I still enjoy 5E for what it tried to do, and I still have my Tales of the Valiant books. But if I am playing one game at that complexity level, and simplifying my gaming life to the games I enjoy the absolute most, there is only room in my gaming life for one massive game, and that game is GURPS.
I get more out of GURPS per minute spent with it than I do from 5E.
If the old solo-play adage "everything is playing" is true, then when I am designing a GURPS character, optimizing their points, fine-tuning their advantage and disadvantage list, picking their armor, carefully loading them out as to not over-encumber them, and finely crafting them to fit a role in my game - then GURPS gives me a constant stream of enjoyment at every minute I spend in a character designer.
In 5E, it is just "making big choices" and having the designers and web programmers add another huge list of junk to my character sheet. I make a few big choices, and they keep throwing things I don't want into my shopping cart. I get to decide very little, and all the choices I make are these aggregated, huge ones that feel less like character design and more like picking items off an à la carte menu and ending up with too much food on the table.
And if I want more choices?
In GURPS? The game comes with them all. I have an infinite number of choices at my fingertips. Batteries are included here. With just the core books, I get it all.
In 5E? I need to buy the next book or crowdfunding project to have more choices. I need to pray that they support those choices in the VTT of my choice. I need to constantly spend money to have new choices.
I love ToV, but I am always buying the next crowdfunding book to "have more."
With GURPS, I have it all in two books. Yes, you need to learn the system to make it work well, but it is better than paying $100-200 every 3 months for another 5E book. I learn the system, and save the money.
And GURPS works exactly the way I want it to. Do I want clerics to be like "fantasy superheroes?" Fune, give them a healing power that costs fatigue points, and let them heal whenever they want. Do I want them to use magic and spells? Okay, healing works that way in that framework. I am not dealing with "spell slots" or a class description a dozen pages long with subpaths that I am forced to pick.
Is it more work than being "told what to do?" Yes.
Does it work exactly how I want it to? Yes.
But I get it, some people don't want to do all the work and have "things to choose from." I am like that too, but 5E has grown beyond my ability to support it, since it tries to take over my entire gaming life and library. For those times, I will just play a game like Old School Essentials and a BX system, where everything is chosen for me, and all I need to do is play my role. It is far easier and cheaper than supporting a 5E habit, and I do not need the weight and complexity of 5E to enjoy a game of focused, limited choices.
And guess what? In OSE, you get 90% of anything you would want to play, and a handful of zines fills in some of the missing parts. I can fit more choices and options on a quarter shelf of OSE books than on eight shelves of 5E books. My OSE collection is small, but very expressive and expansive. Sure, every choice isn't as "deep" as a 5E class, but they do 90% of the same thing anyway in play, and the game is more focused on the dungeon turn, exploration, and the classic gameplay loop.
And 5E wants to be a narrative game, not a dungeon crawler. For narrative games where character-focused choices and narrative tools are more important on "damage per turn", GURPS will absolutely be the best choice. GURPS has far more tools for a narrative game than 5E ever will, with self-control rolls, advantages, disadvantages, and a whole host of roleplaying choices I can buy with character points.
What am I losing? Fantasy superheroes. I am a bit tired of that genre, and I prefer the classic, old-school dungeon turn and gameplay loop to that style of play. Also, if I play fantasy superheroes and want a tactical battle game, Pathfinder is a better choice than 5E, and it is balanced all the way to level 20. Draw Steel is another great tactical game. Nimble 5e does the entire genre fast and rules-light.
If I want to "support" 5E, I have Nimble: one small box that contains the entire 5E experience. The fantasy superheroes genre does not have to be a game that eats shelves. Nimble 5E takes the sting out of dropping full 5E, and it lets me keep 5E support on my shelves without a massive library or a huge time investment. It is a small game, like OSE, and it does everything.
Nimble makes putting 5E into legacy support so easy. I am not losing a thing. The game is tiny. It does fantasy superheroes well. It can sit on my OSE shelf and happily support 5E adventures and gameplay without all the books. Nimble does enough fantasy superheroes well enough that I do not miss a thing about 5E. This is also getting an expansion soon, and we will have more to play with.
And unlike 5E, Nimble plays fast. You get to feel more like a hero and less like someone who scans a character sheet, trying to figure out what to do during a turn. Why am I reading my character sheet multiple times during a combat? It feels like trying to drive a car, with the user manual open on the dashboard and flipping to the page for the left turn signal as you roll up to the intersection. And before you make the left turn, you need to have the DMV book open on the seat next to you so you can review the rules for making a left turn.
Is that a free action or a bonus action? Am I allowed to make a left turn on a bonus action? Oops, sorry, left turns are full-round actions. Please watch for oncoming traffic and turn when it is safe to do so. Where is that left turn signal again? Please give me the other book. Why is this car manual 400 pages long? Why do the rules for left turns go on for 12 pages?
And with an easier 5E, I have the time to focus and balance the games I love, meaning I have more time and shelf space for GURPS and OSE. Nimble sits happily alongside my big two games, offering me 5E if I want it. Nimble avoids cluttering my game shelves by being tiny yet feature-packed. It commits no sins and happily lives alongside my best games.
GURPS?
Yes, it is my last, best "big game."
I get more out of GURPS per minute spent with it than I do from a few thousand pages of 5E rules. At most, it is three shelves of amazing books, with only two core books mattering. GURPS gives me narrative "oomph" and power, and outshines 5E in story-based, narrative games. GURPS does social roleplay far better than 5E does, because what I choose during character creation matters. It is not all "classes and powers" in GURPS; my character's "physical and mental profile" is fully designed, whereas in 5E it is just assumed and scribbled in (if at all) in the notes section of the character sheet.
5E cares more about a button on a VTT character sheet you can press to roll a d20 plus skill modifier. I still like 5E, but we have gotten so lost in the woods with this system and VTT support that it no longer feels like the game we were promised in 2014. It is all gimmicks, tools, and power gaming in a JavaScript interface. The game isn't even dungeon-crawling anymore, and it feels like we are just pretending it does.
OSE is defined by the dungeon exploration turn.
Nimble gives me the heart of 5E without the complexity.
And GURPS cares more about the character than the character sheet.
My life feels better with just my best games on my shelf, and the ones I can support.



























