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I'm once again struck by how immensely conservative, in the non-political sense, a lot of D&D players are. We are all too ready to dismiss new things out of hand, or deny even the possibility that entire fields of creative endeavor (like video game industry) could have something to offer...

There are very good reasons why 4e ditched one-roll save-or-suck effects almost completely. None of those reasons have gone away. This is a step in the wrong direction.

The problem is that it's not merely a simple fighter, it's a boring fighter.

My thoughts exactly. Tieflings and Aasimar as a mish-mash of planar traits and features slapped on a human base suited Planescape (even though in practice things were as you said: practically every Tiefling PC I ever saw looked like a human with small horns, devil tail optional), but the 4e...

I want my dragons dangerous, atmospheric and easy to run - in other words, pretty much the way they are in Monster Vault and other late-4e stuff.

Yup, these are nice ideas. The trick lies in making the "different, not better or worse" to actually work that way, and requires a lot of attention to the game balance and maths on behalf of the designers.

I hope this leak is a huge, cunning troll. If not, I hope against hope that the end result won't much resemble the 1.0 playtest version. Because if this is indicative of the design philosophy and goals behind the D&DN; if "casters rule, fighters drool" makes a come-back; if clarity and...

At this point, I don't know anywhere near enough to be able to decide whether or not I will buy 5e. Ask again in a year, when we're hopefully better informed and some of the pointless speculation has died down.

Or Orlando and Rodomonte from the knightly romances.

They really are terrific. If the MM1 had been as good, I bet 4e would be a lot more popular.

RPGs are dirt cheap as far as hobbies go, really. The real issue is that they tend to require lots of time and commitment, and free time available for playing is the most precious resource a lot of us adult D&D players have.

There are also plenty of people like myself, who really liked 4e overall, and are now disappointed that the WotC seems to be backpedaling on numerous things we considered major improvements, especially over the problems of 3e.

As a big Tolkien fan, and someone who's played D&D in various forms for twenty-plus years (he said, smoothly establishing his geek credentials), I absolutely want tieflings and dragonborn both in 5e. Why? For one reason, they are both quite popular; people have loved tieflings since they...

People who complain about 4e MM should check out the Essentials Monster Vault, and Threats of Nentir Vale. Great books, with mechanically solid and interesting monster designs, great artwork, and tons of interesting fluff, adventure hooks and other lore. For example, the Manticore entry...

Good God, are people still hashing out these done-to-death-raised-as-undead-and-killed-again pseudo-arguments?

Has there ever been much reason to worry about WotC "kitchen-sinking" 4e elements into every setting? Both FR and Eberron are and were kitchen-sinks to begin with (although in different ways), after all. And yes, that cover is awesome. I hope they can keep the quality for the rest of the artwork!

I'd say humans are the only essential race, both because we're all humans, and because although there is plenty of fantasy without non-human races, settings without humans are very rare indeed.

I'd like a Spelljammer setting, too, but I definitely don't want a) easily portable helms, and b) helms draining spells/whatever from a party member.

Yes, but RPGs are not fiction. Many things which work quite well in fiction (like "loser" characters, major discrepancies in skill and usefulness between characters, splitting the party) are much more problematic in the context of a RPG session / campaign.

So - based on the answers so far, it looks like this is a problem, though not necessarily on the level of "ordinary" DMPCs. And it appears that TSR itself did its share of pushing this on the players, with some Dragonlance adventures, and the Time of Troubles modules. (Frankly, I don't think...