I’m DMing again. Or GMing, if you’d rather call it that, I suppose my familiarity with D&D is what leads me to call it Dungeon Mastering. And isn’t that the problem?

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Last year I was very gung-ho about DMing a game for friends and strangers alike, but putting things into practice is never as easy as planning them out. RPGs consist of a dialogue between the DM and the players, and gameplay breaks down when there are imbalances between what either party wants and does. Classic examples include the railroady DMs who should really be writing a novel instead of playing an RPG, or that one PC who wants to sit in the corner of the tavern and brood instead of picking up a plot hook.

Managing this balance is something you need to expect when you’re approaching any RPG, but with D&D 5e it’s just turned into a slog. A thing to dread. And it’s something to mourn too, because even if it’s only because it’s the most mainstream it was ultimately D&D that inspired me to try this hobby in the first place. It was D&D I’d fantasise about playing, even when I’d heard of Pathfinder and VtM and Shadowrun (yeah, before Cyberpunk got big again) it was D&D’s elves and dwarves that drew me in. But after how many failed campaigns I think it’s just time to admit that I don’t really like D&D.

I still like the setting; Forgotten Realms is still fun and on the player side I don’t think I’d pass on a Curse of Strahd game if offered to me. The surrounding media is still great — shout out to The Adventure Zone and Baldur’s Gate. And there’s no doubt about D&D’s influence on not just TTRPGs but wider hobby genres like videogames and fantasy; replaying Oblivion is what inspired me to get back into it in the first place.

But as I’ve matured both as a gamer and as a person I can more clearly identify 5e’s flaws and I have a better idea of what I want out of a game. This isn’t an unpopular sentiment, but let’s talk about it.

I think D&D is just not what the average player wants from a TTRPG, and that includes me and a lot of my friends. From the 2010s to now (and for better or for worse) the perception of TTRPGs has changed from a pulpy action game to a more grounded story generator with fantasy flavour. Actual Play media like the ever-popular Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, and numerous other podcasts and blogs and live plays has helped push this change, but I also think videogames following the same trend has had a hand in it (consider how the most highly rated games from the past few years are singleplayers with strong writing and characters). With varying levels of tone or setting or genre, this is what your average beginner player is expecting when they sit down to play Dungeons & Dragons.

D&D isn’t this though. It grew out of wargaming and its never lost its roots, even in its current incarnation. Combat is the central pillar of 5e and its rules for socialising or skills are a lot less thought out. This forces stories and encounters to be based around combat, causing friction if the party doesn’t want to fight or they’re awkwardly mismatched. Famously fighters only get to swing a weapon for the first levels, while wizards have to take twenty minute pauses to peruse their spells and choose the best one.

People smarter and more experienced than me have written about all the problems of D&D 5e. Here’s a Reddit thread with some common complaints. One I must throw into the ring is that I cannot stand the magic system. I understand it’s Vancian but it’s unintuitive, unapproachable to people who’ve never read Jack Vance (which, unfortunately for my generation, is most of us), and it just takes up so much brainpower and time to work. And I’m not the only one — my friend who loves wizards struggled with it when we played, and it turns me off enough to the point I never want to bother.

D&D 5e is fine if you know what you’re getting into and what to expect from it: a heroic combat game with some fantasy sprinkled in. But for most beginners to the hobby, I think it’s not it. Note this is only for 5e though. I haven’t played the earlier editions and I have no idea how well they fare.

That brings me to my own experiences with it. I’ve played a bunch of games as a player, with a variety of class/race combinations since I like to mix it up. The first time I tried 5e in perhaps 2014 or 2015 (not long after it came out, I’m sure) our DM sent some rats on our two-PC-party and after losing the battle shortly described us dead. I thought that was some bullshit, and nearly ten years later I think I can reflect on why it happened.

Other than it probably being the starter edition and therefore not the most refined… the DM guide is not great, especially at scaling and how to build encounters. It’s narrowly built for 4-5 PCs and offers no advice for anything outside of that range. The way the game is mechanically built means you’re squishy and pretty much useless at Level 1. The balance between classes is poor.

I understood this more when I tried to run my own games. Although the game aims to be a storytelling game, emulating what people want out of it from what Critical Role has presented them, it doesn’t offer any advice on how to write a convincing story and how to write less combat focused games (because, to be fair, D&D is meant to be played as a combat focused gmae).

But in my opinion D&D’s biggest problem and the fact it causes burnout so much (in me at least) is the way it lacks so much player input. And this is probably half on the players too — might be my bad luck but the people I’ve played with aren’t interested in reading their damn PHBs to answer the silly questions they’re about to ask me. But when it comes to worldbuilding, to designing quests, to placing PCs in the world… it’s all foisted on the DM, and it quickly becomes a lot. Especially when it becomes clear your players aren’t nearly as invested in the game as you are.

I’m planning a solo game in Fabula Ultima. On reading the core rulebook, it struck me both how fast this gameplay was and how much it encouraged real teamwork within the group — sharing the burden of creation on the players. The players are expected to provide a few locations, NPCs, and quests to populate the world before starting, encouraging a deeper relationship between the game and the players. It’s a shame 5e has nothing like that.

I’m still a beginner DM, I admit. I don’t doubt some if not all of these problems are my fault being inexperienced, and if I just DMed more I’d be able to find solutions to these issues without hopping around games. But while I’m grateful to D&D for introducing me to pen and paper gaming in the first place, I feel fine moving on.

Despite all my complaints about D&D being combat-oriented, I have to admit I’ve been really enjoying my copy of OSE Basic. Ironically it’s based on D&D B/X (I think…? I’m not the most knowledgeable about 1e I’m afraid) but its simplicity means the combat is fast and I don’t miss the lack of skills. Maybe it’s just that awesome OSR solo rules and adventures are available for free online, letting me have fun as part of my first solo excursions that’s enamoured me to this game. Either way I love it and I need to pick up Advanced Fantasy at some point.

The games I’m actually DMing and not just playing solo are Mutant: Year Zero and UESRPG. MYZ is a post-apocalyptic base building game by Free League Publishing, though I’m playing the Mechatron expansion because me and my friends are little robot-loving nerds. UESRPG is an RPG based on The Elder Scrolls series — colour me shocked that there isn’t an existing one already. Bethesda is missing out I guess? That game will be with my brother, with our PCs joining the Fighter’s Guild in Skyrim. Both games will be played on FoundryVTT so expect some reviews and tutorials soon, perhaps?

I’m taking it steady with DMing. Soloing is still a priority, if only because it’s so much less stressful, but I’m also lucky enough to have friends who don’t mind me putting off sessions while I organise the other parts of my life. And while I have a lot of complaints about DMing D&D, I’m not opposed to playing again, especially earlier editions. Really the hardest part about leaving D&D has been convincing my friends to switch.