Roll for Combat: Best of 5E

The Roll for Combat books are among the best for 5E. I have a lot of garbage for 5E, and 90% of it could go, and I would be happier if I did. But these books, plus a generic full-featured 5E implementation, such as Tales of the Valiant?

This is good stuff. These are every bit the equal of a major publisher release, and are on the level of an "official expansion" of any version of the game you play.

Instead of making races as "flavorless dough" options of "say what you are" and shifting a few points around, we get full ancestry classes, feats, and options that improve as you level. Solid design and care are put into these options. They level up, get powers, give you that "full hit" of playing a dragon, fae, or whatever ancestry is in the book, and supply the full experience instead of a watered-down "oh, you are that, too" of the core rules.

Do I want to play any type of dragon and have full rules support for that as I level up?

This is the only place it happens.

And this is written for all ages, and I would be comfortable giving it to a younger audience, saving them from a book with "sex coded" elements and themes. It is innocent, written for all ages, and fun. Not even D&D 2024 can say that, and that is sad. There is an art and discipline to putting together an "all ages book," and the RfC books get it perfectly. ToV also does better in this department, keeping things innocent, clean, and for everybody.

I am not against those themes, but they should be in books where those topics can be discussed and shared fully, not snuck in and hidden like Easter Eggs, as they are ultimately distractions and inappropriate for all audiences. Even topics like demons and devils are treated with care in these books, and they are not as objectionable as the Tiefling ancestry is in most core books (since the game often ignores the infernal aspects and just presents them as innocent cosplay).

It is sort of shocking and stupid that the half-elves and half-orcs are removed from most of the new games, while demon-blooded characters are everywhere. I guess pop culture gotta "pop" someone out of reality and exclude somebody to please somebody else. 5E has so much of this baggage that I tire of the constant war waged on the pages and play other games. I want to escape to a fantasy world, not be reminded of this one.

Which is why innocent, all-ages games appeal to me so strongly. They have a classic, clean, and beautiful innocence untouched by the problems of this world. They are books about playing a dragon or a mimic. They deliver innocent fun, just like a Mario game does.

The Roll for Combat books are on my "best of 5E" list, and they are where I am starting my 5E library rebuild. Tales of the Valiant is my core 5E, just so I don't have to be reminded about the OGL or things like "we can't leave the hobby" remarks. Those are hurtful things, and I don't want to be reminded of them while playing a game for escapist fun.

Mail Room: Battlezoo Hardcovers

The Roll for Combat Battlezoo hardcovers are one of the only things keeping 5E around for me. I got a few in the mail from the latest crowdfunding campaign, and I like them so much that I keep 5E on my shelves, using Tales of the Valiant as the game's driving engine.

The books are all ages, with no "sexual coding" in them, meant for everybody, and they have an innocence and fun factor to them. Even Tales of the Valiant has that "for everybody" innocence, something I wish D&D had. You can play a dragon, or a mimic, or a vampire, or a gargoyle, or...

It is just fun.

Innocent.

Cool.

And the books are fun.

Recommended, and if this is all you have out for 5E, plus the ToV books, it is a fun and worthy game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Dungeon Crawl Classics is D&D done right.

I keep coming back to this game. It has survived being put in the garage storage crates twice, yet it sits on my best display shelf today. If it displays really well, and it plays even better. It focuses on being a fun game before anything else. It doesn't worry about "platform lock in" or "digital strategies" - it just looks fun, plays fun, and is fun.

Many in the OSR are sour grapes about this game for little good reason. It is probably just jealousy and pettiness. DCC did what many OSR games could not, and it is the third-most-played fantasy RPG (by the Gen Con scheduled games metric). They have done well by focusing on core beliefs, keeping the game simple and accessible, and making sure every part of the game brings fun to the table.

It started with re-reading Appendix N books and going back to the basics. Too often in the OSR, you will find strict adherence to the B/X, White Box, BECMI, or 1E rules. Rules are what make it fun, right?

No, the rules are a tool to "get to" fun; they aren't fun by themselves.

Too often, the OSR puts the rules on a pedestal and expects the fun to happen. It can, but you have to know the secret to make them work that way. When you are at that point, any OSR game will do, and they are all interchangeable. But none of the OSR games do what DCC does: support emergent play and have fun built into the core classes.

DCC uses just enough rules to get the point across, then builds the rest of the framework around "how the game was fun back in the day." The fiction is the guide, and a past edition of the rules is not a milestone by which to measure the game. The game uses the OSR dialect, but it is not an OSR game.

Shadowdark does the same. It focuses on "how the game is fun" and jettisons the rest.

5E, in comparison, is far too heavy. It gets bogged down in silly subclasses and class builds. It goes on too long, describing a class and its power, sometimes dozens of pages, when just a handful would do. 5E hides a lot of complexity, and you end up paying for it later, six to eight levels in, when you quit, because your character sheet is longer than a tax form. And all that complexity and rules bloat does not get you much more than an easy, simple, straightforward game that puts roleplaying and fun first.

The OSR games are easy, and they put the character and fun first. Not the rules. Not platform lock-in. Not digital sales. Not forcing you to buy two copies of the book, one for your shelf and the other for your online character creation tool. 5E is too expensive and complex, when an easy game is just as much fun.

DCC gets it.

It keeps coming back to my shelf because it delivers on its promise. Level 10 in DCC is the same power level as level 20 in 5E. It cuts to the chase and delivers what is fun, tossing aside hundreds of pages of unnecessary rules to keep the game flowing.

5E takes a lot of money and time to sort out, and like a pile of Skyrim mods, it can be incredibly fun. Still, it ultimately breaks under its own weight when it tries to do something it was never designed to do, and gets overextended to the point where a more straightforward game delivers on the promise.

5E always breaks down for me.

DCC is too simple and fun to ever break down.

BackerKit: Castle Whiterock (DCC)

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/goodman-games/castle-whiterock

The Castle Whiterock mega-dungeon for DCC & 5E is over on BackerKit, and the price was very reasonable for what you get. I expected this to be three times the price, and it came in on what I wanted to spend. There are plenty of shiny add-ons, but the basic clamshell boxed set, plus hardcover (in the first 48 hours only, softcover after), was a great deal.

Some companies still keep gaming affordable and fun, and Goodman Games has a winner here. Backed and supporting.

The Death of Fantasy Slop

I feel the tide turning.

I saw a review of Nimble today criticizing the "too broad" fantasy race options and saying it didn't feel like a defined world; the modern "anything goes" mish-mash of fantasy backgrounds didn't feel real to them. The game itself and the rules were great, but that modern "fantasy slop" of "any race is valid" was tiring to them.

I love Nimble, but I feel that way too.

While I love having choices, I get that same old feeling of choice paralysis when walking down the cereal aisle as I do when picking a fantasy race. There are far, far too many options in these games; designers have given up on worldbuilding, and as referees, we are expected to "support any idea" that drops by our table. Forget that the world we built (or play in) does not have cat or demon people; if someone wants to play one, we have to make adjustments and change our world to fit their idea.

Normally, I would be cool with this. But lately, it just makes me tired. Fantasy worlds are planar bus stops, filled with anything and everything wandering through. For some worlds, that works, but I sense the general consensus is moving away from that direction.

People want defined races in a sandbox world with history and consequence.

Every fantasy game does not need to look like the cantina in Star Wars.

I miss the days of the core four: human, elf, dwarf, and halfling. That's it! If you want to play gruff and dour, play a dwarf. Practical jokers and foodies, play halflings. Elegant and noble, play an elf. Everyone else plays humans. It is a simplification, but the simplicity in a world where some games offer time travelers and cyborgs as race options is welcome.

Race-as-class reduces the urge to keep adding new races, since they would all be new class designs in the game and thus hard to design and support.

And this is not a question of "real world diversity," which is how many frame it. I was bused as a kid, and I loved the experience of different cultures and races. None of my best friends looked like me, and we all played D&D as the outcast nerds. We had black kids, a gay kid in a tracksuit, and me in our D&D club, and the modern feeling "not enough diverse kids played D&D back in the 1980s" is a complete lie. Teachers would confiscate our dice and books as "Satanic literature and trinkets." We didn't have phones or PDFs back then, either.

TSR had a diverse player base for D&D. The affordability of a hobby in general helps adoption across all backgrounds. This is why the OSR today is a far more diverse place than a hobby exclusively for the wealthy, which is where corporate gaming is headed.

And a world with "just humans" can be incredibly diverse (hello, Earth).

This is a question of game design.

As a referee, creating a world like that is hard. I could give up and make it that planar bus stop, but a part of me stops caring about the world and designing a cohesive history. With the core four, I can design a world and keep the lore and history straightforward. As a world-builder, my job is easier the fewer options I have. When the selection gets into dozens of races, my mind begins to overload, and the game is harder to referee, in that my worldbuilding now needs to take into account "X squared" numbers of interactions between all the races, and sub-factions within each race, so it could even be "X cubed."

How do dwarves feel about parrot people? Plant people? Stone elementals? Fae dragons? Coconut puppets? Tieflings? Half vampires? Skeleton races? Ghosts? Living dolls? Dark elves? Light elves? Stone elves? Mimic races? Changelings? Werewolves? Cat people? Weasel people? Magic cloud full of sparkle races? A random race stolen from the next popular anime person? Octopus people? Normalized mind flayer races? Beholders as player options? Displacer beast kin? And now figure there are subfactions within each one of those races...the good mind flayers versus the bad ones.

And I just give up.

It's a planar bus stop.

I am not doing worldbuilding for this mess.

Or I will just go play a game with fewer options and be happier.

Like our incredibly diverse D&D club in the 1980s did.

Traveller 5E Update

I am happy to see the Traveller 5E campaign doing well and nearing the half-million mark. The books are still expensive; four at $80 each is not cheap, but that is the current going rate for 5E hardcovers. Many are being priced out of the market. Also, the October 2027 target is 18 months away, which is a long time to wait.

Also, shipping prices are going through the roof. I just paid $50 for shipping for one campaign, and I am seriously scaling back my pledges this year. Castle Whiterock for DCC will be my next one (4 days), and any other campaigns this year will have to be knockouts.

Granted, the PDFs will likely be out sooner, and I have not heard much on VTT or character designer support, which is a must-have for many to even consider supporting a campaign. Some versions of 5E I can't play because the tools aren't there, and even then, it is always an extra "digital purchase" in a VTT store to "own the rules there," and I feel I am being fleeced by the 5E industry again.

I can play Traveller with the 2d6 system today, or even cheaper (and free options) with the Cepheus system. There is a massive price gap between the free Cepheus Engine PDF and the $1,000 all-in pledge here. It sort of highlights where the entire 5E market is going, premium crowdfunding "experiences" with $1,000 buy-ins for the "ultimate fan package."

And for $1,000, I can get a much more complete and rewarding experience with GURPS or even Battletech. I could get a box of mechs that would fill a table for that much, and have months of painting to do.

I like the Traveler 5E concept; it sounds exciting. This would have been an instant buy for me last year.

This year, it isn't. Times are tough. I have Battletech and GURPS, and those are amazing games. I have a complete 2d6 Traveller collection. I have more 5E than I can play, and DCC will happily take all the attention for fantasy for me.

I don't have the time or money for this, and it is sad to see this going at such a high price point. This is the world we live in, but I do wish them well and all the success they can earn.

We are in the age of the premium 5E "fan experience," and it sort of sucks.

Backerkit: Traveller 5E

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/world-s-largest-rpgs/traveller-5e

If you like science fiction and 5E, this is the game to get.

But the prices are a bit of a sticker shock. $350 for the core book bundle and $1,000 for all-in. Wow, I have not seen a basic book bundle of a crowdfunding campaign this high before. I wish them all the best in selling the books at this high a price point. Licensing fees also play into this.

I would get this, but not at this price point.

Just as video gaming is becoming a hobby for the rich, tabletop gaming is moving in that direction, too. 5E is also an expensive system to support, and you can easily sink thousands (if not tens) into the hobby every year.

I like both systems, but I have Cepheus and GURPS to cover all my Traveller science fiction gaming needs. I like GURPS far better than 5E, especially for science fiction. While the MMO-ness of 5E is appealing, I would rather just play GURPS and have it all without the complicated character sheets of 5E.

That is another problem, the absolute need for character creation tools for 5E. I see Roll20 support, but how complete is that? Creating 5E characters by hand is a complete non-starter for any version of 5E. I am refusing to do that anymore after seeing character sheets print out to 16+ pages. My GURPS character sheets are only four pages for a 1,000-point character, and two pages for most other characters that I play.

And for $1,000, I could buy nearly every GURPS book ever printed and have a complete, three-shelf library of a game that can do anything. I checked this on Amazon too, and it is just under $1,000 for most of the 3rd- and 4th-edition books in PoD. Don't ask me how I know, but I have six shelves like this.

Also worth noting is EN World's 5E science fiction game based on the Level Up system. The Void Runners Codex is a complete boxed set that includes the physical books for about $200. I enjoy Level Up and have this, and it is a solid, more affordable alternative if you don't care for the Traveler universe and just want a generic, 5E science fiction system.

It is a strange world to live in, seeing GURPS as the easier game to support and play than 5E, but here we are in 2026. It comes down to preference and willingness to learn the rules, ultimately, and is a personal choice. While the core systems of 5E are easier than GURPS, in the end, character sheet complexity in 5E is an order of magnitude more complicated than GURPS, with expensive software requirements (and subscription models).

Traveller 5E is a really nice game, expensive and it shows, but it is not for me. As I get older, I have less time for these games, and I tend to stick to the ones I know and love that cover many genres. For me, that is GURPS.