Digital Only and Partnered Releases

The trend of "digital only" DLC for D&D sucks. Now, we are expected to buy our games from only one storefront and never have a physical copy? Not even a PDF that will last beyond the life of D&D Beyond? When the website shuts down, is it over? Like D&D 4's errata and online character creation tools, gone forever?

The partnered content, too, does not feel great. Are we getting no hardcovers from now on? Have we moved into a "no announcements, DLC only" model of releases? Are these D&D Beyond-only releases, too, without PDFs?

The game has taken a turn for the worse. Even if I were still giving them a chance, I would be very unhappy about the state of affairs. Yet D&D YouTube pretends "this is fine," and there isn't much alarm there as they pray the golden goose doesn't die anytime soon. It is a tough position to be put in, and you pray another game takes off in popularity and sustains your viewership.

Even criticizing the current state of affairs will breed negativity and force viewers away.

If I want to play 5E, I have Tales of the Valiant or Level Up A5E. I have books, PDFs, crowdfunding campaigns, and everything the "market leader" isn't giving me. Ten-year-old books still work with the Open 5E version of the system, and newer stuff works, too. ToV offers greater compatibility, seamlessly working with existing classes and subclasses.

Since I adopted ToV as my "long-term support" 5E, I have been happy with the system and support.

All my Wizards D&D books are in the garage. Even the monster manuals and campaign books.

I am just happier where I am.

Retrospective: Level Up: Advanced 5E, Part 2

Level Up A5E is part of the reason Tales of the Valiant did not launch as strongly as it should have. Many of the "Alt 5E" players were already on Level Up, and when ToV did not introduce many new features, people stayed with this system. I don't blame them, and I was one. I had everything I wanted here: the nods to the old school, the challenge, the improvements, the support for the pillars of play, and the better martial classes without resorting to silly "tricks" with weapon properties.

Many felt, "We have A5E, why do we need ToV?"

ToV and D&D 2024 got specialized weapon fighting wrong. Putting "special tricks" on the melee weapons is lame and increases complexity for everyone. Making these moves, fighting styles that martial classes get, and tracking a stamina resource, is far more the "5E way" of doing things. A5E does fighting styles right. Martial classes are fun in A5E, offering options and a new tracked resource. The martial characters and half-martial characters in this game are fantastic fun to play.

A lot of what made D&D 4E special is in this game, and you see the influences. There is a "battle commander" type class, and the 4E races are represented well. You can use this to play a 4E-style Nerrath campaign and have everything you need right there. The system is the best of the 2014 5E and 2008 4E systems, with an influence from the OSR.

Fatigue has real meaning, and pop-up healing can doom your character permanently. Rangers are needed, and aren't just "ranged light fighters" like they are in 2024 D&D. You need rangers to survive the wilderness. Oh, and they finally fixed Goodberry.

Many of the stupid problems in D&D were addressed four years ago, and they fixed them all in a complete rewrite of the system and the SRD, just to remove the OGL. A5E is like D&D with a sanity upgrade and quality of life features.

Oh, and the safety tools presented in the book? They actually went out and got permission to use them. Whether you like safety tools or not, thank you for asking for permission and mentioning that you did in the book, along with who created them. I don't use them, but doing the homework and giving community attribution for elements like this means something.

Your heritage (race) gains an advancement at the 10th level. Your culture (where you grew up) matters. Your background (job) can advance through adventures. The destiny system elevates the inspiration system to the next level, enabling you to achieve long-term goals and reap benefits from pursuing what drives you. D&D's inspiration system seems lame and too "toggle switch" compared to this.

Everything in this game has a deeper layer of depth and detail, which is incredibly satisfying.

With so many walking away from D&D and 5E, and the rest of the D&D crowd handing Wizards the fantasy monopoly and creating the next litigious "video game company" out of them, it will kill the hobby. We already saw Wizards try their hand at a form of "software patents" with the OGL revision, where other VTT platforms "could not do spell animations" and similar nonsense. More of that is coming, and while it will make the D&D YouTube content creators happy, they will get more outrage clicks; the rest of the tabletop hobby will be flushed down the toilet.

I refuse to hand one company a monopoly on gaming, "just because it is easier to play there." I know where this all ends up, and I can't do that and have a clear conscience.

A5E falls into a "Niche 5E" market, and with 5E in general slowly becoming "the D&D Beyond game," it makes me kind of sad to see honest innovation marginalized. Even ToV is like "hold your nose D&D," a sort of facsimile edition that is "hot swappable" for 2024 D&D, but with few core differences, mainly in the areas of class design and subclass power progression. ToV is the better game, but A5E went much, much farther to address core structural problems in 5E, such as the lack of meaning in social and exploration, and the dullness and weakness of martial characters.

Death means something in A5E.

Death means nothing in ToV, D&D 2014, and 2024.

A5E is the 5E that the hardcore players would be playing if they hadn't all jumped ship to the OSR and Shadowdark. There is a level of maturity here, the silly cosplay elements are not in my face, and there is a grittiness and realism to the rules that tell you "this is still a dungeon crawling game."

It is not playing baristas, rescuing corgis, ripping off Harry Potter, visiting planar socialist utopias, or breaking into a goblin birthday party to murder them all like in the new Keep on the Borderlands. The tone of anything D&D these days is like a narcissistic cosplay murder hobo simulator.

And honestly, all those diverse and special citizens of the Keep? If this were original D&D, they would be killed and looted, too. I hate this trend of "art code" characters as "default good." It's more inclusive to have every character potentially be a hero or a villain and let them play the roles they want.

A5E is the only version of 5E that I miss. The design sensitivities were close to how I saw 5E when it came out, and it makes nods to the old-school gamers. While ToV is new and exciting, it doesn't feel that much different from either 2014 or 2024 D&D.

A5E hit differently.

It is a strange game from an alternate universe where 5E is still cool.

A universe I wish I were in.

Retrospective: Level Up: Advanced 5E

Level Up Advanced 5E is the best of the Open 5E clones. Unlike Tales of the Valiant, they did not "power up" characters to a CR+1 balance; instead, they worked within the original math to refine it, streamline the rules, and add numerous options for characters. A5E is a CR+0 game and very compatible with the original adventures written for the system.

The math in Level Up is very tight, rebalanced, and the exploits are fixed. This has that flat and dry 2014 balance that many fell in love with back in the early days of 5E. They also fixed so much in terms of "pop-up healing" and put real consequences of death and getting reduced to zero hit points.

A5E has all the fixes people wanted in 2014 D&D, but we never got them in 2024 D&D, and Tales of the Valiant never delivered on them. The mechanical support for the exploration and social pillars of play is excellent, and what we should have gotten with Tasha's. Where 2024 D&D strips out all the softer "roleplaying powers" to make AI-based VTT play easier to develop, Level Up A5E doubles down on the roleplaying, social, exploration, and combat powers and gives us more of them.

If 2024 D&D feels too combat-focused and doesn't deliver on social and exploration, give A5E a try.

EN World's newsletter and web team got into a spat with Goodman Games this year over the City State Kickstarter, which was one of the year's lowlights. What was said by the new owners of Judge's Guild was abhorrent, but it is wrong to attack Goodman Games for its efforts in game preservation and its attempt to correct a wrong. Goodman Games also contributed to the issue with terrible communication, so there is blame on both sides.

And both of these companies are pretty forward-looking, and to have seen them fighting just makes me sick inside. We don't need this sort of vicious infighting during an industry downturn; it drives people away from the hobby. However, to put all this on Level Up A5E is just as wrong as the entire ugly episode.

Goodman Games came out for the better, and they had a fantastic showing at Gen Con this year, so they are doing well, and I am happy for them. Their games have a creativity and imagination that this hobby desperately needs in an era of nostalgia-baiting and endlessly rebooting old adventure modules with fresh coats of paint. How many times has Keep on the Borderlands been rebooted? Do we really need this again, only with worse art? There are times when I feel that Wizards will never create something truly great again, such as a Tomb of Horrors or another classic adventure. They don't have it in them.

The best we will ever have is what we already got.

Other than that, head to the indies to find the new classics.

Level Up A5E felt like it came out on the worst side of this fight, and I have seen no mention of it on YouTube in months. I like the game, and there are excellent design choices here. The fight felt like it hurt A5E more, and none of this needed to happen.

Both games were hurt, and I walked away from this, putting both DCC and 5E in storage. DCC is out again, but all of 5E for me is on ice.

Also, Level Up is the older game. Tales of the Valiant is better supported, with regular crowdfunding and new products, as Kobold Press navigates the 2024/ToV tightrope. ToV is better than D&D 2024 by far, but this is where the interest and excitement are these days, not in Level Up A5E. I don't see many people talking about or playing Level Up these days, and my copies are currently in storage. If it comes down to it, DCC will get shelf space over any version of 5E.

ToV is the best supported version of 5E, once you factor in the Shard VTT and owning PDFs.

A5E is the best custom version of 5E.

I like ToV and tried playing this, but I ended up missing the improvements A5E made to the system. Ultimately, the absence of a robust character creation tool doomed both games, with only Shard being the best one so far for ToV, and nothing much for A5E.

ToV's art varies in quality, and it is distracting at times. Level Up does a better job with the art, although it lacks those amazing pieces, by remaining consistent and good throughout.

I grew tired of relying on character creation software for 5E as a whole, as well as the multi-page character sheets. I have DCC. I have OSE. I have ADAD. I have Swords & Wizardry. I have Shadowdark. I have C&C. None of them needs software. They all do the same thing.

GURPS, admittedly, needs software. However, the calculus is different since it is primarily a one-time cost, or Patreon-supported for the other tool (which is still free, but please consider supporting the hard work that goes into it). If I want realistic fantasy with the best characters, GURPS is my game of choice.

Do I need to play with the 5E math, or is B/X and First Edition math superior? I did the numbers, 5E does not maintain character power as well as B/X or First Edition. 5E has a lot of bells and whistles designed to distract you as your character grows weaker in power as they level, and in that regard, it is like any MMO, but far more challenging to jump in and play.

Where ToV gives you about six "special abilities" after character creation, typically A5E gives you a dozen. This makes A5E characters very heavy, and character creation is slow going. I prefer A5E's final characters to ToV's, and the latter feels like a simplified version of this game. Then again, if I am going to take 90 minutes to create a 5E character, I will play GURPS, spend the same amount of time, and have exactly the character I want with better depth and options.

A5E has some of the best exploration mechanics ever developed for 5E. Resting is not easy. Rangers are needed. Rugged terrain can kill you. Survival is important. Supplies are critical. The hardcore 5E gamers from 2014 want their game back, and they've got it here. This was back before 5E became a player empowerment circus and everyone got soft, in the pre-Tasha's days, where serious gamers could still play 5E.

If I ever return to 5E, it will likely be with A5E. Despite the fight between Goodman and EN World, A5E is a good game. It is wrong to attribute "guilt by association" to anyone, and doing so to A5E is equally unjust.

ToV feels too cartoonish, like modern D&D, with goofy characters and their clown-like appearances. Death means nothing. Resting is far too permissive. ToV also makes minor improvements to the system, and the high level of subclass compatibility comes at the cost of the core game not being significantly better than 2014 5E. The power distribution and fixes in ToV are the real improvements, even surpassing those of 2024 D&D.

A5E rebuilds everything, sacrificing subclass compatibility for improving every pillar of the game. The martial classes and fighting styles surpass 2014, 2024, and ToV. You can find rare and unique spells. Everything is cool.

Level Up A5E is 2014 D&D 5E in a bottle, a game from that era before the hardcore players walked away. This was from that time when people still took 5E seriously, and it wasn't this constant stream of identity marketing, the overused Baldur's Gate 3 GMNPC characters, overpowered classes, designed for a failed VTT, zero-risk gameplay, and games that lacked challenge and got boring the higher level you reached. There was a moment when old-school players still played 5E, and A5E was created for them.

By the time Tasha's came around, we got Strixhaven, Spelljammer, and a whole mess of missteps; very few could take D&D 5E seriously. D&D slowly became a joke, a parody of the genre and itself. People went to Shadowdark and the OSR, and after the OGL, other games entirely.

Pathfinder 2 and ToV captured the alternative 5E market. Shadowdark took the rest. Many have left 5E entirely, sick of the entire mess the market has become.

This left A5E to sit there, still supported, still a good version of 5E, but seemingly forgotten.

Stripped Down A5E

The mistake I made with Level Up A5E was buying too many third-party books. You can dilute your game into this sloppy collection of cartoony books, serious books, strange settings, piles of magic items, so many monsters and spells, cute books, evil books, and books you like that don't match the tone of your game.

My game became a mess.

Add to that a second version of the game with Tales of the Valiant (ToV). I liked ToV a lot, but it wasn't for me.  ToV has it all: tons of monsters and magic, solid rules, and great support and adventures. The setting is fantastic. The adventures are numerous and all well crafted. If you just want a well-supported version of 5E minus Wizards, play ToV. I tried it, I liked it, but it was not the game I wanted or expected.

ToV was good, but it still wasn't as good as A5E. The mix of 5E game rules and the best ideas pulled from 3.5E and 4E in A5E was spectacular. The martial classes were terrific. I liked the support for exploration and social encounters a lot. Rangers did not suck. The old-school, deadly play, combined with multiple fixes for all of 5E's problems, made me miss A5E.

So I put all my books in storage. My shelves were cluttered with two games, multiple sourcebooks, piles of unused items, and an unfocused game that occupied five shelves of space.

More is nothing. I hated it all.

So I came back. Why?

When I started, I had a good game going. The setting and rules worked together very well. Other games struggled to tell the same story. This wasn't a D&D thing; it was a classic hero story that relied on the super-heroic elements, not the invincible ones. I have other games more closely tied to GURPS, the system of advantages and disadvantages, which describes the characters best. A5E told this story the best, since this is how I started it

I asked myself, "Could I limit the game to the best parts?" By getting rid of books, could I make this game fun again?

It is a hard thing to do. In my opinion, all my Kobold Press books needed to be excluded. That is a massive library with thousands of spells and monsters. Those books are for Tales of the Valiant. If I ever play with those rules, I will save them if the character and system options improve. Some excellent Roll for Combat books needed to be excluded; they are great and highly recommended, but not for the game I want to play. Most of my random magic items and class books must be removed.

Many books intended to "fix" 5E are worthless and can harm the game if used. Some books are designed to supplement D&D classes and offer options that can break the fixes A5E implemented. Some books intended for the original 5E will be better with Tales of the Valiant instead of A5E.

I just did not want to deal with other books. They were extra complex campaign settings I did not want to use, or subsystems that would detract from my core inspiration.

Roll20 has a good character sheet for the game. I found this after I decided to return, which was a pleasant surprise. This will help me with my digital conversion and save my games online. I have cleaned my place considerably by removing my gaming table, which may sound like heresy.

What do I have left? The core books, plus some 3rd party books written for A5E that provide options. The collection is very tight and focuses on the core books, plus the books strictly written for A5E to offer options in that framework.

The MOAR Complete book is fantastic, adding many options to the game. I have a few multiclass guides that provide synergy feats, and I have the homebrew and hacking guides written for A5E. For rules, that is about it. The A5E Monstrous Menagerie gives me detailed monsters with some mechanical interest.

If D&D 2014/24 is B/X, then A5E is full-blown AD&D. The complexity and detail are welcome for a game that glosses over far too much and lacks exploration and social mechanics.

I have a few Dante's Guides from Yellowbyte Studios, just for some Diablo-like monsters. There is an excellent Sandy Peterson Cthulhu book, but too many bad guys ruin the game, so that is sidelined. Classic D&D had Hell and demons as the ultimate bad guys, and after the Satanic Panic happened, this went in a hundred "family-friendly" directions, and we got mind flayers, drow, dragons, evil gods, and so on. D&D still has too many "junk drawer" big bad guys.

You could play AD&D and assume most of the monsters and humanoids were "touched by the blood of Satan" or a god, and even dragons were that way and wrestled with their sinister side. Classic Greek Mythology plays into this with one drop of blood spawning an entire etymology of creatures.

Sorry, modern interpretationists, my monsters are classic monsters and not reflections of West Coast street culture. What you see around you is not the world, nor history, nor the classics these games were based on, nor any facet of meaningful truth regarding fantasy gaming. Hiring great writers for these games is becoming more challenging as the education system implodes and classics and history are no longer taught. Anyone with a traditional education can get a better job elsewhere since these skills are in demand and getting harder to find.

Once fantasy gaming "reflects the modern world," it is no longer fantasy gaming.

It is meaningless self-reflection based on vanity.

There is another nice demon guide written by Robert Schwalb (of Shadows of the Demon lord) for 5E, and this is another nice resource for a Diablo-like game. If 5E mainly resembles an ARPG like Diablo, then that is how it plays the best. This was my original A5E game, and I missed it since D&D does ARPG play well, and all of the other pillars of play horribly. With A5E, I get the pillars of play covered, so I have a complete game that covers everything, plus ARPG combat. I also get a fixed game with balanced math and numbers, where D&D or its clones still have terrible balance and scaling issues.

My world books? The best I have are the Frog God Games "Lost Lands" settings, and I have a bunch of old-school adventures converted from S&W to 5E. This good old-school world doesn't carry Wizards' baggage, the Forgotten Realms GMNPCs, or sci-fi elements. It works as-is with enough depth and detail that it feels old school without being tied to anything else that could wreck my game.

I have a mega-dungeon converted to 5E (Rappan Athuk), and plenty of other smaller adventures to toss in everywhere else. This is one of the better "generic 5E worlds" you can get since it flies under the radar of many, has extensive adventure support, and lets you do what you want. Nobody expects that characters from Baldur's Gate 3 will show up here to steal the show and act like GMNPCs in this world, and I am free to shape this however I want.

The world is old-school and traditional, feeling like a medieval fantasy world. Lords rule fiefs and kingdoms, peasants till the land during the seasons, and life continues. Parts of the world are in the early Renaissance, but you can change these and make the world in your vision. No starships are flying overhead. We don't get much in terms of jarring pop culture. The entire setting feels serious.

Also, the setting doesn't try to rewrite the base 5E rules like a few others I have (Brancalonia and Arcanis). Those are excellent settings, but they would work better with a base system closer to D&D, like Tales of the Valiant. I just want a setting that gives me 5E stats and adventures, and isn't trying to rewrite the fighter class or give me entirely new spell lists.

I am down to one and a half shelves of books for my game.

There is nothing on there that is a distraction, nor do I have cute monsters running around.

I am happy with this version of 5E, finally.

My Last 5E

There are times I wonder, "Why would I ever go back to 5E?"

I have far better fantasy games, and ones that speak to me more than 5E's soft, power fantasy, super heroic, broken past level 10 mush. I have Dungeon Crawl Classics, which does that power fantasy far better, and with much less predictability. I have GURPS Dungeon Fantasy for the fantastic character builds. I have Rolemaster for the crit charts, and HARP for a version that actually plays smoothly. I have Swords & Wizardry for the 0e game, and I have Adventures Dark & Deep as my classic first-edition style game. Castles & Crusades and 3.5E are good games.

I have enough fantasy games.

If I had to keep one before selling the eight storage crates, what would it be?

It would not be Wizards D&D. That is getting sold. I can understand wanting to stay with 5E, but not D&D. Get the CC 5.1 SRD printed if you need a rules reference for play.

Tales of the Valiant is also being sold. Despite this being the best-supported and produced Open 5E versions out there, the game is too cartoony for me. Additionally, there are very few differences between ToV and 5E; the two are essentially the same game. This was done for maximum compatibility, which is a plus for some with a lot of 3rd-party content. This may be the game for you if you fall into that category.

It still has the same flaws! I can't support a game that is very similar down to the things I dislike about 5E. What is the point? A slight difference in character options and a CL+1 power level? It isn't made by Wizards? That is enough for many, but I wanted more. I am still holding onto my library and hoping things change for the better.

I wanted structural improvements, drawing on past versions to incorporate the best features in terms of rules, classes, content, and systems. There are still excellent rules from past versions of the game that could be incorporated into 5E. Why do we have to lose all that hard work and progress?

The quality level of the ToV books is fantastic, and there is a wealth of content to enjoy. Thousands of monsters and spells await your use. The only issue is that character creation requires electronic tools, and there is a lack of player options in the core books.

I love you ToV, but you are not for me. I have a better version of 5E in my hands today. Despite the fantastic quality and support for ToV, my heart is with a better-crafted version of 5E.

And no, it isn't Shadowdark. I am keeping this because it is an S-Tier game in its own right.

This is a 5E to me, but the small shelf space is not a question. Additionally, it boasts the best "pick up and play" ability among all 5E games. The game has a great community, heart, and is well-supported. Shadowdark, I can play with anyone, and I can do so instantly, with about 5 minutes of prep.

Shadowdark is more of a competitor to "B/X OSR clones" for me at the moment. Having a game that plays like 5E, yet has the simplicity of OSE, is a winner, especially for pick-up games with new people. I am not describing the OSR, OSE, or any other conceptual "buy-in" sort of theory to new players.

This is a simplified, fast-playing, 5E version.

That is all I need to say.

Most of them will give Shadowdark a chance.

And we have a winner.

Level Up Advanced 5E is the only one that would make me dig through my "sell crates" again to pull just it out, plus a handful of the best third-party books, and I would sell the rest of my 5E collection. The designers dared to fix 5E, which they got roasted for at the time, but it turned out to be the right choice. There is a much drier balance to Level Up A5E; the math is fixed, martial classes have many great options, and the three pillars of play are supported and work well.

They incorporate many of my favorite rules from earlier editions, such as a warlord-style battle commander class and rules for sleeping in armor. If there is something about 5E that makes you say, "Isn't it silly...?" then chances are A5E fixes it.

I'm disappointed that I didn't back their second monster book or collected gazetteer hardback Kickstarter; I'll have to wait for that. I thought I was done with the game.

The game is deadly. They polled the play-testers, and they said, "Make the game deadlier." Turn up the challenge. Give us a sense of accomplishment when we complete a battle, like our characters could die. Don't let combats turn into boring "dice rolling dance breaks" from the roleplaying.

Drawing spell and steel matter. It is a dangerous choice.

Easy combat makes roleplaying meaningless.

You need a ranger for exploration play, and they don't suck here. The exploits have been mostly fixed. Martial classes are insanely fun and have fighting-style customizations. The monsters are scary and deadly. I do not have to multi-class. The characters have depth. The world is exciting and dangerous. Characters feel powerful, but not broken. I don't have much experience with high-level play, but the team made fixes there as well.

Supplies matter. Shelter quality matters. You can't comfortably sleep in your armor, like your character was some plastic action figure who can't ever remove it and wear comfortable, everyday clothing.

There is no such thing as infinite "pop-up healing."

Fatigue will kill you, and it won't be an easy resurrection. The spell is 7th level, takes an hour to cast, requires 2,500 gold in components, and requires approximately four long rests to recover from. Even the "death within one minute" revivify spell requires 300 gold in components to function and is only an in-combat option. The doomed condition requires 7th-level magic to remove it.

You can always house-rule in a hardcore death option and require a system-shock roll on resurrections. Make a DC 5 CON roll, with a result of 1 always indicating a failure. Failing means the soul never wants to return to the living and is happy in the afterlife, roll a new character. Increase the DC by one for every death after the first, and by one for every close friend or loved one you have lost in the mortal world.

You are not taking long rests in a closet in the Tomb of Horrors. Even short rests are not something you can depend on, nor will they restore fatigue. You can break down mentally. Obviously, some of the more egregious 5E tropes have been discarded. Dumb things people feel they have to defend "because it's D&D" are a thing of the past.

You can get "expertise dice" for skills. Destiny replaces alignment and controls inspiration, making it matter again. Inspiration has weight to it, and it isn't a meaningless flippable toggle that other classes can set on your character due to "mechanics."

Orcs and humanoids are still monsters here. Yes, EN World is very progressive, but they respect the hobby and its traditions. You can play an orc, if you want, and they can still be the bad guys. I wish forums and gaming sites could be less divided, but this is the world we live in, sadly. The game itself remains true to the hobby and gameplay, which I appreciate.

The fixes and improvements here render Tales of the Valiant unappealing to me.

Level Up is, hands down, the better-designed version of 5E.

Many LUA5E players skipped ToV, saying, "There's nothing new here. I don't see a reason to switch."

Third-party subclasses do have compatibility issues, but then again, LUA5E offers enough depth and options that I do not really need them. 5E NPCs and characters can "play alongside" characters built with this system, but to get the most out of the game, it is recommended to create them according to the rules.

Level Up A5E also has an excellent character sheet on Roll20. This works nicely with my "all digital" conversion going forward. I am no longer using a part of my house for maps and pawns. My home is cleaner, my shelves have more space, and I'm playing more using an all-digital format.

Level Up did a better job fixing 5E than the D&D 2024 rules do. They bring a game back to the table.

If I do keep a version of 5E, this one and Shadowdark will be the only two. Most of my third-party books, and those that distract from the core experience I want to craft, will be removed. What I keep will be a more focused, better game with fewer distractions, and nothing that makes the game "cute and stupid." I want a serious game.

Too many options can also be detrimental to a game. I don't need thousands of spells or monsters to play 5E. Too many books can kill a game. All I want is one-half shelf of the absolute best.

I own far too much 5E.

Owning less, with the best core game possible, will make me like it more.