When it comes to D&D, truly I am a fan of the concept, I hold Gygax and his original vision in high regard, yet for the past 30 years I have considered D&D to be kind of a second class citizen of role-playing games. I always enjoyed playing it don’t get me wrong but I have always found a lot to dislike about it, mainly in its handling of mechanics.

To me the true D&D is 1st edition AD&D, it defined the original game and conceptually it is a masterpiece. The problem with 1st edition was mostly in practice. Mechanically speaking the narrative high’s where often contrasted by the mechanical lows. If I where to put it to words I would say the system got in the way of the game.

Since first edition, each new edition of the game had its own take on “the next step” and how to solve some of its problem and dare I say each failure has been worst then the next. 2e clearly felt the game required more rules and they added mountains of them, yet did little to streamline or make them manageable or balanced. 3rd edition seemed to steer the game towards an odd form of simulationist realism with a moderate focus on tactical gaming and while the rules where more coherent, the game itself pulled away from the narrative focus of its predecessors to the battle mat in what amounted to a terribly unbalanced mini game. 4e streamlined the rules even more, giving way for simplicity and a return to free form role-playing, yet countered this success by creating so much focus on combat and making combat so slow with such stringent rules it felt like playing a computer game.

In the end all of the editions addressed various aspects of the game, each edition seemed to focus on repairing the previous edition which in turn addressed the edition before that. The problem was that since 2e came out and addressed none of the real issues of 1st edition, the successors where fixing things that really weren’t broken in the original vision.

For example each new edition tried to address how tactical combat should work, when the reality was that the original vision of the game wasn’t for it to be a tactical combat game, quite the opposite, D&D was created with the very intent to not be another war game. Combat was also supposed to be quick, the game meant for us to have violent encounters often, being able to play out several in succession. Instead each new edition slowed it down even further, ending with 4e’s dreadfully slow and repetitive miniatures tactical game. 1st edition had quite a few issues that could have been solved with the experienced we got even back then, but no one ever really tried.

Now 5e has come out of a long, heatedly discussed and very public beta. When I first held the shiny new players handbook in my hand I have to admit I was bracing myself for disappointment. I honestly expected the new edition to be just another fix for the previous edition, without much attention given to the original vision of the game. I really only had one question for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. Are you really D&D or are you one of the others?

It was with great pleasure and excitement that I read page after page of the Players Handbook and it wasn’t because I was blown away by the games “new” design, quite to the contrary what caught my attention first and foremost is the familiarity of the game, that in every way that mattered, 5e had within it the spirit of the original vision. Page after page it was clear that the game had come home.

5e isn’t a perfect mechanic by any stretch of the imagination but for the first time since the first remake that was 2e was released someone actually made a true successor to 1st edition AD&D.

I’ve always been amazed about how much misinformation and silly misconception there are about people who speak highly of 1st edition AD&D and play the original vision of the game. The reality is that very few D&D players I have ever met in over 30 years of gaming have claimed 1st edition AD&D rules to be any good. It wasn’t the rules that defined the game, it really was the principles on which the rules where founded. There are many of them, but as I read the 5e book it was evident the designers clearly knew more about the true foundation of D&D then I ever knew or thought I knew.

I was struck by a number of things so blatantly pulled from the original Gygax works, even though in many ways they were in contrast to everything that has been done design wise with D&D since the original.

For example the zero to hero effect so eloquently designed in 5e, I think if Gygax were alive he would say “yeah, I should have done it like that”. D&D was originally a game about ordinary would be heroes in extraordinary worlds and situations. It was a game that told the tale of their rise, the story of how they became heroes. This was the adventure. 5e took that concept but made it fluid, fun and with a assertive progression to stability so that once you took those first steps you wouldn’t be sitting around for many sessions before you could tell the next chapter of your heroic deeds. 5e created a progression that makes, one looking back at 1e would be easy to implement in that game and would make a world of difference in its design.

Another great example of 5e looking back and fixing It design is combat speed, which has such a huge impact of every other faucet of the game. By taking all that we have learned about D&D combat over the years, stripping away the unnecessary gibberish and zeroing in on the most fun aspects of it 5e has created the most effective and coherent combat system I have seen in years. A combat system that is not only fast, but manages to infuse itself with plenty of wiggle room for narrative play with simple systems like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. Now DM’s can freely reward and punish players for their narrative risks in combat, fluidly mixing in with the mechanical aspects of combat without losing a step. Always pushing the adventure forward, always bringing us the narrative. Combat is so vivid in 5e, its everything I had always hoped 2e, then 3e and ultimately 4e would be prior to hearing the bad news and realizing that they have all missed the point.

Finally I think 5e pays proper tribute to other editions of the game. While I certainly find plenty of fault with every edition, there were many concepts and mechanics in all editions of the game that where going in the right direction, they just needed minor adjustments to make them practical and in so many places this is exactly what 5e did.

The Wizard for example with its handling of the familiar handling of the magic system. One of the biggest problems of 1e (and subsequent editions as well) was that mages had too few spells and even when they had a lot in their spell book in practical terms they only had access to very specific spells they prepared. Need a Detect Magic spell? Sorry you didn’t prepare it, see you in 8 hours. Now with the prepared spells and spell slots being separated without having to choose in advance you can cast the spells you want. In 3e from where this concept is clearly pulled, they did this with the sorcerer and they were so close to getting it right. Only problem was that they separated the Wizard and Sorcerer into separate classes and for balance reasons the Sorcerer had reduced selection, a decision clearly made to ensure the Wizards toes weren’t being stepped on. The merging of the two classes in 5e gives us really what the Wizard should always have been. The addition of at will cantrips a concept borrowed from 4e is another example of great design borrowed and implemented with balance in mind.

I could probably write a book about all the ways 5e got it right, but really what’s important here is that we finally got a worthy successor to 5e and I couldn’t be happier with it. For the first time in years me and my gaming group are excited about D&D again.

Thank you Wizards of the Coast, you got it right!