Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Is Here To Stay
I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition since the play test. I've loved almost every aspect of the system and how they implemented new options. By doing the play testing in the Unearthed Arcana articles it is just wetting our appetites as fans of the game. Plus the fact they aren't releasing tons of books at an alarming rate it making it more digestible. The one concern I do have though is the open gaming license and DM's Guild seems to be over saturating the 3rd party market. Ultimately though Wizards of the Coast is doing things right.
Unearthed Arcana comes out frequently with new options for the game. They have come out with more Races, Classes, and Optional Rules in various articles. It is available to everyone but ultimately whether it is allowed or not in someones game is up to those groups individually. Some things that are apparent is that there is a need for improvement to the Ranger class. They have had three articles about that class alone. Most of the focus has been about adding more class options for players. Head on over to the Wizards of the Coast Unearthed Arcana Website for these.
Wizards of the Coast has been releasing only a few books a year. Every 3 or 4 months a new book comes out. This gives you plenty of time to absorb the content of the books. Most of which have been modules too which is nice because those don't add new rules necessarily. I have been able to purchase all of the books so far except for Curse of Strahd. Eventually I will be getting that book though. I have read most of the content of the books with the exception being some of the modules I haven't read fully. I have found great material in every single book that they have released.
The OGL has allowed people to create their own products on the DM's Guild website. Scrolling through the options you will see thousands of downloadable 5th edition PDF's. While I appreciate this it is hard to know if the quality is worth the purchase in most cases. Plus with the sheer amount of products being released this is impossible to keep up with. Some gaming groups have players looking for ways to get the upper hand on their dungeon masters too. If dungeon masters aren't careful they may allow some things that aren't designed on par with the current system. Personally I allow my players to play whatever they want but I must have time to read anything presented by a 3rd party publisher.
I am convinced that Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition may be the greatest Tabletop RPG to come out for a very long time. For me so far it has been my favorite game to be released thanks to all of the great things Wizards of the Coast has done with the releasing of products. Every step has been well thought out.