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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spinozajack" data-source="post: 6650781" data-attributes="member: 6794198">Rules-light vs rules-heavy is not really the point, although 5e is definitely lighter than 3e and 4e. You can play 5e perfectly well using the basic D&D rules. Try that with 3e or 4e, even using a character builder will take a new player probably an entire session just to make a character. Even levelling up our characters using a builder, in 4e, took our group half a session, sometimes more. It was awful. Pouring through endless powers, deciding what to retrain, what to keep, what works with what. It was a nightmare of complexity. 3e was just as bad. I loathed the skill system, especially at level 1. It was like doing homework, not fun at all.What does matter is, in a typical session, how often is the action or flow interrupted by having to look something up? Freeform and rules-light goes hand in hand with "rulings not rules", trusting the DM more to handle edge cases than trying to enumerate every possibility which is futile anyway. Looking up the edge cases in 3e and 4e was a real time sink. Even in 1e and 2e, you had all kinds of weird subsystems and tables for every possibility which definitely got in the way sometimes.I'm frankly rather shocked that anyone would even consider 5e rules heavy. The rules get out of the way of the action, that's why combat is so fast. Despite it being fast, my character can do more with less. I can pick up two swords and swing them both if I want to, I don't need Twin Strike or have to take about three feats before it's even mathematically viable. I can do something reasonable at any time during my turn, even while moving. I can attack monsters when I want to as part of my move, before it, after it, without special powers (4e) or feats (3e) that allow me to do that. It's more versatile and runs faster, because it relies more on natural language than game jargon. Game jargon and keyword heavy rules are definitely heavier and harder to learn and harder to master. Everyone I've played 5e with, whether they liked 2e, 3e, or 4e more, said the game runs better and faster, and appreciates fast and easy all encompassing rules like advantage disadvantage instead of tons of tiny like bonuses or penalties that people often forget, or having to rummage through 4000 feats or powers to make a character. Or having to ask "why is a fighter always considered a defender? huh?" Removing the minor action from 4th edition also sped up combat. Less rules, less complexity. You have an action and a move. maybe you have a bonus action, if you have something specific that grants it to you. But that's still way simpler than everyone having one and trying to figure out what to do with it each round. Minor actions were awful. Bonus actions takes into account decision paralysis that adding more stuff to do each round created.Why is the game telling me how to act and what to do in a roleplaying game? (pre-defined roles).5e's design is simple, elegant, straightforward, clean, fast-running, easy to understand and even easy to master. Yet still more powerful, more versatile, respects all three pillars of the game, respects that different people don't want overly complex characters each time. If you ask most 4e fans, they would never have included the Champion or anything like it. Even the designers of the game were surprised at the feedback that said people wanted some options for the simple fighter who mostly just attacks (when he wants) and hits hard, or simpler blaster wizard.Rules vagueness is a plus, because no rules system can account for all posibilities of actions in a setting. Putting that responsibility squarely back in the hands of DMs is what makes the game run fast and true. Many people don't want to scratch their heads and wonder how you can prone a snake or a giant ooze. Any time a game rule gets in the way of logic or common sense, it should be summarily ignored or dismissed by a sensible DM for that scenario. The fact that 5th edition only has one page of errata (needing at most two, even if they included forum feedback on the balance problems with some feats or spells) after being out over a year is clear proof that the rules are lighter. Complex rules are heavier. Simple rules are lighter. Simple is achieved in this case in a combination of avoiding game jargon and relying on natural language and the intelligence of the human players to adjudicate the rules, rather than the absurd reliance on overly complex rules that try to account for every possibility. They even removed more causes of AoOs in 5th edition. Those alone were an unending nightmare in 3rd edition, that led to static combats and tons of table arguments and rules lookups.5th edition is probably the simplest D&D ever, although I haven't re-read the original Basic 1st ed in a while, and have no interest in doing that. Big feats getting doled out more rarely instead of microfeats and feat chains is also a huge complexity reducing move. 5th edition is the best D&D, despite its flaws. Most of which are easily fixable through tweaking certain feats or spells, or banning certain class features.</blockquote>

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