Level Up A5E: Stripped Down

My problem is that I have eight shelves of 5E books. Is it better if I just stick to my core, plus a few third-party "designed for the game" books, and enjoy A5E with as few books as possible? A5E is a solid game; it is my seven and a half other shelves of books that kill it for me.

At this stage of 5E's life, your enjoyment of the game will be in what you get rid of, rather than what you include. Even my Tales of the Valiant collection has gotten too large, three shelves of books, and the system struggles under its own weight. ToV is great, good enough that I write a blog, but it is in my upstairs closet while I work out my lack of shelving issue. But for me, it has gotten too big, and I feel the need to cut back on that game as well.

The thing about A5E is that it tends to get better the more you focus on the original books, and they are really all you need to have fun. The system is well built to work with its own components, and the game is very dense and packed with good content. The system is very robust and filled with options in just the first three books, and in general, it does a lot with a little.

The art in these books is not AI-generated and ranges from average to good quality. The EN World team does an admirable job in the art department; it works, but it is not a strong point of any of their releases, especially compared to the competition.

First stop, the Adventurer's Guide, and my copy is a bit beat up, with bent corners, but I don't care. It is an awesome, well-loved book. One thing I love about A5E is that it sticks to the classic races and character options: Dragonborn, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Human, Orc, and Planetouched. We don't get clockworks or mycanoids, time travelers, or other out-there backgrounds. Just the basics, and Orc is really the only outlier in the group, but I can give that a pass.

What is shocking is that we don't get Kobolds or Goblins, or any furries of any kind (ToV has a generic beastkin lineage). We do get Goblinkin in other books, but they are not in core, which makes A5E feel more like old school D&D, at least around 4E, to me. Drow are also here as a "shadow elf" culture selection, plus an elf as heritage.

Oh, and A5E uses heritage, culture, and background. ToV uses lineage, heritage, and background. I prefer A5E's terms far more than ToV. To me, lineage is more of a "family tree" term and does not belong in the discussion. Heritage as race is fine, but ToV drops the ball here using heritage as culture, and culture is clearly the better term and far clearer what it is. A5E is closer to race, culture, and background, and those are plain-language terms.

The classic selection of heritages is a strength, since the book focuses on the classics, giving dwarves and elves time in the spotlight again, and not too many silly, science-fiction, or crazy heritages to distract us from starting with a traditional fantasy world.

Mixed heritages are supported in A5E, so we can have half-elves and half-orcs. Thank you.

Where ToV tends to feel like "new-D&D," A5E stays firmly in the classics in tone and feeling.

A5E's destiny system is far better than D&D's inspiration system, and it also beats ToV's cold, mechanical luck system. A5E wins on the character motivation aspect, and you can actually fulfill your destiny and gain a mechanical benefit.

A5E's background system also beats ToV's by a wide margin. If my character has a soldier background in ToV, it is a few proficiencies, equipment, and a talent. In A5E, it is the same, but I get both a feature (allowing me to carouse with other soldiers more easily) and the ability to advance the background, earn a small squad to roam around with, and take on missions from my new commanders. A5E's backgrounds do a lot more work for you, can be advanced to gain new benefits, and are a source of new adventures.

Did we establish a small foothold in the borderlands regions? Great, my experienced soldier can call up his old unit, get a few men to garrison it, and then get orders from high command on what happens next. A5E gives me the exploration game and supports a strong narrative system through the backgrounds, which interact with the campaign.

In A5E, I can do that. In ToV and either version of D&D, I can't.

It is Advanced 5E for a reason.

All the great monsters are here in the Monsterous Menagerie, and they keep the major humanoids as monsters, but since Orcs are a core heritage, they leave them out, but include an NPC section in the back of the book so you can have Orc bandits, thugs, soldiers, and warriors as you need. I would rather have Orcs represented in a monster entry, but at least the book is consistent and includes a section of NPCs representing the various roles and classes from the core heritages.

Fair enough, Orcs are core races, I can live with that, and can always roll my own as monsters. At least they didn't wipe out every humanoid from the monster lists, like they did in D&D 2024. We live in a post-World of Warcraft world, and Orcs should likely "settle down" and have their own realms and kingdoms. The story possibilities are better, but I am not going "full WoW" with them by making them jokes and silly.

They hid the succubus and incubus under the "malcubus" entry. Still there, sort of existing between demons and devils as a neutral-evil entity. Destiny has replaced alignment, but alignment still exists as traits, granted by destiny and other things.

Also note that A5E is balanced against D&D 2014 math, where ToV and D&D 2024 are more CR+1 systems these days and have amped up the damage values. If you miss the original 2014 math and balance levels, then A5E is a clean system that has that "dry balance" without blowing out the damage values.

This is a really good referee's guide. The Trials & Treasures book is where all the rebuilds of the core systems are paid off, and we get hard rules for all the pillars of play, including robust sections for combat, exploration, and social play.

Combat challenges, such as environmental factors, are covered here. Exploration challenges put the wonder and danger back into the world and remind me of the amazing, fantastical landscapes in our D&D 4E games, where an entire ocean would be split by a waterfall hundreds of miles long, cities of the dead, upside-down mountains, a continent built on a massive stone arch, shadow forests, floating islands, ghostlands, and eternal magical vortexes that lay waste to a deep void-blasted crater.

Parties will be begging for a ranger to guide them through this insane world, and that puts the wonder back into the world design and makes the experience memorable.

The Dungeon Delvers Guide is optional, but it has a bit more of everything, plus it has a great section on traps and fills out that part of the core game. Ratlings are the notable heritage here and are a strong addition to the core selection. Despite having Kobolds on the cover, those are not a new heritage here. They can be found in the Handbook of Heritages, published by WolfWorks Press.

The Planestrider's Journal is another optional book, sort of a guide to the planes, how they are done in Level Up, with their own cosmology and layout. There are a lot of fun, unique, and cool ideas hiding in here, and this is not to be dismissed out of hand.

I like this alternate cosmology, and it is a unique take on a planar setting. I am a bit tired of the Great Wheel and the same old planes that have ceased being wondrous places, and the D&D versions have become stale and more paint-by-numbers than places of mystery. You have to ask yourself, "What purpose do the planes serve?" I get the feeling that in many D&D-like games, the question can't be answered; they have always been places to freely come and go from.

The planar book makes me want to pull out my Tales of Arcana hardcover, which I enjoy far more than I should, as a collection of strange and wacky planar races and cultures. Some parts of this book are really silly and childish, but a good 90% of it is solid. Many races are, by default, a touch OP, but they can be tweaked to align with terrestrial selections, or left "as-is" and reserved exclusively for planar backgrounds. If you use this book, use it as-is for all races, but you will not get ability score increases for backgrounds in A5E, since you will get those for your race selection. You will also not get A5E's heritage gifts, since your abilities will be pulled from this book.

This is the only 5E, not-designed-for-A5E book I would use for this campaign, since I enjoy this book way too much for planar races. The silliness is very high with a few, but most are super solid and great options to have in your toolbox.

For my game, this is not optional.

We do have a second monster book, which, while optional, is a good expansion to the system, since more monsters designed for it are a good thing. Horde monsters allow monsters to fight and attack as a group, good for rats and bats. We get heroic monsters that allow them to gain character levels and power up, which are good for allies, master villains, and boss monsters.

This is a solid addition to the core books, not absolutely needed, but a nice-to-have resource.

MOAR Complete is an amazing book, and this is the original designers throwing the kitchen sink at the game, adding an insane amount of cool stuff. We get an amazing amount of expansion material here, easily making up for other books' subclasses, with so many cool options, allowing your masked vigilante to be a dino-rider, and that is insanely cool.

This is for experienced gamers only, after you have explored the core book to the point where you want more.

Paranormal Power is a good psionic power book, complete with a detailed Esper class that does a lot within one class. I like this book, and the one class we get here is better than many of the other psionic classes I have seen; it feels balanced and offers a lot of utility without overshadowing other classes.

There are homebrew and hacking guides for this system that cover creating new heritages and feats, but they are clearly optional. If we are paring down the number of books we need to support, these will be kept close, but by no means will they be needed, just to keep things simple.

An optional book for a robust psionic system.

The Multiclasser's Manuals are excellent. A5E has the concept of multiclass synergies, which are sort of multiclass subclasses with feats and special benefits. These books replace so many third-party guides and use the A5E class synergy rules to build on an excellent multiclassing system that puts many other 5E versions to shame for failing to consider these design features.

Unlike D&D, multiclassing is a core supported feature in A5E, and there are multiclass builds and synergy feats in the game to support it. Finally, somebody thought this through and actually turned the worst part of 5E into the best part. A5E is a genius-level design that turns multiclassing from an exploit into a core game feature. Finally!

This book is for experienced players only, but an excellent expansion for more options.

There is a second book in this series, also highly recommended, but I would use these later in your play, choosing to focus on the core books for options first, then using these to add more options for more experienced players. Use it if you use the first book to expand the game for experienced players.

The Mythological book is a strange book full of historical figures converted to A5E rules, which is a very strange concept, and I likely would not use it very much, so it is off my playlist. Still, as examples of high-level NPCs, this is a good guide, and many of these could be repurposed and renamed for special NPCs.

Not needed for most games.

The Pets & Sidekicks book is useful for companions and expands the heroic monster system, but it is not needed beyond companion rules and expanded class options. This is good for special cases and for more experienced groups who want to play with options and have companion pets and companions.

Optional, but useful for special cases.

The Gat Pass Gazeteers are also optional, good for specific things, but organized as collections of zines.

I have the first three, but want to pick up the 2025 book if they make it a crowdfunding bonus. All of these are optional books, not needed outside the occasional one-off addition.

This is a solid core library, half a shelf, but packed with fun and options. Rarely has there been a 5E library so compact, but so full of densely packed options. The system interlocks and provides depth through its design.

The game's compactness is the appeal here. Compared to ToV and a full set of Kobold Press books, this is a sixth of the library size. The game isn't as popular, but it supports a rabidly loyal fanbase. With A5E, less is more. The game doesn't need much, since what they give is so well done and tightly designed. An example is martial classes and Combat Maneuvers: by creating a system of trainable "special attacks," it removes the need for dozens of specialist subclasses and puts the depth in the existing class as a subsystem with choices, a resource pool to balance them, and tactical options.

Where D&D and other 5E games will just "give you new options" and bloat the game with more and more hardcovers, A5E rebuilds the martial classes with Combat Maneuvers, allowing future books to add more maneuvers which will be available to all classes, not some new subclass hidden somewhere in an adventure or expansion book. The base game's classes and subclasses are not being "rendered obsolete"; they will remain strong core choices and can use the new options. You also get the freedom to pick from themed Combat Maneuver traditions, some ranged, others offensive, and others defensive in nature. So the entire fighting style of your martial character can change depending on your choices.

The rebuild of the core classes and the ability to use modular subsystems are what make A5E shine above all the other 5E clones and even D&D itself.

Level Up A5E is simply the better-designed game, and it shows.

To Be a Fan Again...

I heard that line on YouTube, where an older OSR YouTuber pushed aside a swath of negative comments in chat, and said he didn't want to be angry anymore, that he just wanted to be a fan again.

That is what I am trying. To be a fan again.

It doesn't mean I ignore stupidity or give myself a free pass to be a gullible fool; I know the hobby too well. There are still games that are way too hostile to fans and get silly or political. I want something fun that respects the audience.

I can sum it up by the old saying, "Give the fans what they want."

I only want games that do that, or show such a high level of understanding and design that they are undeniable. Level Up: Advanced 5E falls into that category. This was the Open 5E version I enjoyed most, designed for old-school players and addressing hundreds of criticisms of the game. Level Up A5E is solid, and I can be a fan of it if I cut my 5E library way down.

Why go back into 5E? Why not stay in BX? It is a good question. Well, before I sell off 95% of my 5E books, I need to see if the best version I played still holds up. You get one last chance, 5E, and  Level Up A5E is the strongest version of the game. I guess we will see.

I will give 5.5E a chance. I will pull out ToV.

Let's figure this out.

Also, if I want a "detailed fantasy character builder," I have two options: 5E or GURPS. BX will not do the layered, detailed, multipart fantasy builds that 5E does. GURPS will do it, but the result will be a realistic and gritty game. 5E is the only game in town when it comes to the "Dialbo-style" character build system, and A5E supports that and improves upon the concept nicely.

Also, 5E has the "MMO-style" play that defines the modern era, with shooty powers and epic combos. A5E does the 5E better by including martial classes in on the fun, where other versions of 5E will give martial classes a Charlie Brown "bag of rocks" when it comes to fun at the table. You, too, martial classes, can have epic choices, massive combos, and resource management just like the mages, but not feel like mages at all. A5E's martial classes are a genius-level design.

If 5E survives at my table, it will be A5E.

But I need to give them all another chance before I decide.

And that includes 5.5E, despite what YouTube is saying about it.

Star Wars, I am doing it in spite. The "franchise" is dead, but the classic universe and stories are not. I can still enjoy the stories I loved as a kid and bring them into today through role-playing. This is really good stuff. The feeling I am ignoring the current, tragic state of the stories and just doing my own thing again. The storytelling and craft in the current Star Wars have fallen to an insanely low level. This isn't even about messaging anymore; the writers have forgotten how to write, none of them could be bothered to learn about canon, and it is just plain, bad Star Wars.

I need good Star Wars. I need stories that treat canon with respect. I want personal struggles and tales of epic heroism and tragic villainy. I know I am not getting that anywhere else but my own stories these days. So be it. I can tell stories, and the good Star Wars is at my table every night. How cool is that?

All I want is good Star Wars.

Genesys? A fun game. Special fun dice. It creates narrative situations at the macro level. It is like Star Wars, but not Star Wars. It is cool. I can stay in the same narrative dice mindset and play other things. An underrated classic that eliminates the need for many of the newer narrative games, and it does everything so much more simply than many efforts.

BX? A classic, it is like playing games in DOS again. Simple, portable, expandable, and fast to run, with a definite dungeon-and-wilderness turn structure that manages play and keeps the game moving. BX is programmed into my DNA at this point; it is impossible to not be a fan.

A side series of games here are the excellent Without Number games by Kevin Crawford, BX-compatible "do it all and every genre" games that take BX to a whole new level. These stay right by my OSE books and promise play across infinite universes, and Stars Without Number is my "designated survivor" game for Star Wars should EDGE Studio ever lose the Star Wars license. If you want "BX Star Wars," start with Stars Without Number and mod from there to craft an incredible universe.

GURPS? Like The Who's song Long Live Rock, GURPS is dead, they say, and Long Live GURPS! It is that good for those who know. This game has survived, was the game that killed AD&D 1E for most in the 1980s, and it still rocks on to this day, still killing AD&D 1E campaigns and replacing the rules with a flat-out better system. Narrative support, the best character builds in gaming, and a combat system that puts Rolemaster to shame. This is seriously good pure 1980s and 1990s greatness.

GURPS set up D&D's death so Magic: The Gathering could take over. GURPS, Battletech, Vampire the Masquerade, d6 Star Wars, Warhammer Fantasy, and Rifts were the sinister six games that killed D&D. I was there, in college at the time, so I know. There is a smaller case for Runequest and Rolemaster, but they were not as big as these games. 

GURPS was the first game to put a dent in D&D's dominance in the late 1980s, and the rest came along later. The Stranger Things kids should have been playing GURPS in the last season to be more period-accurate. Or Car Wars. Both of those games would have given us a better final season of the show.

I don't even question whether I am a fan of GURPS; of course, I am.

If you learn the game, you are a fan for life.

This is where I am. I am trying to be a fan again. YouTuber channels that bemoan the current terrible state of D&D, Star Wars, Marvel, comics, role-playing, and everything else in the hobby become tired and one-note whine sessions. I agree with a lot of what they have to say, but after the hundredth time of hearing it, I have had enough already.

Yes, what Wizards did with the OGL was terrible. Their calling the original creators of the games, all those terrible things, hurts the memories of my childhood and all the fun we had with these beloved games. They showed they were not worthy of upholding the idea's legacy, just like the current crop of Star Wars creators, so we will have to wait a little longer for better days.

While I am waiting, I will be creating things I love over here by myself.

And sharing what I do.

And being the positive force in gaming that I crave.

But not surrendering to being blind and stupid, as many of these brain-dead influencers do.

Mail Room: Edge of the Empire Beginner Game

Saving the best for last.

This game made us fall in love with Star Wars all over again. My brother and I played this during his stroke recovery, and I remember him struggling to pick up the dice, move the tokens, and relearn how to write with his other hand. But we had so much fun!

Eventually, he did get his motor skills rehabbed, and the game helped him a great deal. Every night we played, he got a little better, but it was tough watching him struggle and break out into a sweat trying to pick up dice and tokens. He got there, though.

This game lets you live the "Han Solo" life. This is GTA: Star Wars at its finest. You are a scumbag smuggler, criminal, bounty hunter, fixer, thief, mercenary, gun for hire, or any other "street dirty" archetype in Star Wars, and it is glorious. Work for yourself, the Empire, the Rebels, the Hutts, pirates, Sith, Jedi, crime lords, random royals, Moffs, senators, or anyone else who pays the credits. Don't cross the wrong faction, like you inevitably will, as you could find yourself on a bounty hunter's list.

It does not get any better in Star Wars than this.

Forget the fate of the galaxy, the Rebellion, and the Empire. I am in it for myself.

This is the anti-Star Wars, and it comes off as being the best Star Wars. It is a game that feels inherently anti-war, in that you are not an ideologue and you are just trying to get by and survive when everyone in the universe is shooting each other over politics. Sound familiar? It should.

Take your politics, your righteous wars, your high and mighty propaganda, and shove it up your rear thruster, buddy. I am just trying to survive in the mess you made of everything. And by the way, all you people are the same, you get in power, you become a tyrant, and the next side says it is the one who is going to fix everything. The system can't be fixed by good intentions because the system never worked in the first place.

Me? I am just trying to side-hustle in a universe gone mad. Getting involved in a war is the quickest way to get yourself killed. Let the ideologues sacrifice themselves first, instead of talking more innocents into this unneeded war. And while you are at it, give peace a chance.

There is a subtext here of why Star Wars may be subconsciously getting war fatigue from what is happening in the real world. Ever since 9/11, the world has been mostly at war for the last 25 years. While there is nothing I can do to change the "wars" in Star Wars, Edge of the Empire has an anti-war theme of survival and of dealing with the madness two opposing views are inflicting on the galaxy, with people just trying to put food on the table, run a starship, have a family, and survive.

The fact that we have a colonist class in this game tells you everything you need to know.

And it makes this game the most culturally relevant of all the titles in the series.

And we played this the week it came out. Almost all of my screenshots of this game were from those same sessions we played together.

This was coming off d20 Star Wars, one of the most broken versions of the game ever shipped, but then again, every game Wizards ships is broken at higher levels, since they are not Paizo. There are balance problems in this game, especially if you are way too generous with XP, and characters begin to specialize and double-up on a specific attack or ability.

Ask players to NOT specialize!

You can spec yourself into a single-use tool, and it will most likely be tied to a specific combat attack. Naturally, you want to be better, and better, and better...and then you realize you broke the game by stacking every character advancement into a very specific attack.

We saw this in our game, as our Twi'lek bounty hunter specced all gun skills and was flinging four yellow dice every attack. It is easy to become a one-trick pony who can point and destroy targets, so don't let this happen to you. Be sensible about combat skills and stacking!

Was it fun? Yes.

Was it broken? Yes, this is something we vowed to avoid on the next play-through. Then again, coming from D&D, you stack every advantage you can get, and the goal is to break the game. In Star Wars, you are supposed to be doing much more than "stacking combat abilities," and you need to be able to survive on your own by doing a variety of things.

Run a balanced, interesting, and jack of all trades character who can do a little of everything, and who gets bonuses to more than one attack. Technical and social skills are important, too! You need to develop a well-rounded character, not one who can drill holes through star destroyers with an autofire blaster. If you find yourself doubling up on a particular ability or attack, ask your game master to space those out over your career, and be careful not to overdo it.

Also, if you are running an epic campaign, roll back the XP awards, as characters do start off pretty highly experienced and capable. Breakpoints happen every 300 XP in power level, so make sure to slow things down and force players to rely on their existing abilities to make do. Some say to do only 10-15 xp per session and be very slow with rewards.

The best Star Wars these days is DIY Star Wars, and this is what this game is all about. I don't care for your Mandalorians, Acolytes, and any of the other Star Wars coming out these days. I have a whole universe in a couple of books, and I can tell my own Star Wars stories using a few dice and character sheets; I do not have to sign up for a live service to use any of it. All the stories are mine, and I can recreate the magic well enough myself.

DIY Star Wars is going to be the best Star Wars for the next few years, at least. I am going to DIY my stories and have a great time; the rest of everyone else can spend years complaining about the brand on YouTube.

There comes a point, and the OSR taught us this, that "we can do better."

We have a Twi'lek bounty hunter and "not Solo" as our first two characters. These are cool, and they fit the theme. Our smuggler is a bit on the nose and solo-eqsue, but I don't mind, and he could easily be reskinned as "the" Han Solo.

Though the heavy weapon character sort of feels almost "too good" for a plucky band of street-level heroes, it is the automatic best choice for combat-focused players. The weapon on the character sheet is listed as a "blaster carbine." It does 9 damage and is the heaviest ranged weapon in the group, but it looks like a small blast cannon or machine gun in the art.

The wookies are a given and could also be reskinned for a fast Chewbacca character. The robot would also be a C3P0-like character, so we have a good selection for those who want to skip the pregens and "play as the movie characters." Either way, it works, and the pregens are fun and cool, and they made us smile when we played.

The wookie is a hard-hitter in melee combat, and a great ally should you get up close to mangle stormtroopers. The droid character is the odd one out, a colonist class, a combination of mechanic and medic, and serves as the team's support character.

Ideally, I would love to give him a few deception skills and have the droid walk right through checkpoints and other Imperial lookouts, since who is going to suspect a medical droid of anything? A creative player could make this character do a lot of sneaky stuff with the right creativity and motivation, and certainly earn a few advantage dice from a suitably entertained referee.

Part of the fun of this game is "getting away with stuff," and that is no exception here.

The adventure is fun, and we played all the way through it. The stakes keep rising, and the characters are forced into some tough choices and encounters. We get minion rules, too, for groups of stormtroopers, and they are not pushovers. They can crit and kill you, which is a good thing.

They managed to sneak basic starship combat in this game! I can't think of the last time we had ship combat in a beginner box, and it is not too hard to figure out. For some reason, most science fiction role-playing games go hardcore physics and math when it comes to ship combat, and this game gets it right. New players could blast oncoming TIE fighters and cheer when they blow enemy ships out of the sky. Part of a great beginner game is this "crowd-pleasing" experience, and this delivers.

Another fun ship combat system exists in Stars Without Number, and that is another game that gets it right (and is BX-based, so highly worthy). I have science fiction games where I cannot make heads or tails out of ship combat, or the entire experience gets too real, nobody can detect each other on sensors, and dogfights just drift apart with each ship lost in the blackness of space, endlessly circling and looking for a target at ranges where the enemy fighter is smaller than the head of a pin.

Thankfully, I have games like Star Wars and SWN where starship combat is fun and can be learned by beginners pretty rapidly. You can deliver blaster-firing pulp adventures with almost any generic game, but many will break down when it comes to vehicle combat, and especially starship combat.

We get a map and tokens, too! I love a good beginner game with maps and tokens, and this one gives you a great assortment of toys to play with, plus a full set of dice. We also get a section on "further adventures," which is always good to see, and extends the life of the starter set way beyond what it needs to do. All three of these boxed sets go the extra parsec to deliver value and repeat play, if the box is all you have. That is a very generous thing in this day and age, and thank you.

This is one of the best beginner boxed sets ever put together, and while my fond memories are a part of this, the game does deliver on its promise. You get to live the life of a smuggler and play through an entire "Tatooine scenario" with your friends, shooting blasters at stormtroopers, doing stealthy missions, and figuring things out along the way. At the end, you blast off into space for more adventure and tussle with Imperial TIE fighters. The characters are iconic, and the gameplay is fun.

It is rare to find a beginner set this generous that overdelivers and provides plenty of Star Wars fan service along the way. It also teaches every step of the way, letting you learn the game as you play.

One of my all-time highest recommendations.

Star Wars in a Bottle

"Star Wars, as a brand, is dead."

So the YouTubers say. But what I have here, on my shelf, is "Star Wars in a bottle" before the time of the sequels, before the marketing team got their hands on it, before they tried to change the meaning of the story, and before they tried to make the "franchise appeal to a new generation."

The Star Wars RPG is the last tool we have for telling stories in the Expanded Universe (EU). I am happy to have completed my collection of this series, but I hope to see it continue as is and be supported for the long term. I don't want to see this game replaced. As long as Edge Studio can sell this game, my support of Star Wars will remain strong, and I will always give new stuff a chance.

If the license for this game is ever pulled, yeah, Star Wars is dead, since the part of it I love will go away. Time to start mourning it and getting on with an OGL-like replacement for it all. But that is my mental math here, this game stays in print, and I will give new stuff a chance. As long as they can give fans something we want and support the things we love, we will always listen to their new ideas.

It is a fair trade.

I have this one book on my shelf that eliminates most of the EU characters, erases the comics from history, presents Star Wars in a "prequel and TV show light," and worst of all, makes all the classic characters look like old people. The main characters are all pictures of the older actors playing the sequel versions of their characters, with only a few small thumbnails of them in their prime. Some of the pictures are nice, and the presentation was well done, but this is way, way, way too much of the current stuff for my tastes.

It is clear what is happening here: the new characters are being presented as "young and the future," and the older characters as "old and in the past." It is a transparent, marketing-driven, and dishonest guide that presents itself as "everything" but shows only "the current corporate thing." Yes, honor the actors with current photos of them, and show them as they are, but let's be balanced and show them in their prime, too, as we remembered them.

If I were running a current-day, sequel-trilogy universe, which sounds painful, this would be my reference guide. You know, if I were to play in the current day, my adventure prep would be so easy since I wouldn't need published adventures, and I would just make everything up as I go along.

There is also way, way, way too much focus on the Clone Wars animated show, as if Star Wars is now someone's Clone Wars fan-fic cinematic franchise. I am sorry, the Clone Wars was a great show and a terrible movie. Very few people have seen all of it. A percentage of Star Wars fans know who any of these characters are. Why is there so much focus here?

They are losing fans daily.

So I guess my game can pull in random Clone Wars characters, and I, as the referee, will act astonished and shocked when the players don't know them, and punish their ignorance in-game. It sounds like a terrible way to play a game, but that feels like how the movies are going these days.

And I have a better Star Wars Encyclopedia set, released before any of this came to pass, and it treats Legends as canon. It has video games and comics. It shows the characters in their primes. It gives me a balanced look at all eras and stories. If you want a definitive source, pick this up before it's gone.

But I have Star Wars in a bottle, and even if you don't collect the books, and just have the three core books for this game, which you can still get, you can have it, too. The question becomes, with all the negativity around the new movies, can we still enjoy Star Wars as a medium for telling stories in the classic universe?

Yes, but it diminishes over time. Like the Jedi, those who remember those old days and ancient arts are fading, and every year we lose another piece. As someone who still remembers, I cherish those times and share my feelings of a better age, one in the past when the magic was real, and we weren't so wounded by corporatization and marketing-driven drivel.

I feel we can still tell classic stories and share them. After all, isn't that what the current owners are doing? Remixing Clone Wars trivia with the classic timeline and pulling characters randomly out of the EU without giving them context or meaning, just to say "nah-nah, we own them" and use them as a veneer of nostalgia without needing to put in the real effort to build new characters.

This is what they do with Thrawn and all the other EU characters they resurrect as corporate zombies, inserting them into the new timeline for no reason. It shows a disrespect for the people who bought into the EU, the creators of those stories, and the memories we had. This is the worst of corporate skinwalking, a blatant exploitation of our nostalgia and childhood dreams, stealing without putting any effort into creating.

When they steal Thrawn, and Mara Jade will be next, it shows a hatred for the fans, not a love for the source material. While I will give them a chance, I have strong feelings here. It is like remaking The Lord of the Rings, pulling characters out at random and using them in novel ways, unconnected to the original source material. If they created new characters, stories, and enemies, I would be more inclined to give them a chance.

But these are the feelings I need to "get over" to put myself in a state of love and creativity, especially when I tell classic stories. I have to pry myself away from the latest coverage of the new films, as some YouTube disaster coverage, wall-to-wall until the algorithm gives out, and block all that out of my mind to enjoy my stories, my characters, in a classic suniverse - one that I still hold fond memories of.

It is a fight between hate and love.

You have it on one side with the corporate creators, and their frustration trying to get this "franchise" to "connect." They blame the fans, and the fans flock to the anger channels to vent.

And I fight this fight myself with the negativity I feel towards all of Star Wars, and then sandboxing the parts I love about it, and playing in this wonderful space where great times were once shared, and can still exist as long as my walls are thick, and reach high into the sky to block out the constant attack of hateful forces. Some of the hate is rightly justified, but I still need to keep it out of my creative space.

But, as we know in life, things can't always live in a bottle.

They need to live and breathe.

I watched the Michael movie last night, and I understand the struggle between trying to put hate aside, enter that transcendent state of creativity, and letting the good feelings I have flow into my work and hobbies. There was one OSR YouTuber I watched recently who complained at his chat for wanting negativity, and he said, "I want to get over all that. I am done complaining about this or that. Why are we wasting our precious time on negativity? I just want to be a fan again and have fun!"

That is how I feel about Star Wars and 5E these days.

Give me a version of the Star Wars lore, a universe I can love over here in isolation, and I will be happy.

Give me a version of 5E that speaks to me, that I can be a fan of, that I can create worlds in over here all by myself, and I will be happy.

I am done with the negativity.

I just want to be a fan again and have fun.

But I am not blind and stupid. This is not a free pass for creators to hand me garbage. They need to work a little harder.

But I want to be a fan again.

Renegade Games: Hasbro IP Goes 5.5E

https://renegadegamestudios.com/blog/june-2026-renegade-reveal-stream-recap-/

So, the Transformers, GI JOE, and Power Rangers RPGs are moving to the D&D 5.5E engine?

Interesting, and a smart move, since I never had time for the GI JOE game, nor the need to learn a new system. I am interested, and the more they make this directly D&D 5.5E compatible, the more interested I am. If they make this their own game, with their own systems, math-compatible but not class-compatible, then I am less interested. If Snake Eyes can take a level of wizard, then I am very interested.

Local Play? Mostly All D&D 2024?

I checked my local hobby store's game schedules, and they are nearly 80% D&D 2024. If you want to play in person at a hobby store, you will be playing D&D 2024. I don't blame hobby shop owners; they want more people through the door, and niche games are harder to arrange and support.

This store is pretty typical of the ones around here, 90% D&D 2024, with a few niche games, such as Daggerheart on Saturdays, and a monthly Star Wars campaign. We have some regular 2014 games and generic "5E" sessions in here as well, along with a handful of 3.5E games. The lack of Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Draw Steel, Pathfinder, and a few other games surprises me. Also, Daggerheart having a regular weekend game is nice, but D&D 2024 is still crushing that game in live play every evening.

Most evenings, you have two or three D&D 2024 games.

Different stores, though, support different games. This one is more of a WotC store.

It is all about creating public events with broad appeal, since only a fraction of the gaming population will make time to play in person. The fall-off in D&D 2014 support also surprises me, given how vocal D&D YouTube is about "people sticking with D&D 2014" - I am betting there is a "reality distortion field" happening in D&D YouTube versus actual, in-store play. Some of those D&D YouTubers need to visit an actual hobby store and "touch dice" to get back in touch with the reality of what is happening in live play.

More people are playing D&D 2024 than they say, or even what D&D Beyond is reporting. That often-quoted "15% of created characters are for D&D 2024 on D&D Beyond" number seems pretty insane when I look at the above game schedule for live play. Also, you need to take into account that this is 10 years of character creation for 2014, versus a few years for D&D 2024.

Yes, my played games calendar is a very limited data point, since I am not looking at the schedules of thousands of hobby stores. But now I am wondering if the narrative on YouTube matches reality.

If every night of the week at a major metropolitan hobby store has two or even three D&D 2024 games going on, are you sure those D&D Beyond numbers of 15% are right? With this data, I am wondering whether more people play D&D 2024 in hobby stores, face-to-face, than on D&D Beyond.

Are you sure you want to go through with that digital-first strategy, Wizards? Is the whole VTT thing fading, and are people going back to traditional, in-person play? Wouldn't you want to double down on hobby stores and in-person play? I am beginning to wonder if a digital-first strategy is a disaster-ending one.

If I ran Wizards, I would hire a data expert and figure out where the game is being played. Then, I would go there, and that is where we would invest our resources. Hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on a VTT could have been invested in live-play programs, yielding a far, far, far better result. I am beginning to wonder whether the soft landing for D&D 2024 at launch was due to a lack of resources to support live-play programs.

The ground game matters.

But like D&D 5 itself, things are picking up a few years in.

This hobby-store data is also about curating an "audience" in these stores who will play one game, show up, and buy the overpriced drinks and snacks. Supporting fewer games builds the population of people who will show up every week. They do what they gotta do, and I don't blame them.

You follow the audience.

Also, if I am running a game? Yeah, I want people to be at my table, and I want the most people to choose from. D&D 2024 all the way, standardize on what 90% of the people play, and not waste a trip to the store for nobody to show. Even though I like other 5E variations, I can play D&D 2024 if that is what others are playing.

Two or three D&D 2024 games per night? Do I want a game? Do I want overflow players? Yes to all of the above. If you are in this crowd and find a good store and group, why wouldn't you jump in? The pool is hopping, jump in!

While I may prefer a more niche version of the game, such as Level Up A5E or Tales of the Valiant, I can play D&D 2024 if need be. 95% of it is the same game. It is not that big of a jump, as say, from Daggerheart or Draw Steel. Also, I suspect many of these are hybrid games that use 2024 books, but pull in popular house rules from 2014.

Online is a different universe, where any game can be played at any time, and you can usually find (or set up) a game with whatever version you want. One limitation is game support on your VTT of choice; if you are on Roll20, you don't have full support for Tales of the Valiant or Level Up A5E, as the platform is 90% D&D 2014 and 2024, plus other games with official support. Foundry is a different experience, as is Shard VTT.

I can play on a VTT for a niche game with fewer than 500 total players worldwide and still find a game.

But D&D 2024 is the game people will drive to a store to play in person, face-to-face.

Mail Room: Compendium of Dungeon Crawls (Volume One)

I can almost hear the people asking Goodman Games this, "I love your adventures, but our group plays 5E. I wish you made old-school-style adventures for 5E!"

So, they did.

These are actually kind of cool. If I am considering playing Level Up: Advanced 5E again, I don't want the Wizards' adventures and worlds. I am looking to get away from them and do new stuff, rather than retreading Ravenloft for the third time in 5E. Nostalgia only goes so far before I get sick of it all.

And while I love the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, they feel so overused to me, known, cosmopolitan, and done with after playing in them since 1980. The Realms especially feels so overdone and overblown; every time I look at it, it feels like walking around Manhattan, and it's too much to grasp and comprehend.

I play in the Realms, and it is "what about the Harpers, this group, that group, or the video game characters?" I don't want a world like that; it is too busy, too pop, too hard to grasp the lore, and I would rather make my own world than be forced to deal with a stream of canon and adventures 40+ years in.

Even Greyhawk feels too much like nostalgia bait to me. If I accept Greyhawk, that gives Wizards the license to re-release every AD&D module in that world, and I am doomed to never see anything new. I played all those adventures when they came out. I still have them. I am not interested in them.

I want Wizards to prove that they can write an all-new, all-time classic like The Tomb of Horrors. They have a few out, but they come from the early days of 5E. I have not seen too many absolute bangers from Wizards lately, and it all feels like nostalgia.

These are very creative and inventive adventures, written a lot like the all-time classics of the Original Adventures Reincarnated series, which I am blessed to have a complete collection of on my shelf. If you loved those and want adventures in the old-school style written just like these, then the 5E Goodman Games releases are a perfect continuation of that theme and series.

If you loved those, you will love this.

Oh, and these get a pass on nostalgia from me since these are amazing, faithful, and incredible recreations. I have these. I would love to see Goodman do more of these, but they will likely never revisit this line, and the reprint licenses have expired. This is the best nostalgia, since it includes history, interviews, the original adventures and maps, and is a complete history of the moment.

Nostalgia, the original adventure, plus history and interviews? Yes, please. This is preservation of the hobby and creating a historical document. This is not a remaster or rewrite.

Would I play them? Maybe, maybe not. I appreciate that they are not CR-balanced and they "are what they are." Playing without balancing and letting the players balance things without the referee needing to worry about it is how I play 5E. You set up a dungeon, stock it, let the players roam around it, and the players will figure out when they need to stop or if they can take a fight. This is the OSR way.

The adventures in the Compendium of Dungeon Crawls feel like they were balanced with the CR tools. I can live with that, since I am free to expand these as I wish. Having them balanced is good for groups who play that way, but I can always create my own themed dungeons as add-on areas to these. Plus, if I want adventures not CR-balanced and "as it is," I always have my 5E megadungeon adventures.

And really, they are a perfect fit for a more old-school themed version of 5E, such as Level Up A5E. This version of 5E supports the exploration pillar of play, which makes it unique and matches the old-school feeling of these adventures. This is a peanut-butter and chocolate combination; having exploration play supported and written into the rules makes A5E play like an old-school game, but with 5E rules and builds. The social pillar, fully supported by the rules, helps, too, and it makes my social characters shine more than they do in either D&D or ToV.

A5E is a unique mix of 5E, 4E, and old-school gaming. The danger is here. Pop-up healing and other exploits are fixed. The martial classes rock. There are rare spells to collect. The three pillars of play are supported in the rules. The exploration game is real and supported by class features. Multiclassing is expanded upon and fully supported. The characters are more complicated than straight 5E or ToV characters, but the details are appreciated and needed for the new rules systems.

Yes, you are doing extra work on the characters to support the new subsystems, but that extra work matters. Paired with adventures written in the old-school way and keeping the library pared down, perhaps this fixes everything.

A generally innocent and fun series from Goodman for 5E, and it shows the system can take on a different complexion and feeling with the right adventures, and a system written in that style.