First of all, let me acknowledge that I'm using ludification wrong, because it means to mock, tease, or make fun of. However, it comes from ludus (game, sport) and so literally means to make a game of. I just want to make an observation about some of the changes from 5e to the revised edition, some of them fairly subtle, others more obvious. In 5e, a lot of things were reified, that is, literally, thingified. It's about treating the representation of something as the thing itself, often in a reductive way. So, for example, in the BECMI (especially Expert and Companion rules) it notes that rulers often let their vassals go on adventures, so they will become more powerful and acquire more treasure; this is treating the rules (gaining XP from monsters and gold, going up in levels making you generally more capable) as if they were in the in-universe reality. To an extent, characters in the game world can actually see what classes people are, have an awareness of level drain, etc.
Now, 5e moved away from that to some extent, so that NPCs can be constructed that don't quite correspond to PC classes (eg. the Acolyte, who is a bit like a cleric, but doesn't have a lot of special abilities and has a smite-like power to boost its melee power). So some things are the way they are because of relentless symmetry in the rules, or the desire for a thing to represent a thing. So, if a hobgoblin uses a longsword one-handed, it does a base 1d8 damage, even if the specific die is ultimately not very important because the damage will be modified by any means necessary to get to around the "right" damage for its Challenge.
By contrast, 6E has moved swiftly into ludification. A lot of things were done to simplify, streamline, and improve the experience as a game. So, one change I noticed is the spell Conjure Animals. Previously, this spell, well, conjured some animals, of a limited Challenge rating. Now, it summons spectral animals, who occupy a Large space and do Force damage. It occupies a sort of mid-point between Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians. But you can't cast the new spell to summon a constrictor snake to constrict someone, or a venomous snake to poison someone, and so forth. You can't even properly summon a seal, only a spectral creature that occupies either the sea or the land. Arguably, this is an improvement for play, since the spell is more consistent, balanced, and future-proofed against bad animal writeups in future books. But I feel like it kind of loses something.
I personally prefer things more on the reification side, where things are things, rather than the ludification side, where things are game objects. However, I'm not very extreme in that and I vastly prefer some simplifications. What do y'all think about the changes?
