This is my first post to this forum and it will be after I spent about 6 to 8 hours reading through this thread and several others, including the state of the post-OSR and Book Talk.
Thank you for the concern. I'll be ok.
These are my impressions of 5e. I'm not striving for the laser-guided accuracy of argument and word choice like some of the opinions in the thread up to this point.
I got into 1e because my dad had the books lying around in a cupboard. Finding them and reading them as a kid was an amazing feeling that's hard to recapture as an adult. I think you can appreciate what I mean with that.
Trying to play D&D with just the 1e books was a nightmare. My friends and I tried once and gave up. Then came 3e and I wondered why the 1e books were such terrible rule books by comparison. It wasn't until this past year after stumbling upon the OSR that I realized why: they're modular rules and guides to be understood within the framework of OD&D and/or B/X.
Since then I've run an abortive 3e campaign, played in another, and run a 5e campaign. All were linear story driven campaigns that were more or less unsatisfying. Then I found the OSR online. I spent enough time reading about old school D&D to find the open world and exploration concepts that I had been missing. I loved the idea. I dropped the linear 5e campaign I was running and immediately began working on an open world campaign.
Up until that point I had been content with 5e and found it to be a good version. Carrying on to the present day I am increasingly souring on it. I'll list my reasons below. Some of these critiques come up repeatedly in 5e forums and I'm surprised they haven't shown up in this thread.
First though: I disagree that 1e, or any previous edition of D&D, should be dismissed as obsolete or lacking merits. Likewise I don't think the newer versions (3e on) are without merit either. I greatly enjoy that older editions were rough around the edges even if I don't always like the mechanics. I view the development of the game as an iterative process and it's fun for me to see how that happened. I'm not interested in which edition is better or worse. They all have something to offer me as I search for my platonic ideal of D&D.
My 5e critiques:
- Perhaps my biggest critique of the system itself: robuster mechanics that were present in older editions have been stripped out and not replaced. This includes dungeon and wilderness exploration, domain level play, and hirelings and henchmen. Preparing for my new 5e sandbox meant welding those back onto the game. And much of that meant just taking rules directly from older versions.
- My impression of the magic system is that there are even more ways that magic trivializes the already negligible exploration components in the game. While high-level magic has presented problems for the referee in other editions as well, it seems to have become worse in 5e.
- Passive checks (10 + modifiers, usually ability and proficiency) seem like a good idea until I tried running them at the 'table' (we play online). I have to compare a DC to a PC's always-on Perception skill to spot a hidden monster? Fine - if my players give me a list of their scores before the session as I requested. Less so if they don't. And for less commonly used skills this becomes even more of a hassle. The mechanic leaves me dissatisfied.
- Power creep in many longstanding D&D abilities. Darkvision perhaps the biggest example of this. It used to be some folk had just low light vision.
- Grappling may be easy to run but it doesn't seem like it provides satisfying options. A grappled character has 0 movement and can be moved by the grappler. This seems plausible for a large creature to do with a smaller one, but not vice versa. As written it lacks the option for many enemies to swarm a PC and kill him outright as was mentioned in this thread about previous editions.
- I do miss some of the other combat options that were available in previous editions too. Fighting defensively (3e, I think?) I saw even LotFP included that. One can Dodge in 5e but you lose the chance to attack completely, instead of attacking but with a lower chance to hit.
- XP only for defeating monsters: I used to be against XP for treasure, now I'm for it and against XP for monsters as the sole source of XP. In fact, I prefer to reward XP for monsters, treasure, exploration and reaching goals or good gaming etc.
- I don't like the level cap at 20 as the rules are written. I prefer OD&D's and 1e's lack of a level cap with diminishing returns.
- The encumbrance system de facto ignores encumbrance. Even when it is used, it solves none of the problems of previous editions because it still requires the odious tracking of weight in pounds.
- The selection of weapons have been pared down from 3e. This is good. It should have been made even smaller. Too many weapons are functionally equivalent; the battleaxe and longsword differ only in weight and price. Alternately some weapons are clearly better than others such that there is no justification for the existence of the worse weapon other than perhaps for flavor (or class restrictions, which are just flavor disguised as a mechanic). An example: between the mace and the quarterstaff, the quarterstaff is better in every respect. It costs less, is lighter, and can be used as a Versatile weapon for more damage.
- Much equipment has been dragged through into 5e from as far back as 1e, yet no thought was given to making that equipment significant in terms of the game. For some things such as chalk or signal whistles, players will come up with a use on their own. Other things on the equipment list are pointless and aren't even given a text entry to explain how they might not be pointless. It frustrates me that they seem to be there just to pad out the equipment list. This includes things like the abacus, mess kit, blanket, bed roll, and clothing. There is no game mechanic associated with these items. What frustrates me is that the designers were willing to basically hand wave encumbrance away -with which I disagree- but were not willing to hand wave an abacus and mess kits, which bring nothing to the game.
- 5e is no stranger to poor book design. The index in the PHB and DMG are nigh unhelpful.
There are aspects of and mechanics in 5e that I like: advantage / disadvantage being one. Within its own framework of a game built around X number of combat encounters per day, the classes seem to be well balanced with each other and they each have a role in that regard. I like that the game has been streamlined. Yet I feel that this statement needs the following qualifier: it has been streamlined in comparison to 3e.
In hindsight though I often feel like I paid $160 for source books solely so that I may share in the wonder that is the advantage / disadvantage mechanic. I'll explain why in a later post.
