There's No "Saving" D&D - It Is What It Is

Modern D&D has become a "platform" like Steam or Xbox; there is no going back to "what it was." Any attempt to do so will force platform customers to another product, the also-ran versions of 5E like Level Up, Nimble, Shadowdark, and Tales of the Valiant. It would not surprise me if Goodman Games isn't making its own version of Zocchi-dice 5E they can support, while also remaining compatible with "platform 5E."

At this point, everyone is making 5E. Give a company enough time and a catalog of adventures they need to support and sell, and they will make their own version of 5E. This is "Kobold's Law," and it is an accepted fact. I eagerly await DCC 5E and can't wait to see what they come up with.

Long live 5E.

D&D is just a name, but 5E is the platform.

The platform is more important than the game.

Wizards going on a nostalgia tour with Luke Gygax is the equivalent of an 80s hair metal band touring with an aging line-up. Yes, I love the artist and the skill, but D&D was replaced by 5E a long time ago, and people have moved on. Even if your books still say "D&D," it does not really matter; you could be playing any other 5E and still be in the 5E market.

Whenever D&D gets in trouble, they roll out Greyhawk and eventually replace it with the Realms a few years later. I can sing these oldies by memory at this point, guys.

Not to mention the OSR holding the ground of every previous edition. I have my "vision of D&D" over there, made by amazing creators who don't answer to shareholders who only care about stock price; they answer to players who choose their game out of love of the hobby and appreciation for the support.

Castles & Crusades.

Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Old School Essentials.

Swords & Wizardry.

OSRIC 3.0.

Adventures Dark & Deep.

Those are more D&D to me than D&D.

The last group of D&D creators built D&D 5.5E, a house that fell in on itself. Few bought, and most still play 5E. Creating a 6E is just going to create "another version Wizards has to support" and not solve the problem of the company being out of touch with the market. Wizards should have gotten out of the "edition creation game" long ago, and any more work splitting the market is going to bog the company down even more.

We do not need a 6E.

If they were honest, they would reprint AD&D, word-for-word, no sensitivity readers involved, no warning stickers like the game was a pack of cigarettes, and let the best game ever written stay in print. AD&D is like Tolkien now, please accept reality.

Stop making new editions in an era where few have the money to buy new books.

AD&D is 6E.

5E is your consumerist D&D platform, with or without you.

The market supports it.

This is where the game is now.

FTL Nomad: Winning Me Over

FTL Nomad is slowly winning me over as my science fiction game of choice. It is fast, fun, stays out of the way, has tons of options, and has a universal Xd6 dice mechanic where the only modifier is your skill level. And there are no attributes, just skills. The modifiers are minimal (skill only); this is an advantage/disadvantage multi-die system like 5E, with only one target number of 8+.

This is rules-light 2d6 gaming, but it doesn't feel rules-light.

It is just enough game without going so light that it feels inconsequential or too light to care about. There are a few systems that feel throw-away, like they don't have enough genre support or tooling that, once you start playing, you wish you were playing something else. And that something else is usually so full-featured and heavy that getting started is a massive effort you rarely have time for.

There is a companion book that increases the number of skills to 14 or 20 for more in-depth games, but the basic seven-skill game is good enough for most science fiction. In Star Wars-type pulp science fiction, a vehicle character is good at nearly any vehicle, and the combat specialist excels in both melee and ranged combat. In a universe where "anything goes," a pilot shares proficiencies between speeders and starships, that "vehicle control" skill applies to a wide range of things, and "you just don't worry about it."

Having a specific "Model 301 antigrav speeder" skill in a science fiction setting would lead to having millions of skills and a character sheet as long as a typical 5E character, dozens of pages long. In pulp settings, reduce the skill list and focus on broader proficiency categories.

If you want a difference between melee combat and ranged combat, do the 14 skills. If all you care about is "this is a combat character," then stick with 7 skills, and it does not matter. If you are going to have to buy up your melee skills to the same level as your ranged weapon skills, why not combine them? Also, if you find yourself favoring ranged combat skills, you are denying yourself chances to take advantage of melee attacks.

If the soldier is the "combat guy," then he can shoot, punch, kick, use a knife, wrestle, and fire a starship turret just as well as any other combat task. There is an elegance to one combat skill that many games lose once you are buying separate skills for knives and short swords.

The game has archetypes, so it is not "just skills," and these give you special "class benefits" in an area of activities based on archetype. The referee can also use this to cover a wider range of activities, such as a diplomat interacting with others, having the knowledge diplomats would have, exclusive access, and immunities by treaty and roles in society. You can even use these as unlocks for using weapons and gear, such as a soldier or pilot knowing how to drive a tank, where a diplomat or scholar would not.

There is a talent system that allows even more customization beyond this, ensuring you are not pigeon-holed into a specific role. Some of these support combat, social, technical, piloting, and other activities, so you can specialize within a role and get the benefits of a "5E subclass" with a far easier system.

What is interesting is that the game does away with ability scores. If you are super-strong, that would be more of a talent than a high ability score. The standard rack of ability scores gets min-maxed in OSR and 5R games anyway, and it only exists to be gamed for a single or dual benefit. Why not get rid of ability scores and pick a "charismatic" talent instead of gimping an ability score rack for one high CHR stat? The talent is far more flavorful, can be tailored to cover a specific benefit, and it does not introduce a rack of ability scores to track and manage.

Simplify, archetype, collect, aggregate, and focus on iconic roles.

FTL Nomad is a solid, modern, streamlined game that is an excellent alternative for any 2d6 system.

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.