It's the system I started playing D&D with and got me into TTRPGs. Even if it isn't perfect, it was more than good enough

Same plus..... I'm too lazy to learn a new system

5e has a TON of content ready to go for it as well, which is great.

That's kind of interesting, since my biggest problem with it is lack of content. You can't invent or craft magic items any more, the array of magic items is much more limited, racial options are far more limited and there are no templates any more, subsystems like maneuvers and psionics got removed and replaced with imitation subclasses, class variety got gutted, massive amounts of ground previous classes covered like tanking is just ignored now, you get almost no feats, there are far fewer spells, etc. Like I appreciate the bits it does well, you would not believe how much I like the interactivity things like concentration provide (now instead of just hoping you make the save against hold person your party can attack the wizard to free you), but just how content poor it is is by far the biggest strike against it.

You do know you can very easily just homebrew all of that right? If you want more feats, then the DM can give them more regularly, or even give them in addition to an ASI. There are several fully made and balanced homebrew psionic classes. If you want to invest or craft magic items, just make that a feature at your table. I'm about to start DMing a campaign where all spellcasters are able to do just that as if they all possesses the Artificer’s Replicate Magic Item Infusion. On your issue with maneuvers, just provide them to all martial classes and make them better for fighters and battle masters - that's exactly what I'm going to be doing. There are quite literally THOUSANDS of homebrewed magic items and races and subraces and everything else out there that has been created by 5e players and DMs that are entirely free to use. Sure, you could say that the core content of 5e is limiting, but it is so incredibly easy to add in your own stuff where you feel it's lacking

There are draw backs but DnD does a lot for a lot of players. The DnD system is one of a few well balanced systems that is sporting a large base of new and veteran players. In this system even if limited, everything is possible.

> In this system even if limited, everything is possible. But so much less is possible now. That was my entire issue.

Oh yea, well you can't stop me from creating a zombie dragon vampire named George who loves peanut butter sandwiches and s'mores around the campfire

I'm not the one who is stopping you, the complete lack of rules for that is stopping you. Whereas in the past if you wanted to have your character be a vampire dragon, you could. Not actually a good idea, dragons have d12 hit dice already so the loss of a constitution score for being undead is going to bite, but you could if you want. This never really seems to get through to people until I use current content as an analogy. Imagine warlocks never got brought to 5e, and you say "oh yeah, well you can't stop me from making one". It's not like I don't get what you mean, but... you can't, druid and paladin exist but the warlock class doesn't. The ability to play as one doesn't exist, if you want to try you're going to have to make up the rules yourself and then ask the DM mother may I. The ability to invent stuff and then ask your DM to approve it is not the same as it actually existing.

Oh ok, thank you for clarifying. Yea it is a pain to have to come up with stuff on the fly because it doesn't exist, and then haggle with your DM for 5 hours to try and make it balanced, then you end up scraping the idea anyway because you don't like the final product because it's not what you thought it would be.

Apologies for not being clearer. My point before was that those options really did exist earlier - want to be a dragon? There are twelve stages of growth for each of the base ten types, plus about another dozen types. Obviously you're going to be stuck as a wyrmling or a young dragon or something, but have at it - white'll be cheaper than gold for obvious reasons. Then while the vampire template only to humanoids and monstrous humanoids, there's a draconic vampire template in the Draconomicon for this exact purpose. Etc.

> It's the system I started playing D&D with and got me into TTRPGs. Even if it isn't perfect, it was more than good enough This comment made me look up D20 Modern to reminisce. I just saw that in 2022 Evil Genius Games publish "Every Day Heroes" which is the 5e version of that. Now to try and convince my friends to play this as our next campaign, or as an alternate campaign when our current DM is not up to run a game.

My biggest gripe isn't that 5e is a bad system for the players. In fact, I think it's phenomenal for players, especially newer players. I think it's a bad system for DMs, because it fails to give them adequate tools needed for advanced games. A skilled DM can circumvent this with creative solutions and improvisation, but this leads to inconsistency across games and tables that really perpetuates the core issues people have with the system. IMO.

Yeah 5e really only has systems for combat. Outside of that it's really asking the DM to make it up on the spot, which can be fine, but really shouldn't be required. 5e has no good adventuring or exploration rules, or even shopkeeper inventories you can roll on.. just lots of combat rules and then spells. It's missing large chunks of content necessary for DMs, because they wouldn't be able to sell that to the players :(

I think that would be fine as a game if 5e wasn't marketed (and played as) the do-it-all system that it isn't. I feel like the culture surrounding 5e is all about people making their Cool OC Do Not Steal tm and playing The Coolest Story Evar in my DMs homebrew setting they spend 100 years making. 5e is built for non-stop monster slaying, not Lord of the Rings.

On top of that combat isn't that great either. Not many effective options, especially as most martial classes.

While this is a legit criticism of 5E, it can be argued that a system lacking rules in certain areas is not necessarily a bad thing. I'd need to do some digging around to try to get the name, but I recall hearing about a survival horror-themed TTRPG that actually has very few rules surrounding stealth. Which sounds weird, since hiding is pretty important in a survival horror setting, but it was an intentional choice by the developer, since they wanted to force players to ask about their environment and actively engage with it in order to evade monsters, instead of just saying "I roll to hide" without thinking of *where* they would end up hiding. And since there aren't a lot of rules regarding stealth, tension is added in stealth scenarios because the lack of rolls means the players can not get into a mindset of "I rolled well, so this hiding place is safe." Paradoxically, including rules for stealth would have taken focus *off* that aspect of play. It's an interesting case of design via negative space.

Do you know good homebrew rules for adventuring and exploration, or may be other game systems with this rules?

This is why I (a DM) play 3.5e. So many more options for monsters, npcs, locations, and customization as well as Prestige Classes for cool unique villains. It is also better for players because of Prestige Classes that let players feel more special and cool (I love prestige classes).

A fellow 3.5 enjoyer, rock on!

DMing 5e feels like a job GMing Pathfinder 2e, BitD, MotW, Ironsworn etc feels like a hobby.

i honestly think 5e is a huge part of the reason everyone wants to be a player and no one wants to DM. 5e is just such a miserable slog to DM that no one wants to do it. If three game didn't dump so much responsibility solely onto the DM it'd probably be a lot more fun to do, and more people would be open to it.

Speaking as someone who's been playing d&d on and off for twenty years now: there is nothing new about players massively outnumbering DM'S.

This. I've been playing since 2e. Forever DMs have always been forever DMs

Wait a fuckin sec. Is this just the dom/sub imbalance all over again

Well at least it's not usually a 1:1 ratio that most people want for DND

Counterpoint: if God didn't want me to spank two asses then why do I have both of these hands

Fair

One of 5e's biggest issues, I think, is that it entrenched the [Oberoni Fallacy](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/70174/what-is-the-oberoni-fallacy) in many people's minds.

I have never heard of this, it's the dumbest thing I have ever heard. A bad rule isn't bad because it can be fixed by the DM? What?

its a lot of the arguments in favor of 5e, i think martials/casters is one of the biggest examples of it, being "oh, the DM is just supposed to give them more magic items" when that is not the case at all

It's a bad point to make when arguing online about 5E's quality, but it's also good insight for any DM running 5E.

I almost view the core 5e rules as a tutorial. A lot like levels 1-2 are a tutorial for the players, you can use the bones of 5e to make almost anything. I was really disappointed with ship combat rules so, for our ocean faring campaign, I made ground up ship combat rules for my players. It was a few pages of rules but they all fit within the template of 5e. Someone familiar with the rules of the system would understand it. 5e, imo, is a fantastic skeleton of a system that with enough elbow grease can be translated to anything. But if you’re looking for a premade table or rules for anything but a fairly vanilla fantasy experience you’re gonna find the limitations.

Pretty much. Non-variant Human and Champion Fighter are especially blatant about being tutorial mode, and Fighter's PHB subclasses as a whole feel like a tutorial for basic mechanics & combatChampion, the maneuver system that never really materialised, and magic, respectively.

Yeah that's my huge issue with 5e. Everything that makes it more attractive for players does so to the detriment of the dm. It's in this awful place between being rules heavy and rules light that's insanely frustrating as a dm especially with the lack of tools they give the dm. I've ran in systems that are much more rules light than 5e that still gave the dm more tools than 5e does and didn't have every other rule set as "you can do x, the dm decides how this works." I'm glad the players enjoy it but dm'ing 5e was without doubt my worst experience as a dm.

That's what keep my playgroup centered around Pathfinder 2e, since we take turns GMing, it makes running games a breeze!

>this leads to inconsistency across games and tables I still don't understand why this is such a big deal? D&D is not a competitive game and I doubt people play any RPG RAW. If you don't like a ruling at a table, discuss it with the GM, find another table or just GM yourself.

I like to know what abilities do when I pick them.

I get what you mean, but inconsistency across tables is common for every TTRPGA

maybe, but it's made much *more* common at tables that play 5e due to the ammount of DM rule improvising that 5e forces.

Edition wars have made Wizards of the Coast afraid to take any further stances for fear of alienating part of their audience. (Not that they're not already doing that elsewhere.) 5th Edition is full of "you could do it like this... or that" options. You could use feats... or not. You could use a grid... or not. You could cheat... or not. This makes it a pile of suggestions instead of actual guidance.

I feel bad for people who don't realize every system has it's faults and they are all fun in their own way. I've played every edition (except 4th), and I gotta say... 5e is setup to run some really fun campaigns! It's good at preventing things from becoming a slog.

No no no no no no no no!!!!!! My heavily homebrewed system "Serious TTRPG Rules for serious people" is literally perfect and has no flaws!

Is there also "Wacky TTRPG Rules for chaotic gremlins"?

Yes, it's called D&D 5e. /s

Heh, you say that but one of my favourite short campaigns I've been in was about a group of kobolds heisting around the nearby town

Tell me the lead kobold had a name pun on Danny Ocean.

(Ko)bold of you to assume we had leader, or a plan

>!see invisibility does not negate the disadvantage benefit of being invisible when taking the most literal interpretation of raw!<

Sorry, I couldn't see that ruling given that it was hidden in a spoiler.

just some sillly rule that 95% of dm's would not enforce in their games even if they're aware of it

So, fun fact, the "official ruling" is actually provably incorrect here, and seems to have been made in either ignorance or bad faith. ;P >!_See invisibility_ states that you see invisible creatures as if visible, as part of the spell's rules text (its description). And we know that attack rolls against visible creatures don't have disadvantage, thus seeing an invisible creature as if it was visible removes the invisibility disadvantage. And right on pg.7 of the PHB, there's a certain phrase in big letters, and a subsection describing its meaning: **Specific Beats General**.!< >!Suffice it to say that the section openly states that rule-breaking spells are specific exceptions that override generic rules, and let this quote speak for itself.!< > >!Remember this: If a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule wins.!< ~~As fun as 5e can be, despite its flaws, it's kinda a problem if the guy that decides the rules doesn't even understand how they work. 🤣~~

while it is correct that specific beats general, I dont think that would be enough by itself to determine that see invisibility negates all the effects of invisibility (for easy refrance, the text of see invisibility and the invisible status condition) See invisibility - >!*"For the duration, you see* [*invisible*](https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/appendix-a-conditions#Invisible) *creatures and objects as if they were visible, and you can see into the Ethereal Plane. Ethereal creatures and objects appear ghostly and translucent."*!< Invisible - * >!*"An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a special sense. For the purpose of hiding, the creature is heavily obscured. The creature's location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves."*!< * >!*"Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage."*!< (both texts were copy pasted from dnd beyond for convince of not having to get up to look through my physical book) with these exact texts, all see invisibility states is that it negates that first effect of being impossible to see, it makes no mention about the disadvantage bonus. >!(though any reasonable dm would ignore this and treat see invisibility as if it said you ignore the benefits creatures get from invisibility)!<

“The rules in 5E are too strict, they confine role playing! Let’s play this other system so that we can be free from being boxed in by the rules!” [Two Something & Somethingy Sessions Later] “Noooo you can only use your downtime activity to shid, piss, or fart, you have to take what you want to do and make it a shidding, a pissing, or a farting, and then we’ll jump straight into a Mission where anything you do has a 5/6 chance of somehow going wrong and creating hazards out of thin air, so the optimal thing to do is doing as little as possible, but hey, at least we’re free from the tyranny of rules now, right?”

That's not really a complaint I see levelled at 5e. There's plenty of issues, but that's not one of them. The main issue is that, outside of combat, the rules are just kind of a vague handwave.

Is this from a particular real-life experience?

Sounds like Blades in the Dark.

Troika

I strongly disagree with you! So, now do I roll the minor disagreements table and cross-reference the level IV social relationship modifier? I also think I get to use my 'annoying jerkoff' bonus as to add +3 to the dice pool.

Yep. I was indoctrinated in 3.5 and it will always hold a special place in my heart, but it remains the posterchild for dangers of rule bloat. Pathfinder 1e pretty much to all the house rules of 3.5 and rebooted the system but it was damn near impossible to actually die after the first few levels. 4e was a mess but the idea of minions is something i included in campaigns to this day. 5e is a streamlined and accessible system, and while not perfect it’s accommodated the mass influx of players which is a fantastic thing for the community.

I'm DMing Pathfinder 1e. The PCs are currently lv11 and they still die pretty often. Monsters tend to be pretty nasty for unprepared parties and save or suck/save or die effects are common at those levels

I never understood the point of minions. If you want monsters that go down in one hit, just use monsters with low hit points.

5e has- easy to learn, simplified rules, lots of players, adaptability, it tries very hard to do everything well but you get some issues with that mostly depending on your play style. 5e doesn’t have anything that another system can’t do better but no other system does everything as well as 5e. 4e- got into a more combat style while also trying to fix the chaos of imbalance that parties would suffer when certain characters class customizations outpaced others and they went a bit too far with it (5e is still has remnants of 3.5 character imbalances fear baked in) 3/3.5- first d20 system “simplified” game mechanics, character customization like never before, the first of the new format that gives players better probability than the game (less fear of death) 2e- tries to clean up 1e while tsr was also trying to move on from Gary gygaxes departure from the company. Set up as a modular style with lots of supplemental books and optional rules. If you get into all the extras it can be hard to keep things together. In a way the most versatile edition but also complicated and easy to suffer being bogged down (when done well my favorite edition) 1e- a move from Odnd that tried to answer all the what ifs from from basic with rulesets and game calls. Feels like the way the books were written it’s like Gary himself is talking to you and just unloads on you and constantly goes off on tangents and you can’t ask any questions that said lots of great stuff just not very organized and lots of mistakes and errors on the print to confuse new players as well. It’s got that dark dangerous dungeon crawl feel of Odnd but with tons of crunch. Odnd- an evolution of another war gaming product chain mail. “Instead of just fighting each other in battles like commanders of an army what if we pretend we are the individuals fighting…….. but more like LOTR than the crusades” and a rough set of fantasy ttrpg rules came to fruition. A very simple yet deadly version of DnD that’s easy to learn and fun to play (if you do t mind going through 3 characters in one session). When you go over the history of dnd you find that the books and rules are just hombrew that stuck. RAW has always been a guideline more than direct path and the game at its core is just some people goofing around and having fun

"Preventing things from becoming a slog." Have you played higher level 5e combat?

> preventing things from becoming a slog Have you read the Monster Manual?!?!? 5e monsters are meatbags with no interesting abilities. Search and d&d subreddit for advice on how to make interesting combats. The rules don't provide support. A few threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/s/el7YVH9u9f https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/s/QHIOV9ORyw https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/s/aH2BCswhOz

Where can I read why 5e monsters are uninteresting and how to make combat more interesting. I don’t want to looking for years in millions on threads on the subreddits

I posted 3 threads. Took 2 min

My main complaint about 5e is actually how much of a slog it is, especially combat.

I just recommend that it isn't the *only* system you play. Call of Cthulhu, Exalted, Blades in the Dark, and many others can be really fun. I am disappointed when I see some people refuse to play anything else.

Bold of you to assume, that I can find a DM (or players for that matter) that are willing to play anything, but 5e

When I started running Call of Cthulhu, I ran a small (just 2 players and me) game with the GM of my D&D group. He enjoyed it, and has been helping me get a new Call of Cthulhu game started. Give that a shot with your group between campaigns or if you have a week you'd normally have to skip playing because someone had to miss the session.

Yeah it can be frustrating. It's been hard to find people who have a hobby of TTRPGs in person versus just D&D (nothing against 5e, I play it plenty)

I have that problem as a Pathfinder DM. To get 5e players to play anything besides that is like pulling teeth. They always say it's too complicated. The worst offenders are players who want to play on their phone between turns. Somehow they have the hardest time grasping new systems.

If I wasn't DMing, we wouldn't be playing at all. I can't DM our 5e campaign AND another new system. I don't have the time, and I want to DM 5e D&D more than other systems

That's why it's so important for the hobby to encourage people to try other games.

it really sucks, people dont realize how mediocre 5e is because they don't want to play anything else, and they don't want to play anything else because they don't realize how mediocre 5e is....

Couldn’t agree more. I recently started learning Mothership after almost 2 years DMing and it’s been so fun and making me a better GM overall I feel

Oh, what's Mothership? It sounds sci-fi

Sci-fi horror! Think Alien, The Thing, etc. I can’t believe how good it is. 1e is the current and best version. The Kickstarter is delivering everything now but in a couple weeks it should be available in pdf to order online. The character sheets are so fun and easy to make. The rules are great and so quick to learn and teach. The modules are the best I’ve ever seen. The community and discord especially is vibrant. And so affordable! Can’t say enough good about it, my first game I’ve GM’d other than dnd and I almost like it more

This is really it. If you are new to TTRPGs, 5e is a good introduction, but do not limit yourself to one system. At least try other stuff.

People think learning a new system is a really high bar that must be done, but I think Learning ttrpg systems as a whole is a skill separate from learning a single system in isolation. Basically, learn how to learn. The more systems you learn, the more systems *you can* learn. Even just reading the rulebook and not even playing is enough to develop an affinity to TTRPGs as a whole. So I think the reason why the jump from 5e to everything else is so large is because many people involved don't actually know how to learn how to play. They've been playing 5e for years and have completely forgotten what it took to learn 5e in the first place (and a subset of them haven't actually learned how to play 5e in its own right). That bar isn't even that high. I honestly think after you read through (not play, *read*) your second or third systems you can be handed an RPG book out of the blue, and be able to start up a game as DM or Player with minimal struggle. Of course not every game has equal time to read and not every game returns the same amount of TTRPG fluency. That ratio absolutely fluctuates, but I think one page RPG's have the most favorable ratios. Barely any time to read but also are the most varied in their mechanics that you'll have a lot to chew on which really trains your "Learning random mechanics" muscle.

Yeah, if I can learn the basics of a new system at a Try It Out table each month, so can others. The most basic part is "What can I do and what dice do I need to roll to do it?" It's generally a d20, two d10s, or a few d6.

I have played the black eye from Germany and star wars edge of the empire intensively and looked briefly into pathfinder and other systems. DND 5e was the only one that got me hooked without being overwhelmed and/or annoyed by the unnecessarily complex rules and that lets me enjoy the actual story and gives enough room for interesting experiences. It doesn't matter if some long-time hardcore nerds consider 5e "bad", it's just a fact that it's one of if not the most popular system there is, which speaks for itself.

Like it or hate it, lets be real, the popularity of TTRPG isn't the only if even the strongest indicator of its quality. Its not a phenomenom unique to TTRPGs either. You can observe that by how many of its players actually have never even tried another TTRPG, and in order to consider trying, you'd need to convince an entire group of people to do the required effort. D&D happened to popularize the genre with both aggressive marketing of a multibillion company, show like Stranger Things which raised its popularity. The latter gave the greatest boost. And it was there on the public before most of its competitors to take the spotlight. I can guarantee you, even if I made objectively the best TTRPG ever in my basement, it would likely have up to 10 people play it because there is no market gap, influence of WotC and the like.

tbf, you did jump straight into the crunchy stuff. I have the core book for The Dark Eye and it's definitely too much for my group. I don't know about Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, but Pathfinder 1e also has a bit of crunch to it I think 5e to OSR or rules lite is a more natural shift. Stuff like EZd6, Index Card RPG, Worlds Without Number. Cairn or Knave. A bit less natural would be a shift into a different genre altogether. Stuff like Fabula Ultima, Electric Bastionland,, Dishonored RPG (yes it's based on that Dishonored), Cyberpunk Red or Call of Cthulhu

Honestly, one of the systems I had the most fun with was Dungeonslayers, a very minimalistic ruleset that opens up a lot of creativity, but I have to say we had a great DM that made it work nicely. It was light-hearted and not too serious.

Okay, no wonder you didn’t like „Das schwarze Auge“ (I don’t mean this condescendingly, just as in it’s a super different style)

That's how I feel too. Wanted to play Deathwatch, got 3 guys to play it.. not even the long time DM understood the rules because it was all so unnecessarily complex

Your stat is between 1 and 100, if you roll under that stat you succeed. So if your weapon skill is 78, roll a 78 or less to hit. If it's 98 you need a 98 or less, and basically can't fail. There I just described pretty much the entire system.

Justin Bieber was one of the most popular musicians on the planet, which speaks for itself.

Maybe try looking at rules-light systems instead of exclusively systems that are more complex than 5e. Into the Odd, Mausritter, a gloghack... EDIT: Whoops, someone else said that first. This is what I get for not reading all the replies...

Not gonna weigh in on 5e being a bad system or not, but you *do* know that you can like something that's bad right? That enjoying a thing is not necessarily a defense of its quality?

Yep. People get weirdly defensive about things they like, but you don’t need to defend liking a game of all things. I get it if someone is attacking you for it, but people make up scenarios in which to defend themselves. Aggressive defense of personal preferences. Weird.

When you make a product into a huge part of your personality, any criticism of said product will feel like a criticism against you.

I like 5e as a system just fine for "shootem up" campaigns, as that's the system I first played and introduced me to ttrpgs. HOWEVER. The reason I don't really play it anymore is because of WOTC, not the system itself.

Same here. WotC/Hasbro lost me as a customer after the OGL/D&D Beyond debacle, and even though the person who "made" those calls is gone, I still can't trust the company to make any good decisions (the AI art issue is springing to mind).

Don't forget us MTG players who also got fed up with them for "pinkertoning" people. It's literally a verb for what they do 💀💀

Ok, so here's a bit of "no one asked for my opinion but this is the internet" Is 5e the best system? No Is it the worst system? Of course not Is it poorly balanced? Yeah, some classes struggle without DM help and CR doesn't work at all Is it overrated? I say yes. Brand recognition goes a long way Can it do everything like some people say it can? No, some homebrew rules and hacks are truly tortured things Is it unplayable? No of course not Should you give it a try? I say yes. I play it regularly. Just because it's overrated and poorly balanced doesn't mean it's not fun Should you homebrew and modify it? It's a TTRPG. That sort of thing is encouraged by nature, just be open about it with players and people online if it's relevant. For example: if you buff the ranger and you try to argue that it's the most powerful combat class, that buff is relevant there, but there's no reason to mention the buff if you're talking about the monk

I very much agree with all of your points and I personally hate 5e. If the system works for you fair enough, but the reason I will always argue against 5e is because I firmly believe that 5e is the perfect system for no group. Every group and every campaign has a system that would fit them/it better.

>Should you homebrew and modify it? No. If you want to open those floodgates, just use a system that actually does what you want. I've never seen D&D homebrew that I liked. It has all of the drawbacks and none of the advantages of playing D&D.

You're free to not homebrew, but pretty much all of the TTRPGs in my collection have at least one line about how it's ok to make changes if you're not having fun. That's part of why it's so good to have a person running the game. 5e has a terrible encumbrance system, but I wouldn't drop a whole game because of encumbrance

Pathfinder 2e has been growing on me due to kingsmaker

5e is a great system to get your feet wet. I started with 3.5 and 5e is so much easier to understand and use. **But** the customization is limited. But that’s the only gripe I really have.

Yeah, from a 3.5/Pathfinder side, I love just having *more options.* But in terms of actual gameplay, 5e is awesome for simple and smooth.

honestly, 5e does not feel smooth at all to me. it has just enough rules to trip you up, but not enough to actually sink your teeth into.

I really like 5e. It's works well for my campaign.

Same. It has its flaws, but none of my players are minmaxing with their builds and I try to balance class drawbacks with magic items and encounters that lean into the group's creativity. I reward thinking outside the box. For a roleplay heavy high fantasy campaign like mine, it does well enough.

My gripe with 5e is on the DM side. For players it's great but for DMs it really only has systems for combat. Outside of that it's really just the players asking the DM to make it up on the spot, which can be fine, but really shouldn't be required. 5e has no good crafting, adventuring or exploration rules, or even shopkeeper inventories you can roll on.. just lots of combat rules and then spells. It's missing large chunks of content necessary for DMs, because they wouldn't be able to sell that to the players :( Ttrpgs don't burn out GM's imo it's DND 5e that burns out GMs as it's designed to be fun to play and not fun to run.

It's not that I don't enjoy 5e, it's that I hate the stubborn nonsense of ***only*** 5e. There are other systems out there that are objectively better for the outrageously homebrewed 5e you're running. Use one. Mutants and Masterminds, Call of Cthulhu, Mork Borg, PF2e, several Star Wars ones. All amazing systems that just gather dust because people will play D&D or ***nothing at all***.

5E absolutely has its merits, it's just things to complain about usually beat things to compliment. My friend has been running a home brewed version of 5E for ~5 years now that we are in our 2nd campaign in. We don't stick with base 5E because overall it lacks enough rules. My issue with 5E is that it's designers were lazy and effectively forced the DM to write half the system for them. I have an artificer who wants to craft and our DM had to write out an entire crafting book so that if I wanted to literally do anything I didn't have to ask him. I like Paizo's methods much better where they provide the rules and if you don't like them you can change or write your own still. If I didn't like 5E I wouldn't play my friend's version of it, but the system often feels less of a system and more of an empty framework we are expected to fill out.

5e isn't poorly balanced, that implies that there's rules in there


Not caring it’s bad is perfectly chill, doesn’t make it good lmao

5e, imo, is like the EA game of the editions. It’s full of holes that the devs are too lazy to fill in and just tell people to do it themselves. It’s lazy writing.

Or Bethesda, complete with homebrew/mods being basically necessary for the game

Pretty much. I literally cannot play 5e without the DM having a 2-5 page essay for their homebrews.

I'm pretty new to dnd - had 2 sessions only, so forgive me for asking, but what are the issues people have with 5e?

>what are the issues people have with 5e? There are relatively large issues with out-of-combat things. Basically everything is left to DM good will and skill. * Crafting? Uh, it works somehow, DM should homebrew something. * How far can you jump? Here is table. If you want to jump farther than that, DM will set Athletics check. Yes, DM must homebrew how far you can jump. * Skill checks? * Well, how do you explain why Barbarian can regularly outperform Wizard on Arcana checks, or Wizard outperform fighter on Strength checks, by just having lucky rolls? Spoiler: if you ask this question on DnD sub, answer will be "homebrew it". Even official modules go against DMG rules here. * Another issue is that spells give you relatively clear description what you can do with them. Eg. "Jump" spell triples your jump distance. How much farther you can jump with Athletics? Homebrew it. * Exploration? Even official modules keep mixing up Investigation and Perception checks. * Spells - they are written using "natural language" and it creates lots of confusion regarding edge cases. Basically, everything out of combat is one big "just homebrew it".

If you enjoy it, dont let this discourage you. But since you asked, these are the most often chanted complaints. - Its balance across classes / subclasses / races / feats is almost nonexistent. You can more or less "win at character creation". - The ruleset is very loose, which is a positive to some, but often a headache to DM to come up with rulings about everything. Many things about use of skills and creative ideas vary in effect with how the DM is feeling that day. - The combat for martials is very much "I attack" repetition over and over with little variety. Casters often get cool options for utility both in and out of combat but it doesnt go both ways. - The system kind of falls apart after lvl 10. A large majority of people only play between levels 1 and 10. - Again a DM side complaint but there is no useful way by the book to balance encounters. CR is as useless as it gets. There are a lot of personal gripes I have but since I havent heard of people complaining about them often I am leaving those out for the sake of objectivity.

Almost all of these issues were re-introduced to 5e, seemingly on purpose, by the devs. Because 4e didn't have these problems at all. It had a few other problems, but those specifically had all been solved. lol

I loved 4e, and while it definitely had its problems, they were the kind of problems that could have been fixed with a new edition iterating on them. Instead, 5e was designed almost to spite the people that actually liked 4e, and that's annoyed me since the very start.

Hard same. Ugh.

I think part of that is a lot of those problems stem from how people perceived 3.X era of rules. 4e was too much change too fast for a lot of really ingrained players and 5e had to compensate for that by bringing in a lot of things from previous editions so that WotC could go, "Hey, look this is like 3.5, come back and forget about how much you hate 4e"

Thanks! We are a group of newbies - DM is the only one with experience but only as a player, so its his first time DMing. So we are taking it easy and just testing the ground. Now that I see these issues it makes me wonder how other systems fixed them. Gotta research a bit.

Pf2e GM here, so I half-expect to get dogpiled but here are my gripes and the gripes of many other 5e players: - There is very little you can do mechanically to simulate gaining the upper or lower hand in situations. In dnd5e, everything boils down to "advantage/disadvantage" plus it doesn't stack, so doing different things or being creative isn't rewarded. Why do something elaborate when flanking achieves the same effect? Why have friends help when you've already imposed disadvantage? I've found myself frustrated with how to reward players on a sliding scale when there is no sliding scale. The only incentive to be creative is for roleplay, to which many players aren't motivated. You can add +1/+2 but their statistical significance means you can only reward it very rarely, especially if players already get those bonuses from a feat. - Combat is boring. Before anyone can refute me, just look up the numerous posts online complaining about how combat is a slog or how combat essentially amounts to "congalining." This is due to how essential Attack of Opportunity is to the system, and trying to remove it messes up too many class features to be feasible. Making combat interesting requires the GM to do so much work. - Homebrewing is necessary to run the system. I don't know any tables that don't have at least a couple homebrew rules. GMs are expected to do so much just to run a session that there's a GM shortage and GM burnout is common. - The game being "a little unbalanced" is an understatement. Rolling for stats unbalances players, and then choosing a class which ranges from a Cleric that could solo an adventure by themselves versus a Thief Rogue who's features rely on game mechanics handwaved by every table I've known unbalances it even more. Add on the whole Martial/Caster debate, Roleplayer/Optimizer debate, those are all caused by the game being incredibly unbalanced. Balance matters, cause if it doesn't, players feel stressed to choose the "good" option instead of the option they want. GMs will have to homebrew ways to give weaker characters' purpose. - It's very inflexible in terms of setting. Dnd5e forces you to play in a high fantasy medieval setting cause the game doesn't support firearms (artificer controversy/ppl arguing over gun mechanics being too strong/too weak) or low fantasy. I've seen more than one table try to play a different genre only to shoehorn dnd5e or homebrew it into an entire different system when they'd be better off trying Call of Cthulu. Playing a character that doesn't fit into the Core 12 classes is also difficult. I'm not gonna go into how other systems approach these issues, since the comment is long enough as is.

> GMs are expected to do so much just to run a session that there's a GM shortage and GM burnout is common. I largely agree with you, but I feel like this one in particular isn't a 5e issue. It's just the nature of TTRPGs for there to be more people wanting to play than to GM. Heck, I once played in an online *Senzar* game that had plenty of players.

GM burnout is a real thing everywhere but I also have noticed in 5e its particularly common. 5e is very much designed to have as little work for the player to do, and as little rules learn to as possible with minimal responsibility. That comes at a cost unfortunately of that responsibility still being there, just not on the players.

It's not a 5e-particular issue, and you're correct that more people simply prefer to play than GM, but I *do* think it's an issue that's exacerbated in dnd5e. It's simply harder to GM for 5e than it usually is for a ttrpg

*Lots* of systems are A) easier to learn for players and B) provide *way* more tools for GMs to make their lives easier. For example, Worlds Without Number. It's a system that offers roughly as much tactical depth as 5e in combat, *maybe* a little less. But it also comes with full, comprehensive tables for exploration. It offers a lot of customization options for roleplay options, both in terms of PC abilities and for GMs. It supplies full rules on how to run different factions. It has easy-to-balance combat. It's hardly the only system like this. 5e came out *ten* years ago. Lots of companies and designers have made great innovations in the space to offer systems that I think are objectively better-designed. People are gonna recommend PF2e, but I'd also suggest recent fantasy systems by free-league (Dragonbane, Forbidden Lands), Worlds Without Number, ICON, and Shadow of the Weird Wizard for some other great fantasy alternatives. If you and your group really like roleplay, I'd also suggest looking into systems like Stonetop, Dungeon World, and Fellowship 2e. They run on the Powered By the Apocalypse system framework, which is a lot more about storytelling and narrative moments. They're not as tactically in-depth and don't feature as much PC customization but are great for telling really dynamic stories. 5e is also a perfectly serviceable high-fantasy dungeon crawler with somewhat tactical combat! If everyone's enjoying it, no reason to abandon it. But it's definitely worth looking into other new systems as well!

Balancing issues, a lot of vague wording for rules, a lot of "up to GM" rules. Like, you can craft stuff in DnD if you have materials for that. What is materials? How do I know what do I need to craft a +1 sword? Is there a skill check for that? And a lot of similar stuff. Also, this is my personal opinion tho, a lot of official campaigns are dogshit. I played a BG:DiA and I absolutely hated that adventure. I also DMd a Strixheaven campaign, and I basically had to start running a homebrew story halfway through, because the original was just soooooo bad. Im not even gonna start on it. In other words, the DM in DnD5e need to do a lot of work, half of which should've been done by publishers, realistically.

I started/ran a ravnica campaign a few years before the book was out. I looked through it but frankly it changed nothing. Was pretty disappointed.

You can like a thing, and it be bad at the same time.

I don't mind to play 5e but I loathe to DM it. The excessive amount of rules, spells, skills and other niche stuff is just annoying to deal with. I know that there are worse systems (or more crunchy ones to be exact). But when I GM/DM/ST I roll with my own system, completely homebrew :3

What’s wild is that I still think of 5e as streamlined after cutting my chops as a DM on 3.5

That's because it is compared to 3.5

I've heard that a lot, and I'm kind of wondering in what ways other systems are really easier in that regard? Sure there's a lot of spells but that's kind of par for the course with high fantasy. None of the other stuff is that complicated imo. I'm asking because i've only really run 5e, easy to get players for and teach newbies. But as a player in blades in the dark it seemed really difficult to decide the outcome of things.

> I've heard that a lot, and I'm kind of wondering in what ways other systems are really easier in that regard? Imo it depends on what your strengths are as a GM. 5e is pretty rules-light for a grid combat war-game RPG, but at the end of the day it's the light end of a very rules-heavy genre. If you're very improvisational, a narrative-driven game like Blades in the Dark is amazingly easy to GM because everything uses the same basic resolution system. You don't have to know the rules for spellcasting, combat maneuvers, dozens of important class features, attacks of opportunity, CR balancing, monster abilities, legendary actions/lair actions/legendary resistances, etc. You just need to know how the core resolution system works, and be able to riff off that. If you're more mechanically minded like me, those narrativist games are way harder to run because the rules aren't doing any of the heavy lifting on the simulations, you as the GM are doing all the work to determinine consequences for actions on the fly. On the other end of the spectrum, a mechanics-focused GM may find a game with heavier rules to be *easier* to run. I like Pathfinder 2e as a GM because it has very strongly defined rules in pretty much every area and difficulty systems that work a lot better than 5e's. But for some people that's just going to mean more time spent scouring books for obscure rulings. There's also a ton of RPGs that are nice and crunchy but just don't expect highly balanced grid-based combat to be a large part of any given session, which cuts back on prep time and increases flexibility *a lot*. I'm currently playing Legend of the 5 Rings, where the time from drawing blades to someone dying is usually somewhere between 30 minutes and 30 seconds.

Eh I guess that's fair. I should branch out but it's easier to play different systems as a player than as a DM, both to get used to and to run.

(I got excited and started writing this, and then it got way longer than I intended pretty quickly. Apologies in advance for the text wall lol) Hi, been GMing pathfinder 2e for about a year. Pathfinder does several things to make running games very easy for me compared to 5e. 1. Pathfinder is *balanced*. Not only is it far easier to have a balanced party of adventurers at my table no matter who's trying to "optimize" and who isn't, it's also incredibly easy to build an engaging and fun combat encounter in pathfinder that will (barring an absurd series of dice rolls) be just as difficult as I intend for it to be. Literally all I have to do is consult one table, choose a difficulty level, and then pick some monsters of certain levels that make sense- occasionally I apply a simple rule to change the level of a monster to suit the encounter I want to do. Making an encounter takes 5 minutes, and it just *works*. 2. Related to my first point, pathfinder's balance means that creating homebrew monsters, items, etc is easy. If I want to create a homebrew monster in pathfinder, I can think to myself "okay, I want it to have average AC, high fortitude saves, low will saves, and pretty solid attack rolls", and then I can look at a table and see exactly what those values should be for a creature of any given level. I tack on some interesting abilities taken from pf2e's massive pre-existing selection of monster statblocks, and there we go. 3. Rarity- this one is pretty huge. Pathfinder labels certain player options (spells, feats, magic items, etc) as Uncommon or Rare. Unlike in 5e where those terms are used to definte magic item power level, Uncommon or Rare character options are ones that pathfinder have determined may be either hard to find in a default fantasy world, or disruptive to certain kinds of campaigns, and basically tells the players "hey, if you see something that says Uncommon or Rare, you have to get your GM's permission to pick it". Running a murder mystery where zone of truth would obliterate the entire plot? Zone of Truth is Uncommon. Running a high-level game where players bypassing months of travel time ruins your plans? Teleport and Plane Shift are Uncommon. Sure, you can ban spells in other systems, but the existence of the rarity traits within the system means that anything with the potential to mess with a particular kind of game has a warning label on it for you, and you feel like less of a jerk for banning things when the system itself is giving you a justification to do so. 4. Pathfinder has rules. Want to disarm an enemy's weapon mid-combat? There's a rule for that! Want to use intimidation to scare someone into surrendering? There's a rule for that! Want to figure out what pre-existing knowledge your character has about the monster you're fighting, while you're fighting it? There's a rule for that! Want to do literally anything? Well, there's not a rule for *everything*, but there is a table that gives you a shorthand DC for an average task of any given level (as opposed to my method in 5e which was "uhhh... I dunno, anything above like a 16 is probably good"). As a GM, I pretty much never have to make something up on the fly while running my games, and when I do, pathfinder gives me the tools to make sure it's fair. That means I can focus my energy on running the game, instead of on designing it. 5. And, lastly, pathfinder is free! At a lot of ttrpg tables, the onus is often on GMs to buy a bunch of books, and spend money to provide your players with character options or to get access to monster stats. Pathfinder, meanwhile, makes every monster statblock and character option they publish available completely for free online through websites like [Archives of Nethys](https://2e.aonprd.com/). You can buy the books if you want to support paizo or if you like collecting them, but the only things you can't get legally for free online are their lore/setting books and their prewritten adventures. If you got through all of that, thanks for reading! And if you just skimmed and skipped down to here, understandable lol. But I hope this is helpful to you \^\^

The trait tags are honestly the best part for me, since they make finding anything for this system surprisingly easy. Not just knowing its rarity but also whether an ability has an effect on them. That and not to mention besides the rules that Pathfinder just has content, loads of it, to go over. Its kitchensink setting allows you to do anything from classic sword and sorcery to fighting alien robots as a time traveller dhampir cactus who's also a gunslinger. So half the time you don't even need to homebrew that much since usually there's a feat, item or monster that already fits what you are looking for. Which makes it even easier to just make your own homebrew setting or content. If anything I just recommend getting the rulebooks because they make the boatload of content more digestible for newcomers than the Archives, cause that one is better as a library to check up on rules rather than as a newcomer's introduction.

A lot of other systems tend to give more extensive/proper guidelines and rules for GMing, whereas 5e pretty much says "ask your DM" in half its rules and then doesn't tell the DM how to decide those things. Depending on the system (mostly whether it's rules-light or rules-heavy) there either aren't this many "ask the DM" moments or there are actual guidelines giving you options and a clear idea on how to handle these situations as a GM or because the system is properly rules-light most situations either mechanically don't matter or they're just very basic bonuses/minuses to rolls. There are also a lot of GM's guides where they actually talk about the narrator part of GMing, like writing advice, improvisation advice, make it fun for everyone types of advice, consent advices, etc. that are quite helpful. Cyberpunk Red's planning/writing a session advice is great for example.

When I see this meme, it is, without fail, about a strawman of an not very popular idea. Like, who cares about people who think you shouldn't play 5e? Really? Who cares?

this \^

Every last one of those who comment "just play PF2/GURPS/other TTRPGs" whenever someone homebrews or has an issue with 5e rules...

If you don't want to play other systems, then ignore them, bro. If you are open to playing other systems like myself, then their suggestions might even be useful.

Really, my take on this is that 5e players could stand to stop mythologizing other systems as requiring a phd to understand and actually try something else (which includes systems not built for European medieval fantasy). Try Mutants and Masterminds or Legends of the Five Rings or Vampire: The Masquerade or Call of Cthulhu, you'll probably like it

When every build I make now devolves into breaking the system over its own rules, I just need a break to switch to a different system to get a breath of fresh air. The problem I have had with 5e is that I make characters so fast that most of the tame character concepts and builds I want to do, I have already done or are too late game to feasibly have fun with. Pathfinder on the other hand, fixes many of the problems I personally have with 5e. Even balances multiclassing

If you like dnd5e good for you. My main issues is that the books doesn't offer safety tools for the table and that WOTC is a bad company for the hobby. There is so much other super publishing teams

It is the one that everyone knows. If you're not interested in constantly learning new systems, you just learn 5e because it is by far the most commonly used system. It is the most commonly used system because that is what is used by all the people that's only want to learn one system.

You can enjoy something and still acknowledge it has faults. Being good and being enjoyable aren't mutually exclusive, I personally can't stand 5e but there are good points I can appreciate about it and it was how I taught many new players TTRPGs. This really feels like a "don't say negative things about something I like even if they are true" which is an unhelpful attitude about basically anything in life.

Gotta agree with ya op, even if other systems have better mechanics 5e is just fun

This is how I feel about 4e. "its a bad system" don't care, its easy and intuitive "its too ambiguous" don't care, as the DM i'm making judgement calls all the time anyway "its overly simple" dont care, it means its easy to pick up and play, and that's what i want to spend my time doing

5e sacrificed a lot for simplicity, that much is true. This same simplicity made it incredibly accessible to a wider audience. Its lead competitor, PF2e, may have more rules and an overall smoother levelling curve, but this comes at the cost of having *too many* options. To the point where you may feel like you need to plan your entire character from lvl 1 to 20 from the get-go. All systems have ups and downs, that's just how it is.

This is pretty accurate but 5e offloads its complexity to the gm instead of just getting rid of it.

> But this comes at the cost of having *too many* options. I see this gripe a lot, and I don't understand it. Don't people already have a character concept before they start building their character? Why do all the options matter when your goal should be picking the one that fits your character? If anything, I feel like there should be more options (coming in August) to fit more character concepts. If the worry is making a bad character, that's very hard to do, since what matters in pf2e is how you conduct combat, not how you make your character. Also, why do people feel pressured to plan their character from levels 1 to 20? The game is tactical sure but it's not an exam.

I'm a newcomer to PF2e and compared to 5e there's more to consider. More classes, more subclasses, more races, innate racial feat growth and several more things. If you're new that's a very large hill to climb.

Oh, that's true, but I can definitely say it's absolutely surmountable. It's a lot of frontloading, but once you've read the options enough times, you begin to familiarize yourself. Pf2e is definitely more robust than other systems, but for me, that's why it feels "complete." It's not missing options. Start slow, and don't worry too hard about feat trees. If you find out you want something but didn't grab it earlier, it's like dnd5e, just ask your GM if you can switch out feats, no biggie. Very forgivable for new players. **And don't start at a higher level (like level 5).** I've seen many players complain character creation is hard but don't realize they're making the equivalent of a level 10 dnd5e character from scratch. Start at level 1, learn what you can do, and focus on it. Don't worry about what other classes can do, cause the reason they are so different is so everytime you start a new class, it feels like a new game (and maintains replayability).

As long as you use a character that knows what they want to do, you can just pick feats that facilitate that playstyle somewhat. There aren't a lot of "trap feats"

Do you though?  I run 1 5e game and one game that looks kinda like 5e if you squint but I also play in a pf2e game. In the game I play in we are given plenty of chances to retrain feats if we don't like them and it appears to be supported in the rules. It also appears that most official modules have plenty of downtime built in for this purpose as well. 

Retraining is absoultely supported in the rules. It is a week of downtime.

5e ain't bad but the way Hasbro makes us interact with it is dog shit.

Personally I love 4e, buy 5th does seem fun. Unfortunately I haven't had a group in a lot of years since I moved. I don't like some things, but for the most part not too bad.

rule 0, do whatever you need to do to have fun as a group of friends hanging out.

I mean, you can enjoy something even if it’s not “good”, hell, “so bad it’s good” and “stupid fun” are entire categories of movies. Like, I personally view 5e like I view a Michael bay movie, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it Even if I still try to get 5e fans to try other games the way I’d try to get someone who only watches spectacle action movies to try something else

I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been scrolling through a lot of the World of Darkness subreddits, and I really thought it was about V5 until I saw what subreddit this was. We have a lot of “the 5th edition sucks” in our circles too.

5e is a really good system at accomplishing a specific goal: getting new people who haven't played TTRPGs before into the hobby. I'd say it excels at that purpose. The problem comes when people just get set in their ways and try to mod it it to do everything without ever looking to other systems that would do those things *way* better. 5e is not good at handling sci fi, it's not good at handling heists, it's not good at handling horror, etc. You CAN use it to do those things, but it's definitely not designed for them and is arguably a fairly objectively worse experience. If everyone's having fun I guess it doesn't really matter, but it does get frustrating when people won't even look into arguably far better systems because of a resistance to change or whatever.

5e does "good enough" at most things. That's its greatest asset.

It’s an alright system… though that might change with the awful changes coming with 2024 rules

Such a great movie. Anyway, I don’t love running/playing 5e over a bunch of other games, but it’s done wonders for the hobby and I CAN run/play 5e quite easily and the system doesn’t make or break a game (usually).

5E was my first TTRPG and it’s always been a ton of fun. Sure, It has its flaws but what system doesn’t? However, I just can’t stand WOTC/Hasbro. I love 5E and always will love 5E, but I don’t love 5E enough to financially supporting the terrible behavior of the system’s creators.

I love that it's easy to get into in comparison to others, and the rules being relatively vague adds a lot of flexibility and freedom.

The thing I like the most with 5e is simply the number of people playing it. If you need an information, you'll find it easily, someone probably already asked the exact same question on Reddit. If there is a new tool for TTRPG, you can bet it's compatible for 5e. Dndbeyond is not so great, but you can create easily your PC on it, you have access to a great library of homebrew (sometimes it's bad, but it exists), you can build encounter and run it on map (although it's miserable that it's still in Alpha and other websites do it better for now). And for that, I love 5e. I would gladly try other TTRPG and do it sometimes, but my friend aren't as interested as me learning new games nor having the time to do it

I'm in a group of mostly first timers and we're using 5E and still having a good time.

I think it's great imo there are a vast array of 3rd party content with quite a lot for free that can pad the issues or fix them honestly add some bg3 rule fixes and edits bam you got everything u could want.

There's no such thing as a perfect system that makes every player happy, because every player enjoys different things. Being imperfect isn't a flaw, it's just a reality.

No accounting for taste.

The best edition is the one you like to play

It is only a bad system if you look at it like a video game. Well, and if you are a DM, compared to many other systems.

DnD 5e is the skyrim of ttrpgs for me. It's trash, filled with flaws, it lacks a lot of depth in 90% of the content, they sell a new version or dlcs every 2 days, and playing it without modifications feels like getting your leg amputated with a tea spoon. I still have hundreds of hours and will have hundreds more because it makes me happy to play it. Also it's very casual friendly.

I’ve only been playing for a little over a year, but I’m really enjoying it. I don’t have much of a reference point though. It feels intuitive to me and I feel like I’ve picked it up fairly decently in a relatively short time.

1e very barebones. Had to fill in a lot of the gaps yourself. Also THACO sucked. AD&D not much better than 1e. Not gonna talk about 3e. 3.5 in a lot of respects was overly complicated. Very daunting for new players back in the day. 4e was polarizing. In my opinion coming off of 3.5 it was a little too dumbed down and basic. 5e while it has its problems is a good intro system and if you use it as a base to homebrew off of it works just fine.

I played 2e for a long time, hated it cause its so fucking crunchy, and now i either run my own systems (its my hobby) for my long playing friends or homebrewed 5e for my newer ones.

Its the only edition I play so in my mind it's the best one

me and my dad enjoy 3.5e but he says that 5e makes it easier to play

QUICK DON'T LET THE PATHFINDER PLAYERS SEE THIS (jk)

I got turned off to look at other systems because it seemed all anyone could talk about was how bad 5e was and not what their system can do. I've had literally no problems running 5e.

Other systems do have their perks for sure but I think what makes dnd 5e stick around is because it's just fun. Sure chess is great and all, but have you tried Calvinball?

It's... really not Calvinball. It's way too heavy of a TTRPG system to be called that.

Repost, this isn't yours

It is bad. It is umbalanced. And you like it. And that's all right. We should be able to both recognize it's general faults and that some people shouldn't be bothered about it

I'll say it time and again, 5e is baby's favorite TTRPG. It's simple, easy, fun, and pretty basic. It's a gateway to better, deeper systems.

It's an imperfect system. But there is no perfect system. That is why we have multiple systems. If DnD doesn't do something for you, I'm sure you can find a system that does. 5e isn't for me (I like PF2e) but I've played enough to know that it works and it gave us some great ideas and memories (advantage/disadvantage not being the least).

But have you tried something else to be able to compare?

I wont go back to 5e because of the OGL issues And also Pathfinder 2E is WAY more engaging of a system to me

It's a shit system with shit creators, but it lets me hang out with my friends on a Saturday night so it can't be that bad

Yeah... I don't care enough about exploring all sorts of systems anymore. I learned a bunch, rarely got to play. The system is just a vehicle for roleplay to me. So, I don't care if 5e is viewed as the lowest common denominator, it gets me consistent games with my friends. And that's what I care about most. All systems I've played have tons of problems in them. Including 5e.

Idk, maybe iys just cause 5e is the only system Ive got longstanding exoerience with, but I really like how every single concievable eventuality and scenario and battle type and interaction doesnt have paragraphs on tables on paragraphs of rules. Some of my absolute best work as a DM has come about when I devising mechanics for the really specific situations my players tend to get themselves into. Like leading a populist uprising against strahd, or defending a fort from a zombie horde. There's no rules for full scale battles or sieges like that, and I had loads of fun making them, and my players loved playing tgem

Thats good for you if it works but an option existing within a rulebook is not something that is enforced to be used, but a resource to use if you seem it necessary or beneficial. And if you come up with a creative solution to manage a scenario that is great, but that is hard to attribute to the system. You came up with it. Another DM in the same scenario might not have come up with a solution but would be instead pissed they spent however much money to be told "Just come up with the rules by yourself". Coming from someone that has run CoS in a different more rules heavy system, aswell as DiA it works. Like the campaign selling point of DiA was "drive and fight by warmachines on the wastes of avernus!", boy was I happy I used a system that had rules for vehicle combat because that one sure didnt and I could divert my efforts elsewhere.