The Perception Check

Something feels wrong about the perception check.

This is a "screw the players" mechanic that forces players to roll to learn secret information. In the old days, there was no perception check. The referee carefully described the environment, and players pushed, poked, looked, searched, and prodded the environment to find its hidden secrets. Even spotting an ambush did not force a roll; the referee described an environment, perhaps laid a few hints in there, and then the players could react accordingly.

The tracks stop right before they reach the pass.

If they look closer, then, yes, someone attempted to cover up the tracks.

And those tracks lead towards each side of the pass.

I am not forcing a Perception check for that. The players need to figure out if there is an ambush there on their own, using common sense and good judgment. Granted, those two things are in short supply these days, and with everyone a phone addict, many do not know how to interact with a natural environment or spot trouble like this.

"Why would people who hid in the bushes cover their tracks? I don't know! Hello?! Why are you hiding in there? Can you come out and explain why you covered your tracks?"

There is no rule to cover it in older games; it was what it was. The referee described the environment, the players were not on their phones, and they paid attention. Some skill-based games of the time did have perception-like skill mechanics, but D&D never did. Then again, the old D&D way of doing it was superior, and we only used those perception mechanics in edge cases and for situations where things weren't that clear.

These days, the entire passive perception "industry" and the "roll to see everything" sort of design slows the game down, and it sucks. It feels like the characters are looking through the world through tiny holes in cardboard boxes and rolling or having to check a number to see anything in the environment. Perception isn't a skill anymore; it is a set of blinders to view the world through.

In older games, we never needed the entire perception dongle.

Describe and let them react.

No rules. No numbers. No checking character sheets. No rolling the dice.

Player skill, listening, and using your head instead of your character sheet matter. The referee's descriptions matter. The skill on both sides heightens the experience.

Yet the perception trope seems overused, and this one mechanic defines 2/3rds of the interaction with adventures and the game. It is too important, too overused, and anything this prevalent should be designed out of the game. Otherwise, the game feels like it relies too much on one mechanic.

Imagine if every turn, you needed to "roll to move." Fail your movement roll, and you can't move. Fail your perception check, and you can't see or hear. The perception check is every character's eyes and ears into the world. Granted, it is only for situations where there is uncertainty involved in "if you see it," but the entire mechanic is far, far too overused, slows down play, and eliminates player skill.

The perception check is a terrible design.

Also, Wisdom should cover perception. This also falls into the category of having a "lift heavy objects" skill to replace the STR check. We have skills that duplicate ability score checks, and that is another sign of a terrible design. I don't know how you fix this other than admitting it is a flaw in the D&D 5E design and designing around these "rules bottlenecks" in the next edition.

When it started, it felt innocent and cool. These days, it acts as the default eyes and ears of every character in the game.

The End of Edition Blues

D&D is fading. We have other games replacing it, and there are a few very strong contenders. We will be in this mode for a while longer, at least until D&D 6 is announced and the hype machine begins again. This is how it goes with D&D: in the end-of-edition era, it is always this decline and malaise, and other games step up and steal the thunder.

D&D 5.5E did not live up to expectations. The rules update itself wasn't horrible, but the monsters were such an insult, a politically correct reimagining of classic creatures and foes; all they did was drive people into the OSR, or back into the 2014 Monster Manual. They leaned so hard into making every humanoid a fay, elemental, or other magical reimagination that they lost the world's gritty, grounded nature entirely.

People go to Shadowdark to get that gritty, hardcore hit these days.

People go to Daggerheart to do the modern cosplay streaming show roleplay. What D&D tries to do, Daggerheart does, and it speaks to that audience much better and in a clearer voice.

People play the OSR to get the original thing.

People will play gonzo games like DCC to experience the thrill of the unknown, in adventures, characters, and monsters. Through Deathbringer in with the mixed gonzo-plus-gritty audience, and we are in a bountiful era of gaming.

If I want hardcore reality simulation as fantasy gaming, I will just play GURPS and have it all.

But the larger problem is D&D is trying to be everything to everybody, and it doesn't really do it all that well. And here in the end-of-edition phase, we have lackluster 2024 books, and people sort of mix and match what they agree with. A few of us are playing Open 5E clones just to clean up the experience, with games like Level Up A5E or Tales of the Valiant. ToV works for me, and I do have a soft spot for A5E.

The only way D&D can fix this is by abandoning 5.5E and announcing 6E. Like Hollywood and the inevitable next Avengers movie, here we go again, and it is trying to capture lightning in a bottle another time. What we loved, that first time we did it, is forever gone, and the new team has no clue what makes D&D special and fun, especially if the 2024 Monster Manual is any guide. The changes they made to monster lore are embarrassing and invalidate every classic adventure and campaign setting.

Again, if I wanted this much fundamental change, I would have just played Daggerheart, Nimble, DC 20, or even Draw Steel. Not D&D. D&D at this point is McDonald's; please don't change the Big Mac and just give me what I am used to. Tales of the Valiant delivers the classic "meal" I am used to from 2014, so that has the best flavor of D&D for me at the moment. Sure, I could stumble along with 2014 books, but I prefer to have a 3-book game that works without patching and fixes, and a clean implementation of 5E with the classic look and feel.

6E? We have 5E and ten years of books. Why, other than trying to own the market again?

I got all I want or need here, and I doubt Wizards knows what D&D is anymore in order to deliver an experience that most people want. That middle ground today doesn't really exist anymore.

Too Much Magic

There is too much magic in modern fantasy gaming. It is everywhere, in most subclasses; some classes are entirely magic, and it is magic, magic, magic everywhere and all day long.

It gets tedious. Nobody can be skilled at anything anymore. You need the magic crack to do anything.

AD&D 1E featured anti-magic fields, creatures, weapons, and even planes. Put any modern D&D 5 characters there, and they will be helpless. There is too much magic in the game, setting, and universe. It isn’t high fantasy anymore; it's ultra-fantasy and magic overload.

Some of the old modules had lists of spells that were not allowed to be used in certain dungeons, and too much magic was a problem back in the early days of D&D, too. There were dungeons where a simple passwall spell would ruin the whole thing, the Tomb of Horrors being one of them.

I doubt there are many 5.5E classes that aren’t magic-touched anymore. Look long enough, and every class has to have overpowered magic options, which begs the question: Are you anything without magic? Do skill and non-magical training matter?

Magic in D&D is like sex on the Internet: it's everywhere, there is too much of it, and I am tired of it all.

In Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy, four of the seven classes were non-magical. In Advanced Fantasy, eleven of the twenty-two classes are non-magical. That is about half or more of the classes have no magic whatsoever. While there are magic items, half of the classes themselves are entirely non-magical. The game is set in a low-magic world, which is the norm.

I could easily play OSE without magic; you can do the same with both BX and 1E. It wasn't a problem, and the game had enough to it that removing magic would not feel like you were losing too much.

There is so much magic in fantasy these days that it does not feel like "magic" at all; it feels like power entitlement and magic being used to prop up weak class designs and lackluster combat options. The amateur game designer uses magic as a crutch. If your game works without magic and is exciting and engaging, you've got me.

The default setting for fantasy should be a low-magic world. This keeps the game grounded and believable. This is also the reason humans should be the default choice for races, since they are the most diverse and familiar race to which we are accustomed. I find that in a game where everyone is forced to play humans (ACKS II being the best example of this), we get a wonderful diversity of cultures, whereas in fantasy games that allow the typical fantasy race selections, the diversity of the average tiefling, dragonborn, or dwarf is actually quite low, and they fall into stereotypes and parody way too often for my tastes.

In GURPS, I have the freedom to create campaigns without one bit of magic at all. I can play a historical game without being weighed down by magic, witchcraft, divine magic, nature magic, or planar interference. Not all humanoids are magical, elemental, or fay, as they are in D&D 5.5E. I can create a compelling fantasy game with not one iota of magic in it. I can craft authentic fantasy campaigns based on real historical settings.

I don't have to default to a multiverse planar setting at all.

I can play a pirate game in the Age of Sail and not worry about a mage flinging fireballs at the other vessel. Use the cannons, please, you aren't a cannon yourself. I know, that's not fun, but in a game where I expect my scurrvy dogs to be able to learn how cannonry works, what is the point if half the party can fling equal death from their fingertips? Use the cannons like a pirate and stop complaining, or you are walking the plank.

Better yet, without magic, players have to drill down and focus on melee weapons, how to fight, archery, thrown weapons, special attacks, advantages that give them the edge in combat, weapon reach, defenses, and attack and defense actions. The flow of combat becomes the "magic" in the game and the key to victory. Knowing how to fight, stacking the odds in your favor, and never giving the enemy a chance are your "spells," and there is no easy solution to a fight.

Players need to pay attention to the combat system and rules to do well, and they can't lean on spells or special powers to save them. Thank you, finally, sanity is in my game. Immerse yourself in the world and realistic fighting techniques and tactics, and you will find a much greater satisfaction in mastery there than you will in casting an infinite-use cantrip every turn and being bored with your choices.

Too common magic isn't magical.

It is the mundane and the everyday.

There is no mystery or unknown.

And it becomes boring.

Self-Destruction as Marketing

This happened to me in D&D 3.5E: players came in, bragged about broken builds, and wanted to play them in my game.

I said no. I knew the build. I knew the site he got it from. What is the point of this exercise? For you to come in, find something online, and use it to wreck my game so you can get a few laughs? To ruin the game for everyone else who makes time every week to come to the game?

I said no.

Not in my game.

We are entering "late phase 5E," and what I see coming out of D&D Beyond are horribly broken player options. This is, again, the corporate gaming playbook. At the end of an edition's lifecycle, they purposefully make more and more outrageous and broken builds just to keep player attention and make the game "fun again," and it ends up wrecking the game to the point where people are screaming for a new edition. In a game with declining interest, the only way they can attract interest is through shipping broken mechanics and options to generate buzz and excitement.

Everyone "still hot on 5E" is having the edition slowly ruined for them, and they don't even know it.

Players will seek out groups to try the "next broken thing" and laugh as the abuse is enabled from up top, and another table's game is ruined by stupid ideas coming from corporate.

I saw this same thing at the end of every edition: the company hits the self-destruct button and wrecks the game with OP, power-gaming, and completely broken player options.

If you are a 5E purist and can play with a limited set of books, fine, you will probably never see this happening at your table. The players are there for the stories and heroism, and that's great. If you limit your options to the classic choices or play a 5E version that cares about balance and game integrity, wonderful. The small fish in the industry, like EN World and Kobold Press, don't have much of an incentive to ruin their games with powergaming options, since they can't create a new edition out of thin air.

If a player is on D&D Beyond and has access to broken expansion material, and is all excited to play, that is a red flag to me. I know the type. The power gamer is too interested in wrecking games and looking cool, rather than in everyone else's enjoyment at my table.

No.

Not in my game.

Must Have Skills vs. Mechanics

Perception is a skill everyone must have in 5E. I really do not know why this is a skill at all; it is so common that it should just be made an ability score at this point. Some skills are so common and "must-haves" that they should be removed from the game and made core mechanics.

If your life depends on your ability to spot things in a dungeon, why wouldn't everyone have this trained?

Just give this to everyone trained and skip having to buy it, or get rid of these "perception skills" (like insight) and fold them into the rules. Create perception secondary abilities (physical, mental, magical, and social) and get rid of them as skills.

These "non-job" skills always bugged me. Blacksmith? Fine. Survival? Okay, passible. Religion? Good. Climbing? Another okay skill.

Perception? Who can get a job as a "Perception Expert"? Insight? What are these other than "screw the player" skills to punish those who don't buy them? Skills should mirror professions, not activities.

If something is in the game that is a core ability in perceiving, understanding, or participating in the natural environment, it should not be a skill. These should have baked-in mechanics in the rules, since they are so common that they are core to the game's experience. Remove perception from the skill list and bake it into the game.

Even movement skills should be trained to open up movement types, such as climbing, balance, hiking, or swimming, and the rest of the movement-related checks should be ability score rolls. They should just be checkboxes.

The entire skill system has always been a core flaw of Wizards' D&D, to the point that they rarely get things right, and have some situations where they lean on the skill system too hard to drive the game engine.

Kickstarter: Hackmaster XXV

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kenzerco/hackmaster-25th-anniversary-edition-a-fantasy-rpg

Well, this is interesting. HackMaster is getting an updated version of the rules. The Kickstarter announcement page just dropped, and it looks like they are cleaning up and patching the 5th Edition of the game.

"We painstakingly honed the mechanisms and strategy of HackMaster to continually improve and streamline game play and make it something truly unique in the RPG world: a perfect blend of old-school feel with modern mechanics, offering fast tactical play combined with the most immersive roleplaying experience." 

-HackMaster Kickstarter announcement, July 2026  

This is an interesting development, and a welcome return. Hopefully, the new edition balances the expansion books more toward the 4th Edition (which covered all classes and also had adventures) than the 5th, which seemed to focus only on cleric classes. But it is also true that a great game needs no expansions.

I am looking forward to this, having been watching from the sidelines and never really into the game, but appreciating HackMaster's unique take on fantasy. There is a lot of room in the Grognard OSR for this game, which includes DCC and many other greats.

Science Fiction Gaming

Why? Why play sci-fi?

Fantasy gaming has built-in motivation, especially old-school or modern gaming. In modern gaming, everyone typically comes in with "their ten-page backstory," and you have built-in motivations to complete those arcs. In old-school gaming, XP = GP, dominion play, leveling, and getting treasure.

Exploration exists in both genres, uncovering those sweet blank hex-maps and filling in what is out there. Fantasy gaming has an edge over science fiction in terms of exploring culture, family, and local politics. In science fiction gaming, you get more of a modern bent and experience, like trying to find local culture in a mall.

Especially if the science fiction culture is anywhere close to modern, you begin to pull in cyberpunk elements, local law enforcement, governments, military, and all sorts of "big picture" factions. Fantasy tends to be easier since most everything is close to home, based in family and ethnic groups, and local relations. The rare exception is "Wild West science fiction," which leans more into the local style of relations and interpersonal interactions than the more modern takes.

Fantasy tends to be more popular because its focus is tighter and its conflicts are more personal.

There are times when science fiction feels too big to wrap my head around, unless it is the day-by-day of exploration and survival. On a low level, things work. Try to pull in too many sweeping space wars and galactic conflicts, and the characters feel very small, and the nature of a space war feels too large to even comprehend, let alone change the course of. Even Star Wars works better as a low-level, interpersonal, survival, and smuggler-based game.

Cyberpunk works better as street-level drama. So do Wild West stories. This is also why we see a lot of science fiction stick to these stereotypes and archetypes.

Also, ship combat matters. The Star Wars, Cepheus, and Stars Without Number ship combat systems work well in the abstract and don't require calculus or a physics degree to figure out. So many science fiction games fall flat on ship combat that it is a real problem with the genre. Some games omit ship combat entirely.

The setting matters. A great, classic, compelling setting works well for me, but I can also get into hex-crawls in space and the feeling of discovering something new. A Forbidden Lands-style start also works well, where the galaxy is recovering from a massive event that disrupts communication and travel for a few hundred years, records are lost or out of date, and everything out there changes. At this point, a hex-crawl makes sense, and your campaign universe can slowly expand.

Star Wars? Expanded Universe only. Otherwise, the New Republic and Leia's leadership were all for nothing, since nothing ever changed. Leia was running around tarmacs as a grandmother, still fighting the Empire. The whole idea is stupid, and it robbed her of the chance to ever be recognized as a transformative leader, mother, Jedi, and figure. The sequels trashed the original universe and continue to rip off the EU, which only proves that we had it better before Disney, and that today's creatives can never get out from under the shadow of better writers and creators.

Traveller feels too huge for me. It is the best universe in gaming, but it is far too big for me. I know, pick a small spot and start there, but the universe feels stuck in one point in time, unchanging, and written in stone. The universe has undergone various iterations as it tried to change, but it is sort of set in stone at this point and is unable to change. It is a starting point for campaigns and ideas, and a great one, but I like to roll my own or start smaller with less.

Fantasy is easier since it is so generic, and sci-fi tends to be a harder sell. Very few want to get on board with a campaign, since the genre is either tightly tied to an IP and played with the official game, or it is so vague what your motivations are that people can't connect. What are we doing? What is the point?

Another problem is that science fiction, as a genre, borrows so much from the Western that playing the Western is the easier game to pitch and put together. Why are we playing a space western when we could play the for-real western, ride horses, wear cool hats, and talk like cowboys? The cowboy movie may be dead as a film genre, but it is still a far better gaming genre than most science fiction IPs.

Part of why Western beats science fiction is that too much science fiction is a "do anything" genre with no rules of physics, and creators feel free to break those rules. Any of the rebooted Star Trek movies are great examples, as are the Star Wars sequels, which used hyperspace as a magic teleportation system. You might as well invent a "hyperspace belt" and get around that way. When you start pulling the rug out from under players with "anything magic," they often quit.

With the Western, we have rules, partner. Even the "Weird West" genre has rules and expectations.

Sci-fi is a tough genre to sell to players.

You almost have to avoid the rules and sell the campaign concept first.