Nimble, Shadowdark, and That's It...

Digest-sized 5E really is the way to go.

I love my Shadowdark books, and Nimble 5E is joining that collection as my "heroic fantasy" version of the game. The books do not eat up shelves of space, nor do they require subscriptions and double purchases to function properly and be playable. They do not take up a huge part of my life and sit on a shelf. They are small things, packed with potential, like all games should be.

The books are small, filled with fun, and every page is filled with imagination and inspiration. As much as I love Tales of the Valiant and Level Up A5E, they are huge games that require digital tools. With these books, I can have 5E, be free of subscriptions, and they play either grimdark or high fantasy, and I have it all in a very small space.

I am done with embarrassing myself with huge shelves full of books I never use, and games that exist in my house solely as bloatware. Honestly, the last "shelf games" I will ever support are GURPS, Castles & Crusades, and Dungeon Crawl Classics. The latter shines particularly well thanks to its special editions, size, and over-the-top attitude. GURPS is a blue-collar game; every book I own works hard. C&C is perfect in every way.

But for my "5E games?"

Give me the small, digest-sized, compact, and fun games I can throw in a suitcase and travel with. I am done with these massive, bloated, wordy 5E implementations, full of confusing action types and 30-minute player turns, character sheets that are dozens of pages long, and just want a game that is small and that works.

I am done with "big book" 5E.

That era is over.