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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8953394" data-attributes="member: 5948">My guess (only a guess) is that it's at least partly due to the way the D&amp;D player base has grown over time.5e seems to me kinda unique among D&amp;D editions in the WotC era in that the player base has experienced a large amount of growth late in the edition's lifecycle.&nbsp; Partly due to the pandemic, partly due to word of mouth or increasing awareness due to things like Critical Role etc.&nbsp; Unlike prior editions when the game boomed immediately or in the first couple of years after an edition release as the 'core' expansions came out, and then slowly tailed off. Not many people were picking up 3rd ed in 2006, 6 years into its life, and getting excited about it (I'm sure some were, but they were a minority), but piles of people picked up 5th ed for the first time in 2020.This means you have a large number of players who haven't been playing for very long, and who may not have played many campaigns to a finish, or to very high level, or may not played a wide variety of classes.&nbsp; To them (and I count myself among them, having picked up D&amp;D for the first time in over a decade at the start of lockdowns in 2020, and having only played a couple of characters in that time), the game is still kinda fresh and new, and some of the system annoyances which bother more experienced players aren't apparent.&nbsp; But to people who've played a lot, and run into the same problems with the system a lot, and have perhaps encountered some of the more problematic corner cases, or who are even just a bit plain bored and want a change, maybe 5.5 looks more necessary and exciting.Edit: or maybe the experienced players are more likely to be bored and restless with the base assumptions of 5e and want more major fundamental changes than WotC seem to be planning to make.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 8953394, member: 5948"] My guess (only a guess) is that it's at least partly due to the way the D&D player base has grown over time. 5e seems to me kinda unique among D&D editions in the WotC era in that the player base has experienced a large amount of growth late in the edition's lifecycle. Partly due to the pandemic, partly due to word of mouth or increasing awareness due to things like Critical Role etc. Unlike prior editions when the game boomed immediately or in the first couple of years after an edition release as the 'core' expansions came out, and then slowly tailed off. Not many people were picking up 3rd ed in 2006, 6 years into its life, and getting excited about it (I'm sure some were, but they were a minority), but piles of people picked up 5th ed for the first time in 2020. This means you have a large number of players who haven't been playing for very long, and who may not have played many campaigns to a finish, or to very high level, or may not played a wide variety of classes. To them (and I count myself among them, having picked up D&D for the first time in over a decade at the start of lockdowns in 2020, and having only played a couple of characters in that time), the game is still kinda fresh and new, and some of the system annoyances which bother more experienced players aren't apparent. But to people who've played a lot, and run into the same problems with the system a lot, and have perhaps encountered some of the more problematic corner cases, or who are even just a bit plain bored and want a change, maybe 5.5 looks more necessary and exciting. Edit: or maybe the experienced players are more likely to be bored and restless with the base assumptions of 5e and want more major fundamental changes than WotC seem to be planning to make. [/QUOTE]

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