One D&D: Deleted My Negativity

I had three articles that were a little pessimistic about One D&D, which I feel is not really a great move and message, and I deleted them. I do not want to spread negativity about a game people love, but I have a few concerns. To me, Wizards trying to lock down the platform with a limited-function tabletop, tie all the book releases into that system and create an EA-like profit center is 100% against even how 5E players play.

I am not even talking about the OSR, but there are parallels and similarities in how both games are played.

The 5E game is already wonderfully diverse, with people playing the game heavily house-ruled, with 3rd party books, and I bet with as much diversity of style and rules as in the OSR. Just touching the surface of modern 5E, my head exploded with all of the support and options for non-Wizards content.

And frankly, it is terrific.

5E is a game I never got into, but I am looking at some of the 5E styles of OSR games, such as Low Fantasy Gaming, which look very fun. But 5E is just a set of rules; you can't hate on it. It is a mod of the OSR with doubled hit points, combat options, skills, passive abilities, and way too forgiving rest mechanics. Low Fantasy Gaming is very cool, it has that 5E feel, with what I love about the OSR, and the game is compatible with 5E monsters and magic books, so you can extend the life of your 5E purchases.

Frankly, at this point, someone should build a "Pathfinder 1e" and continue D&D 5 cloned as-is, like that game did with the 3.5 edition, and continue support. Time for the rules fork, game designers! Get to it; there is a massive market with this one. Think of it, you as the next Paizo.

And while you are at it, fix the rest mechanics and make it a modular system.

I do not like 5E as written, I feel it is too forgiving, and there are way too many rules for things that should be handled by the group. The character sheets are also complicated, with things like "tool proficiencies" added (the game has skills, use those). The character sheets get longer, the more terrible ideas, and the "oh yeah, this would be cool to have" add-ons are added in expansion books.

I feel that One D&D is when the game becomes a monetization platform like Madden (1.5 billion profits yearly) or Diablo Immortal (100 million profits since release). I do not trust any large corporation with Wall Street breathing down their necks to increase monetization and tighten platform lockdown. This paragraph is also pure speculation and negativity, but given the world we live in, it is also stupid and irresponsible not to mention. Still, time will tell, and I hope I am wrong.

But 5E as a game is fine if we are just talking base mechanics.

I do not like the current direction of the Wizards products, and I recently stopped my rules-book subscriptions to current-year Paizo since they seem to be following the trend. I do not like the splat-book build-stacking going on. I will see these optimization videos on YouTube explaining how to take this and that feat, 2 levels of this, to get a 50% to critical hit character, and my stomach turns as I remember late-edition 4E. I do not like the "setting plus rules" expansion books since they force me to buy settings and adventures I will likely not use just to have a few rules everyone wants to build a character with, and it is a waste of the book, trees, ink, and my money.

The base 5E system? Fine, especially if modded to be more like the OSR. It is just a set of rules, and those can be tweaked and modified. I wish the game was more modular so everyone could be happy.

One D&D tells me they want one D&D.

But my core belief, and I see this in how the game is being played, is that D&D is for all.

Every 3rd party book, every virtual tabletop, every house rule, and every group that plays their own unique way should be included. There is a beautiful diversity of ideas in the 5E community, much like the OSR, and while the two sides tend to think of each other as "they only play one way!" it is actually untrue.

There are as many ways to play 5E as there are OSR games.

The most significant difference between the OSR and 5E - is that D&D 5E is still controlled by Wall Street.

I hope, with the realization of what One D&D could lead to, that the community takes 5E and clones it, and the game can move from corporate control to community control - like open-source software. There is no fight between 5E and the OSR. One day, when D&D moves on to a new edition, 5E will be a part of the OSR.

This is all about the difference between games that belong to the people versus games controlled by one.