5e is the childhood of 3.5e.

I began my journey into the fantastical multiverse of D&D a few years before 3.5e saw the light of day. Bouncing between 3 and ADnD, when they released 3.5e it was the metaphorical blooming of D&D as a narrative framework and mechanical refinement. With a few handwaves of course: the system is cumbersome to learn and you often need house rules to smooth over certain time sinks. 4e was released and it was the poor bastard child of PC-gaming dribbling down into TTRPGs. Where class progression followed a much narrow path; where roleplay felt guided by mechanics towards stereotypes. A more organized method to build encounter were heavily encouraged, adding to the feeling of playing a PC-game on pulped trees. Combat was less dynamic and easily could take hours to complete. Killing both the narrative progression, the mood to play, demanded discipline towards swiftness in action, and encouraged heavy modifications to hurry along combat. 4e was just a drag on the mood to play. When 5e arrived I were more hopeful. I approved of the reintroduction of backgrounds and saw the merit in assigning ability score modifiers (+2/+1) instead of locking in a race to match your class (Introduced later as an alternative in character creation in a splatbook/addition). However, I am a sucker for forcing pros and cons based on racial features so this is meh for me that they are progression away from this aspect. The advantage/disadvantage on rolls is a plus, it helps in reducing amount of "I'll allow it, this time" - rulings from the DM. Which allows players to make better informed decisions depending on context. They streamlined character creation but reduced variability in how a character could express itself mecahnically. In short: 5e is 3.5e light. I hope that 6e will be 3.5e but more fleshed out, more systems to simulate combat (large and small), more character options, more ways to anchor roleplay aspects into character creation, to broaden the ways how a character may develop (Such as increasing or decreasing ability score or picking and improving skills without it always being a DM decision), that they adopt certain mechanical aspects from 5e, that they add more class feats and abilities a player may choose from both at lvl one and in later levels. D&D is not only about creating a story or adventure but it's also about breathing life into a fictional character. To this end I firmly believe that an expansive palette of pure mechanical and personality options (Roleplay specific fluff) to paint your character as you imagined them is the only way to progress D&D. The confines of a streamlined D&D might be prefered by DMs and groups with few opportunities to meet for a session of dice rolling fun. To get stuck into it. To me this spiritual detour dulls the vibrancy of D&D and have me rather play Baldur's Gate 3 to get the echt PC-gaming experience. (redigerad)