This is a surprisingly simple issue, with a surprisingly straightforward answer.

What you do is this: you announce that you're going to run the system you want to run.  Any of your players who want to roll up characters and play are welcome.  Anyone who wants no part of it are free to find a game more to their liking, and blessings upon them.  You then go out and find people to top out the group to your satisfaction, and soldier on.

It's my overwhelming observation that it's ten times easier to find players who want to play the game you want than to convert existing players who already have preferences they want to stick with.  Fanboy enthusiasm is far less transferable than we fantasize.  Heck, would you become an ice hockey fan just because I am?  Dig nautical folk music just because I drag you to the Mystic Sea Music Festival and guarantee you'll like it?

Quote from: Ravenswing;912561
It's my overwhelming observation that it's ten times easier to find players who want to play the game you want than to convert existing players who already have preferences they want to stick with.

How depressing.

Quote from: Ravenswing;912561It's my overwhelming observation that it's ten times easier to find players who want to play the game you want than to convert existing players who already have preferences they want to stick with.

That still might depend on what game you want... but if it's within the realm of D&D probably not too hard.

IME it's been the GMs who decide/declare what game is getting played and I've always been fine with that. It's usually been primarily their effort, their table, their books. It's only recent that I've seen a couple of GMs who fret over what the Players want... and on both occasions that was just about ALL on one Player who put up a lot of resistance over not getting his way. The rest of us were fine with whatever, because we liked the GM's style. Trusted that anything he ran would be fun.

Quote from: Ravenswing;912561It's my overwhelming observation that it's ten times easier to find players who want to play the game you want than to convert existing players who already have preferences they want to stick with.

Only if you are so fortunate as to live in an area with a surplus of players you can afford to just jettison those who dont want to change systems. Or can afford to jettison players at all due to extenuating circumstances. (Like one of the players is supplying the gameing locale or transportation.)

I have never read nor played 5e so I can't help you make 5e run the way you like.

I will say that if you are seriously not enjoying running your 5e game it is time to change something. Life is too short to spend *not* enjoying your hobbies. Explain to your players the reasons why you are not enjoying 5e, offer to continue the campaign with the same characters converted to 1e and see what they say.

If you all switch to 1e and the game still goes pear shaped, just try playing something else.

When your players talk about the game, how do they refer to it?

Do they call it D&D night or 5e night?  Then you don't have much chance of switching systems without effectively disintegrating the group.

Do they call it Coffee Zombie's Campaign?  In that case they might go for it if you present your case that you feel you'd enjoy the game more if you were running on a system you preferred.  Even then, it's probably means a serious group split.

Quote from: Omega;912573Only if you are so fortunate as to live in an area with a surplus of players you can afford to just jettison those who dont want to change systems.

If there isn't a surplus of Players then chances are they're not going to have a lot of games to flee to either. Finding a new group, with the right location and schedule, isn't so easy.
Going from 5e to 1e isn't such a radical change that a reasonable person, already comfortably situated with time and place, is going to throw a fit and leave.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;912492I am DMing, and am sick to death of 5E. I don't think it's the antichrist of D&D or anything, but I have a number of serious complaints. The group is around level 8 (5 players) and almost anything I throw at them, even when I throw Deadly Encounters (by the book, at the very highest end of the xp budget or above), I can't challenge them anymore. Their magical items are moderate at best, one character still has none at all. I also find the sheer number of abilities the characters have is daunting to keep track of. I want to just take the campaign, wave the wand and have it switch to AD&D (1e) and keep moving on.

I know you're bent on converting them to AD&D players, but I want to talk a little about this before attempting to help with your goal. I still gotta try, just move on down to ******** if you just don't want to hear about making 5e more fun for you.

The "kewl new power every level" paradigm, while beautiful on paper, does start to fail about right at the level you've noted. Once each player has half-a-dozen powers, it can become extremely challenging just to keep track of all the abilities as a DM...and it gets even worse as the levels mount past this. Trying to come up with challenging, much less interesting, fights at this level is rough. With 5 players at the table, you're looking at 40 different "I win" buttons that might get pressed on you (note: this is hyperbole, realistically, you'll have around half a dozen "I win" buttons to deal with, and a bunch of really annoying buttons).

The CR system has always been dubious in D&D, and was developed before the "kewl powers" paradigm was fully developed. A level 6-7 party can take out a CR 13 beholder with perhaps only one casualty, maybe less (just happened last week in my campaign...the ranger blew a Dex save and was disintegrated, finally done with Little Keep on the Borderlands, fwiw).

You need to start looking at the adventuring party as a puzzle, and how to deal with the powers. Toss the CR system, and throw a CR 14 encounter at them (don't waste time with "solo" monsters, as "kewl powers" make such encounters obsolete). Note carefully what aspects of the fight were a little challenging, note carefully what "I win" buttons made the fight much easier than you thought it would be.

Then do another fight (I'm planning at least 2 more Beholder battles in the next month or so), bringing in some things to stop the "I win" button that got you last time. You don't need to go all Gygaxian here. If "Counterspell" shut you down, just bring twice as many enemy wizards next time, and be more careful about Counterspell's limitations. If the Bard's "You can't do that" ability was annoying, bring a Bard (or creature with Bard power of your own) to counter it.

A few more fights like that, and you'll start knowing what buttons you need to deal with for the fights that you want to be tough (there should be some easy fights, of course, where the buttons work fine).

Start making your own monsters. Keep in mind, the 5E MM was written with almost no playtesting, so the monsters really, really, aren't able to deal with the "kewl powers", and weren't given particularly amazing powers of their own (I just got Tome of Beasts, can't tell you right off if its any better). They're *way* to weak for the CR, after about CR5 (to be fair, Gygax realized monsters really couldn't stand up to "high level", i.e., 9th level, characters in AD&D, hence the Drow, at the risk of digressing). Heck, start using "character" enemies...the point is you need to start tweaking monsters, the vanilla MM monsters just can't cut it against mid-level characters that actually use the buttons.

Bottom line, 5e is a great game, and plays well into the teens levels (I've done it)...but realize this is a mostly untested system, you'll need to put some work into it. That's about all I can is, keep working at figuring out the system until you really do know how to challenge the players.

************

QuoteBut how to convince the group? How do I sell them on why this needs to happen. Because, seriously, I like the direction the story is going, I love the characters (and there has been some deaths), and I'm delighted the group is having fun, but it's no damn fun for me. It's also a hell of a lot of work for me to design the encounters and opponents in the game. I personally love AD&D 1E, and have done so since I bought it (by accident) at a used game store.

After a PF campaign ended due to the hypercomplexity, I sold my players on an AD&D campaign.

You'll need to sell them, of course.

Key points:

Simplicity. You don't have to deal with feats, kewl powers, or all that crap.


1) Character development is ongoing. Your character develops through his choices and through play. You don't map out everything about your character from levels 1 to 20...stuff happens. Your fighter doesn't commit to the Ungoolian Axe-Mace, taking a dozen feats just so he can use it "properly." Your fighter can use ANY weapon, and does so equally. When you go to White Plume Mountain and find a magic trident, you can *actually* use the damn thing, instead of melting it down to make it into an Ungoolian Axe-Mace. There's no telling what your character will be like at 5th, or at 10th.

2) Balance is for wussies. You really can find a +2 sword at third level...the game won't snap in half.

3) Fairness is for wussies. That great sword you found? It can get dusted by a Rust Monster. You won't be able to beat on the rust monster's corpse to turn it back into a +2 sword (4e; in 5e Rust monsters can't even affect magic items...damn that's weak). Your character can get aged 20 years by a ghost, and you can't just drink ghost-juice (sold everywhere) to counter it. You won't get "I win" buttons...but the monsters do, and to succeed you need plan a little better than "I press my I Win button."

4) Magic is hard. The wizards don't get to do everything for free, it's actually easy for someone besides a wizard to counter a wizard spell. You actually have to pay attention, instead of just going through the list of "I win" buttons until you find one you like.

5) Combat is fast and easy. In AD&D, you don't have characters rushing 30' a round, zipping into a room and zipping out, while the clueless monsters wait their turn. It's more like 6' (a single 5' square). Taking movement out of combat speeds things up. Having "I attack" as the only button your character can press means the player might look up from his character sheet and see if maybe he can push a column over or something.

6) Big isn't useless. One of the weird things about 3e and later is the grid map, and the idea that all monsters take up a cube in space. I'm not saying Ogres were ever that amazing, but having them take up a 10x10 cube makes them almost immobile in combat, unable to focus on an enemy...when you get to larger creatures, a 15x15 cube monster is basically helpless. But AD&D monsters don't have be put on a grid except when you need to show something in particular. It's assumed they have reach or whatever.

7) The numbers are smaller. While this is basically just repeating the ease of the game, but the point is still you don't have to do nearly so much fiddling with the numbers. Your fighter still starts with 10 or so hit points. A huge, ancient, red dragon can breath for 88 points of damage, and many characters will never be able to survive that one attack...the dragon can do it two more times.

The thing is, of course, not alot of people can really handle the sort of play AD&D offers. Instead of trying to sell a whole campaign, start them out on a "one off" for nostalgia (Keep on the Borderlands is amazingly good for this--a thin module in page count by today's standards, but there are months of play there).

Now doing this mid-campaign is a drag, and I just don't recommend it (I don't see players parting with the kewl powers in any event), so start them off at level 1 in AD&D, as a one off. It just makes more sense.

(sorry for all the typos/errors, really gotta go)

I haven't played 5e or even read the books. Is it too hard to change a few things like upping the AC, HP and damage of the creatures to present a greater challenge? Or, is that considered cheating in your circle? Anyway, if it's an overabundance of rules and bloat from supplements or something, then yeah, I'd tell them I wanted a run a different system.

No matter what, the worst thing you can do is continue to run a game that you aren't interested in.  Be up front and honest with your players. Tell them how you feel and then offer to run the system that you will enjoy running. If they don't like what you are offering, then invite someone else to run a system of their choosing. If no one wants to play your game or run anything themselves then find better players because only a bunch of dickweeds would be mad at someone for not continuing to run a game that they dread.

Sounds like you're getting overrun by your players.  Grow some balls. Tell them: This is the game I want to play, and this is why.  It is cool because of X, Y,  and Z and I want to run it.  It will be more fun because A,B and C and because it's what I'm into - and I'm the GM.  Anybody with me?  If they don't like it, find new players who will.

That's a bit harsh. Seriously, I get where you're at.  I've been there before.  It is hard to change systems mid-stream especially when you are running a bunch of Disney Princesses who think their characters are entitled to ultimate awesomeness simply because they are the protagonists.  So here are some more helpful suggestions - maybe:

A) Throw some encounters at them that are above their ability to defeat. Quit challenging them and pummel the shit out 'em, or at least scare them.  See if they figure out when to run - or let a few of them die off - they'll figure it out.  By the way, this problem is why Gygax wrote Tomb of Horrors.  If you give player's problems which have no direct solution - you will be surprised at what they come up with.  You don't want to be a dick about it, but you could start introducing these kinds of AD&D concepts - like there is always something beyond the PCs ability to confront directly. Make them think, use tactics and every means at their disposal.  5e is robust enough to do that unless you have already given them all free levels and vorpal swords.  In short, scale up your encounters and challenges to create an AD&D-like playstyle within the game you are running now.

B) Indulge them. Let them run rough-shod all over the campaign and "win."  "Oh boy, looks like you just killed the avatar of Tiamat again with your awesomely kewel powers - whoop-di-doo." They'll get bored soon enough.  Then introduce them to AD&D, or better yet WFRP or Cthulhu.  They'll see the light.

From now on, when you want to play fantasy, play lower level games and be stingy with XP and goodies (or play BRP or RQ which are low level by default).

I don't know if that's any help or not, but that's what I got at the moment.  If you come up with a better solution let me know.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;912492So, long and short of it. My players are having a ball. They love all their abilities, they love how tough their characters are

QuoteThe group is around level 8 (5 players) and almost anything I throw at them, even when I throw Deadly Encounters (by the book, at the very highest end of the xp budget or above), I can't challenge them anymore.

From this it sounds like what the players are enjoying (game balance tilted badly in their favour) is what you're not enjoying. Nasty.
I've been there (though with a long term Savage Worlds game plus houserules)...eventually we started over with a new system but it took awhile before they all reached realization that the game was now completely broken in their favour. If I could've downpowered them by converting systems that might've been better but I think convincing them could have been tricky.

Im ignoring everyone that posted in this thread.  Yeah... ignore list, bitches! Nah, just kidding, but I ain't reading ya shit.

You the DM, boo.  End the current campaign (I recommend a fight with a dragon in side a temple, or maybe a rogue god at the end of the world to prevent the apocalypse... you know, fucking METAL set piece showdown stuff).  Then put the AD&D books on the table and say "This is what I'm running next. You don't like it? You DM".

I never let my players dictate what I'll run for them. Ask input? Sure.  But If I want to run Runequest, I'm running Runequest.  If I want to keep my players, I gotta keep the game awesome... but that's not up to the system.




In short: DM/GM got the power 'cause they are the one putting in the work. Most players are lazy and system-agnostic. They wanna show up and be conan or gandolf or blackleaf.  If they wasn't lazy fucks, they'd have their own screen. Use the force, luke.  And if they don't like it, put on the viking hat and shove a lightsaber in their eye.  Make 'em play blind and in agony, because thats what players deserve!

It sounds as if your problem is that you are using the 5e Encounter Building rules. If you ignore those and run 5e as if it were 1e you will see far less of a problem. In 1e, 5 level 8 PCs would be taking on hordes of giants (Against the Giants), pit fiends, balrogs/type VI demons, et al. If you let the players choose their own threat level by eg running a megadungeon or wilderness sandbox, and use 1e style high level encounters with ancient dragons, packs of demons, dozens of ogres and hundreds of orcs, the threat issue will vanish.

Edit: Also, don't try to make every encounter balanced/challenging, that only works in 4e. My 5e groups love kerbstomp battles as much as they love taking on monsters 10 CRs above their level.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;912492But how to convince the group? How do I sell them on why this needs to happen. Because, seriously, I like the direction the story is going, I love the characters (and there has been some deaths), and I'm delighted the group is having fun, but it's no damn fun for me. It's also a hell of a lot of work for me to design the encounters and opponents in the game. I personally love AD&D 1E, and have done so since I bought it (by accident) at a used game store.

One thing I did when I couldn't stand 3e was run a campaign where I used 1e/Classic monster stats while the players used 3e rules. So eg their 6th level 3e PCs would take on hordes of 8 hd, 36 hp hill giants I flipped AC to ascending and used hd = attack bonus like in C&C. I rarely had to engage with the 3e mechanics at all. And 5e is closer to 1e than 3e is. If your problem is purely GM-side then you could do something similar; used 1e monster stats and any other 1e stuff you like, but let the players use 5e.