The Potterization of D&D

They are modern people in a fantasy world, a delightful contrast that never fails to amuse!

The 2024 D&D PHB art has sparked a debate, with some labeling it as 'corporate stock photos' masquerading as fantasy art. The scenes depict groups of modern-looking, happy people enjoying 2024 fast food. It's a stark contrast to the traditional fantasy settings we're used to. But this modern twist on D&D has certainly got us all thinking about the influence of contemporary culture on our beloved fantasy genres.

We're witnessing a significant shift in audience preferences. In this day and age, Harry Potter captivates the younger generation, not the likes of Lord of the Rings, Leiber, Howard, Moorcock, Conan, or any of the Appendix N greats. For 95% of kids today, 'fantasy' is synonymous with 'self-insert YA stories of modern folks in fantasy settings.' This change is shaping the future of fantasy literature.

Look at that art again.

Let that sink in.

Harry Potter killed D&D as we knew it.

In fact, D&D feels like it is trying to "take that mantle" by adopting that theme and art style as its default "look and feel" of the game and its universes. D&D is trying to displace Potter as the next generation's "bible of self-identity." In some ways, this form of Potterism is a religion that D&D is fighting to supplant. If they ever remake Dark Sun, it will be happy Harry Potter YA characters in a Disney theme park sanitized version of the setting, eating fast food from cross-promoted chains like Chipotle.

Remember, the faith has to be safe enough for Wall Street to cross-promote in.

Back in the 1980s, during the Satanic Panic, there used to be hyper-religious types who preached against the dangers of "too much fantasy." It wasn't really D&D's occult roots that bothered them but about tying your identity too much to a fantasy that you could never attain and would spend your entire adult life chasing and living an unfulfilled life with no faith, children, legacy, and you would forever be the tool of crass manipulators trying to "sell you the dream again."

You can trace it back to 9/11 and a generation of parents trying to hide their children from a world nobody wanted to live in. Harry Potter became the "safe place" for parents to shove their kids into. D&D adopted some of these "safe space" concepts, such as the world not being too deadly, giving everyone too much power, and deemphasizing things that are not a part of the world of children (money, sex, politics, nations, laws, war, death, and responsibility). Classic games will dip into that "adult world" where the Potter reality shies away from them.

I come from the 1980s and have a healthy respect for the line between fantasy and reality. I can play these games safely and endlessly follow the advice the books gave us in the 1980s. I can mix in mature themes without needing handrails and safety tools. The Gen-X safety tool?

You are not your character and never put yourself in the game.

I look at games like Dungeon Crawl Classics, and there is a general love and appreciation for pre-Harry Potter fantasy works. You even see that "never put yourself in the game" theme here with funnels and random generation concepts. For me, DCC has replaced D&D, and I hope they will always retain their canonization of the classic writers and authors.

Those classic works are the heart of the hobby and genre.

Some people say D&D died when Wizards took over, but I am hesitant to say that these days, especially not in this light. D&D during the Harry Potter years was trying to hold on to that classic experience and traditional influence. But D&D could not keep the tidal wave of "never die YA fantasy fiction" out for very long, and in 5E, "classic D&D" eventually succumbed and left us forever in 5.5E.

Do not just look at today to find out where these pictures of "modern people in a fantasy setting" came from. It is easy to blame what we see as "the last outrage" as the cause. It never is.

Trees grow from seedlings and have roots that run deep.

Look at the books that today's generation grew up with.

Cepheus Deluxe (EE) vs. Traveller, part 2

Cepheus Deluxe (Expanded Edition) is a modernized pulp sci-fi version of the Traveller game. With their stamina and lifeblood system, the combat rules allow characters to shrug off minor wounds, adding a sense of resilience and tension to the game. On the other hand, the talent system brings characters to life with its cinematic feeling, offering a deeper level of customization and engagement.

Cepheus Deluxe (Expanded Edition) is a versatile powerhouse, designed to seamlessly fit into any generic sci-fi setting. This adaptability empowers you to create your own unique universe, play established IPs, or even convert other sci-fi settings. It's a game engine that can fuel a 2d6-based Star Frontiers conversion or a hybrid mix of Star Frontiers, Space Opera, and Traveller, giving you the creative freedom to craft the sci-fi experience you desire.

Cepheus also does Star Wars, Star Trek, and other IPs just fine as a rules system. The pulp additions to characters and combat ensure you get that tension and danger in combat while brushing off light wounds and not needing medical attention for minor wounds and punches to the face. In Traveller, all wounds require medical attention. In Cepheus, there are some you can just shake off and get on with the action. The talent system helps give characters a "larger than life" feeling and allows for deeper specializations.

To me, Traveller has moved out of the "generic sci-fi game" space (which Mongoose Traveller 1E was in) and has become a very strong setting-based game for the mind-blowing Imperium setting. This version embraces the setting and merges the rules with it, just like Runequest 7th does, and gives you a great starting point for any sci-fi campaign. The key word here is starting point since the universe is designed in that Harnquest-style "one starting point" that you can take in any direction and then reset for your next campaign.

Want to do sort of a "space alien" game? Do that in one campaign, then wipe the slate clean the next. Time travel? It is not canon, but it is sci-fi, but those stories can be told here. When the campaign is done, the universe resets to "year zero," and you have a fresh slate for the next story. Time travel and space monsters may not exist in future games, but every playthrough is unique, and you make the universe "yours" every time you play it. Dimensional travel and magic? Fine, it is in your current game.

I love these "single starting point" games far more than the "constant canon" games where new metaplots, lore, and characters are added to the world with every book - like the old Forgotten Realms was in the 1990s. You would make one unused part of the world your own, and a novel would come in and overwrite everything. Players will go there and expect to see "the novel stuff" like tourists; your contributions mean little and are marginalized.

Runequest is done the same way, just like Call of Cthulhu - you get the campaign world set as the single starting point, and any direction you take from it is excellent. This is the only way to do deep game worlds these days since updating the universe for new events invalidates old books, steps on player contributions, and creates a mess of lore and dependencies, where X had to happen for Y, and all of a sudden you need to play at the "tail end" of history to have any fun.

Cepheus does generic sci-fi the best. It is free from the iconic Traveller ships and lets you create your own without scout couriers flying around reminding you that you are in "not Traveller" again. The pulp- elements create a high-action sci-fi experience, and it does a 2d6 experience for these genres just about the best. Traveller is a more realistic game.

What I love about Traveller is being able to pick any map and any star and drill down into it to read about "what is there" and dream of all the adventures that can occur there. I can't do that in D&D. I get a greater sense of wonder about a sci-fi universe where characters are relatively ordinary and discover the extraordinary than I do the "high magic Avengers" of most fantasy gaming these days. I can put an unexplained phenomenon in Traveller, and players will ask, "What is that?"

In D&D, players know the page number of what just happened.

Magic is no longer magic if it is pedestrianized.

D&D magic is just "power"—not magic. There is a massive difference between being amazed by what a stage magician does, watching the same thing, and "knowing the trick." Magic assumes wonder, not knowing how it happened, and feeling that sense of shock and amazement at something happening before your eyes that you can't explain.

The same is true for Traveller. I can set up an anomaly in which a ship "teleports" between stars using some unknown drive, and the players race around trying to find where it goes next and what it shall do. That drive isn't in the rules or the books, it is in my imagination. The players will likely only partially understand it, only the parts they need to give them an edge. I will never need to write a "technical manual" explaining how it works. Players will never be able to "replicate it" by gaining access to "high-level engineering powers."

The ship will likely never appear in another campaign. This is it. If it gets destroyed, that is the end. It is not in the "Mega Tech Guide" book. The players will never know anything else about it, its origin, or its purpose. There is no page in a book you can flip to for an answer.

It is what it is, the unexplained.

And we need space for that in our games and our imaginations.

Pet Characters

We have had "pet" characters all our lives, and D&D and many games encourage this. Part of me feels they damage the hobby and our gaming enjoyment.

A "pet character" is your favorite character, the ideal ranger, the best fighter, the best mage, the trickiest rogue, self-insert, a perfect character modeled after fiction, "you in the game," which you always play in MMOs, and basically who you simp for. If someone asks you to "play a bard," this is your default choice.

For me, 'pet characters' are more of a game-killer than a game-enhancer.

I want them to be perfect, but the rules always need to meet my expectations. They are the same old, and they always react the same way. They never change. They are stuck in the past. You seek out games that give them more powers to further reinforce why they are so great. They are "too close" to us, and "risking them" forces you to cheat or play games where characters never die.

I am beginning to resent the pet character.

They are destroying my enjoyment of gaming.

In a way, this "pet character" ideal is the entire superhero genre. Batman is the only vigilante in the DC Universe; if there is another, it is always "female Batman." There may be a few others, but they are just a collection of "not Batman" characters. In roleplaying, we have "our Batman," the only vigilante-style character we play.

No other vigilante character will ever be given any "air time" or a chance in anyone's mind as long as Batman is around. You see the same thing with the goofball character and Harley Quinn; time and time again, it is the same old her, and there can be no one else.

Why would you waste time developing any new ideas?

We have our old standby pet characters ready to go!

If you are new here, there is the door; that role is filled. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

And companies use this ideal of a pet character as identity marketing against us. Would you buy cosmetics for a randomly generated character? Probably not. Would you buy cosmetics for your pet character? Where do I put in my credit card, and what do you have? Would you buy a game that puts your pet character on a golden pedestal and throws rose petals at their feet?

Soon, Wall Street will begin tracking our "pet characters" and creating databases to market against us and exploit our weaknesses for these ideals. All it takes is AI-generated imagery appearing in advertisements resembling our pet characters. Would you be more likely to buy something if this happened? Let's say your pet and all your friends' characters were happily drinking the same soda. Would you be more receptive? Does Wizards really know what it has in that character database? I called this here first.

Part of me feels like retiring all my pets and only playing games with randomly generated characters is the best way forward. I will "embrace the rando" and begin living life again. With random characters, I get to see new things; I can invest in them or not, and I am free to take them on new adventures and "see what happens." With a pet, I know what they will do and what to expect. That story has been done a million times.

What is the fun of playing it again? I would rather see something new!

I love my pets, but it is time to put them away. I need to grow, discover new things to love, and enjoy characters who may surprise me. Banning the pets will give room for new characters to grow.

And I am tired of doing the same old thing.

I want to see things I have never seen and watch new characters amaze me.

Cepheus Engine vs. Traveller

Okay, yes, Traveller is expensive. The books are very high-quality, color, excellent paper, and hardbacks. You will pay for that these days, and it is costly. But the universe is impressive and in the top ten of science fiction, even when you include movies and films.

Yes, the Traveller Universe is just as old as Star Wars and, in many cases, more compelling.

I read that Marc Miller, creator of Traveller, recently sold the rights to Mongoose to keep his legacy alive. Marc also had nice words for the Cepheus Engine side of the 2d6-i-verse, and having an open, community-supported implementation is critical for the legacy to survive. Mongoose is working on extending an open license to Cepheus publishers, and there was work on this and updates this year.

It takes a while since this has to go back and forth between publishers, legal, and owners and get community feedback. A license nobody will use wastes time, so I applaud all sides trying to get this right. Nobody wants another OGL.

https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/traveller-open-content-new-programme-on-the-way.123770/page-5

This is an excellent step in supporting and continuing the legacy and ensuring "everyone can play." The Traveller, part of the legacy, belongs to a good steward in Mongoose, and the 2d6 system belongs to the world. This is important since a lot of creative development and R&D is happening in the community games, which benefits us all.

Also, the Cepheus games are often printed at a lower cost than the Traveller game, being in print-on-demand. This makes them more fun! I love both Hostile and Cepheus Engine games, and there are a bunch of exciting mods and developments in these systems that make them more suited for generic sci-fi or modding to play in universes like Star Trek, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, Mass Effect, or Star Wars, which Cepheus handles easily. It is nice to have a game with no Imperium or backstory and no iconic ship designs so players can morph the system into any universe they can imagine.

The CD game has a "traits" system (like talents) that enhance character customization. This game also expands psi-powers to be on parity with 2022 Traveller.

And, no, "officially licensed games" do not do a better job of playing Star Wars or Star Trek. I can't tell you how many of these I have before the license runs out and the game is forced to switch publishers and systems repeatedly. Also, some games move to a second edition far too quickly.

Also, if you know where to look, you can get "Trek" and "Wars"-like experiences inside Traveller, and at times, they are even better. There are modules and sourcebooks for naval and mercenary campaigns. You can get cruiser deck plans for giant ships and run a "Trek-like" exploration campaign, with complete rules for simulating the ship's crew, encounters, missions, and full support for an entire game. While the licensed Star Trek game does this, very few Star Wars games do this, and the level of support is never as good.

You would be hard-pressed to find mercenary games in an officially licensed Star Trek game, and while it is possible in Star Wars, the support is feeble. Traveller has a boxed set and adventures for these types of games. Exploration? Strong in Trek, non-existent in Wars. In Traveller, you generate systems and make star maps; the game has done this since day one. Space piracy? Non-existent in Trek, weak in Wars. Traveller has a boxed-set slipcase deluxe adventure regarded as one of the best space pirate campaigns ever.

If you can get over not playing in "officially licensed IP," the universe is yours. Traveller has become the "D&D of sci-fi," absorbing all the best concepts and campaign types of every sci-fi universe and making a universe that does it all.

The only weak area of Traveller is the "star knights"-style campaign, which has "force-like" power. The first edition of Mongoose Traveller has a psionics book, and one is needed for the Second Edition. Part of me feels a mythic "Star Knight" faction would fit well in Traveller, who go around, protect psionic adepts, and prevent exploitation and brutalization of psi-sensitive peoples.

This would be a "better Jedi than the Jedi" and give them an "X-Men" style cause to travel the universe for (which the Jedi do not have). This faction could be supported privately by wealthy psi-supportive people and work behind the scenes. If you look at what the Jedi in Star Wars has become, it has fallen far from the ideal.

For me, an X-Men-style campaign of Star Knights protecting psi-sensitive people would be far more compelling and exciting than the muddled mess of the Jedi, which has turned into a strange mish-mash of an intelligence agency, political faction, self-important trainers of Jedi (who have no real reason to be doing anything other than 'they just are'), planetary explorers (?), and Coruscant police force.

You could also have an evil faction led by a megalomaniac "Magento" figure who preaches psi-supremacy over ordinary people, with its own "Dark Knights" who hunt and corrupt psi-sensitives for its side. This would fit well in Traveller, and you could ignore it if this isn't your thing - which, to be honest, applies to Mercs and Naval campaigns, too.

Cepheus Universal has the "force sword" if you want it, and you can rule this weapon as a legacy of ancient psi-knights from long ago. It isn't "on-sale" at weapon shops or mass-produced anywhere. CU is another excellent adaptation of 2d6 sci-fi gaming, with gritty art and more gear.

Cepheus is a lower-cost and community-supported version of the game. You can find fantasy gaming and many other genres in the open system, which expands the appeal of the 2d6 system. And lower cost means just as much fun! Traveller and the official books are more suited to support the Imperium setting, and a lot of work is done for you - which is why you pay for the full-color books and all the information you don't have to come up with.

Traveller, along with the great work in the Cepheus area, is quickly becoming the "D&D of space" and absorbing all the best ideas in sci-fi gaming.

Traveller is Great Sci-Fi Roleplaying

I have not been this invested in a game since my GURPS Fantasy campaign. Where GURPS Fantasy captures that gritty, down-to-earth, realistic fantasy that I crave, what Traveller does is "sci-fi with batteries included."

Many sci-fi games, even those in the OSR, promise a big game and fail at one point or another. Most of them can't do ship combat without heavy math and physics (GURPS Space), others get too goofy (stop copying Guardians of the Galaxy like some games copy Aliens), some have no trading game or economy (Starfinder), others have no way of creating star systems, some have no ship design (Frontier Space), and many others have no exciting universe to explore.

Traveller, the game that set the benchmark in 1977, continues to reign supreme. Its comprehensive approach to sci-fi gaming, which includes ship combat, trading, and universe exploration, has not only stood the test of time but also made a significant mark in the history of gaming. This game locked TSR and Wizards out of the sci-fi market and continues to be a beacon of excellence in the gaming world.

Traveller does it all in a relatively rules-light format. The 2d6 system scales exceptionally well, providing a sense of reassurance about its adaptability, and does an excellent job of 'keeping the numbers down' to a realistic level. It also effortlessly flows from turn-by-turn action to a macro-level of 'handle a few days in one skill roll.'

The only areas where the game falls short are planet types and adventure hooks, where Stars Without Number will always be the king of the generated content. The systems here work well enough with Traveller as a plug-in adventure hook system, so using SWN's planet and system creation systems is the best of both worlds and provides instant adventure hooks for any sci-fi game.

Why not just play the Cepheus system? This is an OpenQuest versus RuneQuest question. If you want to play with the Traveller world, the ships, the organization, and the history, play Traveller. The classic universe, ships, factions, and history are all here. If generic sci-fi is more your thing, or you want to use the 2d6 rules to play another IP, go Cepheus and DIY the universe without the official setting distractions.

Cepheus is also a vast and confusing collection of titles. This will continue until the OGL is purged forever from gaming as a stain. Lots of titles remain under OGL, and the community is working its way out from under that mess. The license is still viable, but with an uncertain asterisk. Still, some of the best 2d6 community content is still being made under this rules framework. An alternate way out is Mongoose putting the core 2d6 rules under ORC, and there were rumblings of that as well.

Cepheus is 100% compatible with Traveller, making using adventures between the systems easy. Cepheus also has a few exciting rules additions (talents). Also, it has many other very compelling settings (Sword of Cepheus, Wild West, noir, and cyberpunk settings) - which can all supply content for your Traveller games. Sword of Cepheus has 22 pages of monsters in 2d6 format, and Westlands has 28 pages). The Under Western Skies game has wild-west and horse-generation rules (you could do a Westworld game with this). New World is a cyberpunk game with excellent urban encounters and gang creation tables. The entire Cepheus 2d6 open-game community is a fantastic resource to draw upon.

The Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition is also coming out very soon.

The entire 2d6 gaming universe outside Traveller is still excellent, and Cepheus Light also powers my Car Wars RPG. You can power an entire game universe with 2d6 mechanics, from fantasy to sci-fi. The 2d6 gaming hobby is as good as 5E but with fewer dice.

Back to Traveller. The pre-2022 game is more classic Traveller, while the 2022 version (and the books supporting it) aims for more generic sci-fi gaming. Traveller is to sci-fi what D&D is to fantasy. You can have a hundred 5E sci-fi games and still never match Traveller. The setting is evolving from a defined, classic setting with much "scaffolding and framework" lore to obey; the new presentation makes the setting your own to play with.

The old setting felt stuck in the 1950s. The new one still could be, but it feels more accessible to make it your own.

But this feels strange, and the game has captured my imagination, which has yet to happen in a long time. When you feel yourself "living in the universe," magic happens. With GURPS Fantasy, these characters feel real; I get that low-level gritty and bloody grid and fight for survival.

With Traveller, the characters are not as "gritty and real" as GURPS. What does feel real are all the possibilities—that sandbox, the hundreds of ships to encounter, the millions of planets to visit, the alien races to meet, and the ones I can create for my games. The types of campaigns are near-infinite: science, mercenary, trader, troubleshooter, navy, pirate, settler, miner, explorer, system developer, spy, bounty hunter, noble, rebel, law enforcement, survey team, and it goes on and on.

While other games have these professions as "classes," you can actually "do the thing" in this game; other games have the "just a name" problem: explorer as a class name, but just end up in combats on a battle-mat. You aren't "really" a spy, hacker, or explorer; you just fight like one (and have a skill for out-of-combat things). This is sort of the problem Starfinder has for me; you aren't a true star captain or merchant; what should be "the thing you do" is just flavor for combat abilities.

And if you can spend hundreds of millions of credits, stand losing hundreds on millions of credits, and find ways of making it all back again - this is your game. The first time we played Traveller as kids, our characters sold a ship for a few hundred million credits, and our game died. We had yet to learn what to do with 300 million credits except retire. We were too into the AD&D "win the game at a million gold pieces" sort of maturity level.

Oh, I know now.

Here? Buy an excellent trading ship, start a mining operation, claim a great planet as your own, start a mercenary company, build a pirate fleet, start a colony, buy a trading fleet, invest in land, develop a company, or earn more money to influence the royals and politicians to buy your way into high society. Hundreds of millions of credits are not the game's end; it is just the beginning.

The support for "doing the thing" is in the game, and it doesn't take that much to figure out how all the parts work. Starship combat can be done through the theater of the mind. Starship design is just a few numbers to add up. Setting up and managing a cargo haul is easy. Flying to another planet is a simple calculation, requiring a few skill and encounter rolls.

This sci-fi is easy, whereas other games make it hard.

The infinite possibilities and ease become the game's most engaging draw.

Traveller: Worldbuilding

Creating planets for a Traveller game can be a complex task. You start with a set of basic stats for the world, and from there, you need to interpret and transform these numbers into a fully-fledged world.

Terra 1827 A867A69-F (N,W)

The above? That number? That is Earth. The UDP is planet name, hex number, followed by:

1. Star-port Quality
2. Size
3. Atmosphere Type
4. Hydrographic Percentage
5. Population
6. Government Type
7. Law Level
8. -
9. Tech Level
10. (Bases)

Numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 are size, atmosphere, hydrographic, and population, in this case, 867A. Now, think about Earth. We are supposed to imagine Earth from those four numbers. For some people, this is an impossible task. How are you supposed to come up with the deserts of North Africa, the jungles of the Amazon, the frozen ice sheets of the Antarctic, the mountains of the Himalayas, the nearly-infinite oceans, the splendor of Hawaii, the glory of some of the great river valleys in China, the pastoral fields of France,  the great forests and lakes of northern Canada, the endless urban New York area, and all the other places in this world from just four numbers?

867A.

And then, add most of the worlds you will create, which could be fantastic alien landscapes?

While I am moving away from AI art (because of the ethics and theft from artists involved), I can't deny the potential of an AI generator (legal, artist-sourced, and with contributors paid) to inspire ideas you could never imagine. The idea generation aspect of AI is truly remarkable, and while using it commercially is something I do not support, it can be a powerful tool in the right hands.

If you have one of the sector guides, you will find information on a few planets in the subsector, but not all. But remember, 99% of the universe, including random planets, colonies, and stations in systems, is yours to create. You can let your imagination run wild, and anything goes.

In addition, fantastical weather, geology, nature, vegetation, tidal flows, swamps, marches, salt flats, geysers, mineral formations, insects, volcanoes, mineral deposits, islands, beaches, natural arches, canyons, badlands, sea life, winds, atmospheric layers, rings, moons, oddly colored and shaped terrain features, animals, creatures, and space anomalies are all involved. Not every desert looks like California, and not every forest looks like Oregon.

And there isn't just "one location" in every hex map location. Each is a solar system, with a main planet and many other worlds and places within. Again, think of our solar system, Earth, and all the planets. Put a sci-fi civilization in there with ships zooming all over, colonies, space stations, satellites, and places on every planet to explore and do business. A typical Traveller subsector map can be very deceptive since you tend to think "one planet per hex," but it is not that way.

There are probably millions of "points of interest" in every hex. The trick is understanding they are all there, not getting overwhelmed by them all, and deciding the very few that interact with your players and game.

Imagine being sent to find a suitcase in our solar system—just one suitcase. It could be anywhere from Mercury to the deserts of Morocco or even in a cargo container in Jupiter's orbit, in a random ship's cargo hold, sitting in an airport bathroom, or in the back trunk of a car in any parking lot in the world—any world in the system.

Naturally, because your players are so awesome, they will be able to find it with a few vague clues and a matchbook from a random restaurant.

But the players could detour to an infamous "spacer casino" in a side mission. That place was never on a map or in a subsector guide, nor did it exist in anyone's ideas or campaign. But it is in yours. This is why when you play Traveller, people always say, "It is your Traveller." There is no way for anyone to play in the same universe twice. Ever. Not in a billion years. The map and system names could be the same, but none of what is in those planets or subsectors will ever be the same.

This is more challenging work than most fantasy games, and it requires a much more free mind to dream, create, and imagine the speculative and extraordinary. If the players want to help fill in, do some of the imagining, and make suggestions, go for it.

The universe is big enough to hold everyone's imagination.

Make it your own.

Another Bad Decision Reversed

This is why I don't like commenting on Wizards drama. D&D Beyond will allow you to keep what you paid for, and the 2014 content will stay in the system. It is a good move, but...

Every major decision this team makes seems to have to be course-corrected a few weeks after community outrage. If I were a shareholder, this would be my first question to this team: "What is going on over there? Are you that out of touch with your customers?"

It's disheartening to see D&D YouTube claiming victory when the community never truly wins; they just manage to push back another misguided decision. Most YouTube comments on these videos say, "Never going back."

D&D Beyond should be a home to any player who owns any edition to come and call the system home. If you play AD&D or 0e, a 4.0 or 3.5, 4E, 5.0 or 5.5, or AD&D 2nd, a character sheet, books, and rules should await you. You should be able to buy any module and have assets, maps, and conversions for any D&D game right there, 0e to 5.5E. Other VTTs have character sheets for these games. The PDFs exist. They own these games. Why isn't this happening?

This is the dream platform fueled by nostalgia and decades of back content.

There is a massive difference between a company that makes rules and a social technology platform, and the company still needs to figure that out. There is a point where the rules don't matter, but the platform is everything. Every year, this team keeps acting like a "rules company," and it is another year they hand over to their competitors.