Consider a radical departure to a rules light non-D&D game.

I personally suggest checking out these two: *they are free and excellent*

Mazes & Minotaurs
http://storygame.free.fr/MAZES.htm

Warrior, Rogue & Mage
http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/

Here is my advice: Get out of the DMs chair. Be a player or just take a break. Forget conversion. Let someone else take over a bit. Study up on 5E or whatever you plan to run next.
I've done any/all of these myself time to time. With almost any system I've had problems running, it comes down to one or two problems, in regards to the game itself.

1)   I don't know the system well enough
2)   The players know the system better than I (or perhaps they think they do!)

I don't know which of these it could be for you. If I had to guess it would be 1, which is why you want to go back to something you know better. If 5E is not for you-then it's not. Since your players seem to love it so much its up to you decide whether to put in the time (to study it) or not. You don't have to convince anyone, just state the truth (you're not enjoying it) and ask for someone else to run something.

If your not having fun... What is the point...

Quote from: Christopher Brady;912536"My players are using the game as intended, and it's annoying me.  SO I want to change to a system that's even more broken and prone to abuses, that'll fix their wagon!"

Did I get that right?

Yes. OP needs to grow some balls already. Give his group a chance to either find a new DM or group because they like 5e and the OP obviously has little knowledge of 5e. So his solution instead of actually learning the game, modifying it slightly or just letting someone else run the game? Is to go with a ridiculously broken older version. Nice solution there.

Thanks for all the feedback forumites. A few notes, since I've derived a lot of what I need here from the responses, but I think the conversation could be worthwhile to others so I'll clarify a few things.

1) I've retooled 5E. I've explored alternate options. I certainly don't stick to the crappy, useless encounter building system (though I reference it here and there to let the players know what they're fighting). What I do find is that a group of 6th level heroes took down an Adult Black Dragon because they rolled lucky three times. The "rests" system is, imho, the worst part of the entire game. It destroys, utterly, any ability to challenge the heroes because all they have to do is take 5 and large swaths of abilities return. No, I'm done with 5E - it might be the game some people are looking for, it isn't for me. I've looked at altering how rests work, but an awful lot of abilities are tied to rests, and some are very useless if short rests are too long (like the alternate rests system suggested in the DMG). I've even noted that the characters lacking a need to ever "return to sanctuary" is in fact crushing the challenge of the entire game, they don't see it. They aren't looking. They love playing overpowered Mary Sues who tromp from one god kicking encounter to the next.

2) I tried stepping down from DMing. Out of the group, one is a good DM, one has some DMing skills but tends to run lacklustre campaigns, and the others are younger and have no experience nor interest. It's just not the practical solution. The one who is a good DM is running a different game, and wants to play. I want to run a game, its where I have more fun to be honest.

3) I can't chuff my group off. Two of them are my own teenage sons, one is basically a brother to me, the other is one of my closest friends and my daughter. This does, indeed, completely alter the terms, but I didn't want the advice to focus on that point, so I committed it from the initial ask. Needless to say, I'm not "firing" that group. I am, however, going to just tell them what I'm running, and be as polite as possible in saying "this is the deal".

4) I have run AD&D and have never found it, or OD&D, anywhere near as complex as 3rd, 4th or 5th edition. The amount of player options on a sheet at 10th level on the typical character sheet between the pre-3rd and post 3rd characters are significant. I actually find it difficult to plan for too many varied abilities, and while I do look at what players choose when they level up (and make suggestions on ones that make sense for the personality of the character and the saga), it's the player's character. They're just using what's available to them, and not breaking the system. My choice for AD&D is that I always find the mix in AD&D personally satisfying.

5) My way of dealing with players who try and exploit the system is to tell them to stop being a dick, or I'll return the favour. I have indeed returned the favour many a time when the BS didn't stop. We're friends, we talk about things in the system that's unbalancing it often.

6) The reason this entire game hasn't already switched to something else is that the two mature members of the group have never shed their mentality of "play one character until it dies", and are very invested in their characters and the story of the game. This means they are always reticent to ever reboot a game, switch to s/e, or make alterations. This has the bonus of them being invested in a game, the downside being obvious. They also don't seem to get the campaigns come and go, and that we need to be able to switch things up when things aren't fun.

7) While I own a copy of all of the AD&D books, I stick to the core three. Period. I might drag in an option or two from UA, I would never use the classes from it. I also find it easier to "hack" AD&D, make my own classes, and even work with players to make a custom class. As Doom pointed out, the numbers are smaller, the choices are more finite and easier to gauge the outcomes of. I have seriously considered OD&D, and even bought the collectors box when it came out a few years back, but the game feels very unfinished. AD&D feels very complete, and there are a lot of classic modules I'd love to run for it.

My take away is that I need to just put my foot down, be honest with my friends (my sons don't have much choice). They enjoy my game a lot, and always enjoy my games. We mesh well together as a group, with only minor stylistic play style issues that creep out. 5E has just enhanced the issues that vex me the most, and delight my two fiends the best. It's amplifying the usually subtle disconnects in our play.

Quote from: J.L. Duncan;912652Here is my advice: Get out of the DMs chair. Be a player or just take a break.

Excellent suggestion, in general. Easy to forget what it's like on the player's side.  Speaking of: if your players are having a good time, it seems you're doing something right.

I get into these reboot phases a LOT. But that's because I constantly want to try new stuff. I've had to resist the urge to system jump, because I'm sure my players get tire of it. My compromise is to adapt small things using the current system, and to ask player opinion if I want to do something radical. It's good to be talked down sometimes.

Quote from: S'mon;912642It 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.

Very much this. If you want to challenge the players after a point then the CR has to go.

And yeah. Not all battles have to be challenging. Sometimes its fun to actually get to show off how mighty you are. It gets old when its 24/7 mighty. It aso gets old being in a life or death battle 24/7.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;912656The "rests" system is, imho, the worst part of the entire game. It destroys, utterly, any ability to challenge the heroes because all they have to do is take 5 and large swaths of abilities return.

alot of "boo-hoo-hoo me make up excuse to quits mean ol gamez!"

1: Limiting and denying short rests is key to keeping the 5e game on track.

2: Sounds like you got talked into, or talked yourself into, running 5e when you really didnt want to and have been looking for, or making, excuses to end the game and go to something else? Why didnt you just do this in the first place?

X: As for the players who like to stick to one character/campaign/system being "juvenile"? Really? Since when did players who fidget and cant commit to a game or system replace maturity?

My D&D experience is limited, but I read through the thread out of interest and I think I know what I might likely try in such a situation, where the players are enjoying their power trips and I'm not, and I've given up trying to get the system to be something interesting to me, and I've talked to the reasonable players about it and they aren't sympathetic enough to want to change systems, and I want to keep all the players, and some of the players like to play to the death of their PCs, and there isn't a replacement GM.

I would think about if there is a way to fairly rapidly escalate the campaign situation to a dramatic climax. Does the group have some focus or goal or something they would die to protect? Are there villains or situations which could be escalated to a dramatic climax situation? Are there things that would tempt the PCs into going all-out to get them? Are there other states that the game could get to that would constitute an end game, where it would satisfy them that they'd "won" and it would make sense to retire, or that they'd died trying for something that was worth dying for? Assuming something in that general range is conceivable (which I can think of even as new elements - e.g. Magnificent Seven), I'd see about arranging for an escalation to climax that can wrap up the campaign, and gives them a reasonable chance to prevail but be seriously challenged, but to lead to a conclusion where it will feel like the campaign is complete.

In general, when my players have found some very powerful abilities or techniques or whatever, and are enjoying that, and there's no natural way that situation is going to end any time soon, I feel it's best to let the players enjoy their exploitation and think about ways those activities would naturally have results that involve a different level of play from the specific exploit event. For example, if some adventurers can be invisible and teleport and think to go steal the king's treasure, I'd rather game that out without deciding I need to have matching anti-magic waiting for them, but then see what happens when the players now have lots of conspicuous gold and the king's men realize a bunch of treasure was stolen. Maybe even invite another player or two (even people from the Internet) to play out being the King's advisor charged with solving the situation, and/or the mercenaries, bounty hunters, or wizards who get paid to track them down, or something. The meta-situation can get pretty interesting (to me anyway) even if I hate the game system...

But I'd much rather also play using a system I find interesting too. And I think that over-easy healing and resurrection and repair and so on tend to escalate combat so that there are few if any meaningful setbacks or costs to battle, at least for the PCs, which can often tend to devolve play into something much less interesting to me than when PCs can actually be meaningfully injured/killed and their toys can get broken, etc.

So, is there some interesting situation(s) that can develop that would lead to a climactic finish of some sort, that lets the players see if their wicked powers can take it on or not, in some way that will be fun and interesting and lead to an end of campaign either way?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;912536"My players are using the game as intended, and it's annoying me.  SO I want to change to a system that's even more broken and prone to abuses, that'll fix their wagon!"

Did I get that right?

Yes.

Quote from: Skarg;912782So, is there some interesting situation(s) that can develop that would lead to a climactic finish of some sort, that lets the players see if their wicked powers can take it on or not, in some way that will be fun and interesting and lead to an end of campaign either way?

Following on this note, can you get an agreement from them to switch to something else once the campaign is considered finished? That would give them some choice in the matter, and might make the transition both possible and amenable to them.

Having played a lot of different systems (like a lot of people here), the main thing I can say in defense of the more rules light systems is that things seem to move more quickly, simply due to less combat bookkeeping, thereby allowing for a wider range of events from session to session. Our latest affair is much more old school in nature and execution, which has led us to cover about 3-4 months of game time in 6 actual sessions, scattered among various events (to include a moderate expedition into the near wilds and back). Since the players noses are off the sheets (not a lot of kewl powerz), they are more into logistical schemes and plans. For example, there were a pair of discussions last session, one about porting out their treasure haul (they decided to keep their load within weight tolerances, so they wouldn't be slowed down going home [shortage of rations, worries over wandering monsters and such]), the other about what to do with their haul when they got back (they have enough coin to become major players in their base town--they even talked about heading back to a natural rock/cave formation that would serve as an excellent base of operations, save for its remoteness from civilization).

Long story short: since they aren't aiming for the next power combination, they talked more about their campaign choices. Their actions. We still have a sort of meta-thread going on, but it is now secondary to the conceits of sandboxing. Since I can whip up things quickly and easily, not being constrained by encounter building and such, it's been much more rewarding for me personally as the GM. All this has come about because the system keeps the classes discrete and unique, and the numbers low (a 2d6 fireball spell is bad news to most things). This would have been impossible to figure out without playing the game. As someone who's hopped around a lot, I feel like I've finally lit on something that works for me. I will readily admit, however, the same style of play we're using is also easily doable with other, rules light systems.*


*For the record, we're running Dungeon World characters, with the Freebooters on the Frontier/Perilous Wilds moves. The characters basically have fixed HP (DW), and the healing is slow (Freebooters).  So everything can be dangerous to them, whatever their level. The (mostly) fixed HP's means Armor is more important, tactics are paramount, and proper logistics can save your ass (my God, rations actually mean something!).  I've damned near memorized monster creation, and where I haven't, I can just make it up. It's quite fun. Now, if I can just get our mage to agree to running the Freebooter's spell system...

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;912656Thanks for all the feedback forumites. A few notes, since I've derived a lot of what I need here from the responses, but I think the conversation could be worthwhile to others so I'll clarify a few things.

1) I've retooled 5E. I've explored alternate options. I certainly don't stick to the crappy, useless encounter building system (though I reference it here and there to let the players know what they're fighting). What I do find is that a group of 6th level heroes took down an Adult Black Dragon because they rolled lucky three times. The "rests" system is, imho, the worst part of the entire game. It destroys, utterly, any ability to challenge the heroes because all they have to do is take 5 and large swaths of abilities return. No, I'm done with 5E - it might be the game some people are looking for, it isn't for me. I've looked at altering how rests work, but an awful lot of abilities are tied to rests, and some are very useless if short rests are too long (like the alternate rests system suggested in the DMG). I've even noted that the characters lacking a need to ever "return to sanctuary" is in fact crushing the challenge of the entire game, they don't see it. They aren't looking. They love playing overpowered Mary Sues who tromp from one god kicking encounter to the next.

That's a you problem.  Has zero to do with the players or the system.  You just suck.
Use that tissue that rattles around inside your skull and think of other ways to challenge your players that doesn't involve hit point loss.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;9126562) I tried stepping down from DMing. Out of the group, one is a good DM, one has some DMing skills but tends to run lacklustre campaigns, and the others are younger and have no experience nor interest. It's just not the practical solution. The one who is a good DM is running a different game, and wants to play. I want to run a game, its where I have more fun to be honest.

No, you have the most fun running the system you popped your cherry on.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;9126563) I can't chuff my group off. Two of them are my own teenage sons, one is basically a brother to me, the other is one of my closest friends and my daughter. This does, indeed, completely alter the terms, but I didn't want the advice to focus on that point, so I committed it from the initial ask. Needless to say, I'm not "firing" that group. I am, however, going to just tell them what I'm running, and be as polite as possible in saying "this is the deal".

"Sons, I know you are having a blast playing in this campaign, but I, your father, am not.  So fuck you am I switching to what I find fun, deal with it."

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;9126564) I have run AD&D and have never found it, or OD&D, anywhere near as complex as 3rd, 4th or 5th edition. The amount of player options on a sheet at 10th level on the typical character sheet between the pre-3rd and post 3rd characters are significant. I actually find it difficult to plan for too many varied abilities, and while I do look at what players choose when they level up (and make suggestions on ones that make sense for the personality of the character and the saga), it's the player's character. They're just using what's available to them, and not breaking the system. My choice for AD&D is that I always find the mix in AD&D personally satisfying.

In other words you're fucking dumb.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;9126566) The reason this entire game hasn't already switched to something else is that the two mature members of the group have never shed their high school mentality of "play one character until it dies", and are very invested in their characters and the story of the game. This means they are always reticent to ever reboot a game, switch to s/e, or make alterations. This has the bonus of them being invested in a game, the downside being obvious. They also don't seem to get the campaigns come and go, and that (unlike high school gaming circles), adults need to be able to switch things up when things aren't fun.

So says the tool who finds enjoyment in only one game system.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;9126567) While I own a copy of all of the AD&D books, I stick to the core three. Period. I might drag in an option or two from UA, I would never use the classes from it. I also find it easier to "hack" AD&D, make my own classes, and even work with players to make a custom class. As Doom pointed out, the numbers are smaller, the choices are more finite and easier to gauge the outcomes of. I have seriously considered OD&D, and even bought the collectors box when it came out a few years back, but the game feels very unfinished. AD&D feels very complete, and there are a lot of classic modules I'd love to run for it.

My take away is that I need to just put my foot down, be honest with my friends (my sons don't have much choice). They enjoy my game a lot, and always enjoy my games. We mesh well together as a group, with only minor stylistic play style issues that creep out. 5E has just enhanced the issues that vex me the most, and delight my two fiends the best. It's amplifying the usually subtle disconnects in our play.

And now we know why you force your kids to play with you.

(Sommerjon is obviously using some of the techniques learned at Trump University. That was obviously $33,000 well spent!).:-)

No amount of tweaking is going to get you to enjoy 5E. So, bite the bullet and chuck it. Port their characters over. Give them some cool items. You might even find them a different GM if they want to continue with what they have. Then run what you want to run. It will feel a bit shitty because it's arbitrary, but, in the end, if you're running a better game, then the change will be worth it.

P.S. I can actually empathize. I had a similar experience with 4E. Had to give it a shot to see how it played. Seemed like the players were good with it, overall. But one too many sessions of the Gnome's "I DETECT ALL MAGIC ALL THE TIME!", those scaling skills, that board gamey feel, and, finally, that session-long single combat encounter where everyone felt tired at the end...and that was it. I wasn't spending another 4 hours of real time simulating 5 minutes of campaign time. Blew that game right up. Bye. Some left, some stayed. And that was fine with me, man. I guess that was a dick move, but seeing as how I'm the one who's organized every single group I've played here in small town America, I felt like I was entitled to run the system I wanted to run. My mistake was not announcing from the get go that I'd never played it, wanted to see how it went, and reserved the right to toss it. I think that would've helped. Not sure how the players would've reacted to that, but at least they would've been forewarned.

If you wanted to have a conversation about 5e techniques and tricks, specific pitfalls to avoid or "How should I houserule Power X", then there's probably a lot of people to help.

People are right in that AD&D does have even more "I Win" buttons than 5e.  However, in 5e, it's all baked into the classes.  With AD&D it's built into the magic items and the spells.  If you stay RAW on spell learning and acquisition, and don't go crazy with handing out magic items, you have way more control.

If I'm reading you right, you're aware that AD&D has problems, it's just that you know how to fix AD&D's problems and you don't know how to fix 5e's problems and you're tired of trying.  Or that you know how to deal with your group in AD&D, where in 5e, they are curbstomping you.  Fair enough, a man's got to know his limitations.

You can't stand GMing something anymore and are having no fun, then that is what it is.  

I'm not going to suggest 5e changes, because to your group, they would amount to a Nerf.

Personally, I wouldn't convert, either, because then you have to deal with the "I used to be like X and now I'm Y." syndrome.  You know your players, so I'll ask you a question.

Do they like the setting?  Are they in it for the NPCs, the world, the work you've put into it?  Or are they in it for the system, the widgets, the interaction of powers, the builds, the kicking the living shit out of everything?

Have you ever played any other RPGs with this group?  If so, what do they like, what do they hate?

With two good friends and three offspring, you obviously have players who care about YOU more than your role as entertaining screenmonkey.

Know the feeling. I like 5e. One of the players and the group he wants me to DM for doesnt because he cant char-op min-max with it and wants to go to 3e and because that group prefers 3e. Im not overly fond of 3e. Or more aptly. Just totally disinterested in it.

Let all the PC abilities also be allowed to the NPCs. Sure, it can be a bookkeeping headache. But when your players know the entire town has access to everything you can do, and possibly even better, then you start to pick your battles.

Overwhelming numbers kill. I never run "0th level commoners" as NPC statlines.