D&D 5E I love 5E

[RealAlHazred]

For years, the transient gamer population at the FLGS has been shrinking. This year, it's been growing again, and I attribute that to 5E. It hasn't scared off the new players with lots of rules, and lots of older gamers who remember 1E/2E with fondness have told me it brought them back to the hobby.

 

[Sacrosanct]

For me, 5e seems like the natural cleaned up progression to 2e that 2e was to 1e. Just my opinion of course, so take this with a grain of salt, but I felt like 3x tried to over-complicate it with too many options/skills/etc, and 4e just didn't feel like D&D to me. Again, before people flip, this is just my opinion and how I feel. I'm not trying to objectively claim either is true, and I understand everyone started at different times and has different experiences, etc.

 

[Nebulous]

5E is like they went back to the core of what made 1E awesome and looked at every edition since as an extended playtest on how to make 1E better.

It's not quite compatible, but it sure feels like it should be.

i had severe doubts they could do it. But they did.

 

[Particle_Man]

I love 5e too. It is great to run. And right now I have 7 players in my campaign and had to turn others away. Interest in playing 5e is very high.

 

[MortalPlague]

I'm having a blast in three games at the moment. It's such a light system, it gets out of the way of the fun.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Same here. I love 5e. Easily my favorite edition. Exceptionally well built. Loads of fun.

 

[Celtavian]

I'm enjoying the hell out of 5E. It almost seems like they figured out what people liked in almost every edition and incorporated it into this edition. It's interesting that Mearls used a scientific approach to 5E's construction. He even took elements people liked in 4E and incorporated it. I didn't like 4E overall, but I did like at will abilities for casters, ritual magic, and some of the monster design. It seems like they kept these elements of 4E in 5E. It really is a nice blend of all editions in feel and mechanics.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah, combining the best parts of all the editions (including the "feel" of 1e, i don't know how they pulled that one off) was a great idea. And I like that the system is simple yet robust enough that it can be tinkered with endlessly by DMs and not crumble immediately.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Here's the issues you mention:

5) Serious Lack of Digital Tools.
4) No PDFs (except for the basic game)
3) Nothing Much to Look Forward To/Lack of Product Diversity
2) The Waiting
1) No OGL (or some kind of compatible license).

Now, number 4) wouldn't really be a problem if it wasn't for 5). The players in my group trying to play spellcasters find this really annoying. You basically need to know the spells by heart, write some sort of short-hand version of your spell or just spend ages each session flipping through the PHB looking to see what your spells does. To sum it up, this is really annoying, and that is already at level 3!

3) and 2) wouldn't really be a problem if it wasn't for 1). I am mostly waiting for.... adventures! Sure, there is a huuuuuge load of adventures from previous editions, but I would prefer a bit more modern design. Something like Red Hand of Doom would be awesome. (Already ran it in 3.5). The current adventure paths seem uninteresting.

Now, personally, I am pretty sure 5e will be the edition I will be using. I have a 4e campaign I am running, but it's easy to notice how slow the combat runs in 4e compared to 5e, even if I am a total noob at running 5e. I will probably use either some unlicensed third party adventures, do a conversion or make up my own stuff. I really miss a character builder (or, at the least, a spell cheat sheet) and a license for third party publishers.

In short, my interest isn't waning, but I understand your issues. As a third party publisher I would be more than a little annoyed. Pathfinder has such a good market share because of the amount of DM material they publish. How come WotC doesn't see this?

Addendum

Yeah, combining the best parts of all the editions (including the "feel" of 1e, i don't know how they pulled that one off) was a great idea. And I like that the system is simple yet robust enough that it can be tinkered with endlessly by DMs and not crumble immediately.

Well said!