Just packed away most of my DND books. Feels a bit sad. My relationship with the material has become strained in recent years. We had the “Orcs are black people” nontroversy a while back that Wizards of the Coast decided to humor. Rules have been simplified to the point where the game can play itself. Old school fans have been attacked in official media for not liking changes (lord knows we do that every edition, but for some reason 5th is considered sacred.) Language in both the books and official posts have taken away the importance of the DM in favor of “the players have equal ownership.” The new race book takes away the uniqueness of the different races and replace it with stat blocks (with WotC saying that’s how they’re making the game going forward.) And we now have a Dungeons and Dragons source book for magic college complete with prom.
As someone who’s been around since 3.5, fifth edition feels different in all the wrong ways, and the same in name only. With the party I run wrapped up (mostly, I’m not arranging a third session to finish what should have only taken one,) and the party I’m in ended, I just don’t feel a need or want to keep the core books on my shelf at the moment. It’s been good times, bad times, really damn stressful times, “I am the lord your god and this is my ruling” times. But I’m at the point where this isn’t something I want to keep doing.
I’ve got Starfinder stuff thanks to Humble Bundle, I really want to try running Cyberpunk Red, and I keep checking for updates on the Root Kickstarter (going on a year late with shipping.) So I’m not giving up on TTRGPs. But I’ve punched the ticket out of Forgotten Realms, and it feels less like a tragedy and more like a friend I’ve grown away from.
