D&D 5E Sell me on 5th…

[Greg K]

I find the core books are pretty good. Personally, I can't recommend anything official after that, but I think there are lots of great third party products- many free or inexpensive including a few here on ENWorld.
Beyond the above, I have nothing else to add.

 

[Clint_L]

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as they say.

What edition do you prefer? Sell me on that!

 

[Voadam]

For out there 5e concepts out of the books I would look at Tasha's and then Xanathars for subclass options.

Tasha's will give you your circle of spores druid, your iron man battle suit artificer, your swarmkeeper ranger and your astral self monk.

Xanathars will give you divine soul sorcerers and celestial pact warlocks which I find a bit different in flavor and narrative from standard D&D or good options to reskin playing an aasimar or celestial or angel if you want.

With the flexible stat bonuses from later supplements it opens up most every racial concept if you are willing to reskin. Use a Goliath chassis for a Wookie and go.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For out there 5e concepts out of the books I would look at Tasha's and then Xanathars for subclass options.

Tasha's will give you your circle of spores druid, your iron man battle suit artificer, your swarmkeeper ranger and your astral self monk.

Xanathars will give you divine soul sorcerers and celestial pact warlocks which I find a bit different in flavor and narrative from standard D&D or good options to reskin playing an aasimar or celestial or angel if you want.

With the flexible stat bonuses from later supplements it opens up most every racial concept if you are willing to reskin. Use a Goliath chassis for a Wookie and go.

Also, there are scads of options available via 3pp material. Look hard enough and you don't have to reskin anything.

 

[pukunui]

I’m not intrinsically anti-online resources, and I actually do use them in practice. But for something like RPGs, I strongly prefer a physical copy in my possession because those cannot easily be edited or simply disappear because of decisions completely beyond my control.

So D&D Beyond would be something I’d only consider if I already had the books (and I’d use it as an aid as opposed to a primary resource) OR if I had no other feasible option.

Are you sure you really want to be sold on 5e? Seems more like you’re wanting to establish reasons why you don’t want try it.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Play it. It will either sell itself or it will not. No amount of reading about it or even watching people play it can accurately gauge how it will play for you.

Also, a good DM may sell you on it. A bad experience will sour you on it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Also, a good DM may sell you on it. A bad experience will sour you on it.

Based on how others have reacted to my descriptions of the campaigns I've played (few of which ever reached six sessions), I can certainly vouch for the latter at least.

If you're gonna play 5e, make ferdamsher you find a good DM.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Based on how others have reacted to my descriptions of the campaigns I've played (few of which ever reached six sessions), I can certainly vouch for the latter at least.

If you're gonna play 5e, make ferdamsher you find a good DM.

The big problem with 5e is that it does very little to support the DM or to model good DMing. If you learned to GM with something else (whether 4e, AD&D, or something else like Apocalypse World) you can apply that to 5e - but in terms of getting a new DM up and running to play a good game it's in many ways even worse than the over-preparation of 3.X (although burns out competent DMs a lot less after that).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Also, a good DM may sell you on it. A bad experience will sour you on it.

A good GM might sell you on Rifts. You need to get to FATAL levels of bad before a good GM can't compensate except by throwing the whole thing out. And there's no RPG I can think of that can survive a bad GM.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

A good GM might sell you on Rifts. You need to get to FATAL levels of bad before a good GM can't compensate except by throwing the whole thing out. And there's no RPG I can think of that can survive a bad GM.

For my part, the interest lies in games which are (a) effective for helping DMs improve (e.g. mediocre -> good, good -> great) and (b) resilient against merely poor DMs, rather than bad ones. Both of which are much more achievable than trying to completely prevent problems from actually bad DMs.

The way 5e was designed...does not support either. IME, it needs a good to great DM, and does not help people get better.