I’ll be DMing some more 5e soon and I want to take the opportunity to try some different ways of playing (I’ll post my own suggestions as comments so they can start their own discussion threads). What alternate rules have you tried that you thought worked well? They can be larger changes to the game or little QoL tweaks (though if you can respond to the suggestion with “at this point just play [different game] instead” then that’s probably more than what I’m looking for!)
Knockouts. It’s a very simple rule. If you successfully sneak up on a creature and successfully hit them with an attack that deals bludgeoning damage, they need to pass a con save with a DC equal to 10 or half the damage dealt (whichever is higher) or they immediately fall unconscious. I feel like 5e doesn’t really encourage stealth enough otherwise, and this way players have a decent way to pick off sentries and such before raiding a camp.
In theory you could do assassinations with a similar rule, but I haven’t tried it out in a campaign.
