D&D 5E What does 5E do well?

[Minigiant]

What 5e does well:
Dipping Sauce

5e can be adapted to give you a taste of anything. You can get a bit of Greek fantasy or Gothic horror or Murder Mystery.

It doesn't let you deep dive into them, but like chicken nuggets, fries, chips, and and a variety of dipping sauce... you can easily easily get a taste.

 

[Stalker0]

I would say "encourage mobility".

I have players that like and dislike 5e, but pretty much everyone agrees that 5e makes movement easy and fun. In 3.5, you rarely left your 5 ft step unless you absolutely had to, the fear of powerful OAs and the loss of full attack was just too penalizing.

In 5e, the simple ability to do X, move, and do Y gives characters tremendous more freedom in how the scene unfolds.

 

[Laurefindel]

What does 5e D&D 5e does best?

It does D&D very well. Better than any edition so far, according to what I like D&D to be, which is different from what D&D was to me 10, 15, 20 years ago, and probably different from the D&D I'll want to play in 10, 15, 20 years from now.

While it might not sound like a very helpful answer, D&D has created its own niche, its own (sub)genre, and with 3e, 4e, and now 5e, something different from OD&D and AD&D.

Like @Minigiant said, it can be tweaked to give it a flavour of something else rather easily; that's also something it does well.

 

[Xeviat]

I'm not sure if 5E does any genre or storytelling particularly well. What it does do well, though, is marry the old and the new. It also does a great job of bundling options and story together in such a way to make character build options into roleplaying options too, which MIGHT make it especially good for role-playing.

The simplification of the rules (everything is a d20 plus modifiers), the smoothing of numbers (bonuses ranging from -1 to +11 before expertise), and the ease of advantage/disadvantage over adding/subtracting bonuses/penalties makes the system easier to teach new players, too.

 

[aco175]

I find 5e better at extending the sweet spot of gaming- like they intended. The level 3-9 spot where most games find better to handle things before you become overpowerful.

 

[Scott Christian]

Fast combat? Any TSR edition had faster combat.

Do you think other editions have faster combat than 5e?

3.5 and 4e had about the slowest combat on the planet outside of 1980's/1990's Rolemaster. 5e is not a lot faster, but it is a tiny bit faster. Both, in my opinion, come to a crawl once you reach 5th or 6th level.

As for the original question:
5e does setting very well. It is all over the place and classic D&D. Want to have some mind flayers in a spaceship talking to polar bears and a narwhale - you got it.
5e did character creation very well if one only includes the PHB. It was an outstanding job of keeping veteran gamers interested and explaining things well to new players.
5e does levelling very well. Making almost everyone but the select few power-hungry satisfied.
5e's DMG is the best that has ever been published.
5e has absolutely brilliant art direction and layout. It is a graphic layout artist's wet dream.
5e has some of the best published AP; maybe not modules, but for a longer campaign, they do a great job with their writing.
And 5e, by far and away, has the best online marketing campaign of any edition ever created - hands down.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Not have things people would object too??
Ease of use??
Be usable for live stream play??

 

[Parmandur]

Not have things people would object too??
Ease of use??
Be usable for live stream play??

The suitability for livestreaming has been noted, but it has also been raised: why does it work so well for streaming?

 

[Doc_Klueless]

The suitability for livestreaming has been noted, but it has also been raised: why does it work so well for streaming?

Part of the reason, I think, that it works so well for streaming as it doesn't concentrate on numbers so much. And by that I mean, there is close to no "I get a +2 from here and a -2 from here and a +1 from here" etc., etc. I find watching people add up their modifiers extremely boring as a GM and a Player. I can only suspect that I'd find it doubly mind-numbing as an observer.

While some others may poopoo Advantage/Disadvantage and others malign Bounded Accuracy, the combination of the two reeeeally wacks that sort of thing in the head. Plus, whether you like this or not, it makes rolling more important and more like, I guess, gambling. It's fun to see IF something is going to happen.

I don't think I'm wording this well. That's been my curse today.

Heh.

 

[Oofta]

The suitability for livestreaming has been noted, but it has also been raised: why does it work so well for streaming?

I remember watching a stream of 4E that was done to show off the game. It was pretty terrible. I think the biggest issue was it so disrupted the flow of play to have everyone constantly looking at and reading their powers and all the details. Powers were often read out loud because no DM could know every possible option. It really broke up the easy flow and give-and-take I find that we generally have in 5E.

With the structure of 4E (and wouldn't be surprised to see it more often with 3.x), people were more focused on the game and rules details than the flow of the combat. Add in the structure of skill challenges with reliance (right or wrong) on dice rolls being of utmost importance to resolution in most games and the game just lacked spontaneity and flow.