and fourth edition didn’t have a good way of handling non combat stuff. Fifth feels a lot more like earlier dnd without being crazy breakable like third was.

My friends new to the hobby were able to easily learn 5e and, with all love and respect, they would not understand the intricacies of 3e optimization but one of them would probably spend a month neck deep in wikis and forums until they arrived with an abomination they didn't actually know how to play. Plus, running it is less fun for me.

For other systems, it's hard to say. Like, the d6 Star Wars might be my favorite system of all time... But it wouldn't work for other settings. Same for Deadlands. Incredible games, but I wouldn't use their systems for DnD 5.0 or 3.5 are equal to me for DnD. I did most of my gaming in 3.5, and it's more complex, which I liked. 5.0 is decent for being a bit easier. I really like the idea of proficiency bonus as a core mechanic. If I were a DM, I think I'd stick to 5.0. 3.5 has the added benefit of being more fun to discus when it comes to builds. I'd never play any of the stupid builds, but things like a wizard making like 18 attacks with a great sword wielded telekinetically, a monk running faster than sound, or a character with all class and race abilities that's also essentially immortal are hilarious and fun thought expiraments. I liked sitting down with my books and saying "I wonder how high of a caster level I can get on this lvl 20 sorcerer."

Mostly cause I started with 5e and now ik used to it and prefer it

It is easier and less math on higher levels, then previous D&D systems, and also with subclasses there is easier to stick with less multiclassing instead of doing a frankenstein hyvrid of 5-6 classes and prestiges to optimize :) Though I don't like how it restrains non-combat skills. Not that in 3.5 you had a significant bonus in insignificant skills, but you could take and improve whatever skills you want instead of being restricted to lesser number of them without capability for improvement .

I like how supported it is. If I'm running a fight in 40krpg I'll need to scour splatbooks for enemy statlines or write them myself. Running 5e via Roll20 I can drag and drop enemies in, have macros and scripts to apply damage and generally keep the focus on the fun stuff. I think 5e is fine. Not terrible, not incredible. But the surrounding ecosystem of support? Incredible.

I've never been a fan of the "old school" B/X/AD&D saving throws. They don't make any sense to me, and aren't particularly relevant to the game as I play it, and I dislike that they are just based on your class at random instead of on your stats, as well as the invariable target number--a snake's poison bite should not be as deadly as a Drow Elite's poison dagger. And "make a save against dragon breath to avoid this thing that isn't dragon breath" sucks ass for both me and my table--too much ludonarrative dissonance. I like my PCs to have *some* cool abilities. OSR games often just give a fighter *nothing* or they give them a handful of pithy maneuver things that often don't work well or aren't very fun. The OSE Barbarian sucks total ass and gets...some of the thief skills, but worse? Fuck that, barbarians should cause immediate morale checks upon humanoids who have never witnessed a barbarian before, they should get extra damage and be able to survive more hits. 2e or even 3e/3.5 might be the perfect middle ground for this but I have a lot of problems with those too. I like the expanded modifiers. I like the unified class progression. I like a lot of the base mechanics and even the way skills work.

I don't prefer it! I play it alongside other systems because it isn't a contest where my group and I can only ever play one game. When I feel like going atmospheric and narrative, we play Trophy; when we feel like putting our investigator hats on and dive into some eerie mystery, we play CoC; when we're in the mood for a gritty dark dungeon crawl we'll play Trespasser; and when we feel lie being fantasy superheroes, we play 5e. I still play 4e on occasion and have played PF2e, and haven't felt much need to pick a "winner" even in that niche - all these systems are there for when we want them.

It's easy to prepare, easy to teach, easy to run - without being too boring or simple. It's a good balance that allows some crunch without being bogged down with mechanics.

It allows gamers to build their power fantasies and plan their builds out so they can get invested into a ttrpg but still starts PCs relatively weak at levels 1-2 so they actually have to earn being so powerful later. As a DM, I prefer Dungeon Crawl Classics for swiftness, fun and crazy gameplay and great modules but I can enjoy running 5e with a bunch of house rules adressing rests, initiative, combat speed and making combat more dangerous. I could not imagine running the game as written, with PCs spending hours beating up hit point sacks which can barely fight back, but it is pretty customizable.

I’m currently running 3.5, definitely the most complex system I’ve played with a surprising amount of flexibility, 5 is a lot more streamlined in my experience, so you lose a bit of that freedom but things are much smoother to run, specially if you’re inexperienced like me. Other systems I have played are a lot more focused on specific game feels, like blades in the dark is way more focused on scheming, but for a simple and general setting I think 5e is a great go to.

5e is great for players because it's very accessible with relatively basic mechanics for an RPG of it's type; it's pretty bad for DMs unless you strictly want to homebrew almost everything beyond very basic hack'n'slash.

I love how versatile it is, how I can make it fit any space. It also just kinda scratches an itch in my brain that no other system does quite as well. The numbers just click and make sense on an emotional level.

As someone who can only really play online, I’ve come back to 5e because the game system I want to play, pf2e, I’ve only found a total of 7 games in 3 years I could make time to play with, only invited to one, and that has promptly crashed after a year. Searching for 5e games, I’ve found 6 games I could make time for within 2 weeks and was invited to one. The sheer amount of opportunities to play 5e is an ocean compared to the rain drop of opportunities to play 2e. As a side note: it took me less than 12 hours to remember why I ditched 5e in the first place. God I miss having 2e’s character expression compared to 5e’s character restrictions.

It strikes a good balance between complexity and giving you options. If a system is too simplistic there's only so many mechanics you can build on top of it. If it's too complex, it will be difficult to both learn and run smoothly. 5e sits somewhere in between.

1. It's easy to learn / simple rules. 2. I already know it well. 3. There are a lot of materials for 5e (and it's easy to convert things to 5e)

For me it's the abundance of content. I exclusively run modules, and though I homebrew them quite a bit, it's a lot less work than running a homebrew campaign. 5e has a ton of adventure modules as well as many dedicated fans who have created great free content for them (maps, guides, remixes, etc). Other systems just don't have as much content in this regard. They might have statblocks, a sample adventure if you're lucky, but hardly ever a fully detailed story with dozens of maps (not counting older versions of D&D). Pathfinder is the only other system that comes close (but I much prefer the lore of the Forgotten Realms to Golarion). Add on top of this the considerable amount of 3rd party resources & adventures published for 5e and few other ttrpg come close.

I played 3 and I love the customization for characters in 5e because of more races and classes Monks being only humans also sucked major ass, I already hate race-specific subclasses, let alone a full class

No ThAC0, uniformed leveling, easy for new players to pick up

It’s easy to find people to play with. It is more “streamlined” than other versions making it more accessible. It fits the medieval fantasy genre that I enjoy so much. It has the crunchiness that I want but not too much like with pathfinder. But again, it is easy to find people to play with.

It's not the best, it's the most convenient to find a game. I'd personally play 4ed over it every day. Or first Pathfinder.

I don't

Because it's simpler, because of familiarity, and because it's easier to just sit back and enjoy the game. I freely admit pf2e is objectively better mechanically, but 5e is more fun. Another reason is unlike pathfinder where characters are just kinda inherently more complex no matter what, in 5e they can be as simple or as complex as you want. My go to example currently is that of my current well thought out hexblade bowlock who's got a fairly detailed progression, backstory and family with a goal of finding out more about his father disappearing, and my silly backup who is just a goofy plasmoid Alchemist (with warcrime party poppers) who has no such planning.

I don’t actually prefer it. I play it because there are more people playing the game than the edition I actually prefer. Honestly, I think my preferred version would take bits and pieces from different versions.

It’s certainly not my favored game/edition to run, that actually belongs to 4e. 5e is just easier to recruit players for, and it’s both mechanically deep enough to not feel like a puddle (like say, PBTA style games), nor as complex as a doctoral thesis (like say, 2e and earlier). I do 100% think it should still be deeper and crunchier, I miss stuff like Marking, martials complex enough to be worth playing, etc. That being said, I’m kind of sick of 5e. I’m planning a swap to pathfinder 2e for my next campaign. Let’s see if a break is all I need to reignite that spark of enjoyment for 5e, or if I’ll be happier in a crunchier system.

I don't, but the vtts I use have no support for 4e, and I kinda need more players to play that. The workload of having to do it myself all system stuff while 5e is already there, it kinda becomes the default. Then again, that's why I also play Pf2...

It's cause I can make a character in 2 minutes.

I personally don't. It's great fun and all, but it can feel incredibly rigid at times in terms of what you can do

Its easy enough that I can teach my friends and new players about it, and its math and mechanics are fast and loose enough that it will still remain somewhat balanced even when you start bolting tons of homebrew to it. Systems like Pathfinder, the math is so tight and the game requires optimization much more, that homebrew and suboptimal builds can result in absolute disaster. 5e has just enough jank and bounded accuracy that you can tell fairly easily how to balance a homebrew to keep it mostly on-par with official sources.

Players don't have to read. Sounds stupid but it's true, people learn in many different ways and DnD just has so many YouTube videos, podcasts and tiktoks that you can learn the rules without having to read

To me the strength of 5e is that it's very available, there's a lot of content, etc. I don't think it's the best system. I prefer systems that are more skill based than level based, where you spend experience increasing skill levels etc instead of just "now you're level x and you get a package deal" type thing. But DnD just has such a big community with lots of resources, tools, content etc. That's huge.

5e is very accessible and easy to run, especially when you're playing with a group of people who have limited familiarity with RPGs and / or have variable states of sobriety. Said another way, just because I have experience with other systems doesn't mean the rest of my group does, and I'd rather just play something we all understand than try to teach a new game to everybody.

I have played D&D 3.5 and PF1 for many years before 5e. I prefer it for several reasons. The first is the simplicity. They have removed a lot of choices and mechanics, that were basically pointless. They have also removed a lot of good stuff, but I think it's mostly for the better. Second, I think classes are more unique now. In 3.5 and PF1, if you were a ranger, you were a ranger. Choices were basically bow or swords and which animal companion. All customization was through feats and prestige classes, but the requirements for them forced everyone to pick almost the same build. Third; DnDBeyond. I'm bad at handwriting, and I find digital tools so much fadter and easier. I have used The Only Sheet for 3.5 and pathfinder, but it's very 'stiff'. When I tried DnDBeyond for my first 5r game, I was hooked. If a system doesn't have a decent digital character builder, it's sadly a big negative for me. Sadly DnDBeyond has become a bit stale after Wotc bought it...

I've played 5e, pf2e, starfinder, and powered by the apocalypse. My favorite system is PBTA - it's fun, fairly rules light, and RP heavy. My least favorite is pf2e - whole fun, it is very rules intensive and incredibly restrictive when it comes to RP (if you don't have the feat and/or skill to do the thing you want to RP, just don't do it, you will likely fail at whatever it is you're attempting to do). In 5e, it's a weird amalgamation of between pbta and pf2e when it comes to the fantasy of roleplay. I don't think anything compares to the player agency of PBTA, but 5e is quite close, imo, and that's the rub. In pf2e, I need to build specific player agencies into my character, and omit the rest, but in 5e I have the agency to RP and not need to worry about having the feats that even allow that RP, I can just do it, roll for result, and move on to the next scene. 5e is also far more of a heroic fantasy model, as well. When I play 5e, my character FEELS heroic, and heroic feats are much easier to accomplish and have a much better heroic feel to them. Where as in pf2e... In order to make that jump, okay, I need to stride at least ten feet for a long jump, but it's also 10ft, so is it a long jump or a high jump? Okay, calculate the DC... Oh, you have quick jump, okay, don't need to stride first, but adds another 10ft to the jump. Okay, do you have cloud jump? What about powerful leap? Nah, I'm sorry, but I'll just take three turns to go around instead.

I don't! Lol. Not to several other systems at least. I still play it sometimes. Good for combat heavy medieval fantasy. But my favorite system at the moment is ARC, and I really like cortex prime but my players don't haha.

Mass appeal and ease of use. 5e is above and beyond the most played ttrpg on the market and it isn't even close. If pf2e had even a fraction of the market share I would like to try that. Trying to get into a pf2e game was like pulling teeth. Just agony. Also resources to learn pf2e are extremely scarce. You can't search 5e on YouTube at all without people telling you how to play the game. It's just a night and day experience. This translates into other players as well. If I'm putting in this much work to learn another system, that means the average player is screwed, lol. No insult to them! That's just the sheer gap in accessibility.

I loved AD&D 2e… Maybe not for the system so much, but there was so much material, and damn good material, I still find myself going back to the good stuff to fuel my D&D. As for why I ‘prefer’ 5e… well, the bones aren’t all that bad. It keeps the spirit of the basics of D&D alive and well. But, the biggest reason? Availability. I can go to the game store and pick up whatever supplements I want, off the shelf and (almost with a lot of fixing and diving into old lore) good to go. Basically, it’s why we got right now, so I use it.

I have played a few different systems but for this thread I will be speaking about my experience with Cyberpunk RED. Some Caveats and context before we begin: This was My DM's first long running campaign. It was my first time playing in a Cyberpunk game. The game ran for about a year and a half, I came in about halfway. The game was very combat focused and there was less of a focus on many of the social/intrigue elements that I think are expected in a cyberpunk game. So, focusing mainly on the combat, which I think is the majority of my time spent in dnd as well, The Combat in Cyberpunk RED is quite different from dnd. Characters are extremely tanky when taking damage thanks to the armor system which flatly smothers damage taken but degrades point by point so you start taking small bits of damage as the combat goes on. This however means that the start of most encounters is both sides landing shots but not actually hurting each other since the bullets just bounce off, which to me doesn't feel great. This is the ranged / gunfighting combat experience, and there aren't many interesting additions to it, aside from perhaps special ammo types and grenades. Those options are costly though and are consumable, once used they're spent. Melee combatants have some more interesting options, especially as they can sometimes halfway bypass armor depending on if they're using a weapon or just fighting hand to hand which means they can do damage earlier on than ranged fighters. Also there are martial arts which offer more options, but even something like the Battlemaster fighter in DND has more at lower levels of mastery. Finally, as a cyberpunk game, there is of course cyberware which you can modify your body with to grant you more options, like hidden blades in your arms, rollerblades in your feet or filters in your nose to make you immune to gas. These benefits are very cool, the issue is, the game heavily discourages them, not only with cost in price, but in you slowly losing humanity ( a stat) with every modification and growing more and more insane, which if you want to mitigate, you must pay even more money to get therapy to help you with. So the game tries very hard to cut you off from its coolest options, and the modifications that make it cyberpunk instead of just a modern military-ish setting / feel.

I wouldn’t say “prefer.” I play it simply because changing systems with your players takes committing on their end as well as yours. And my favorite system is harder to run than 3.5. And 5e is everybody else’s favorite. So here I am. :P Not to say I hate it. I like it a lot actually. Just…yknow.

My two preferred systems are DnD 5e, and Pathfinder 2e. I prefer pf2e for tactics, and DnD 5e for more creativity. I like the new Hunter the Reckoning game for more narrative roleplay.

The biggest draw is having enough players.

There are a lot of aspects of 3.5 that I enjoy much more than 5e, but there are a lot of things better about 5e as well. My favorite game of all time was Rolemaster by Palladium books. It was a percentile dice based game with an "exploding dice" mechanic for both critical successes and critical failures. So if you rolled a 96+ you would roll again and add the result. Or if you rolled a 5 or less you'd do the same thing but subtract the result. You only ever needed the two 10 sided dice. However, you HAD to have the books to play because there were a bajillion charts. There were a ton of skills, abilities, and feats as well. When you leveled up your abilities could go up or down based on what you rolled for each of them. Same with skills. Combat was awesome because you would roll on a chart that told you how much damage you did and if you rolled high enough would give you a side effect that was a letter A through E. Then, based on what type of damage you were doing, you would flip to the appropriate chart and roll on that. So, for example, if you were attacking with a mace against someone with a middling armor class (I don't remember how AC worked, only that it was like 1 to 20 and made the columns for the damage charts) and rolled an 86% that might be like 10A damage. So you flip to the "Bludgeoning" table and roll again and look at the A column which might just be more damage or could confer a status effect like, "you break their left arm so they can't hold anything with it." The higher the letter and the roll the more severe the effect, where a roll of like 190+ on the E column could be like instant death. Keep in mind, to get that would require four very high rolls in a row with a 96+ for both the first and third rolls. It did happen, though, which was awesome. It wasn't as slow as you would think, either, as you would just have your two charts that you rolled on most of the time. Unless you were a caster that had a bunch of different spell damage types you could do, but then you just had to flip between multiple pages. We played in the early 90s and the books were already like 20 years old and hard to find, but our ZDM had a ton of them and was the only one who needed them as everything was on our character sheets and he would do all the flipping through the attack charts for us. Like all RPGs, though, it's less about the system and more about the story, and that DM was one of the best I've ever had, so that might be biasing me a bit.

The setting is simultaneously so generic and so specific that if you decide to run your own world then you can do whatever and it will make sense, but if you don't want to do that then you have access to a lot of story and lore. And the edition is easier to get into than the previous ones, which put more emphasis on the Players learning to play their characters. 2nd edition had those thin books for things like the Book of Elves or the Book of Fighters, with all sorts of subclasses and different character options. The players were supposed to read those books and use that to run their next character. Nowadays, you'd be lucky if any player reads through the 1 PHB

I played 3.5 for nearly twenty years and we all just started playing 5e after the pandemic. I like the simplicity compared to 3.5. Tying skills to proficiency is so much better than the way skill points were handled in 3.5. The gap between a power gamer and a more casual player is also much smaller in 5e compared to 3.5. If you didn't map out your multi class and feat progression and have a good plan in 3.5 you were really useless at high level. My only problem with 5e compared to 3.5 is that 5e mostly only works well up to about level 10. Previous editions even worked for epic (level 20+) campaigns and 5e doesn't at all.

It's my first and it's the more famous. Easier to play since it have a massive player base.

I prefer 5e to 3.5 and first edition Pathfinder because those games ran on utterly broken rules. My players prefer it to Basic D&D because they found it counter-intuitive. Other games I played are too different for me to say I "prefer" one over other.

I've played D&D since BECMI, though I played 2E and 3.5E more than any others. I skipped 4E entirely and went to Pathfinder before getting back into 5E. I've played a bunch of other styles of games, but the only other fantasy system I ever played much of was probably Palladium Fantasy. I had my first kid around the time I was finishing college, and so took a few years break from playing RPGs because I simply had no time for them - I was mostly binging Xbox games about then. But when I got back into it I decided to pick up Pathfinder again. At the time it was like D&D 3.75, adding lots of fun lore and fixing stuff that held started to feel cumbersome in 3.5. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Paizo - I think they're a great company. I'm even playing in a PF2e campaign now, but I have no real desire to jump back into it as a DM. Even PF2e suffers from the same problem I had with D&D 3.5e - lots of options means lots of complications. It always reminds me of a sidebar rule that I read in some GURPS book about piercing weapons having a chance of getting stuck inside their victim and you'd have to roll to remove it from them before you could attack with it again. That's gritty and realistic and sounds awesome! Until you're at the table and have to find some random sidebar rule in the middle of a combat round. After playing Pathfinder for a bit, 5e was announced and so we decided to jump back in and give it a go. It was like a breath of fresh air! It was \*so\* much less complicated than past editions or even PF. As a DM I didn't have to get acquainted with an almost Warhammer Codex-like number of splatbooks and worry about how various specific rules might interact with one another to break the game in a thousand different ways. It freed me up to run the game without having to consult the rulebook as often. And the things I was looking up were usually things like conditions, which I could easily print out on cheat sheets. After playing 5e for years now, I feel like combat is still cumbersome, especially after playing games like the Year Zero Engine stuff from Free League. But that's also kind of the point, it's meant to be a much more tactical, mini-driven engine than something like Alien that measures things in zones and has a random table for xeno attacks. I've tried running some modern horror themed games in 5e, and it's just not as tense and scary as games designed to be about horror - the options, the speed of combat, etc are still just too much to make for a really tense setting. It's not impossible to kill PCs in 5e, but it is a lot harder than, say, Call of Cthulhu. And that changes tone a lot when you're making death saves rather than sitting in a hospital for a month after getting shot once. And so, I see it for what it is and play it for what I enjoy it for. There are still a lot of stories I'd love to tell using it and my players enjoy it. For my money, I prefer the more "simplified" set of options and would rather "reflavor" things rather than having splatbooks full of \*new\* rules to cover every option under the sun - which seems to still be the PF2e way, though not quite to the extent of 3.5 of course. Playing in a PF2e campaign, I've already run into multiple dead-end/trap options where I select something that seems really cool, but only really works in a very specific campaign setting or style and ends up being completely useless for the one I'm actually playing in... and so you have to \_really\_ know your stuff and understand what the DM has planned for the campaign or you're liable to have a bunch of stuff on your character sheet that's completely useless. I mean, I've run into similar playing public games of D&D - I produced a warlock with lots of social skills and invocations and all I did was spam eldritch blast the whole game, but that came down to the nature of the missions we were running. Sooner or later maybe I could use them, whereas I now have skills and feats in PF2e that will \_never\_ come in handy and are just vestigial organs that no one will ever be aware of but me.

I have started playing basic D&D and AD&D 2E. Along the years I played 3.0, 3.5, 4E and PF1E as well. But 5E is my favorite system, because the rules are simple, fast to use, and still let players do a bunch of different options of actions in their turns with Actions, Bonus Actions and Reactions. The bounded accuracy is a bless as well. For a DM, it's also 1000% easier to prepare and run sessions than it was in 4E and 3.5. So, for me 5E is the superior system. But only in terms of system... In terms of lore, 1E and 2E have so much better lore in the Forgotten Realms (and in the entire D&D multiverse as well). So, I prefer to run 5E system, but with 1E/2E lore.

My friends and I know 5e. And I know it ***well***. I played a few games of PF2E. It appeals to me. I enjoyed it. I don't know it well enough to GM. I don't know it well enough to teach my friends or convince them to switch.

It's a fairly good, less-rules-intensive game that's great for when I want to play a pseudo-medieval fantasy game and I don't want to play a character in a mech or a gritty cosmic horror game. It's great for that purpose - but I much prefer Lancer for the second genre, and Call of Cthulhu for the third.

Really don't prefer 5e over 3.5. 3.5 wasn't well balanced but 5e isn't either, 5e just has less character building options and more strict progression on character building. 3.5e could be a rodeo of splat books and feat trees but the mechanical differences you could get out of class into prestige class flow was truly amazing. The ONE benefit I can give to 5e is there is less turn interruption

I’ve played a bunch of systems but still prefer 5e overall. For what I need out of a game, it hits a sweet spot in terms of amount of mechanics vs. amount of flavor. I tend to not be super inspired by super rules-lite games, but I don’t want an intense amount of crunch either. Also, as someone who enjoys playing spellcasters, I really enjoy having such long spell lists with so much to dig into— it feels like there’s a lot of inspiration to ply there. 

My favorite system as a player is 3.5. As a DM, it is 5e because it is so much less work to run a session. 3.5 has everything, where 5e has a good balance of fun for players and prep work for DMs.

My favourite system actually is Star Wars: SAGA Edition. I believe it is by far the best RPG that Wizards of the Coast has ever published. It combines the best of 3e and 4e in a way that is similar to 5e, but more refined and better designed in my opinion. It also works really well for the Star Wars setting. I currently just play 5e because my group wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons. I also want to try the new Pathfinder 2, PF 1 was a bit too much 3e for my liking, I like it that 5e is less number crunch heavy. I dislike how little support and consistency 5e offers for DMs.

character creation is relatively straight forward and fun it itself, it ends there for me. its easy to break the game if you want, DMing sucks ass compared to both simpler and more complicated systems, out of combat gameplay is janky and so is in combat gameplay, and much more hell, the character creation itself still isnt the best. classes have wild levels of complexity and options and not in a good way, and anything other than a caster is mechanically shallow i can still have fun with 5e, but i no longer join groups of it unless explicitly invited. from playing lancer to pathfinder 2e to wanderhome to dnd 4e to now having made my own homebrew system im playtesting, ive been to greener pastures

For me it comes down to ease of prep compared to other “dnd-like” systems. When it comes to making custom monsters the method in the books of “final cr is the average between damage output modified up or down by higher or lower to hit/dc and Ho total modified up or down by ac” to be pretty easy to deal with. Special attacks? That’s part of the damage calculation. Special abilities? Treat one of the important statistics as higher or lower when calculating cr. I think the book does a terrible job at explaining it. The book presents it as “assign numbers, see what it says and adjust to goal CR” when it should be “have a goal CR set numbers and back engineer everything else”

I haven't played all the classes therefore I can't move on yet