It is your grandfathers Olds with a flux capacitor added in.
Not to thread-jack, but this comment reminded me of a phenomena that I find interesting and is related to the question, what is the tipping point at which a well-known cultural meme (like the flux capacitor) goes from being known by a majority of people to a small minority? In this case, at what age? What year of birth? Given that the first movie came out in 1985 (I saw it in the theater) and the next two a year later, and it had
some longevity but not a lot, I would imagine that the tipping point is somewhere in the late 20s up to about 30.
Back to the Future is a bit of a classic, but while a solid number of current teenagers have seen it, it probably isn't a majority, while
every kid born in the 70s has probably seen it.
Actually, the tipping point might be similar to who has played D&D at least once. Tens of millions of peopl in their 30s and 40s have played it at least once, whereas below 30 the number is probably single-digit (millions).
Just a tangent...back to the topic at hand....
There are a few new things in there, but I definately see it as a reorganization rather than a grand experiment (like 4e) or a revolution (like 3e).
I see it as all three of the above. The grand experiment is "one edition to rule them all"; the "revolution" is the design goals of interchangeability and complexity dials, and the re-organization is modularity.
Nothing like change to get the hackles up.
What looks more interesting is the potential to appeal to a majority of current players plus draw in new players. The designers could have simply tried to out Pathfinder Pathfinder or focused on transferring most 4e players as the first priority. Instead they're re-modelling the architecture of D&D to make it accessible to a whole lot more people. Go them!
Let's take it a step further. What if 5E is quite compatible with Pathfinder? That opens up interesting possibilities, with Pathfinder being akin to a well-defined "modular gestalt" that could be used to enhance 5E play, or as an avenue from and to 5E.
There is an elephant in the room that doesn't seem to be acknowledged, which is that the 5E design goals--in terms of the total vision, not just mechanics--are a lot more similar to 3E and d20 than to 4E. It is almost as if WotC is saying, "Wait, we stepped a bit too far in a specific direction with 4E. We need to back-up, revise and streamline 3E, and then create modular options to create a plethora of play styles, one of which will be similar to 4E, even compatible with it."
So in that sense I see 5E as a natural progression from 3E, with 4E (and Pathfinder, really) being a specific sub-species than can be folded into the broader umbrella of 5E.
