Communities are Better Designers

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

Another thing about the One D&D mess is people will discover communities of gamers are far better game designers than the ones working for game companies. A 5E designed by a community effort? We have one in Level Up Advanced 5E, which is impressive.

Another is Low Fantasy Gaming, another awe-inspiring game with its old-school flavor and feeling. Both games do their own thing in terms of characters, but for everything else, you have excellent compatibility with all of your 5E books.

These are incredible implementations of 5E-like rules from independent designers with a dream and a community behind them. Most of your current 5E content can be ported in with some work, and monsters and magic items can be used as-is. And these games came from people's dreams of creating a 5E-like game everyone could enjoy.

And you are free to write your own too.

One massive problem with paid game designers who work for a company is that they inevitably get let go. Do you like a game because it is designed well and you are a fan of the designers? Just wait a while, and they won't be there long. The churn I have seen in big game companies over the years is sobering. And the designers who come in knowing little about the game or are inexperienced in design get to have a say before the community.

And if a version ceases publication or falls out of favor, another game sprouts up like a flower and replaces it.

Another massive issue with big game companies is they need to put out rules to maintain profits. Why do we need a 6E? Well, they had to sell so many books a lot of low-quality filler ended up in the main 5E rules over the years. The end of 6E will happen when they print too many books, the bloat gets to be too much, and that edition will end and be revised for a 7E.

If we have an "N" E, we will get an "N+1" E.

Because a new team will be hired eventually and want to make their own version of the game. Give it 10 years, and it will happen.

Also, much of the content in certain expansion books is not in the OGL, so it is "dead" content once a new version comes out. With open-game content, nothing is wasted, and no idea dies. Nor do you need to waste paper and toxic ink printing the same rules, slightly changed, and force people to get rid of books. Not to mention shipping them around the world and causing carbon emissions. Why?

The community should be the ones saying, "No more editions."

Not the company that keeps printing them.

With community efforts, the community designs the game - not some company that dictates to the community. If there are exploits, they get fixed. If there are un-fun rules, they get made more fun. If problematic items are in the game, the community makes them acceptable to the players who play the game. You can join the community and suggest how the rules should be developed or sell your own adventures and expansions for the game.

Are any of these games as "big" as 5E? Yes! In a way, they use the same familiar 5E rules. Adjusting is trivial, like a new version of a phone OS you learn to use since it works the same way as the last.

Open gaming is the world's game and your game too.