Sunday, February 5, 2023

Betrayed

I am still not feeling any goodwill towards 5E or Wizards. Their mistruths, actions, and silence have caused so much hurt by their actions it is hard to forget those days in January. The emotional damage they caused to a community is immeasurable.

Even with the Creative Commons thing and the statement supposedly ending this disaster, the damage has been done. I don't think an SRD 3.5 released into the Creative Commons, though it would be welcome and a good move, would help all that much.

The damage is done.

Every one of the games they affected fed into their status as market leaders. There were "those other games," but there was always the "latest version of the one they were based on" to check out.

Now, that isn't so.

Many of these games are going their separate ways, and many players have been hurt; they will think twice about joining - or DM'ing - a game of 5E. The "DM crisis" worsens as experienced and long-term veterans leave the 5E market.

And I checked out a few 5E live-streamed games, and the views on those are way down. Few want to watch the game being played these days. That might change, but the secondary "blast zone" of Wizards' actions is evident, even among live-streamers in the middle of campaigns, and I feel bad for the position they have been put in.

I see tremendous interest in competitors, games like Dungeon Crawl Classics and Castles & Crusades are seeing a resurgence in interest. Pathfinder 2e is growing to become a viable alternative and possibly a market leader, which is nice.

Me? All my old OSR adventures and Castles & Crusades go together like rum and coffee. It is a solid alternative, has fewer charts than B/X, and is simple enough to play off 3x5 cards. It replaces Pathfinder 1e (I still love that version). I can house rule back in just because of any complexity I lose, and it feels more like AD&D than Pathfinder without the complexity and 4-page print-out character sheets.

And all my OSR modules play as-written with no changes in stats, hit points, damages, or much else.

The TSR worlds?

Anything Wizards did with a TSR world (beyond the original 3E collected materials) has been terrible, and the campaign settings are mostly unsupported except for a few adventures "set" there. I could still play in them, but the shadow of Wizards would still hang over the world.

I am considering The Lost Lands or Aihrde for my next C & C games. Lost Lands does a better Greyhawk than Greyhawk with all of the old-school adventures to collect there, plus it has Rappan Athuk as an anchor for a mega-dungeon, which every good world needs. The quality and quantity of dungeon crawling here from Frog God games make the original AD&D run of classic modules look weak by comparison.

Aihrde does a Forgotten Realms setting easily, minus the GMNPCs. Any "concept area" in FR can be replicated or found worldwide. Need a Candlekeep? Put one down. Need a Waterdeep? Pick a city. Want a Baldur's Gate? Make a place like it. Want GMNPCs? Make some, or just drop in your favorites from the Forgotten Realms. There have been enough "times of trials" in that world that copies of those GMNPCs from earlier editions can probably be found anywhere in the multiverse.

Golarion and Pathfinder 2e do everything better than any Wizards campaign setting. That world is a like a classic comic book, ready to deliver any adventure.

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