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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bigkahuna" data-source="post: 6880507" data-attributes="member: 6808141">5th edition to me is like going to Italy for Italian food rather to an Italian restaurant.  In that its presumed that Italian food in Italy will always be better than an Italian restaurant at home, but if you travel enough its just not always the case.  You have to know where to go, find a proper authentic, well cared for Italian restaurant in Italy.  If you do you will never find anything back home even close to it no matter where you look.I guess what I'm saying is that 5th edition is the single best version of D&D I have ever played, hands down, no question about it.  But Its because I play under great GM's who know how to use it, guys who know what they are doing.  I have played under these GM's using other versions of D&D and they were great don't get me wrong, but nothing compared to what they where able to do with 5e.The strength of 5th edition is that its immensely flexible and not reliant on the system to make a game for you, but reliant on the GM.  Its a tool, a powerful one, but you can't crack open the book and be awesome at running out of the box.  Their are subtleties and intricacies here, little secrets of the system and sometimes of the very well thought out absence of systems that become apparent only with experience.As a GM I have found this to be true when I run the game as well.  In particular I have found that editions like 3rd and 4th both suffer from GM gotchas.  I'll design something, something clever and interesting that will require some thought to resolve by the players, but they will sniff out rules in the system that will expose it's weaknesses and overcome it through mechanics. 3rd edition required insane amounts of GM mastery, but not of the creative type, but of the "understanding the rules" types and then coming up with impossible (unrealistic) situations in order to create elements to the game that are resolved through role-playing rather than the rules.  In the end, you just end up being a holistic "you can't do that because I said so" type of GM as the rules frustrate you by empowering the players to circumvent your vein efforts to create a story.  Some will blame the players for this, but why should we, is it not their job to overcome your challenges?  I think it is, so I don't blame the game, I blame the system.This I think is the biggest flaw in particular of 3rd edition and its where 5th edition really shines.  There aren't very many rules for players to hang their "get out of role-playing" hats on.  The rules that are going to allow players to weasel out of role-playing through mechanics just don't exist, so when I write a story/encounter, I usually don't even have to think about the mechanics of the game and the intracacies of the many extra-ordinary things classes/races/spells/items/mechanics etc.. can do.  In the end the solution is in the same realm in which its created (story) and its what I love about the system both as a player and as a GM:</blockquote>

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