Just to expand a bit on what I said earlier about subsequent editions reflecting how the game is played at the table. Take 4e as an example. Lots of people talk about 4e being inspired by MMO's and certainly I understand why. But, that's a misunderstanding of the design goals. It's not that 4e was inspired by MMO's. It's that 4e's design and MMO's design share some of the same goals - it's about convergent evolution.
Look at this thread. In the past few pages, we've been discussing creating wands and how it works. Now, obviously there's some disagreement there. If you have a stable group though, you've resolved these conversations years ago and incorporated that into the game you play at your table. Fair enough. But, 4e was designed around the paradigm that you would not have a stable group. That you would be playing and DMing for strangers all the time. Similar in approach to the RPGA where you never really know who your DM will be nor will you have the time to really get to know your players. Very similar, in fact, to how MMO's work.
So, imagine you are a DM and you are getting new players at your table every three months. Now, go back to the discussion about wands. Imagine you have to have this discussion every three months for the past FIFTEEN YEARS. :wow: Yeah, most people are going to want to do violence to the next person who brings it up after the fifteenth time.
That's where 4e comes in. Very, very clearly defined rules (particularly compared to earlier editions). You know exactly how your character works, regardless of who your DM is. At least, that's the goal. In 3e, your character could vary widely depending on how your DM thought. Again, taking the crafting wands thing. In my game, it was common right from the first day. First 3e character I ever made was a wizard and the first chance I got, I took craft wand. That was still in 3e and not even 3.5. So, to me, the whole wand thing and healing wands is part and parcel of 3e right from the word go. If I went to a table where the DM interpreted these rules differently, there would likely be some conflict at the table.
Now, 5e has swung some distance the other way. The assumption is now a fairly stable group although, really, the rules are still far more clear than 1e or 2e and considerably scaled down from 3e, so, IMO, 5e rather straddles the difference between 3e and 4e. At least, it's far closer to both of those than 1e or 2e mechanically. But, the point is that every edition of D&D is based on the edition before it. The changes that come with each iteration of D&D generally have their root in changes that many groups were already doing. Which groups get listened to tends to result in people either being quite happy or feeling disenfranchised by the game.
