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Message: <blockquote data-quote="OB1" data-source="post: 8714231" data-attributes="member: 6796241">As a side note I think this is what 50AE is going to address.  Right now to play the game in the style it's being played, you need a minimum of 3 books, and maybe 4 or 5.  I think 50AE will reset the starting point so that new players only have to worry about buying the PHB to get started.As for 5e being special, I'll first say that 5E would not exist if not for 4e, not because of what 4e got 'wrong' but because of how much it got right.  The stroke of genius with 5e was to lighten the core enough for casual players busy with life to come in and enjoy the game for 2-4 hours a couple of times a month, while still having enough depth to keep it interesting if you're playing every week for years (which of course has also helped allow streams like CR to take advantage of the ruleset and make the game even more popular).  But the biggest roadblock 5e has to even greater popularity is DMs.  By making the game easier for players, they had to make it tougher on the DM.  Some of the digital tools has made it better, but it still needs work to get DMing to the same 'casual' level as players.  My core group has been playing since the Next playtest, and three of them still won't try to DM.</blockquote>