#Dungeon23 Slush Pile: The Star's Prison

I too am jumping on the #Dungeon23 bandwagon. It seems like a fun and manageable way to do a large project, and I hope that having so many others do it simultaneously I'll stay motivated for longer. 

Though I don't want to plan too far ahead I do want to settle on a strong theme, some setting, something of a vague history of the dungeon, and collect a bunch of ideas I think would be fun. For this I am stealing the slush pile format, which I learned about through Dan of the throne of salt blog, but has been used to great effect by others as well.

Fun despite the system

Currently I am running a 5e D&D game for some friends of mine that I know through swordfighting. They invited me to start a D&D group and are really cool people, so despite my personal distaste for 5e, which I quickly learned they were most fond of/familiar with, I accepted. This was going to be more about hanging out with friends, than about prime gaming. 

Still, I held out hope: The players had said to be open to trying out other stuff as well, so maybe I could sway their opinion by introducing them to new, and in my opinion, better stuff like Into the Odd, Cairn, Mauseritter, Maze Rats or even Adventure Hour!. 

Until now I have run 6 games for this group, all in 5e, and am surprised with how much fun we are having despite everything I dislike about 5e. Remembering how much I didn't like using 5e before, this made me wonder how I was having this much fun despite adhering rather strictly to 5e rules. 

There are currently three reasons I can come up with, one of which is rather philosophical so I'll be sure to save that one for last.