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I don't know if it's just because it's springtime and people are crawling out of their burrows, but I have had a couple people ask me about getting the RPG group back together. The group is a mix of n00bs, three 4thites, a couple AD&D/3rd players (*raises her hand*), 1 Pathfinder only player, and one dude who only plays philoshophical storytelling RPGs (oh, i'm so sorry Sean, imagination games). I have kept D&D out of the options for rulesets due to my experience with the free basic PDF (the basic PDF is pretty awful imho). I decided to *cough cough* borrow a copy of the player's handbook so I could get an idea of what the full version of 5th is all about. We playtested the crap outta this game, then everyone got bored when it dropped (running the basic PDF). Reviews online have been mixed and the game seems tepid to a lot. However, I was really blown away by how logically the PHB was laid out, and how easy it was to roll up a character (or 5 in two hours). A big thing would be helping the little baby adventurers roll up their first character, but if I can do one in 20-30 minutes, then they can in an hour I'm sure.

SO! Tell me, I beseech you! How have you found 5th upon playing it? For you nasty nasty 4thites: does it have enough stuff for you to power game and min/max? We are straddling the fence between doing D&D "traditional fantasy" and a Lovecraftian setting. Going Lovecraftian, we'll play Cthulhu Dark cuz it's easy, awesome and n00b friendly. I personally don't want to go back to Pathfinder, because I was one of the rare people who didn't like 3.5...

Thoughts?

Hey there,

Probably you've made your mind up one way or another by this point, but I thought that I'd sling a quick reply anyway. I've run a couple campaigns of D&D 5e, and I've been really happy with the experience. In contrast to what you report, most everyone I've demoed the game for or played it with were really keen on it, including novice players.

I'm a medium-crunch guy by preference - less than Dark Heresy, more than Savage Worlds - and it suits me in that regard. The system is quick and easy to run, but with a decent level of character options and variation. I have heard one person say that it lacks options in combat, but he was only playing a second level character at the time so most of the cool powers had not come online yet. Another system strength is the simple maths; I don't mean simple as a pejorative adjective, but rather that they were careful to keep modifiers and subsystems simple, so that you only ever need to worry about adding a fairly small number to the dice, and that number doesn't get recalculated often. In practice, I've found the only person to slow down play was the druid who never remembered his alternative form stats.

One element that your indie game friend might enjoy is the game's focus on the 'three pillars'; they put a real emphasis on the idea that not everything has to be a combat encounter. So you have plenty of spells and abilities that explicitly don't work in combat, but are fun to use when exploring or socialising. I use the word fun on purpose, since a lot of them really are just enjoyable to use, from backgrounds that make you good at knowing who to talk to, to a thief's 'Second Story Work' making him climb really fast. Little stuff like that.

You'll find bigger and better reviews out there, but I just thought that I'd chip in my view real quick.

I've been running a 5th edition game for a while now, albeit with a couple house rules and I've really liked it. It's not fiddly and characters have some interesting options without it getting bogged down in having a rule for ever tiny little thing. The math is rather constrained which makes creating new content on the fly pretty darned easy. In fact just recently for my group (5th level) I was able to spitball a completely new monster off the cuff with mechanics for regenerating arms, and sticky mucus attacks basically off the top of my head. The only thing I took out of book was turning to a random level-appropriate monster and stealing a damage expression for the "Breath" weapon. The encounter was satisfying and challenging for the group.

That said I don't think it'd satisfy anyone who loved 4e. It lacks the tactical depth and strict mechanical definitions that game had. 5e is a much looser, rougher product than 4e was that doesn't offer nearly the same combat variety, particular for those who don't use magic.

Chongara has this under control it seems. I've had no issues with it in the home campaign someone is running. The Adventurer's League stuff seems a bit longer to run, but that may also be the DM.

I am just at the wrong end of GMing about 55 sessions of Pathfinder and just hit burnout with how much work it is to run once people start hitting level 10. Don't think they've really fixed the problems of 3.5 in that regard.

So I bought the 5e PHB at last and I am enjoying reading it. I am quite excited to run some adventures.

I am quite excited to finally hear your impressions!