So, which is the better...

[fkirenicus]

D&D 3.5 or D&D 5?

I am planning on running a D&D campaign starting this spring or in the autumn, and continuing into next winter. My players have expressed wishes for either 3.5 or 5.
I am struggling a bit on deciding, though I am left with far less prep work running a 3.5 campaign than a 5e campaign, as we most likely will be using quite a lot of AD&D 2nd and FR 3.5 material.
However, I want to keep things simple. A character sheet with 4-6 pages is probably going to be less popular than one with 2-3 pages...

[Mondain]

AD&D 2E, next question.

[Acrux]

AD&D 2E

[WhiteShark]

@fkirenicus If you edit the OP and scroll down, there's a tab that says 'poll creation'; you can put some parameters there to turn this thread into a poll as it should have been.

Anyway, 3.5, hands down. 5e and 3.5 are both deeply flawed games but 3.5 has way more content and interesting options.

[Lord of Riva]

Shadowrun 3rd Ed

[Acrux]

@fkirenicus If you edit the OP and scroll down, there's a tab that says 'poll creation'; you can put some parameters there to turn this thread into a poll as it should have been.

Anyway, 3.5, hands down. 5e and 3.5 are both deeply flawed games but 3.5 has way more content and interesting options.

On top of that, I'd say Pathfinder fixes a lot of the most glaring problems of 3.5. Personally, I use the E6 (aka P6) rules that limits characters to the first 6 levels and only feats are given out for leveling after that.

[OnTilt]

I like 5e, but I just use the most basic form of the rules and homebrew almost everything. I know I'm in the minority here, but I don't like my table top games to be very crunchy, and prefer rulings over rules. It probably doesn't help that the only people irl that are interested in playing DnD with me aren't the brightest tools in the shed and I don't want to spend every session explaining rules or finding the right chart.

[WhiteShark]

rulings over rules

If you and your players value consistency, then rulings are simply the creation of new rules. In the words of Alexander Macris, author of ACKS, "Rules-light games are just games that haven't been played a lot yet."

[The_Mask]

I subscribe. AD&D still rules supreme. Pathfinder is 2nd best (sans the woke add-ons), and then... the rest.

[Acrux]

Pathfinder is 2nd best (sans the woke add-ons)

Just use their OGL rules and homebrew everything else. If you use their gameworld, there is no way to avoid the wokeness. It's literally built in from the beginning.

[Tweed]

3.5 is tolerable, but 2nd edition by far is the best. Material used to be affordable too, of course now you can just find it all online and lord knows there's tons of it.

[OnTilt]

rulings over rules

If you and your players value consistency, then rulings are simply the creation of new rules. In the words of Alexander Macris, author of ACKS, "Rules-light games are just games that haven't been played a lot yet."

Then I prefer to make my own rules. I don't have an issue with rules, per se. I just don't like to slow down the pace to reference charts or look up rarely used rules for very specific situations. I like 5e because its very easy to just make a rule on the fly and in a way that is likely to be consistent with other rules that I make up on the fly later.

[Tweed]

rulings over rules

If you and your players value consistency, then rulings are simply the creation of new rules. In the words of Alexander Macris, author of ACKS, "Rules-light games are just games that haven't been played a lot yet."

Then I prefer to make my own rules. I don't have an issue with rules, per se. I just don't like to slow down the pace to reference charts or look up rarely used rules for very specific situations. I like 5e because its very easy to just make a rule on the fly and in a way that is likely to be consistent with other rules that I make up on the fly later.

There's nothing stopping you from modifying 2nd edition or 3rd for that matter. If a rule doesn't agree with you, either modify or toss it.

Unless you're going all Critical Roll on the rules, in which case pls die in a fire.

[Xenich]

If you and your players value consistency, then rulings are simply the creation of new rules. In the words of Alexander Macris, author of ACKS, "Rules-light games are just games that haven't been played a lot yet."

Then I prefer to make my own rules. I don't have an issue with rules, per se. I just don't like to slow down the pace to reference charts or look up rarely used rules for very specific situations. I like 5e because its very easy to just make a rule on the fly and in a way that is likely to be consistent with other rules that I make up on the fly later.

There's nothing stopping you from modifying 2nd edition or 3rd for that matter. If a rule doesn't agree with you, either modify or toss it.

Unless you're going all Critical Roll on the rules, in which case pls die in a fire.

Yep. Best games I played were a mix of 1st and 2nd, then some various rule adaptions from Dragon Magazine.

[Xenich]

rulings over rules

If you and your players value consistency, then rulings are simply the creation of new rules. In the words of Alexander Macris, author of ACKS, "Rules-light games are just games that haven't been played a lot yet."

Then I prefer to make my own rules. I don't have an issue with rules, per se. I just don't like to slow down the pace to reference charts or look up rarely used rules for very specific situations. I like 5e because its very easy to just make a rule on the fly and in a way that is likely to be consistent with other rules that I make up on the fly later.

I always preferred the rules arguments in the game. Most enjoyment was this style of focus of play. I really disliked the "its a magical world" type of games, which is why I tended to fall out from playing it years ago.

[OnTilt]

I think it would be more useful to say what about a particular system makes it better than another. Outside of the main game rules, the only thing separating systems is the published content, no? So as far as I can tell, if you're writing your own campaign and customizing rules to your liking, then any system would serve as well as any other. Maybe I'm missing something here.

Unless you're going all Critical Roll on the rules, in which case pls die in a fire.

I don't know what this means. I'm familiar with Critical Role, but I never really watched it.

I always preferred the rules arguments in the game. Most enjoyment was this style of focus of play. I really disliked the "its a magical world" type of games, which is why I tended to fall out from playing it years ago.

That's fair. I realize most people here prefer to emphasize the 'game' portion over story/5-people-having-a-good-time-around-a-table-ism

[Tweed]

Then I prefer to make my own rules. I don't have an issue with rules, per se. I just don't like to slow down the pace to reference charts or look up rarely used rules for very specific situations. I like 5e because its very easy to just make a rule on the fly and in a way that is likely to be consistent with other rules that I make up on the fly later.

There's nothing stopping you from modifying 2nd edition or 3rd for that matter. If a rule doesn't agree with you, either modify or toss it.

Unless you're going all Critical Roll on the rules, in which case pls die in a fire.

Yep. Best games I played were a mix of 1st and 2nd, then some various rule adaptions from Dragon Magazine.

Yeah, most of the games I played were a mix of 1st and 2nd as well.

[Xenich]

I always preferred the rules arguments in the game. Most enjoyment was this style of focus of play. I really disliked the "its a magical world" type of games, which is why I tended to fall out from playing it years ago.

That's fair. I realize most people here prefer to emphasize the 'game' portion over story/5-people-having-a-good-time-around-a-table-ism

Yeah, if it comes down to it. Don't get me wrong, I like a good story as well, but its very hard to set down with some "story focused" players. For instance, my group used to be mostly hard focused STEM fields, so naturally everything came down to rules and arguments over the math/physics. My friend had some non-STEM (or non-STEM minded) people join us once and it turned into the whole typical argument of "Fun" and "Story", and "My enjoyment" type of arguments.

Things like people wanting to play a dwarf magic user (without the race restrictions), or saw no problems swimming across a lake wearing full plate, etc... and each time the argument came up it was "cuz magic!". Yeah, I really didn't enjoy those games, which is why I didn't care much for the live action role play either. Give me a thick rule book (some math and physics books on the side) and a beer and I am in gaming heaven. *chuckle*

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Neither is good. You spend you much time obsessing over numbers instead of actually playing.

[Irenaeus]

Both are cool to create characters for, don't know about actually playing. 5e seems easier. I prefer older and more basic D&D anyway, updated or modified with the various developments in the last 20 years by different authors of new systems.

[fkirenicus]

AD&D 2E, next question.

Not in the list, question repeated.
I do in fact own 2nd ed, with quite a lot of FR material. However, there are too mny things I would change now, with too little time to work on it. Besides, the people I have talked to about playing have expressed wishes for either 3(.5) or 5.
I have the means/know how to "properly" convert 1e/2e stuff to 3.5, I am more uncertain about 5.
But there are things I really like in 5 as well (or I probably would not play BG3 ).
I plan to set the campagn in the DR 1330's, so no Spellplague sh&t and stuff.

[fkirenicus]

3.5 is tolerable, but 2nd edition by far is the best. Material used to be affordable too, of course now you can just find it all online and lord knows there's tons of it.

I've downloaded almost everything 3.5 for free.
I own quite some 2e material, but there is too much stuff there I do not like anymore and would want to change now.

[rusty_shackleford]

If it's just for picking up and playing with friends who aren't biased against any edition, 5E obviously.

[Boontaker]

5e is better.

However most people who play 5e today don't follow the RAW, and infact ignore many rules that are very important for game balance. Most D&D sessions have gotten so "handwavy" that DMs are gassing out because they feel they can't challenge the party. The truth is by hand waving rules such as travel, exhaustion, random encounters, encumbrance, and not following the suggested encounters table (6-8 per adventuring day) you make 5e characters feel much stronger than 3.5 characters which is untrue.

The 5e monster manual is trash, if you want to run 5e replace it with third party book.

3.0 was a D&D Renaissance for people would could read and math above a 3rd grade level. This meant that only 30% of the 3.0 playerbase was any good at the system, and the rest wanted to go back to the 2nd AD&D system where you just needed to be able to read a chart to play the game.

D&D is in its 50s now and is starting to have a midlife crisis, many players calling for older systems or dumbed down systems where you don't roll a d20 or the "math" is easier. These players are wrong, they are going to buy a brand new system hot off the manufacturing line and within 1 year will be back to 5e (or back to no games which is the truth).

[rusty_shackleford]

, and prefer rulings over rules.

Rulings are rules, they're rules made up as you go. And if you're not referencing those rulings later your game actually has neither rules nor rulings.

[Ratcatcher]

Rule-light systems (eg Chaosium BASIC) are there primarily to allow the GM to inject specific subsets of rules (or more commonly rulings, when official rules are unavailable) to deal with the scenario at hand.

Wanna have your group engage in impromptu diving adventures in a somehow realistic modern setting? Feel like writing down the subtle ways in which the sanity-eroding madness your group contend with is affecting animals in the area and how the phenomenon is evolving over time as they play? How do you react when your players want to weaponize that forklift?

All this to say, except for those rare cases in which you're using rules-light to be an introductory system to show the ropes to new players, they actually demand more work from the GM's side. Everything that isn't already written down is something YOU have to put on paper. Ruling doesn't mean making shit up on the fly, it means pondering for hours, sometimes even running mock combats and scenes to see what a single modifier would entail.
The last thing you want is to discover that '-2' you randomly gave them because, dunno, the air is going bad and they have difficulty breathing is actually pushing some scenes into the unwinnable scenario. Math rules.

[fkirenicus]

SO, HOW ABOUT SOME VOTES HERE???

Sorry for shouting.

[aweigh]

voted 3.5e

[rusty_shackleford]

'Better' isn't defined.
Based on what was said in this thread, 5E. It's a simpler ruleset, has more players, and many more people know of it now.

I'm not particularly a fan of either, but playing 3.5E would probably require having some existing friends who are fans of 3.5E.

[Xenich]

3.0+ I dislike because they dumbed down the class/race systems normalizing them as if some kind of "equality" approach, yet then overcomplicated it in the excessive sub class focuses.

I preferred earlier general class focus, with sub kits and each class/race has limitations and benefits for their selection. The removal of dual classing I really disliked as it brought a sense of logic to its progression for human limitations, but also had its own benefits. The opposite made sense in multi-class reasoning due to the nature of various non-human races.

I just could never get into the later editions because of it.

Though, I did thoroughly enjoy the Shadowrun rulesets and they while simplified in their roll mechanics, were quite effective in play.