There is Too Much 5E

I am reminded of the days when the Atari 2600 market collapsed. Games that were 30 or 40 dollars the week before were tossed into bins in the center of aisles and marked down to a dollar each. We kids had a field day, and Mom saved a lot of money.

Strangely enough, nobody else was buying them, either. The bins were not picked over and were full of good stuff.

These days, 5E feels like this: Everyone is making "my 5E," and Kickstarter is flooded with 5E rules replacement systems. All these projects must be completed before D&D 2024 releases, so there is a flood of them now.

For me, Level Up Advanced 5E is the ultimate 5E system. I've been using it as my core system for years, and it's always impressive. This system was built from a clean-room rewrite of the SRD, and it's a testament to the power of community-driven projects. The old-school mix of 4E, OSR, and 5E concepts to support the pillars of play is an excellent, fun-focused rebuild of the game. Level Up is more for advanced players than beginners.

Tales of the Valiant is also a worthy 5E replacement, and this cuts closer to the 5E rules instead of rebuilding the game rules from the ground up. Due to its compatibility with 5E, it adopts some of the same issues (everyone with dark vision tripe), but the rules are clean, well-presented, and easy to use. Compared to the 2024 PHB, the ToV core book is a lot easier to use, learn, and hand to a new player to grasp.

The D&D 2024 books are non-starters to me. I don't like how the company does business, and from the previews I have seen, the organization of the books could be better. In a world where Shadowdark is winning Ennies for clean layout and presentation, releasing books that look like wall-of-text-layouts in 2005 without cross-referencing is such a massive miss that it is a near-fatal mistake.

Shadowdark feels like it is picking up the ball where D&D dropped it. This is what 9-year-olds play with their families and run the game as DMs. Hasbro shareholders should ask management what the young player strategy for the brand is because I don't see it, and in 10 years, this will come back to bite the company hard.

It did TSR.

We have Nimble 5E, MCDM RPG, and many others coming out, and targeted at current players. The OGL mess told the community, "Make your own," and Wizards fragmented the market into a million pieces. We have a glut of new systems, not to mention the other non-5E fantasy games like Dragonbane, Pendragon, Runequest, Forbidden Lands, Shadow of the Demon Lord, and others, gaining fans and picking up the torch. The OSR is still strong, along with OSE, DCC, Worlds Without Number, Castles & Crusades, and many others.

It feels like "too much 5E" for the market to support. Many, especially the experienced players (which many DMs fall into), never return to D&D and are happy in other games. The 2024 D&D books feel targeted to a narrow set of D&D Beyond players, not the mass market - and certainly not towards the next generation. This is the AD&D 2nd Edition mistake all over again; when Basic D&D was killed, there were no offerings for young players, and TSR just banked on the hardcore players to pay the bills.

Ten years later, they were out of business.

TSR made a few other huge mistakes, and that was a different market, but still, a VTT that does not sustain the level of growth a video game would pull in will be an expensive failure and equal the bad decisions TSR made, just in money and resources spent.

The younger generation played Nintendo in the 1990s, not Basic D&D. D&D 2024's mistake will only be seen in hindsight since AD&D 2nd Edition was incredible when it launched but could not sustain the company and attract young players. And I don't see a static VTT (with a few animations) entirely dependent on DMs as sustaining the market or interesting younger players.

It feels like a glut, and my gut feeling is that we are in that phase where the shelves are loaded with expensive Atari games, and next week, the bargain bins will be full.

I still enjoy my 5E books, and I will for many years. Many people will. The existing players are still a huge number. But I don't see the market here for as many games as we are getting, and the many more coming. And I don't see the replacement players coming into a mature market to replace the natural loss of interest and players.