D&D 5E Thank you WoTc: I feel like 5th edition has brought the spirit back into D&D.

[wedgeski]

Although I don't think we necessarily would have gotten the 5E we did without first going through the iteration of 4E. We needed that edition's emphasis on balance (for both characters and encounter design) to truly learn what would be necessary to successfully amend the structure of 3E. Otherwise... 4E might very well have been closer to what evolved into PF (with all the positives and negatives), rather than get what we got in our 5E as currently designed.

That makes quite a bit of sense.

 

[screenmonkey]

Hear, hear! I pretty much feel the same way. After playing Pathfinder for a bit, returning to B/X via Labyrinth Lord was my way of escaping the madness. 5e has brought me back into the D&D fold, something I honestly thought would NEVER happen again!

After 3.0 high level campaign fatigue, I left to play what was then a brand new "easy to GM" Savage Worlds. 3.5, PF and 4.0 all looked to be too much so I continued to avoid DnD.

With 5th, we're back after a 10 year hiatus. I still love SW, but I *missed* my D&D!

 

[mflayermonk]

I like 5e, too. But I find I am playing more and more Labyrinth Lord. The OSR community has some nice output. I also noticed that OSR games were up something like 12.5% in one of the enworld survey things.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

5E is definitely looking like it could be my favorite edition. May even give up Pathfinder for it.

Still not going to give up Savage Worlds or Numenera (assuming the slump in Numenera games reverses itself). Both of those systems have special places in my heart that 5E just can't fill.

 

[SirAntoine]

I've been a gamer now for many many years and I've played every edition to date.

For me, 5th edition has brought something back to D&D that I felt has been missing for years. While posting and reading in various forums, a few things have popped up around magic items, (which I did a thread on), and another one concerning gold. A few posters made some brilliant comments and it really made me sit back and look at 5th edition carefully and realize that it has returned a spirit to D&D that I sorely missed.

A few posters were giving their ideas on how to spend gold, in other ways besides magic items, and a few really brought me back to the way I used to do things. While I did run a few modules, I was more of a homebrew kind of DM and any modules I did run, I removed the items in them and added the ones I wanted. I used to run my games where you could buy land, build castles, pay to stay in and inn, pay taxes, hire underlings, pay for transport, find ways to actually get hoards of gold from one end of a continent to the other, pay guild fees, etc...

In my opinion, 5th edition really brings back the things that I noticed used to get skipped in previous editions. Gold was all about buying magic items and any time most other things that became "mundane" were basically just hand waved. Now that magic items are not freely available like they used to, when playing the default of course, you now have to open that imagination and bring back all those old ways of spending your gold. Now such things as securing transport on a ship, or bribing officials etc are back to being a part of adventures.

I know these things have always been possible, but I'm glad this edition has managed to put a bit more emphasis back into all those little things that I used to find important. I just feel like the game now has more depth and creativity.

Thank you Wizards of the Coast!

It's testament to the long term replayability of D&D.

 

[Mavkatzer]

Yep! 5E is beautiful. D&D hasn't *felt* this good to me since the mid 1990s.
Thanks WotC!

 

[BenK]

Totes. Great job, WotC.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Yeah this is the most fun I've been having with D&D since 1e/2e era. Though we always played 1e through 2e since new supplements and adventures were usable with almost no modification. Despise 3/3.5/PF and skipped 4e after reading over the books. 5e is great so far. Lets hope it feels the same in a year!

 

[Pvt. Winslow]

After playing my fair share of 3.XE and Pathfinder, I have to say I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. There's something about 5E that doesn't overwhelm me when I think about DMing it, as opposed to those two previous crunchy editions. I played a fair amount of 4E as well, but my players hated it so I was forced to move on. I feel like the more compact numbers, less floating bonuses (without having to worry about the dozen different types like morale, enhancement, sacred, etc) and clear action mechanics make it a breeze to run and adjudicate.

I'm not particularly a fan of the lack of magic item pricing, but it's something I can work on in any case. Have to take the good with the bad.

 

[Bluenose]

I suppose this rather depends on what you consider the spirit of D&D to consist of. 5e gets a solid "No" from me in that respect.