10 ms·

D&D is a really bad game for playing straight, gritty, serious. Older editions like 2e are good at it, but 3.5,4,5e are all really bad. Its much better to play

• dragonwriter 4y ago
  > D&D is a really bad game for playing straight, gritty, serious. Compared to the best non-D&D TTRPGs for that mode, sure. > Older editions like 2e are good at it, but 3.5,4,5e are all really bad. If I was going to run straight, gritty, serious out of the core books with no house rules but only rules options in the core, 5e would by far be my choice, whereas 2e would probably be the last choice (though, if I broadened it to all official first-party sourcebooks, 2e might move up to second place, with some of the historical sourcebooks and, IIRC, some options in the late 2e era DM’s Option and Player’s Option rulebooks.) (In 5e, the combination of the longer-time options for short/long rest plus not underusing exhaustion is a big push, mechanically, toward gritty play.) I mean, I’d prefer to just use GURPS for that, but its easier to find players (even for that style) for D&D.