Don’t be married to 5e!

5e is an amazing system don’t get me wrong. It is one of the easiest systems I know of to pick up and teach to others, is fairly easy to balance encounter wise, robust enough to cover a lot of uncommon situations but loose enough to make homebrew easy. Easy homebrew comes as a double edged sword though. Because it is so easy I have seen countless times a DM run a version 5e crammed so full of homebrew rules and systems to try to fit the style of game they’re trying to run that it often is barely 5e anymore. And since at that point you might as well be learning a whole new set of rules, why not take the full leap and actually do so? 5e not crunchy enough for you, want a super high ammount of player options? Try 3.5 or Pathfinder? Just watched Gundam and want to fly around in space piloting custom mechs? Lancer is your friend! 5e too crunchy for you? Want a game more focused on storytelling? Try any number of powered by the apocalypse games, there’s sure to be one that fits the setting and specific tone of game that you want. The list goes on and on. What’s the issue with homebrew though? Well nothing inherently, if it works for you it works for you. But a new system can help break any preexisting notions and muscle memory that your players might have and set the tone for what kind of game it’s going to be. If I show up to a 5e game, even if I know it’s going to be fairly heavy homebrew wise, I’m still going to expect to be playing a heroic hero who spends around 1/3-1/2 of the time killing monsters and getting loot, and that mindset is going to inform how I play, which might be a source of table conflict. But if I show up to Ryuutama game, I’m going to be expecting a much more improv heavy, character focused, slice of life type of game. Reading through and learning new systems is not as scary as it might seem at first, trust me. I highly encourage just doing some googling and reading through a rule book or two. Maybe plan a session or two in it, see how it feels to prep. And at the very least, you might pick up some ideas for your next 5e homebrew rules.