Also, it seems to me that most, if not all, of the mods suggested in this topic have nothing to do with removing "woke".
That’s because we’re not really talking about preserving the initial non-woke 5e as is. We’re really talking about what sort of Pathfinder-like changes that should be made to a clone after the inevitable woke 6e releases.
Basically some people seem to think lightning will strike twice and maybe they can be Paizo 2.0 with a retrocloned 5e+their personal house rules for it. My opinion is that the mechanics have almost nothing to do with why 5e sells so well and so the game to make to compete with 6e is just the best non-woke product you can conceive of.
ETA: Also, I don’t think mechanically 6e will be all that different from 5e, they’ll just change out the fluff text/art for woke versions, rename race to “ancestry” and assign -2 penalties to all checks for every one of white, male and heterosexual that apply to the PLAYER in the name of social justice and equity.
I agree with Chris, and will extend that thought to other reasons to have an alternate game besides competing with 5E: There are some solid rules in 5E, at least in part. As rules go, it's larger issue is that it is trying to be all things to all people while written by a committee. This "vision"--more than even their execrable fiction masquerading as adventure content--is the main limiting factor to its appeal. (It may seem strange to talk about a limiting factor with such a behemoth, but there it is.) To frame it, then:
- The advantage of using 5E is that it is easy, accessible, and has a wide range of preset interest from the players. Those are not small things!
- The advantage of using something more tightly designed is mainly that you can run a better game. Where "better" is going to vary considerably depending on the interests of the group and the design of the rules.
A theoretical clone of 5E that is compatible enough to 5E to leverage that "easy, accessible" part needs to double-down on that to distinguish it from 5E. "Not Woke" isn't nearly enough. It's the opposite of the Knights of the Dinner Table running gag of Hackmaster ads--"Now with 200% more rules!" "80% of 5E with 80% of the rough edges removed, and oh yeah, not pushing a narrative" is a competing game to 6E. Add some additional options (e.g. easy domain management, a skills system that isn't a thin layer of fluff over the ability checks, etc.) and the selling point gets even easier. Huge bonus points if you can write good GMing advice into the rules.
However, that game still isn't going to be as interesting at a given table as a more tightly designed game with a more narrow, focused appeal. If your goal is to get the kind of game you want at your table (whether to sell or just to run), then 5E clone is not the way to go. If your goal is to try to catch the lightning with a business plan, then you want to be the RPG design equivalent of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. WoW took off not because Blizzard was innovative--they weren't. Rather, they were relentless at focusing on and taking other peoples' innovations and making them as easy as possible to use and understand. A successful 5E clone will be "More 5E than 5E was", if that makes sense. Producing that takes a lot of elbow grease, attention to detail, and a pragmatic director who is ruthless in cutting out things that don't fit that idea.