Going into 5th I want to see...

[Layander]

A larger focus on role playing.
So I understand people get upset over there when you say 4th is not a role playing game but more or less a tactical mini battle game.
But if the writers of the game wanted it to be taken as a role playing game, why do all of the adventures written have a writing style of a 2 page encounter, with a one paragraph explanation at the end explaining how to get to the next combat encounter, so that you can get the next sentence that
Pushes you to the next encounter?
To me if you look at the example adventures you can see more about product design than random arguments about what page 66 of the dmg says. And please do not bring up "well the GM should write his own adventures" obviously writing your own is fun, rewarding and lets you have more control of the game, but the prewritten adventures set the tone of game play, and frankly a working adult does not have all the time in the world to always have something prepaired.
In 5th edition I would love to see less combat focused gameplay.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Absolutely.

D&D, at one level, has always been a combat orientated skirmish game - but the factor that elevated it from wargames and turned it into it's own category of a 'Role playing game', was the fact that you could move away from purely tactical play and actually take an interest in the character as an individual. This is an evolution that has continued for the whole lifespan of the roleplaying hobby - and it was something seemingly ignored in 4th Edition.

 

[mkill]

I fully agree that WotC needs to publish more modules that tell a story instead of presenting just a string of fights, but how is this tied to the edition of game rules used?