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| AI Art by @nightcafestudio |
I have a pretty sizable investment in 3rd party 5E books. The game would be fun with the later stages and 3rd party content, especially given some of the excellent alternate implementations of 5E, such as Level Up Advanced 5E and Low Fantasy Gaming.
Most of it turned out to be a huge disappointment. 5E books are notoriously filler-filled and have low-content fluff. The writing feels 'paid by the word' and is often overwritten and too long. Many feel written to sell another book or crowd-funded effort, promising a lot but delivering little.
For someone used to tight OSR rulesets, 5E feels like wading through oceans of paper to find one or two things interesting. 5E is designed to sell you book after book, and the game is highly consumerist in design.
Most of the 3rd party material follows that model, too.
The "alt-5E" games like LFG are sound investments and fun games. A5E is the functionally sound version of 5E, with the balance rebuilt and the pillars of gameplay fully supported. LFG is a fantastic rebuild of 5E to be more like a cross between OSR, Warhammer, and Norse mythology. I wish LFG rebuilt the spells. The renamed versions here are okay, but the game needs new spells with new names, not the 5E standards with a fresh coat of paint.
Seriously, designers, ditch the old ways and be confident in your creations.
A lack of confidence hurts any artistic endeavor.
They are both still 5E, and Wizards and 'that game' hang over their heads. An 'alt 5E' game always lives in the shadow of Wizards. And 5E is not great. Chronic balance issues, expansions throwing attacks in as bonus actions, and a mess of 'watch out for this' issues appear once you allow third-party content in your game. LFG and A5E are better games alone than they are with any expansion content, and a considerable part of 5E's problems are the expansions.
And D&D YouTube is no better. They either live off of hyping up the latest book from Wizards or complaining about the latest stupid thing that Wizards did or said. I am done with them. There is too much negativity or blind obedience, and it feels like people making money off an abusive customer relationship.
This is an honest 'toss everything out but the core books' moment for me. And it kills the fun of 5E and that promise of 3rd party content. I get excited about 3rd party content, build a character with it, watch it break my game, and then it is another item to add to the ban list. 5E is more about what you don't allow into the game than anything in the game itself.
I have had stories and characters ruined by 3rd party content.
And I head the Wizards stuff, Tasha's and beyond, are the same balance-breaking story. Every one of these consumerist game publishers does that at the end of an old edition; they break the game with overpowered add-ons to force you to buy the new edition - this has been how things have been done since the 3rd edition. Third parties blow out the balance to sell books.
Everyone does it, but no one admits it.
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| AI Art by @nightcafestudio |
But I still have this feeling that 5E is dying. Even with the playtests, the door is open for many to walk away, and many are. While many will return once the 6th Edition releases, that version only has a 3-year shelf life according to Wizards' statements, and there isn't a plan for after that. The game will not become a billion-dollar brand in 3 years after losing half or more of the player base after the pandemic. No amount of hype that YouTubers, let's play channels, or paid influencers will even get them close.
Politics and current-day issues are working their way into the game and settings. This sort of laziness will date a lot of these books terribly. Then again, a for-profit company wants books to 'die' faster since they can sell you the same thing in five years with a few more modern references that will date the writing all over again.
All my pre-2000 TSR books are mostly timeless.
During the pandemic, 5E D&D was a fad during a perfect storm moment. These days, the existence of Baldur's Gate 3 and the mod community will take a considerable amount of mainstream attention away from an already thinning player base. A modern VTT for a game requiring a lot of attention and effort - plus DM support already at crisis levels - will not be enough.
D&D Beyond for DMs? It should be free. Their entire business model depends on a scarce resource. This is like World of Warcraft needing a live player online for every 4-5 player group to reset dungeons, spawn monsters, activate quests, and restock treasure chests.
5E as a stand-alone game without 3rd party content? It depends on the version and how good the core books are. A5E and LFG are my core 5E books. Like other retro games, I support alternatives and other communities. I games where you can write and sell adventures without going through an approval process or portal from a Wall Street company.
Otherwise, you perpetuate what you do not support.
But for me, other games feel more compelling than anything 5E and even throwback games like AD&D feel lessened. I would rather play OSRIC and support that community than play AD&D and be stuck in a game you can't write and share for. It is always better to support free and open gaming communities, and I have no interest in using the fact that 'I play the AD&D game' as some sort of 'in-crowd street cred.'
I would be there for the rules and gameplay, not the cred. Social media is the best thing to happen to pen-and-paper and the worst. People say they play games like middle-school kids wear rock band t-shirts and expect to be popular. Sorry, OSRIC is the game I play. People write, sell, and share adventures for that and form communities to build and create new things, which I support. AD&D? I love it, but it is a dead-end owned by Wall Street.
Greyhawk? Planescape? Forgotten Realms? Spelljammer?
All dead ends. Let them go. There is nothing but tears and angry voices when they get reimagined and sold to you again to pump quarterly numbers. Support indie creators or create your own and be free.
Outside of the niche versions, 5E is a mess.
They will try to sell us 6E as a solution.
But given the track record here, I am not buying it.
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