D&D 5E What will 5E D&D be remembered for?

[ExploderWizard]

For me, it will be remembered as the first WOTC edition of the game that made me excited to run a campaign.

 

[MostlyDm]

A level one wizard killing a tarrasque while riding a horse using nothing but a cantrip.

Nah, I disproved that one.

Besides, 3.X was way, way, *way* more guilty of this kind of thing. Kobolds ascending to godhood via obscure class/spell/ability combos, bags of rats enabling massive attacks on a single target, etc.

 

[Azurewraith]

Good old rat cleaving

 

[cmad1977]

& 1e players. I stopped playing while my group was transitioning to 2e & the Forgotten Realms (almost 30 years for me).

Simplicity and easy to learn game system. My family and a hand-full of friends all picked it up fairly quickly and none have ever played any table top RPG before. My daughter even had a D&D sleep-over birthday party and taught her friends to play (& they all loved it)

That's all manner of awesome, and not something I've heard about from any other edition.

 

[MostlyDm]

Yeah, 5e is notable to me for being the edition of D&D I never knew I was waiting for.

I'd abandoned D&D systems without massive homebrewing. The stuff that brought me back...

-bounded accuracy, stretching the best variant of any D&D edition (e6) over a 20 level experience.

-advantage, such a great mechanic I stole it during the play test and added it to my homebrew.

-DM empowerment and lots examples of variant rule sets, meaning that any future homebrew I run that is based on 5e still "counts" as 5e as far as I'm concerned.

 

[jayoungr]

The edition that brought back the OGL.

P.S. I think there will be a 6E someday. Just not soon.

 

[TwoSix]

The last edition before VR goggles changed everything about tabletop gaming.

 

[Wuzzard]

5e will be remembered as the edition before the edition with the cranial implants.

 

[Wuzzard]

Simplicity; individuality (DM rulings = home brew elements baked in); rejuvenating lapsed players back to the game; Advantage/Disadvantage (see Simplicity).

But it all depends on timescale... "what's a 'tabletop' daddy?" "Quiet, son, or the cockroaches will hear us" "but daddy, what's a game?" "too late! They've heard us. Come on, kneel, say the anthem, "two legs bad, six legs good"".

You mean when the Yith return?

 

[Sacrosanct]

There's a lot of sarcasm in this thread (which is OK, I'm a fan of sarcasm myself), but if I were to give an honest answer, I'd say it would be remembered for advantage/disadvantage and bounded accuracy as it's hallmarks.

Then you have a bunch of other smaller stuff that individual groups find that stand out, like customization and simplicity at the same time, which is sort of a first in the D&D timeline.

I've been playing 35 some odd years, and for me personally (YMMV of course), I remember each edition as:

OD&D: Elves with beards? D6 for damage, no matter what the weapon
TSR era: awesome art. bring back the b/w pieces please.
1e: tons of classes (dualist, death master, bounty hunter, etc) and adventures. Lethal, and extremely detailed rules for both combat and out of combat (some of them great, like the castle building guidelines in the DMG)
2e: The PC version. Got rid of assassins, half orcs, demons and devils (at least the names). Campaign settings over adventures
B/X, BECMI: simple yet awesome. Easy to learn, and your PC could fit on a notecard
3e: A mountain of stackable conditions, and numbers bloat that approached JRPG video game levels (a bit hyperbolic there, but still)
4e: Ultra balanced tactical boardgame. Very structured