I'm conflicted. D&D 5e pretty much hits the "sweet spot" for me in terms of D&D complexity. My high school and college days were all 2E and I absolutely love the crunchy depth of those memories. Even though I never got to play them, I poured over the Psionics guide for hours as a kid. The Monster Folio (which I still own) was a thing of absolute beauty and I miss the depth and richness of the monster descriptions. Settings like Planescape and Dark Sun were so unique and different, and even more derivative stuff like Al-Qadim had its own flair.Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sat Jan 28, 2023 1:06 pm Yeah, I get that. I am struggling because when I think of "D&D", I'm thinking of mainly AD&D and some 2E. I get that people are still playing those rules, but in trying to not be a grognard and adopt the latest set I'm honestly not feeling the love. We took an unscheduled break from 5E and the longer I'm away from it, the less enamored I am with it. I wanted it to feel like AD&D and initially it did, but the more WoTC products I purchased the clearer it's become that it's really just a shell. If it works for others, terrific, but I no longer think it adequately recaptures what I recall loving about AD&D so much.
BUT... I never want to play that level of math crunch again. All those damn tables. Calculating THAC0, which made no sense. SAVING THROW CHARTS. I'm just too old and pressed for time.
My 5e experience is largely based on the DM and the story building. The better the writer, the more freedom they give, the more fun I have. It tends to be improv hour and story time more than anything.
That said, I've move hard away from D&D. It isn't emergent enough for the slowness and fiddliness of the system. Playing something like Powered by the Apocalypse (my favorites are the Root RPG, based on the board game, and Monster of the Week), you get enough tactical fun while basically getting a hilarious and fun story (my group in Root found a resistance cell in a duck-owned bar known for its qwackers leading them to exploded a barrel of oil in a cat fort by parkouring up a wall and throwing a flaming ax at the barrel). Right now I am super excited to try Forbidden Lands, which has all the feel or Ravenloft hits Dark Sun (or, as I intend to tell my players, imagine if Krynn had a meth addiction), but all the ease of play of an old school random hexcrawl.
Patherfinder never did it for me. I like the video games, but it just feels very... generic. And the crunch is too... crunchy.