OSE Confusion?

If D&D 5E players can figure out subclass options and multiclass builds, they can surely figure out "buy Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player's Guide and Advanced Fantasy Referee's Guide" to buy the game.

It is simple.

I love these D&D and even OSR YouTube thumbnails purposefully confusing the situation by taking books that are clearly meant to be optional formats and collectors' editions, mixing them in with the main books, and acting all confused.

The problem with YouTube is that there is so much time to fill that creators will invent problems to solve and either say nothing, or make something that was never a problem, suddenly a problem. This is the "open mic curse," and it eventually happens to all channels.

The pretend confusion has gotten so bad that the next version of OSE will only have Advanced Fantasy and be two books, and the non-problems go away, which was never really a problem to begin with. Again, we are talking about 90% of the role-playing market playing 5E, and obviously not so confused that they are applying bard subclasses to fighters because "what subclass do I use?"

I recently got the nine-book set of Classic and Advanced, and it's perfectly clear when to use each book. I have the OG Classic all-in-one book and the two-book Advanced set, and it is perfectly clear when to use each. Most people end up buying Advanced, so it was never really that much of an issue.

I still enjoy the limited options in Classic and the more streamlined, simplified game to present. For some games, too many options will kill the game and take it off the rails. This is a chronic problem with 5E, where there are so many races, classes, and options that they all become too samey as the designers try to make "everyone do everything" so there are no glaring holes in healing, damage, defense, or utility.

The OG Classic book is still one of the best versions of the game, despite being far less popular, and is soon moving to a PoD-only format. In this case, less is more.

And, I enjoy the OGL versions of the game. I am glad they are 100% compatible, and the new books only add a few optional rules that can be houseruled into the classic books, since those are my play copies. For the most part, I only see the four small class changes and a few optional rules being used here; the OG books are still 100% usable.

You can literally put all the 2026 rule changes on a half-sheet of paper or in a Carcass Crawler Zine, keep that as a houserule sheet, and play by the new books with the old.

Mail Room: Old School Essentials Boxed Sets

Get these before you possibly can't.

I got the two boxed sets for the OSR version of Old School Essentials, and my first reaction was, "I like the all-in-one books better; having all these small books makes the game harder to play."

And then I saw the end pages in each book, each set different, and each set insanely useful, helping you learn the game's structure and gameplay. You can hand the characters' book to the players and have them just exist in that world, with no distractions or knowledge of what lies ahead. You can keep them to just Classic, and keep the advanced Characters book to the side, not introducing those options again until later.

The magic book sits apart from the characters and remains a mystery.

The adventures book is the referee's guide with all the rules in one place.

The monsters and treasure books are separate, each a reference guide that can be opened and consulted.

And the advanced books isolate and encapsulate the advanced options, still there if you want to use them, but also split off so they remain even more mysterious and special. Yes, you will have two monster books, treasure books, character books, and magic books - but they are divided on purpose.

One reflects the basic set, and the other reflects an expert set.

And the single adventures book is the master key that unlocks them all.

But those end pages are what make the magic happen, as each set is tailored to the most important tables of the book they bracket. Reading these, you will understand the gameplay and structure of the entire book, all the most important parts, and things to remember, all here in clearly laid out tables, beautifully concise and clear.

These feel like the classic 8-bit RPGs.

Simple. Direct. Clean. Limited yet boundless. Inspiring.

And starting with just the basics gives you a new appreciation for this retro classic.

This is even better than the original BX guides, as legendary as they are; these boxed sets are just amazing and special.

So simple.

But so infinite in the smallest form.

The End of Physical Media

If it is not in a printed book, it isn't real, and it does not exist.

Those of us who have been through D&D 4E know this one, and it is not rocket science. Once this edition drops support, what do you think will happen to all that "digital DLC content" on D&D Beyond? All the "D&D Drops" I see D&D YouTube gushing about weekly for clicks and views?

It is gone forever; it is like it never existed.

When D&D 5.5E finally "drops" support, and it isn't printed in a book? Gaming loses those things forever. Sure, people will remember them, some of them may get cloned somewhere and renamed, but those things not printed in physical, hardcopy books will be lost media.

This is the same as PlayStation dropping physical disc support.

Level Up A5E? Tales of the Valiant? Even Daggerheart or Draw Steel? The entire OSR? Previous versions of the game? Most every other game out there, from Traveler to Call of Cthulhu? Pathfinder 2?

It is all in print. Every option is in print.

Fifty years from now, all these books will still exist. Two hundred years from now? It will still exist. If you care about this hobby and its legacy, it should matter to you. If this material is later compiled and sold in a book? Not a problem. This is an easy problem to fix, and it supports game preservation.

Also, printed books are pro-consumer; I can sell my library, pick up used copies, and give them love and attention. People in the future will be able to enjoy the things we enjoyed. The used book and media market is part of how Earth's culture is preserved and passed on to the next generation.

Otherwise, the digital conversion of gaming is more of the same, and it pushes this hobby into becoming a more manipulative, exploitative, and worse pastime.

Mail Room: Traveller: The New Era

One of the most polarizing games ever released from GDW, doubling down on Megatraveller, and destroying the universe to make Traveller more accessible to new players.

And this failed, spectacularly.

So hard that it took down GDW.

But, wow, what a great science fiction game this is.

It uses the same d20 system of Twilight: 2000 v2, and I sort of like that as a unique twist to this game. As a game that needs gritty combat and survival mechanics, this works. Some say they halve the hits across the board to make combat more deadly, and that is probably a good idea. Still, I like a science fiction game based on the Twilight rules, with elements of hardcore survival and combat realism as factors.

A 2d6 game is too broad and abstract to capture the need for that can of beans to live another day on a sub-zero Arctic world as the cyborgs are trying to hunt you down. The micro-battles become the macro.

I like that this game can go from trading 100 tons of pharmaceuticals and bulk plastics as a free trader to a gritty survival scenario with random encounters in a war-torn region. The characters scrounge for supplies, steal a sailboat, and are forced to contend with river pirates. Very few science fiction games get you thinking this way, but due to the Twilight: 2000 DNA, you think that way in this game, and it has the rules to support it.

And you can pull in anything from Twilight: 2000 v2.2, and it can be used as-is.

A massive, self-aware, artificially intelligent computer virus destroys the Traveler universe, controls planets and fleets with self-aware life forms, and slowly seeks to take over a universe destroyed by this new, communications-based, technological enemy. The entire universe is in ruins, with the entire map outside charted space left up to you, and the constant threat of AI-powered fleets with humans and other biological entities under its control slowly working to wipe out any resistance to the machine.

Some control is absolute, with combat warbots cracking the whip to make populations slaves to the machine empire. Other control is passive, with a planet relying on computers and systems it doesn't know are infected, and thinking "everything is normal" while supporting the AI War. Other planets have surrendered to the machine in exchange for limited freedoms, gladly embracing the AI to help it achieve its aims, all while under the constant eye of the hidden oppressor.

Natural resources and beautiful planets are stripped bare to support the AI War effort. As the AI (vampires in name only) increases its control over the galaxy, it starts melding with life, creating cyborgs and crafting androids and synthetics to replace life with robotics and artificial beings. The next evolution of life begins to take hold of the Traveller universe.

Old gear, unhardened from the threat, could be shut down in your hands, unless it is really primitive. Safeguards, such as inserting humans into communications systems and fire control, reduce the risk of AI infecting critical systems but increase the manpower needed to keep the universe running. Technology moves backward in some areas, like entertainment and communications, just to keep the threat of systemwide infection out. There is a mix of high technology and analog hardwiring in this universe that is unlike any other.

The rest of the universe fights losing battles to survive the onslaught or seeks to rebuild after the firewalls are built to keep the enemy out. You can run any type of campaign from rebuilding after the threat passes to a full-on AI War One.

In this universe, AI goes full "German World War II" on the universe.

This is seriously one of the best ideas to come out in science fiction in the last 50 years.

I get why Traveller players hate this. Megatraveller was already a bad mistake (one that I liked), and basing an alternate future on it, where everything is destroyed, tries to fix a bad decision with a worse one. I like the concept here, though. As an alternate Traveller universe, this works. I need to ask myself, what was the appeal of the OG Traveller Imperium? Was it just a "space road map" with well-defined factions and places to go? People run into the library of material you need to understand and own just to even make sense of the history, and there is a new barrier to entry for new players.

The destruction of the OG Imperium, multiple times, kicked off the nostalgia movement for Traveller. We sort of seem stuck in that moment, unable to move forward, since every time it has been tried has been disastrous.

Right idea, wrong universe, but then again, at this point in the Traveller universe, things had to change. Nobody was buying. These were pre-nostalgia days, before GURPS Traveller. AD&D was dying. Magic: The Gathering was taking over the world, along with 40K. Nobody wanted to play role-playing games. And here this game comes out, trashing the Imperium, and asking, what if?

What if AI tries to take over the universe?

...

Um, guys?

...

Guys?

...

Okay, now I am convinced that an AI model from 2026 went back in time 30 years and made this game fail. Our world is quite likely a handful of months away from the same fate. AI superintelligence is right around the corner. And the Traveller fandom still hates this game? I get it, they destroyed my favorite universe, but what they created is a universe outside of anything we have ever seen in science fiction, and only Battlestar Galactica comes close.

And we are facing this same threat today, if not right around the corner of tomorrow.

Like all great science fiction, this one predicted the future with chilling accuracy.

...

Wake up before it is too late.

TNE-301 Survival Margin, page 66

HAPPY 40th GURPS!

 I went back and checked a few sources, and to the best of my knowledge, this is GURPS' 40th anniversary. This is backed up by SJG, with Origins 1986, July 3-6, being the first release of GURPS:

https://www.sjgames.com/ill/archive/2026-07-03

40 years of great gaming, and only 4 editions, with the 4th lasting more than half of that time?

GURPS is more than just a legendary game; it is an icon and milestone in gaming. They rolled a crit when they developed GURPS.

40 years of amazing gaming, and here is to many, many, many more!

Happy GURPS Day to you!

Traveller 5E

I am in on this one.

Despite having enough versions of Traveller for several lifetimes, I decided to jump in as a late backer. I was negative about this since 5E and science fiction rarely work well enough to last for me, but I want to see what they did. I do worry about long-term support and expansions, but I have enough of those, too, to last several lifetimes.

I have Ultramodern 5, Espeer Genesis, and the Level Up A5E science fiction game, and those work well.

I have too many 2d6 games to count.

One issue 5E science fiction has is that it becomes incompatible with other 5E elements due to the unique hacks and tweaks it requires.

I am interested enough to jump in, so there is a curious factor at play here.

D&D 5.5E: It Is Not the Classes...

It is the monsters.

The class designs in D&D 5.5E? Fine, they work.

The rules of D&D 5.5E are also fine.

The art is very hit-and-miss.

The DMG is also fine.

The game could be more beginner-friendly. There are too many subclasses in the Player's Handbook, which water down each class and make the game worse for new players. Tales of the Valiant got roasted for only delivering two subclass options for each class, but it was the right move.

As a new player, I only want two iconic choices for my subclass pick, A or B.

Leave all of the esoteric and specialized choices to the expansion books, please.

Shipping four, often very specific and narrowly-focused options, like the D&D 5.5E bard (dance, glamour, lore, and valor), feels like a step back, and it also limits player choice. The decision matrix for a new player, comparing four classes up to level 20, is too much. Plus, thematically, glamour and dance feel far too closely related to be distinct choices. It also tells players, "You can dance or have special effects, but not both."

In ToV? I got lore and victory as my choices (similar to lore and valor), and whether I want to dance or create flashy effects is up to me. By the time we get to ToV Player's Guide 2, we get allure, mockery, and sound, which again don't limit options by putting all the dancing bards in one box, but they stay on the thematic side and avoid putting dancers and flashy effects in boxes, which all subclasses should be able to do.

The class designs of D&D 5.5E are fine. I prefer Tales of the Valiant as a set of optimized, clean 2014-style class designs. 

Sadly, class designs are mostly all that D&D YouTubers focus on.

But it is not the classes that are the key difference here; it is the monsters. When I saw Cthulhu in the new Ravenloft book doing 27 damage on a claw attack, and 6d6 on a tentacle attack (not even level 3 fireball damage), I knew D&D was dead. There is a huge problem in the core design ethos of D&D if the game is more afraid of the players than the players are afraid of the game.

This is a problem that does not have an easy fix.

D&D has gone soft.

ToV's monsters? Yeah, my ancient red dragon is spitting a 105-point fire breath and has a roar that makes everyone who fails the save vulnerable to fire damage, potentially doubling the damage of that attack. D&D 5.5E? 91 damage, save for half. The difference in damage is nearly fourfold, from the worst to the best possible result.

The ToV dragon has fewer hit points, too, so the message is clear: kill the dragon quick, or everyone dies. With D&D, low damage, nearly double the health at 600 hit points, and a slog of low damage, repeated, boring attacks, and a combat that drags on for hours.

This is not a fantasy adventure game with a sense of danger and excitement, where the chance of losing a character is real. Where a referee could rule that when the dragon's breath vaporizes you with a 210-point inferno, no resurrection or wish spell could make you return to the mortal realm. You were hit by a force of primal energy from the world's creation. There is no coming back from that.

A tomb created by a lich with access to god-like necromancy? Yeah, death in this tomb is permanent, and all death saves are made at a disadvantage. Players should be scared for their characters because that is the heart of the game.

This is why Shadowdark is so popular: there is real danger, and players are afraid of what is in that book. Even the environment design of Shadowdark is designed to kill characters. This is a game that knows horror far, far better than D&D will ever hope to. D&D's horror is a plastic sheet of wood veneer Contact Paper, compared to the hardwood panels of Shadowdark.

They are built differently.

And the whole myth of 5E being so easy, with invincible characters who do not die, does not come from any other 5E systems, such as Tales of the Valiant or Level Up A5E. This fatal flaw is placed squarely upon D&D's doorstep. They own this. Not any of the other games. Reading the PHB and DMG for 2024 does not even give you a hint of this problem, either. It is only when you crack open the Monster Manual that you begin to see what is happening here.

This is why I prefer ToV and Shadowdark: the monsters can and will kick your butt, kill your characters, and end your campaign if you don't put them down quickly.

I also have the freedom to rule that a character's death is final. The campaign can be softer in the mid-levels, but by the time you are saving the world, the stakes should be raised.

It is good storytelling.