Why the hate on 5e?

[Safety Sword]

So in conclusion, your honour, don't play with jerks and don't be one.

All editions of D&D can be great depending on if you personally like them and have a nice bunch of people to play with.

The defence rests.

[KorvinStarmast]

So in conclusion, your honour, don't play with jerks and don't be one.

All editions of D&D can be great depending on if you personally like them and have a nice bunch of people to play with. The defence rests.

I am intrigued by your answer and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Safety Sword]

I am intrigued by your answer and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I don't have time for a newsletter.

I'm too busy having a life and running a D&D campaign with 9 players...

And get off my lawn!

[EggKookoo]

Don't worry, when 6e eventually comes out we 5e-players can gang up on it.

[Toadkiller]

It basically comes down to the idea that some people like to be mean. The DM in the OP didn’t have a different venue available so he decided to mar both and the poster’s recreational time by being mean. Which sucks. Hopefully he also found it to be not-fun and won’t do it again.

The system is just rules. The whole point is to have fun.

[Sigreid]

Never had that problem, but even so, a DM who says no to official classes published by WoTC is an extreme no DM. Probably not a table I'd sit at anyways.

Not necessarily. I don't think it's an extreme no DM to say "I don't want firearms in my game" for example. Any more than it would be an extreme no DM to say "Um, no. You can't have the spell for the Rain of colorless fire in my campaign world. I'm not interested in you burning the whole thing, and yourself to the ground".

Now if they are saying no to all the options, then the DM may be the too controlling type.

[HappyDaze]

Not necessarily. I don't think it's an extreme no DM to say "I don't want firearms in my game" for example. Any more than it would be an extreme no DM to say "Um, no. You can't have the spell for the Rain of colorless fire in my campaign world. I'm not interested in you burning the whole thing, and yourself to the ground".

Now if they are saying no to all the options, then the DM may be the too controlling type.

I have decided that I do not want dragonborn or tiefling PCs in my 5e Greyhawk game. I am also not allow dark elf PCs and the rest of the racial options are as set in the PHB (options from other books are not available at the start of play but may become available if the campaign makes them so). This might be seen as controlling, and I'm OK with that descriptor.

[Arkhios]

I have decided that I do not want dragonborn or tiefling PCs in my 5e Greyhawk game. I am also not allow dark elf PCs and the rest of the racial options are as set in the PHB (options from other books are not available at the start of play but may become available if the campaign makes them so). This might be seen as controlling, and I'm OK with that descriptor.

I don't want to derail the thread, but I have to say I agree on the sentiment. If I had my way, I wouldn't allow dragonborn anywhere. Ever since 4th edition I've felt adding the race was redundant. Technically I have nothing against Tieflings, but I can understand the wish not to allow them. Likewise, Drow often come with a heavy baggage. In most settings, and Greyhawk's not any different, drow are thoroughly evil, elves or not, and should remain as "monsters".

In any case: your game, your rules. Even if the campaign is set in a world that has those races, the campaign might be set in a corner of that world where those races are uncommon, rare or entirely alien to the region. You might seem like overly controlling, but if a rules element doesn't fit into your vision of the campaign, then it doesn't. Period.

[Aergentum]

Here's a question: is the owner of the club (with whom you enjoyed a nice conversation) and the DM the same person? Or did the owner get someone else in to run the game?

Because I think it's fair to say you won't be joining this game again. If you still plan to, please don't. The toxicity will get worse, not better.

No, the DM was another guy, not the owner. The club is pretty far away from where I live, but close to where I work, so I will check it out on fridays, but I don't expect to go there midweek or weekend.

[Foff]

DM: "So? Are these sheets ready?"
AG: "Not yet, 3.5 it's a little different from the 5th and I'm having issues with ability scores and abilities..."
DM: "Oh, so you're a 5th player..."
AG: "Yes, is there a problem with it? I'm fine with playing this one shot with the 3.5"
DM: "Yeah but, you play that ****ty edition, so you're not a good player."
AG: "We'll see about that..."

We finished the sheets and started the game. We got our asses roeasted by the DM who claimed it was because we couldn't play properly due to our background as a 5th player.

This sounds to me much like the kind of behaviour i used to experience in the League of Legends community, which was at the time (and may still be) one if not the most toxic online community out there. It's the kind of talk i would expect to Hear from a child who wants everyone to play with the same toys as him.

Pay It no mind at all, he Is most likely a troll feeding on everybody else's misery.
Leave the table, play your own Fair game elsewhere and notify the organisers of the event of this person's disruptive behaviour

[EggKookoo]

I have decided that I do not want dragonborn or tiefling PCs in my 5e Greyhawk game. I am also not allow dark elf PCs and the rest of the racial options are as set in the PHB (options from other books are not available at the start of play but may become available if the campaign makes them so). This might be seen as controlling, and I'm OK with that descriptor.

Agreed, there's nothing wrong with customizing your setting. In fact I'd be happier playing in a setting where the DM made some changes than in one that allows every RAW thing. I feel like the former DM has a stronger vision for their setting.

[KorvinStarmast]

And get off my lawn!

Hey, that's my line!

This sounds to me much like the kind of behaviour i used to experience in the League of Legends community, which was at the time (and may still be) one if not the most toxic online community out there.

Yeah, Riot had an uphill battle with the hostility on line. I hope it has improved, but it's been a few years since I played.

[GreyBlack]

Sunday evening I went to an opening event for a Tabletop Games Social Club with my girlfriend and an other firend. We had fun chatting with the owner of the club and other people, then we agreed to play a one shot with them.
It's been ages since I last played a 3.5 game and I didn't remember at all how different it was from the 5th, and the other friend had actually no experience with 3.5. Making the character sheets took too much and the master got upset and asked us if anything was wrong with it.

DM: "So? Are these sheets ready?"
AG: "Not yet, 3.5 it's a little different from the 5th and I'm having issues with ability scores and abilities..."
DM: "Oh, so you're a 5th player..."
AG: "Yes, is there a problem with it? I'm fine with playing this one shot with the 3.5"
DM: "Yeah but, you play that ****ty edition, so you're not a good player."
AG: "We'll see about that..."

We finished the sheets and started the game. We got our asses roeasted by the DM who claimed it was because we couldn't play properly due to our background as a 5th player.
I didn't got mad about it, but I felt hurt. I really enjoyed 3.5 in the past, but now I'd rather play with the 5th because I find it easyer to master the games, and as a player I have more fun than I had in the past.

I really don't get why the hate on the 5th edition. I'm not saying one is better than the other, they are different editions with different focus, but it hutrs to be labeled as an incompetent player just because I play another edition.

Because 5e is... let's put this delicately.

5e is not a complex system. It is not a hard system, and it's not nearly simulationist for some. Without being degrading about it, I tend to call 5e an excellent "baby's first RPG," because it's a great way to get your feet wet and discover what parts of the RPG experience you enjoy without having to get bogged down in the parts you don't.

By comparison, 3.x and its ilk tend to be far harder (on Moh's scale of RPG hardness, not in difficulty) a system than 5e, with significantly more varied options and many, many more rules in place. It's not as free wheeling as 5e and less reliant on DM rulings than other, softer adventures. It also can more exactly emulate the type of character you want to play, rather than the fairly arch 5e characters; 2 Devotion paladins will tend to play similarly, while 2 paladins in 3.x are going to vary wildly depending on prestige classes, feats, and other character options.

That type of game tends to be for people who want huge amounts of character customization to mimic a really specific type of character. When players like that look at the, let's be honest, rather pithy customization offerings in 5e, they're going to be horrified and mock 5e for not being their game. So the problem is not that 5e is a bad system; it's just lacking what 3.x players want in their design philosophy.

[KorvinStarmast]

5e is not a complex system.

I snipped the rest of your post, but it's a good one. Nice job.

IMO, the core issue with 3.x and its "barrier to entry" rests on Monte Cook's belief in System Mastery as a virtue (and as an old AD&D player, I see where he is coming from on that). The unfortunate existence of "trap options." (I won't discuss balance, but that is related) almost requires system mastery, or so it seems.

I think 4e tried initially to clean up a lot of that (I'll let 4e experts elaborate on that if they'd like) which led eventually to the 4e D&D Essentials release. But at this point they were (I think) realizing that TSR had a good idea that they'd overlooked.

The original "reduce barrier to entry" effort in original D&D Basic (Holmes), and the follow on Cook/Moldvay B/X game, early 80's, was a big success in getting new players into the game. AD&D 2e never bothered with that; it seems that the AD&D branch at TSR saw BECMI as "entry level D&D" - which brings to what I think was a mistake that WoTC made. In unifying the brand with D&D (folding AD&D 2 and BECMI together, and making a bunch of (IMO) excellent organizational changes overall) they lost out on the "remove barrier to entry" success that B/X and BECMI had created as its own family of game products.

5e succeeds at "lower barrier to entry" as a whole system and "allows optional rules" to open up the "make it as complex as you like" to option: which is an appeal to the system mastery folks. That latter effort I am sure - "systems mastery light" if you will - has not pleased any number of 3.x fans who love the system mastery element of D&D. (I get the appeal. It's a great way to geek out! )
Pathfinder is also a fine option for those whose passion for a system-mastery style game is a motivator to play.

When you try to be all things to all people, as 5e tries to be in the WoTC "unify the player base" goal, there are bound to be some folks who will not care for that. Which is understandable.

What isn't helpful is the chip on the shoulder that the OP described the DM as having.

[Max_Killjoy]

Sunday evening I went to an opening event for a Tabletop Games Social Club with my girlfriend and an other firend. We had fun chatting with the owner of the club and other people, then we agreed to play a one shot with them.
It's been ages since I last played a 3.5 game and I didn't remember at all how different it was from the 5th, and the other friend had actually no experience with 3.5. Making the character sheets took too much and the master got upset and asked us if anything was wrong with it.

DM: "So? Are these sheets ready?"
AG: "Not yet, 3.5 it's a little different from the 5th and I'm having issues with ability scores and abilities..."
DM: "Oh, so you're a 5th player..."
AG: "Yes, is there a problem with it? I'm fine with playing this one shot with the 3.5"
DM: "Yeah but, you play that ****ty edition, so you're not a good player."
AG: "We'll see about that..."

We finished the sheets and started the game. We got our asses roeasted by the DM who claimed it was because we couldn't play properly due to our background as a 5th player.
I didn't got mad about it, but I felt hurt. I really enjoyed 3.5 in the past, but now I'd rather play with the 5th because I find it easyer to master the games, and as a player I have more fun than I had in the past.

I really don't get why the hate on the 5th edition. I'm not saying one is better than the other, they are different editions with different focus, but it hutrs to be labeled as an incompetent player just because I play another edition.

That's just the DM being a tool. Some people are simply looking for an excuse to be tools.

[stoutstien]

Because 5e is... let's put this delicately.

5e is not a complex system. It is not a hard system, and it's not nearly simulationist for some. Without being degrading about it, I tend to call 5e an excellent "baby's first RPG," because it's a great way to get your feet wet and discover what parts of the RPG experience you enjoy without having to get bogged down in the parts you don't.

By comparison, 3.x and its ilk tend to be far harder (on Moh's scale of RPG hardness, not in difficulty) a system than 5e, with significantly more varied options and many, many more rules in place. It's not as free wheeling as 5e and less reliant on DM rulings than other, softer adventures. It also can more exactly emulate the type of character you want to play, rather than the fairly arch 5e characters; 2 Devotion paladins will tend to play similarly, while 2 paladins in 3.x are going to vary wildly depending on prestige classes, feats, and other character options.

That type of game tends to be for people who want huge amounts of character customization to mimic a really specific type of character. When players like that look at the, let's be honest, rather pithy customization offerings in 5e, they're going to be horrified and mock 5e for not being their game. So the problem is not that 5e is a bad system; it's just lacking what 3.x players want in their design philosophy.

To counter this point 3.X has a lot of bad/trap options available. A player has to almost reverse-engineer their entire character plan from top to bottom to make sure they don't make a poor choice somewhere along the line and lock themselves into a useless character where it's a challenge to make a bad character in 5e.
I play and run both games and I'd say I see way more variety of builds in 5e than 3.x.
Using your devotion Paladin example: in 5e you can have two players with the same subclass have entirely different characters with little to no thought where in 3.x, excluding free casting crusader cheese, there are few ways to built paladin's that aren't going to completely fall off at one point or another.

you just can't have the number of options that ended up occurring in the system and have a balanced game. It doesn't matter if you have 10,000 options if only 12 of them are good.

[KorvinStarmast]

you just can't have the number of options that ended up occurring in the system and have a balanced game. It doesn't matter if you have 10,000 options if only 12 of them are good.

Nicely said. But isn't that why the E6 movement started?

[Great Dragon]

I'm lucky in that I rarely encounter rude Elitist Gamers.
I've played almost every D&D Edition, and for me each stands on its own merit.

@Mordaedil: As a Friendly Grognard, I tend to think that it is more the fact that an older edition is prefered over a newer one that makes one a Grognard.

As Safety Swordstated: Elitist attitudes have always been a problem with D&D (and some of the more Number/Rule based tRPGs) and a**hats are just that.

Honestly, I DMed 3.5 D&D and it was my favorite Edition until 5e came along.
But, yeah - it’s been over 10 years since I really did this (no players from 2008-2015) so I’m very rusty at doing this edition.

No offense to those that liked 4e, but doing a tMMO wasn’t my thing.
Though 4e does have some interesting Class abilities that maybe someday I’ll get around to figuring out how to put into 5e.

Heck, while I’m most likely going to complain in true Grognard style when 6e comes along, I’m still going to check it out.

My own subjective view is that a "good player" is a person who's fun to play with. Since it's a roleplaying game, this has more to do with whether they are fun to interact with at your table, than with their strategic prowess or thespian prowess. Someone could be good at tactics, or roleplaying, or funny voices, or at bringing snacks and cracking lame puns but that doesn't automatically make them good or bad at DnD.

If the DM wanted a strategic mastermind running off years of fresh experience in 3.5, then he probably should have sculpted his table to match, or matched his expectations to the table. Either way he could have engaged with the players in front of him without being such an jerk.

Nicely Put. On both parts.

@Zerubbabel : sure the DM is allowed his opinion, but his attitude still needs adjustment, for the sake of the continuation of the game.
Remember - It wasn’t just the Satanic Panic that nearly killed D&D 2e, folks. It was too many Elitist jerks that was the true problem.

@Evil DM Mark3 I always teased those THACo guys that their skills never really changed, despite their Level.
- I don’t have any exp with Pathfinder - mostly due to not having anyone to play with - see above.
PF 2e seems ok.

@Jerrykhor Those 3x Gatekeepers aren’t alone. I still find Gatekeepers for AD&D and even all the way back to Classic D&D (And Retro Clones).

78% of DM's started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.

Where did you start yours?

OmG! Um…..This won’t fit in my Sig - but IiRC I started them out running from a 2e Orc Horde.

@Corsair14 While I like the new extra Races in both Volo’s and Mord’s, and the Subclass options from Xan’s Guide - I’m seeing more and more “splat books” coming out for 5e. Planes Walk and Ravica that blends D&D with 5e. Kalashtar Bear Barbarian anyone?
(I made Mr T with the attitude of Lobo for a villian!!)

@Arkhios “Elitist Grognards” is a term for them I can accept.

BloodSnake'sCha “I do think that 3.5e is better because it looks to me that 5e have no real customisation(personal feel).”
I like trying to make both 3x Class and Prestige Classes into 5e Subclasses.
Lot of interesting stuff.

MarkVIIIMarc “it could be because of the Big Bang Theory guys or something but 5e is LOVED more…”
That, plus The Matt Mercer Effect from Critical Roll, boosted by Acquisitions Inc and even showboated on Stranger Things. Heck, even Rick and Morty are on the Boat.

Am I the only one that wanted signatures from Dave Arneson?
Sure, I respect EGG, but he didn’t build the game alone.

(Yes, I often refer to myself in the third person. We likes it!)
I had to stop at post #41 (Witty Username) due to eye strain.
I’ll be back later to add more.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well, that and the fact that 5E's ruleset doesn't really support non-combat activities like politics, at any level of detail beyond the DM basically winging it. I'm going to go ahead and quote Justin Alexander's analogy here:

To understand what I mean by that, consider a game which says: “Here are a half dozen fighting-related skills (Melee Weapons, Brawling, Shooting, Dodging, Parrying, Armor Use) and here are some rules for making skill checks.”

If you got into a fight in that game, how would you resolve it?

We’ve all been conditioned to expect a combat system in our RPGs. But what if your RPG didn’t have a combat system? It would be up to the GM and the players to figure out how to use those skills to resolve the fight. They’d be left with the heavy lifting.

And when it comes to the vast majority of RPGs, that’s largely what you have: Skill resolution and a combat system. (Science fiction games tend to pick up a couple of additional systems for hacking, starship combat, and the like. Horror games often have some form of Sanity/Terror mechanic derived from Call of Cthulhu.)

So when it comes to anything other than combat — heists, mercantile trading, exploration, investigation, con artistry, etc. — most RPGs leave you to do the heavy lifting again: Here are some skills. Figure it out.

More here: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress...system-matters

My gut reaction to that is that compared to politics, socializing, investigation, cons and heists, etc... combat is simple, and simple things are easier to create at least decent rules for. I know a lot of people will disagree about simplicity there, but to me there's no question. The number of variables and data points for combat is lower.

And over the too-many-decades of gaming and reading through game systems, I've found a lot of games that try very hard to give other aspects of the characters' experience the same level of treatment as combat, and fall down. It ends up either feeling really klunky, or feels like everything is just following the dice around with little role-playing... or runs into the problem of "social combat", treating every social encounter as adversarial, win-lose, attrition.

So "just add more mechanics" is to me a non-trivial problem, it can't just be reskinned combat or grossly simplistic.

That said, 5e also largely falls down in terms of Skills, making skill-based or knowledge-based characters, etc. Instead of trying, it appears to barely try at all.

[Reevh]

I don't have time for a newsletter.

I'm too busy having a life and running a D&D campaign with 9 players...

And get off my lawn!

Holy ****, 9 players? How the hell?

[KorvinStarmast]

Am I the only one that wanted signatures from Dave Arneson?
Sure, I respect EGG, but he didn’t build the game alone.

But he got it published, which DA wasn't organized enough to do, for all of his remarkable talents.

My gut reaction to that is that compared to politics, socializing, investigation, cons and heists, etc... combat is simple, and simple things are easier to create at least decent rules for. I know people a lot of people will disagree about simplicity there, but to me there's no question. The number of variables and data points for combat is lower.

Yes. IME: role play is a thing that you get better at the more you do it.

I still have a hard time grokking the "but I have poor social skills, I am not good at role play" complaint.
Uh, try it, and like the rest of us, trip now and again, fall down, then get up and try again. If you are in a good group, we'll all have fun doing it.

Mike Mornard had a great post at one of the grognardish forums about just that thing: role playing itself grew from play in general. He pointed out that a lot of the original fanatics for RPGs (D&D, EPT, TNT, etc) had already played games like Diplomacy which are all role playing and no dice.

Hence the "who needs dice to role play?" response once we begin to see the numerization of social skills and social interactions.

I still feel that way most of the time. The only dice I roll as a DM is the reaction dice for the NPC, and I only do that if I am not sure how the NPC feels about the situation. Usually, I already have an idea so no dice are needed.

[stoutstien]

Nicely said. But isn't that why the E6 movement started?

I've played, but never ran a game using it so no idea on the overall impact. It would seem to help.

I also just got my copy of Pathfinder 2E in from the local. It seems like they adressed a lot of the issues but I'm already seeing clear winners and losers for options.

I think at the heart of it the bones of 5th edition is better(action resolution is pretty much the same which makes game play smoother) where 3.5 has a better grasp of providing a better feel for encounter preparation( 5e really is a big stinker here) and character development.

A good game system is taking from everything and fitting it to each individual group. Most of my games use elements from 3 or more systems. trying to write a universally-accepted perfect system is a fool's errand but it's a fun ride.

[KorvinStarmast]

Holy ****, 9 players? How the hell?

not that hard. We did it all the time in Old D&D and AD&D 1e days. The key is to keep the pace of play moving.
Be ready when it's your turn. That is the core responsibility of the player. If you aren't ready when it's yoru turn, you get to pass / dodge / defend and the action passes to the next player.

[stoutstien]

not that hard. We did it all the time in Old D&D and AD&D 1e days. The key is to keep the pace of play moving.
Be ready when it's your turn. That is the core responsibility of the player. If you aren't ready when it's yoru turn, you get to pass / dodge / defend and the action passes to the next player.

Agreed. definitely something that takes a little bit of practice to get used to but the number of players isn't a big factor once you get a groove going. it's having a table big enough and running out of food early.

[EggKookoo]

That type of game tends to be for people who want huge amounts of character customization to mimic a really specific type of character. When players like that look at the, let's be honest, rather pithy customization offerings in 5e, they're going to be horrified and mock 5e for not being their game. So the problem is not that 5e is a bad system; it's just lacking what 3.x players want in their design philosophy.

While this isn't false, really a lot of hate for 5e just comes from it being the new kid. People hated 3e when it came out because it wasn't 2e.

Also, 5e is coming at a time of a resurgence in D&D popularity (and by some assessments is a contributing factor to that resurgence). It ruffles feathers of some older edition fans. Especially since 5e's central philosophy can be interpreted as a refutation of 3e's and a kind of soft reinforcement of 2e's. Adding insult to injury is that most people agree that 4e did nothing to knock 3e off its perch, whereas Pathfinder could be seen as supporting it. 5e is the first edition to really consign 3e to the past.

If you came to D&D with 3e, it can feel like what you like about the game is being retroactively invalidated.

[JackPhoenix]

That's the problem, it's just not as fun. Its extremely pigeon-holed. It's settling. An eye of gruumsh is fun because of their third eye prophetic powers, a witch is fun because of its ability to summon and possess, a virtuoso is fun because of its dialogue based spell like effects (such as making everyone a racist).

You can drink diet Coke and call it coke, but it's just not going to work for people who love Coke and hate diet

That being said I currently play 5e exclusively but would love to find a 3.5 group.

So you are not after archetypes, but about specific mechanics you wouldn't even think of if the classes with those specific mechanics weren't created in the first place. Well, obviously game that uses different mechanics won't replicate that.

[ZorroGames]

The only posing I do is with my Gygax-signed copy of Chainmail.

Yeah, man! I remember when the Greyhawk paperback supplement to the the “Three Booklets” came out and used a D20 system instead of the Chainmail system. Heretics!.

Then the ultimate abomination was AD&D (there was no first edition initially because Second Edition AD&D had not been spawned in Hell yet.)

All of the above is said in fun of course. I love 5e because it isn’t requiring hours of prep to DM and because of portability for AL gaming. If I had the time (Wife, Wargaming, Dog crimp my FRPG time,) I probably would home brew my own world and use modified 5e rules with Feats and MCing included just because I enjoy the wide open world potential I found in 0D&D that 5e has the potential to be.

Play Nice, Have Fun.

[ZorroGames]

not that hard. We did it all the time in Old D&D and AD&D 1e days. The key is to keep the pace of play moving.
Be ready when it's your turn. That is the core responsibility of the player. If you aren't ready when it's yoru turn, you get to pass / dodge / defend and the action passes to the next player.

Right.

My max was two sessions of 20 (3 generations one family) for a couple of games before some players discovered LARP and I announced I was moving next month. But you need great players for that to really work and lots of prep time for the DM.

Never again. Maybe 7 if all experienced or fellow players guiding newbies. 9 “doable” with 5e but that was as a player so...

[prabe]

If you came to D&D with 3e, it can feel like what you like about the game is being retroactively invalidated.

Indeed, this was my initial experience with 3E (I remember throwing the PHB across the room when I first read it). I ended up playing a lot of 3E and 3.5 and Pathfinder over the years.

I picked up 5E late, for complicated reasons, and it more or less just clicked for me. For the most part, the system does what I expect it to, and it's streamlined enough that I can run two campaigns (with 6-player tables) without it taking up all my time and brainspace.

I suspect that in addition to the ... reluctance to abandon a game one knows well, many of the people who dump on 5E don't see bounded accuracy as a fix (probably because they don't see the disparity in bonuses in 3.Pathfinder as a bug). As someone who's played in a party where the Perception bonuses ranged from +1 to >+30, I am inclined to disagree with that, but YMMV.

[Willie the Duck]

To the OP -- there's a meme floating around of Lisa Simpson in front of a Power Point-like presentation, stating, "hating something popular does not make you an interesting person." I don't know if it's part of an actual show, or a text-swap, but it seems appropriate to the situation.

And my EGG signed copies of the three little brown books ... and Greyhawk ... Well said.

Heck, Rob Kuntz, Ernie Gygax, and Mike Mornard are still alive and present on the internet. There are people out there who not only are so hipster they have the shirts showing they were at concerts before the band got famous, but have documented evidence that they were there when the members said, 'hey, let's start a band.'

About grognards: it's about being old and complaining. It's not necessarily about hating new editions. (look up the etymology of the term).

One thing that I didn't realize until I hit middle age (recently... well, somewhat recently... well, I remember it happening... okay, I remember this about when it happened...) is that you really do feel resentful that you and your interests* are no longer considered pertinent, relevant, and primary. When you realize that your not even in advertisers preferred demographics, it genuinely hurts. And every generation seems to react in the same way -- trying to make diminutive the likes, accomplishments, or traits of the upcoming generations. This is the same reason that people who have no children keep talking about 'kids these days' and re-sharing amongst themselves articles which support that narrative.
*and/or your parents' interests. I still want the 1960s to be a decade or so ago, and 'oldies' stations to be playing 'Rock Around the Clock,' and some of that actually hits home harder than my own stuff being outdated.

Yeah, sounds like you dealt with a butthead. It's totally fine to prefer 3.5 to 5E, or Mutants And Masterminds to Powered By The Apocalypse, or FATE to GURPS, or whatever. What's NOT cool is to crap on someone else for liking something else.

That's what gets me. The total space between 3e and 5e, compared to the total spectra of Tabletop RPGs is so small, you have to assume that someone is only familiar with the two of them, if they try to imply that one is X and the other is some far-extremely different Y. Neither of them are far extremes in anything. They are both moderate depth, moderate crunch, moderate rigor, and based around a system which itself is a mongrel beast (I say that as a good thing) compared to systems built on some purist notion. Further, they were both the 'mainstream game' of their respective era, meaning that both extremely skilled gamers and absolute newbies/casuals/etc. appear in both their fanbases. One is not going to be the 'babies' first' game, because both were the first TTRPG played by plenty of people.