Mercurius
Legend
I thought I'd share an anecdote from a conversation I had with one of my students. Unlike many of us on this forum in our 30s and over who grew up with one version or another of AD&D, BECMI, or even back to OD&D, he's grown up in a D&D context of 3.5E, 4E, and Pathfinder - and has almost exclusively played Pathfinder. To put another way, and at the risk of making me feel old, he was three years old when 3E came out, eleven when 4E came out, and twelve when Pathfinder came out. Yesterday he approached me and asked what I thought of 5E; he had recently downloaded the Basic Rules. I told him I really liked it, that it combines many of the best elements of different editions in a streamlined and simpler game. He said a few very interesting things that I wanted to share:
One, he said that it solved problems that he didn't even know he had with Pathfinder until reading the 5E Basic Rules. We didn't go into detail about it, so I can't be more specific, but I found this very interesting - if only because it made me think about what it must have been like to learn the game through starting with 4E or Pathfinder.
Two, he said that he liked the "rulings not rules" paradigm, that this was new to him - the idea that the rules themselves are flexible and subject to the DM's (hopefully creative and wise) adjudication. I believe this was one of the problems in the point above. I found this particularly interesting because this was the paradigm that I was raised with back in the 80s.
Three, he liked the three pillars and how it really seems that 5E makes more room for the non-combat elements than Pathfinder and 4E did, making for a more diversified experience in which the narrative is the underlying thread. He said that 4E seemed like a board game to him.
Anyhow, it was refreshing to get his relatively unjaded perspective on D&D and 5E. I've tended to think that 5E appeals mainly to "old guys" such as myself that want a simpler game than the recent iterations, but one that includes many of their innovations and strengths, but it also seems that these elements are appealing to a younger generation as well. I hope this one example bodes well for 5E's future.
One, he said that it solved problems that he didn't even know he had with Pathfinder until reading the 5E Basic Rules. We didn't go into detail about it, so I can't be more specific, but I found this very interesting - if only because it made me think about what it must have been like to learn the game through starting with 4E or Pathfinder.
Two, he said that he liked the "rulings not rules" paradigm, that this was new to him - the idea that the rules themselves are flexible and subject to the DM's (hopefully creative and wise) adjudication. I believe this was one of the problems in the point above. I found this particularly interesting because this was the paradigm that I was raised with back in the 80s.
Three, he liked the three pillars and how it really seems that 5E makes more room for the non-combat elements than Pathfinder and 4E did, making for a more diversified experience in which the narrative is the underlying thread. He said that 4E seemed like a board game to him.
Anyhow, it was refreshing to get his relatively unjaded perspective on D&D and 5E. I've tended to think that 5E appeals mainly to "old guys" such as myself that want a simpler game than the recent iterations, but one that includes many of their innovations and strengths, but it also seems that these elements are appealing to a younger generation as well. I hope this one example bodes well for 5E's future.
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