1: plenty of people are still creating their own worlds. But it's a lot of work, and some people don't have the time. It's ok!
2: you really should check out the OSR, you seem in a bit of a creative funk and I think it would cheer you up.
Yeah, it really is a funk. I was just thinking about that. This unwanted baked-in flavor is really getting to me. I really did try to remove it, but it is too ubiquitous.
What is nice about D&D 1e is how freeform it is. Everything is an option that requires effort to *opt in*. The rules are all over the place, require effort to even piece together ones own version of the rules, and there is almost no flavor. Just a sentence with a suggestion here or there to spark the DMs creative juices.
By contrast, 5e bakes ‘official’ flavor into everything. It requires extreme effort to try *opt out*. There are no tools for DMs to world build. There are no resources with flavorless mechanics, to make it easy for the DM to author the flavor, to craft a new dedicated setting.
Relatedly, 1e requires effort to opt in to official flavor. All the references to polytheism were in a separate splatbook, Deities & Demigods. Any DM who wanted polytheism purchased the book, then figured out which of the options in the book to integrate into the setting. (I own this book, being curious about the less than accurate representation of the Norse spirituality − and curious about about Elric.) But this D&D polytheism requires an *opt in*. It doesnt happen by itself. When I as a DM say no, then the separate splatbook never happens. Then that is it. I never see polytheism again in the rest of rules that I do use. I never have to deal with it. I never have to fight against the unwanted flavor to *opt out*.
By contrast, 5e is the Borg. Everything is hardwired together, from top to bottom, from the fusion of mechanoflavor, from book to chapter to page to paragraph to sentence. Everything is entwined together. Even what were once utterly unrelated settings imagined by different authors are all assimilated into a single, homogeneous, totalitarian supersetting. The polytheism is everywhere, at every level. The uninspiring mundane elf is now the only one-size-fits-all option. It too is nothing but baked in polytheistic flavor. It is impossible to use any rules without the Borg contaminating and assimilating any effort to try use the rules for a different kind of setting.
On the other hand, 5e has reasonable mechanical balance. Which is also important to me. The frustration with wanton imbalance is why I dont use earlier editions of D&D. Also the 5e wizard is excellent, and 5e has the best bard of all editions. So there are aspects of 5e that I strongly value.
But this 5e baked in flavor − it is ruining the game for me. I get it that many players either like the flavor or can live with it. Honestly, I am happy that they have a game that they enjoy. At the same time, other editions of D&D had a design philosophy of opt in, rather than opt out. And even 3e made it easy to opt out, simply by switching to the comprehensive 3e SRD whose presentation of rules lacked flavor. But for 5e, this baked in flavor is killing my joy for D&D.
If WotC is set on baking flavor into D&D for the sake of corporate ‘branding’ of its legal trademarks, I dont even need the name ‘Dungeons & Dragons’. I just need the rules without someone elses setting baked into it. Call these rules some other name. All of D&D mechanics without the flavor. Heh, call this version of the game ‘Meka’. Or call it ‘Modern’. Or maybe call it ‘5e Soon’, soon in the sense of a near future setting, and soon in the sense of requiring the DM to assemble the setting oneself.
I need a way to play the game in a way that brings me joy.
