I must admit to being distinctly uninterested about the whole D&D 5th ed “D&D Next” affair.  Wizards of the Coast lost my gaming dollar once I realised they wanted me on a new edition tread mill after 3.5, which I never got the same gaming mileage from than say 1st Ed, Basic/Expert or even 2ed.   Even without the fiasco of Monte Cook leaving the project, its very unlikely that I’d invest.

You see I’d much rather ‘roll my own’* 5th Edition from various bits of Open Gaming Content and my own common sense additional rulings. This is pretty much what I did for Crypts and Things, but only more so to make my own version of the Class Based Worlds Favourite RPG.

• It would be heavily Old School in tone and most rules
• The four core classes (Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Magic-User) with additional classes I like (Ranger, Druid, Paladin, Bard).
• Races (Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-ling, perhaps Half-Orc BUT no fecking Half-Elves)
• Ascending AC from 3.0.
• From Araskia’s Sword and Sorcery rules, I would take the Skills system (but tie it to a separate Skill number rather than Saving Throw),  the Sanity System and possibly weapon damage by class.
• Keep the Vancian magic system – which for me is one of the big selling points of D&D.
• Have a more class based XP system, like 2ed , or even NO XP AT ALL!

And as much fun spells, monsters and magic items that I could cram in a 6″x 9″ US trade paper back of say 200-300 pages 😉