As Much as I Blame 5E...

I still like 5E.

I just hate what 5E has become.

It is bittersweet. In a way, it is a goodbye. I still have my books, my crowdfunding will mostly cease (Battlezoo and RFC are still very worthy), and I will pare down my books to my Kobold Press core and keep them in storage until I want to say goodbye.

But the entire game at this point feels unsustainable.

The D&D Beyond "season model," where content will be rotated in and out of support, is likely the last straw. The digital DLC. The over-dependence on VTT character sheets and the need to buy the books twice. The season model opens the door for them to "rotate out" books and force you to buy the new ones. It is a rapid level of content composting that is coming our way like a tidal wave of feces.

I can't anymore.

I am too old to be wasting this much money on a game, and the rest of you are likely too young to know better to not do this. Save now for retirement.

5E is a good game engine, and Shadowdark and Tales of Aragosa prove it.

5E's core implementation is broken all to Hell. Predatory. AAA game. Live service. Season models. Digital goods. Content recycling. Walled gardens. Time-locked, discontinued books create FOMO, turning it into a toxic force in your mind. Missing out. Ads everywhere.

5E became everything I hate about gaming.

But I still like the core game engine and the idea behind it. There is a merit to giving players tactical options and depth to their classes. But how it is done in 5E is the worst way to implement this design. Tales of the Valiant is a solid implementation with fewer problems, but the character sheets still go into a dozen or more pages. I can't support that.

5E has a place in my heart.

The same place that broken dreams and fallen legacies live in.

BX and the OSR are the path forward.