this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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Are you asking which edition is the best one? You'll probably get some heated responses (and I'm gonna get some too for my recommendation) but I think 5e is the best one to adapt to a videogame. The system is pretty "dumbed down" for lack of a better term than what I've seen of other systems.
Disclaimer, I'm a brand new DM and only have in-game experience with 5e, but I've tried looking through some older editions, and maybe Baldurs Gate is to blame but none of them really made much sense to me.
Imo 4e is far and away the most analogous edition to a video game and it’s not close. That’s why a lot of longtime dnd players found the shift so jarring. It forewent a lot of the more RP and theater-of-the-mind focused parts of combat in particular and integrated systems that were inspired by tabletop war and tactics games. From a pure mechanics perspective, it was awesome and there was a lot to grab on to and really strategize/min-max. Some people didn’t like the trade-offs though. I think it is the most video game like in its core systems.
Pathfinder 2e has a lot of 4e DNA in it, and I routinely see people treating significant swaths of it as if it's a video game. Which, as a PF2e GM and player, is bizarre to me. People talk about playing it as if they're just exposing the mechanics to the air.
But if I was going to make a video game, 4e/PF2e are absolutely what I'd base the mechanics around. They're pretty tight systems, mechanically.
Pf is my vote. Love it.
I'll have to look into 4e then, I've only really tried looking at 5e, 3.5e, and 2e (whatever that was called). Honestly now that I'm thinking about it I don't know that I've heard people ever talk about 4e. Sounds interesting, though.
Yeah it’s a bit of red-headed step child. There’s some pretty cool mechanical stuff in there though.
I've played and DMed all but 4E, and 5E is easily the most accessible version I've played. I agree, though; 5E with some tweaks works very well as a video game. 3.5E, as much as I love it, can get incredibly complex very quickly. AD&D is, putting it kindly, a shitshow. The system is needlessly complex and convoluted.
Thank you! I actually thought the 5(e?) would be more complicated(and on a side note, the 2.5 more like). So thanks for simplify that for me!
No problem. Like I said, there are probably a lot of people that would disagree with me, but 5e seems to make the most logical sense to me. Once you understand the very core concepts, you can more or less figure everything out from there. There's a lot of niche rules, but if you are just making your own game based on 5e, you can decide what you like and don't like.
Oh hey, I want to message you again in case you did not know. Most, if not all, of the DnD handbooks can be found very easily for free online. The physical books, if bought new, are very expensive, especially if you are not interested in actually playing the game. But all of the rules and information you need, you can search and find very easy.
Yes smart move! I'll check out the 2, 5 and the 3 :-)
Nice! When you check them out, don't be intimidated by the lengths of the books. I don't know what other edition books look like, but the 5e player handbook is SUPER long, but most of the book is covering things like class abilities and spells. The actual rules of the game is a very short section at the beginning and middle of the book.
Thanks for the encouraging words, I'll dig in soon :-)