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As someone who learned on AD&D 2nd Edition, I gotta say, I find the 5th Edition rule sets (very annoying that there's two versions. again) painfully slow and tedious to play. The rule set and focus has shifted from large-scale battles with dozens of participants and 3-4 armies to smaller encounters of only two teams and 4-6 participants on each team. Just one large-scale encounter on the 5e rule set would probably take multiple sessions.
The culture and the way people play has also changed dramatically. Pencil, paper, and dice used to be all you need, but is seen as "inadequate" now. Terrain, D&D Beyond, and miniatures are the new standard. Everyone uses a tablet or laptop and browses Reddit between turns. Every turn is treated as an opportunity in the spotlight to have their big moment of the session.
I hate to sound like a boomer, but this new stuff ain't it.
Then why play at all? I thought the fun was doing something together with a group of people, you know, to get away from the internet and back in touch with friends.
As someone who also knows how to calculate THAC0, I respectfully disagree. I won't argue with anything you said, because those are valid points. Just a difference in play style.
Back in the day, we simply skipped, simplified or avoided any of the more complex formulas. We wanted to keep the party moving, and I think the new rules do that better. Roll a 20, high is good, low is bad. That's all you need to know, and you can focus more on coming up with creative, fun solutions rather than worrying about all the modifiers and restrictions that limit what you can do.
I don't think we ever ran any real large scale battles, or, if we did, they just got zoomed in. (There's a massive battle going on around you, this is the tiny portion of it on front of you, and the DM will tell you how the rest plays out).
I think that's just the consequence of popularization. Everyone watched Critical Role and expects production quality from their DMs. I play Pathfinder and still just use paper and pen. They call it "theatre of the mind" now lol
I do feel like live plays have set some unrealistic expectations around minis, content and time spend on the game. It's like expecting your day to day to be an action movie. But all the groups I have played with regularity are more relaxed but each person's and groups expectations are different.
Combat can get very long if people are not prepared. Especially with graphic details of attacks. Keep that until a killing blow or cinematic moment.