AbdulAlhazred
Legend
One of the big selling points of 4E, and one of the reasons I like it so much, is that it *was* a brave new take on D&D and really stuck its neck out there.
Now, many people didn't like it, and many people did. We have a more divided community than ever. But, I can't fault 4E for going for broke. This is what I want from professional game designers, and it's when I most eagerly give them my hard-won dosh.
I don't want an incremental take on 4E, even though it would probably be a game I would really like, because I already have 4E. It's not going anywhere. My current campaign will probably continue through the release of 5E. Instead, I want for 5E what I want from every edition, and what for the most part I've actually been given over the years (3.5 excluded, but I don't consider that a genuine edition change anyway): a modern take on the D&D experience I love.
Yeah, I both agree with you, and at the same time disagree with you, lol. hehe.
I was really disappointed in 2e. 1e had been around for a dozen years, was a bit dated even when it was released, and was WAY long in the tooth. We'd tapped it pretty hard. Its limitations were heavily in evidence and we'd grown rather impatient with them. Then along came 2e and was basically a big fat nothing. Oooooh! THAC0!!!!!! WOW! At best you can say it was a slight incremental improvement on 1e. IMHO I'd have much rather have had a game that made some real significant changes to the game. So, 1e -> 2e, I agree with you.
4e -> 5e is a totally different situation. 4e hasn't been around for years, and is already a radical update to the system. It is also far from perfected, yet a vast improvement over 3e. I don't need 5e to be some radically new thing. I've barely scratched the surface of 4e frankly. I'd love to see 4e perfected into a 5e and I have not even the slightest trace of interest in what was in AD&D. Played and ran it for 25 years and more. If it has some ideas that can be mined for 5e, great, by all means. I just don't need to go back, and I want to see the current direction carried forward. It can be improved in so many ways and holds such vast promise.
So, when it comes to 5e I don't exactly agree with you. I think 4e -> 5e should be bigger than 1e -> 2e in some ways, but I'm perfectly fine with it being fundamentally an incremental evolution of 4e. I can still hope that such a game will actually be the main line of 5e development.