Maybe i'm just bourning out, i dont know.
Lately i'm switching to a new RPG game, Symbaroum. For now i just read the core rulebook and so far I like it very much.
Well I thought a lot about the reason i'm starting to prefer symbaroum to D&D.
I'm not here to convince you to play this system, but I want your opinion on my problems with D&D.
Let me start off by saying I LOVE D&D. I truly love it. But lately i'm thinking that it is a mess.
Well actually there are a lot of problems with D&D (for what concerns me).
I'll make a short list here:
1) the ruleset is quite complex. I play (and played) D&D 3.0, 3.5 and 4e. Lately i'm taking a look at 5e. The problem with those system is that they are really rule heavy (4e and 5e tried to take a step back from rules, but still heavy imho, maybe with 5e we are going in the right direction). Even if I play D&D since I was 10 (now i'm 24) I still do not remember all the rules (I admit that when i used to play only one version of the system for a long time i almost knew all the rules in the book, but now i'm playing various system and edition so my brain started to mess things up).
2) Too much material. I mean, look at ravenloft. There are plenty of books that say the same thing over and over, and often I find my self looking for a single rule and i have to go through various book before i find answers. Me and my player are not english, and most of my player mostly use classic D&D material rather than material from ravenloft books. I struggle to use all the rules and the variations from ravenloft material. I try my best but i find that things like "Horror, fear and madness check" doesnt make the game cooler, for my group they are just a debuff for the players who are forced to act like crazy/scary/horrified. Maybe it's also my player's fault since I often have to state that their PC act in a certain way, expecially with failed horror check, where they tend to act normally even if they should act shocked.
3) D&D is so big and dispersive. I like the variety of monster, classes etc. But this maybe is too much. I also dont like at all the power playing component that come after that.
4) I love ravenloft, but it needs a lot of adjustment. A lot of Ravenloft interesting material are from 2e, and they have never been converted. This means a lot of work for the DM. I personally spend something like 4-8 hour on preparing each session, gathering information for monster, and expecially build spell casting enemies. In particular when I have to convert/reinvent some pre-generated spell caster enemy from a previous version (the most recent i've done is Isu from Touch of Death, she took me about 2 hours of searching to be converted in 3.5e).
I really like and apreciate the QtR zine, I also used- and took ispiration from- some of the ideas and concept in them, but that adds up to the bunch of material i'd like to work on.
I wish that ravenloft had his own system with all the material converted for the same unique system.
I'd really like to be able to merge all this stuff toghether and make it work, but from my perspective often it look like a mess. Maybe it's just my problem, but i dont know what to do.
As I said in the beginning i'm reading this system named symbaroum. It is simple. One single book for player, DM and setting, all in one. It's not a gigantic world. the map actually is quite small (the game states you can play outside this map and add your own content to the game ofc) but it is well detailed and it has some(really a few) expansion book which get more into detail for specific areas.
Now that i almost finished reading the system I realized that it is really a simple system, nothing new Tbh, just simple. That will allow me to focus on the story, on the events in game (DM doesnt even have to roll dice, and just to let you know I will miss rolling dices).
In D&D I spend a lot of time to build encounters, and I found myself without time to work on the plot, on the adventure itself. Also the symbaroum's system looks much more "balanced". Powerplaying is really low, if there is any. The game let players to play the way they want (there are no classes, and you chose the ability of your hero as you prefer to build your own concepts - Even if there are classic archetypes to give your character a standard route - warrior, duelist, rogue, etc- you are not forced to follow those standards.), but they are all quite balanced, there is no OP mages/clerics. In d&D everybody knows the Tier list and the power of spellcasters.
Another problem i'm facing is that I'm following canon adventure for Hexad (with revised timeline). So far I find the adventures boring. My player told me they are liking it, but I do not, and honestly I dont get how they like it, Maybe it's the flavour stuff i'm putting in every single session. The plot is quite simple without any kind of twist (at least for now). I understand that for the player it's interesting since they dont know what is going to happen, but it should be interesting for me aswell, even if I know what is going to happen. I'm playing touch of death at the moment and I find it boring as hell. I do not like the way it is, I do not like the enemies, nor I do like Npcs or encounters in general. The only NPC i actually like is ABU RATEP, that I hope my players will keep with them as esquire. Also the fact that Hexad force the players to travel this much doesnt allow them to get any contact, make any friend or foes at all. I'm seriously thinking about forcing all the event from the hexad in Darkon and play the rest of the adventure in it.
So far I noticed that the adventures are quite repetitive. There is always (for now at least) those vistani in troubles, PC must help them, the vistani read cards or do some gipsy stuff and get the players to a place where something strange (always involving murders or missing people) is happening. Wao. What a coincidence. Sorry, i'm a little pissed at the moment since the more I think about this and the more it annoys me . Fun fact is my player actually enjoy the adventure even though it is almost the copy-paste of NOTWD with different enemies and different NPC, but the base of the adventure is almost the same. Someone is kidnapping people to make them zombie to rule the region (even though i flavored Notwd in a different way since i already knew that those two adventure were identical.
Also i'd like to re-write all the hexad to fit my taste but the fact that I need to convert the enemies, traps and encounter in general from 2e to 3.5 usually steal me so much time that I do not have any time to adjust the plot in any way.
Probably one of my biggest problem is that player cannot feel at home anywhere in my campaign cause they know they will travel a lot and they will not have the chance to make friends and ally.
I cannot give them lands or title, nor I can build a politic intrigue of some sort because they will not have any time to discover it since after they defeat the big bad guy they will most likely left the domain.
I'd like to settle the adventures in Darkon, with very few travel here and there in the core during the campaign, but i'd like that they make Darkon their home. I know that next adventures will be feast of goblyns, Ship of horror, from the shadow and roots of evil, and only the latter are from darkon and barovia.
I'll keep my ravenloft campaign while i start this new with symbaroum for now, and we will play them in parallel. I hope I can find a solution for my problems. If you have any suggestiong i will gladly take note of them.
I'm really not for dropping ravenloft because i 've put so much effort in my campaign it would hurt me a lot if I drop it forever, but as it is right now is just a mess.
thanks in advance and sorry if I complained to much in this post ^^
Edit: I know that this post has no real direct question in it, and it looks more like an outburst, but i'm a little confused on my campaign at the moment and I hope any of you will be capable of landing some magic words to calm my mind and allow me to reorder my thoughts. I'd like to know if any of you ever felt like this and if any of you see those problems aswell.