I get the feeling that Indie 5E failed. Open 5E is my chosen version 5E, but the bottom is falling out of the market for anything not on D&D Beyond. For me, Shadowdark is the last 5E I will play. As for everything else?
5E, how Wizards designed it, is not a roleplaying game. It is a software platform.
Shadowdark, and arguably, Low Fantasy Gaming, simplifies the engine enough that it doesn't need a software platform to support the game. They are exempt from the issues trying to "clone" or "reverse engineer" the system brings to the table. Shadowdark will likely be the only 5E book I keep and play. This is the best implementation of the 5E rules I have ever seen.
Why? They stripped out the software platform requirement. This can be played straight from the book; no machines are needed. Shadowdark is "my 5E" and the last version I feel like supporting.
The hangers-on to 5E are buying the new books and signing up for D&D Beyond, where "the software platform" resides. This is where the VTT will be. No character sheets are needed to be imported. Everything is right there. Again, D&D and 5E are software platforms, not role-playing games.
If you understand this and buy in because you support the "software as service" model for your entertainment, then you are making an informed decision—good for you. However, you are making a huge mistake if you equate D&D to other games where you don't need the software platform support.
There is also the problem of several political movements on any side of an issue co-opting D&D and severely factionalizing the community. D&D, as a game, is of secondary importance to them. These groups will conform to the largest group and sign up for D&D Beyond as a recruiting tool. Sadly, this is true in so many communities these days, and all the activists want our eyes and anger, not the games and fun of being together as a community with shared interests.
If you are a third-party producer and not on D&D Beyond, you will always be a second-class citizen in that market and shut out of the smaller platforms and VTTs due to your size. It is not economically viable for a small producer to be on every VTT and support those platforms, so the "data issue" arises.
Many people play without the software platform, but most consumers are on the software, so this is the market. Many have walked away from 5E entirely, including the Open 5E versions, and found it easier to play other games. Why would you invest in Open 5E and be stuck with second-rate software support?
It is easier to learn a new game or play an older version of D&D than to play Open 5E and deal with all the hassle of creating 5E characters by hand or using clones and trying to get the options and choices you want. I tried Hero Lab online for Tales of the Valiant, and it feels like a dead system over there.
As for myself, I went back to D&D 3.5E, and this is my best "modern" D&D. I have all my Eberron and Realms sourcebooks; all the books were designed to work together, and it is a complete package, and if needed, you have Hero Lab (one-time fee, offline, no subscription) to create characters in. D&D 3.5E had some incredible designers running the show; Monte Cook and many of today's legends were involved. This is an all-star band of talent here, and it has yet to be replicated. This game is still very broken, but it is fun and a classic.
5E's design relies on corporate dependence on character designers; 3.5E's design is also, but 3.5E feels like true-modern D&D, whereas 5E feels like an overly power-generous story game.
For anything else, Castles & Crusades or Dungeon Crawl Classics work well, depending on my mood, for ease of use and randomness.
Also, for tabletop tactical play, the torch has been picked up by Pathfinder 2 Remaster. Want something balanced, works well to level 20, has many published adventures, and gives you near-infinite build flexibility? Don't listen to D&D YouTube; they are just farming clicks. Pathfinder 2 gives me fewer headaches and breaks rules, and it just works well at any level. This is the game if I want that tight, tactical play on a tabletop.
Using anything other than D&D Beyond is too much hassle, and the game is the software platform—not the books.
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