A while ago, during the Great OGL Kerfuffle, there was an interesting idea promoted by a bunch of indie game creators: that since everyone ultimately homebrews/houserules D&D, no one “plays” D&D, ergo D&D sucks.

That sort of got lodged in my brain and it’s been rattling around ever since. It’s always 2 things with me, so it’s my ideal brainworm.

On the one hand, yeah: if all you need to do to make 5E playable (the way you want to play it) is re-do character creation, combat, and magic … why not just go find a game that already suits your needs? TTRPG houseruling/homebrewing is fun, but you’re spending a bunch of money that goes to a big, faceless corporation when a couple people and some artists could really use your dollar.

The other is obvious: everyone houserules everything. It’s inevitable; no one except your group can ever know exactly the game you want to play so bitching and moaning about 5E being flawed is like complaining that people modify their house, or car, or even their body. Everything is a toolkit; people like to build things. 5E provides a rich set of rules upon which to build, and an even richer community of tinkerers and mods to play with, to build exactly the game you want.

I tend towards the latter, with strong sympathies to the former. You should try to find an indie to back, one that is closet to whatever it is you’re trying to do. But you shouldn’t feel like a bad person for buying into the 5E ecosystem; there’s plenty of indies there, too! In the end, the OGL seems to have won the day, and you can go to DRPG and buy content from people working in their basements to build things. In the end, I think it’s OK.