YouTube: “Play how you want” is a D&D Meta-Meta Game

This is a great video about 5E and how many say, "You can change the rules," but you really can't—not in "mainstream 5E." Changing the rules to create more challenges often puts the referee at odds with players who prefer a narrative-driven, death-free superhero experience.

• You are limiting my choices.
• You will have to take out more spells than that.
• What about this power? Class? Magic item? Etc.?

And it never stops. You don't end up "fighting the players," but you are really "fighting Wizards of the Coast." At this point, it is better just to play a new game. The video also points out how the referee feels empowered to "make the game more fun" rather than "feeling guilty for trying to fix a game to match a theme or play style."

The group talks about starting Shadowdark, which is a great choice for a 5E-like game where choices matter. The "little game" of picking a lock or choosing to take a considerable risk could be life or death. Shadowdark is an excellent throwback and gateway game to the old-school world.

You can make Shadowdark less deadly and more adventurous! However, with 5E, it isn't really possible to roll back the game's power level and safety.

While I don't play too much of the game at this time, this is still a game I am keeping and opening for inspiration. A great video today, please drop by, watch and like, and subscribe to the creator.

Off the Shelf: Dungeon Crawl Classics

This is a game I never have time for; it keeps getting put in a storage box or on a secondary shelf, and I keep returning to it. This is its fourth time coming back, and it still is an excellent game with a rock-solid old-school design philosophy.

Let people have fun.

This means everyone, from the referee to the players. Even third-party publishers. The referee is not some "remote control" you press a button on, and the adventure streams from an Internet service. Rule Zero is the game; everything can be overridden. If something "breaks the game" - great! The game is already broken in so many ways that everything works out. Your characters can still die in horrific and hilarious ways, and they probably will, no matter how invincible you think your character has become.

There are no "builds" or "winning strategies" for characters. 

You have one job: survive.

And get rich or die trying.

If you don't like something, change it! If a player rolls a mutation or disadvantage and can think of a better one, that would be more fun? Use it! If you get a table result that doesn't make sense? Don't reroll it; make something up on the spot that works (or creates a bigger disaster) that works just as well!

Like the original Paranoia game used to say, it is all paid for; don't worry about destroying the scenery, killing the NPCs, changing the game, giving characters hilarious conditions, destroying a village, making up gear and powers, giving players special boons and items, inventing monsters, or making things up to have more fun.

If a super-science laser rifle that does 5d8 at level one drops into the fighter's hands, go with it! A fumble may make that thing explode hilariously, or they may have it to the end of their career, and it becomes their Excalibur.

If it ruins the game? Fine. Don't use it next game.

It is not in an "official" book, so you are not required to use it.

You should do it if you want to apply a permanent +d3 or +d5 roll bonus to a character for some condition, skill, or whatever! Or a negative modifier. Permanent or short term. Or the die flips between negative and positive, depending on the situation.

Want to reward a character with an ability score point for doing something extraordinary? Do so. There are two critical rules in this game:

• Break the rules.
• Have fun.
• Make a third rule since we can break the rules.

Does a character charm or befriend a powerful monster? Fine. It won't ruin the game. A suitably motivated referee will find a way to make this new "pet" into a hilarious burden, rock-and-roll flying mount, or whatever would be epic, cool, and fun.

You are the referee, and you are allowed to have fun, too. However, unlike in other games, you are not the "play the movie" button on the remote control.

Many people have trouble with this much freedom and "need a book to tell them" what to do. Once you learn this, it is harder to return to anything else, especially 5E. I still like 5E; the crazy and random nature of this game keeps me coming back.

Oh, and bad rolls are just as excellent as good rolls. Don't cheat the system! You will have more fun surviving against all odds.

You don't need giant bestiaries or books full of magic items. One book does it all. Every adventure is unique, with new monsters, dangers, and situations to explore. You buy an adventure and are guaranteed to see something you have never seen.

The game is more old-school than many OSR games since it has a philosophy and design that directly emphasizes the old-school experience. Everything revolves around the feeling of how it used to be, not the "actual" way it was. Many games start putting all sorts of strange things on pedestals when those things are unimportant to the old-school experience. They mirror the old games to look, feel, and flaws.

But they do nothing to help you get into old-school playing. They don't give you what they promise since there is no reinforcement or help with "how your mind should approach this game?" The only other two games that do this are Shadowdark and Dragonslayer, and these "old school simulators" are in a class of their own.

An old-school game without proper "training" in how to play the game and get in the mindset will be played as an inferior version of 5E. Stay calm, but this is true. Most players who got into 5E recently will have no clue what is happening, how they should explore, or even how to survive a dungeon in an old-school game. I know how to play, but what about other potential members of the community and people who pick up the game? Training and how-to-play guides help grow the community and create a stable and loyal player base.

But DCC is back, off my storage shelf, and into my most-played space.

Level Up A5E Thoughts

As I was about to embark on a Tales of the Valiant game, having meticulously crafted my characters, a sudden realization dawned on me.

All of 5E is seamlessly replaced by some other version of 5E.

It does not matter what you play.

...as long as it does not come from Wizards. Oh yeah, that OGL hurt runs deep. But the OGL hurt needed to happen because the old-school community was getting lazy. Now, they innovate and change the game to make it their own. I am glad it happened, but we won't forget.

But honestly, it does not matter what version of "Open 5E" you play. Tales of the Valiant, Level Up Advanced 5E, 5B, Low Fantasy Gaming, Shadowdark, or whatever your flavor of the game is. 5E has become "fast food" roleplaying, the same quick, everywhere, easily pickable, and many varieties of "every food" on every corner.

So play the 5E you like, and you don't feel guilty about supporting.

For me, right now, that is Level Up A5E.

My ToV Monster Vault and A5E Monstrous Menagerie work with ToV. I can play apples with apples and oranges with oranges. Or apples with oranges. If I want to play ToV and keep things simple, it's almost like a B/X game like Old School Essentials. If I want to play a game with near-infinite options, pillars of play support, and the best of old-school and 4E, I have Level Up.

Any way I play, I win.

I was reading a review of ToV, and someone said, "It was nothing to leave Level Up for." I agree with that, for now. ToV will go in its own direction, and it will probably take a few years to "get good." I will support them in their releases since I have nothing to lose, and they are all compatible. ToV needs character options badly, and their online tools must improve. The GM's Guide is yet to be released. But I have faith that ToV will improve rapidly.

ToV is still Open 5E, so it plays with most Open 5E games.

And both Level Up and ToV are compatible with your favorite 3rd party books. ToV is a more straightforward conversion, while Level Up needs a little game knowledge to do these, so they work well with the pillars of play supported in A5E (supply system, expertise dice, martial options, etc.).

But Level Up has years of great content, player options that blow my mind, and more classes than most 5E games. It has old-school rules that support the pillars of play. Death means something. Resting takes work. Some of the best ideas in 4E (commander style class, exploration challenges) are here. Level Up A5E is a time capsule of the "best of old-school 5E" from 2014, brought into 2024.

This is how old-school AD&D and 3E players played the game and what they wanted to see in 5E before Wizards took it into social-media la-la land with influencers, power gamers, identity gaming, and live play theatrics. D&D has declined under Wizards, and the 2024 art looks like "corporate office-scene clip art and AI." The fact that their design goal was to maintain compatibility with 10 years of broken first-party books doomed the game.

All my 5E adventures work together seamlessly. The AC, to-hit, damage, actions, and other systems are mostly the same. You can even play mixed classes between the games. It is funny since I found Level Up by thinking the monster book was a generic 5E monster manual, and I got it for Low Fantasy Gaming. I discovered it was its own game and thought I had wasted my money.

Well, I didn't.

I gave this game a chance, and yes, there are a few typos here and there, but the quality is high, and the support is excellent. I learned the game and saw a lot of what I liked. The community input for the development of this game was terrific. It does not need an SRD or OGL since the game has been rewritten entirely and has no reliance on any Wizards content.

And it does have an open license.

This was one of my first Open 5E books and meant freedom. We are lucky to have two complete implementations of 5E these days, and both are excellent. One is just starting, and the other is a mature, developed system. ToV is "nothing to walk away from Level Up for," but give it time. I can see playing ToV if you are heavily invested in Kobold Press books and Level Up for EN World ones.

But play either. If you can, support both. This is a guilt-free choice.

But pick the one that speaks to you.

Mail Room: Voidrunner's Codex

I got the PDFs for the Voidrunner's Codex Kickstarter, and this is a fascinating game.

While the art may be average and depict a generic sci-fi universe, it's important to note that this doesn't detract from the game's potential. In fact, it leaves room for your imagination to fill in the blanks.

This is a "not Starfinder" game, sort of a 5E in space using the Level Up A5E engine powering the game. 5E and sci-fi are typically mediocre together. There were a few games that tried and one that kept going.

Ultramodern 5 is a heavily modified version of 5E that does its own thing. It is the most popular sci-fi 5E version right now. This game has a lot, almost too much, and covers scope and technology of almost Space Opera size. UM5 does a good job rebuilding 5E for modern and sci-fi characters, covering mechs and other gear and technology.

In look and feel, this game resembles the Mobius comics in the old Heavy Metal magazine. That is not bad, but this game has a LOT to sort through. It may overwhelm some with hundreds of pages of stuff and options.

Esper Genesis is the other. Although this game has fallen by the wayside, its Mass Effect art and presentation still make it one of my favorites regarding look and feel. EG5E does an excellent job presenting a unified theme, universe, and setting.

Starfinder feels too focused on characters. The ship combat and exploration here could be better, and the game focuses too much on adventure paths. There isn't a "starship economy" at all, and while it does an excellent job at character options and has fantastic art, everything else feels secondary. The game has "leveled weapons" to account for damage scaling. This is also not 5E, but it deserves mention as "d20 sci-fi." A new edition is coming soon, but I am no longer on the Pathfinder 2 train (for time reasons, not because I dislike the game).

Voidrunner does the best in starships, with its book devoted to starship construction, combat, and exploration. They have identified an enormous opening in 5E sci-fi gaming and jumped within with massive support for the "starship game." It makes sense since Level Up beats the pants off of both D&D and Tales of the Valiant in terms of exploration, and their sci-fi game leaning hard in this area is a clear win for the EN World team.

If you like the exploration pillar of play, forget D&D and Tales of the Valiant. Buy the Level Up books, and don't look back. 

EN World knows what it is doing and what audience it is appealing to. They are "hungry," which shows in their books and games.

The exploration here is better than Traveller, and it is much more science fantasy and "wow" with exploration encounters for starships, space monsters, and other threats on that scale. It destroys settings like Spelljammer because there are ship combat rules and many things you can do with your ships. Spelljammer deserved better than it got.

LUA5E-VR is the group's best 'generic' sci-fi game and far outshines the others regarding starships and having fun with them. It stays close to the original LU-A5E engine, so you can pull in classes, monsters, spells, backgrounds, and other items from the core Level Up rules. The fantastic selection of heritages, cultures, and backgrounds in A5E opens up a lot of interesting characters you can mix and match.

LUA5E-VR also feels more straightforward and malleable than the other bunch. Since it presents a generic universe, you can easily play Star Wars, Star Frontiers, Star Trek, or any other sci-fi setting in a 5E context. The other 5E sci-fi games are their own thing, and they can't be split from their settings as easily.

Also, LUA5E-VR does not do "leveled weapons" like in Starfinder. To increase damage output as your character goes up levels, it relies more on the 5E methods of extra attacks, bonus damage dice to attacks and other 5E conventions. That laser pistol stays the same anywhere in the galaxy, and there isn't a level 20 laser pistol out there in a high-tech treasure chest that does 20d4 damage. A weapon is a weapon, and how well the character uses it determines damage output.

The physical books ship in February of next year, and this is one I am looking forward to.

It Is Not Enough

The Tales of the Valiant 5E books stand out with their unique features, making them a great version of 5E. They are a labor of love, establishing a non-Wizards of the Coast baseline that I find more appealing.

But...

While some areas could be improved, such as the character art, which is a bit cartoony and plastic-looking, the monster art is stunning. The rules are solid, and the game is rebalanced around the Kobold Press CR levels. The monster book is an excellent Monster Manual replacement, with the monsters being suitably nasty. I'm pleased with the Tales of the Valiant 5E books.

Most people are either sold on 2024 D&D or left for other games. The biggest "D&D killer" in this generation of 5E clones is Wizards of the Coast since they killed their own game. It is still big enough to wobble for another 5 to 10 years, but the excitement is fading quickly.

But both ToV and 2024 D&D are nothing to leave Level Up A5E for. The designers over at EN World got lambasted for "changing too much" about 5E with Level Up—and it turns out they were right. They added old-school mechanics, made death a threat again, and included the best parts of 4E. They took a wrench and screwdriver to all the math and tightened it up. They made martial classes and rangers worth playing. There are fun changes like rare and unique spells.

They focused like a laser on making their classes support the three pillars of play:

• Dungeon Crawling
• Exploration
• Social

EN World rewrote the entire game, so it did not need the SRD or OGL.

The combat and balance of the game feel tight and have that original, great "dry" feeling of early 5E. This isn't the slippery balance of later editions, post-Tasha's, where you can get and give inspiration on anything and blow out to-hit rolls because "Missing isn't fun!" The combat in Level Up feels like classic B/X, that live or die, one die roll, classic dice on paper dry feeling I love about old-school gaming.

And there are nods to the old-school here, too, like needing to track supplies and needing rangers to get you to the dungeon safely. Exploration is fully supported, with unique terrain encounters and types that force you to make survival rolls. Even the dungeons are enhanced by giving the environment a special place in the turn order to handle traps, machines, environmental effects, and other hazards. Old-school fans helped playtest and design this game.

ToV recreates 5E.

Level Up rebuilds 5E.

People thought they were stupid or crazy. They roasted the game for breaking compatibility with 5E in areas. People wanted this to be a "5E expansion" instead of a standalone. You changed too much! This is Boutique 5E! Why play this when we have D&D?

In the end, EN World was right.

They delivered their own game free of license issues and kept supporting it through years of community neglect. They kept shipping products and believing in what they did. They kept the game compatible with 5E adventures but did their own thing on classes and rules.

A few of their decisions were strange, like their steampunk world Zeitgeist, which did not resonate with me. However, their after-release support is solid, and the Gate Pass Gazetteers are outstanding. The fan-released content is also excellent. The number of character options and classes this game has is jaw-dropping.

Subclass and option support from 3rd party products is its only weakness, but only in the area of these options not supporting some of the custom rules in the game. For example, a supply system in A5E tracks things like rations and water. If a 3rd party subclass allows you to replenish supply like the ranger does in A5E, then you will need to tweak it to include these rules.

It is not impossible to use third-party subclass and character options, but it does require a higher level of rules knowledge and familiarity with the differences. You will need to tweak them in a few critical cases. Overall, it is for the better.

I still like ToV a lot. It is an excellent game as a clean-room 5E. The support from Kobold Press is outstanding. The design and care put into the game are top-notch. I am still supporting them as my second-best 5E implementation. It is a great "low-level emulator" that replaces Wizards 5E perfectly. ToV and Level Up work well together, so you can support both without wasting money.

We are blessed to have two incredible games to choose from.

And Tales of the Valiant may get a lot better! I am in early to see where things go. We will likely get more in the future, plus there may be old-school options in the GM's Guide that elevate this to the level of A5E. You can't go wrong by having both games.

But Level Up is still my 5E, the one I come home to. It runs my campaigns, such as my classic 4E-era Nerrath game. It is, in many ways, a different game that caters to old-school and 5E players equally, and it is a much grittier, deadly, and balanced game. Death means something. Exploration is not easy. The social play has support in character options. Martial characters are fun and have resource tracking. The resting game is fixed. Pop-up healing is fixed. Supplies are meaningful. The little stupid problems 5E has had for years have been fixed. The exploits are mainly addressed.

To me and my campaigns, Level Up Advanced 5E is the winner.

Level Up: Gateway

https://www.levelup5e.com/news/announcing-level-up-gateway

This is exciting news, Level Up Advanced 5E is getting a character creator. See the announcement above. This is big news since creating A5E characters is a chore, especially since there are nearly double the things to note and write down compared to a game like Tales of the Valiant. It takes me 30 minutes to go through the process, and the official "form fill" character sheet is a bit too tight for all you need to record.

"Character sheets" are a massive weakness in gaming; every game has a different one, and none of them import into VTTs without serious software development time. I swear the industry needs to develop a "common character sheet format." like a PDF-style form (or accepted file format), and standardize that on all platforms.

Even Tales of the Valiant's work with Hero Lab feels very beta. At this time, exporting to PDF and printing aren't even supported. I want Kobold Press' other books added to the system. A better option for many games is still the highly moddable classic desktop app.

I wish Level Up well and would love to join in the beta. I know these projects are huge and take a lot of time and development work, so I know how huge this is and how it could go wrong. Still, I am hopeful and will be using this tool since the game needs it desperately.

Tales of the Valiant: Roll Your Own

One of the best parts about Tales of the Valiant is they went for a more straightforward character design process, with fewer things to write down in each step. I designed the same character in Level Up Advanced 5E and came out with twice the special powers, notes, and different abilities on my sheet than a comparable ToV sheet.

Level Up Advanced 5E is a game that truly embodies the 'more is more' philosophy. A level one character can easily have 12-15 special ability notes, compared to ToV's six. This abundance of abilities adds a profound depth to the game and makes character creation more time-consuming, which is a testament to the game's complexity.

When I am in the mood for it, it is excellent.

When I am not, it is not great.

Character sheets in Level Up must be done by hand since no program does them. It first took me 90 minutes to make a character, and I have gotten this down to 30 lately. Getting everything set up and recorded is still a long time, but the details are worth the effort.

ToV has Hero Lab, which makes the basic rules well, but the system can't be expanded for custom entries, so if you want to create a custom lineage or heritage, you are out of luck. However, I am hopeful that the ToV version of Hero Lab will improve and add the spells from Deep Magic and the Monster Vault creatures and the ability to add custom entries for items, spells, heritages, and lineages. I eagerly anticipate the inclusion of the Midgard and Southlands heritages and lineages!

The other Kobold Press 5E books should be available for ToV, but they are not. Since ToV is 5E compatible, we should have the option to use any 5E books we have for Hero Lab in this system, primarily since Midgard and Southlands are supported on the desktop version and are nowhere to be found in the online part.

I like Hero Lab for ToV; it is so limited that it is hard to recommend without seeing more new things to buy and support for custom entries. Even the "notes" section for characters is not present in this writing, despite this text box being in other games. Since the game is 5E compatible, the online version needs a custom content manager and a way to add our favorite things.

So, at this point, roll your character sheets and do them by hand. This way, you can pull in as much 3rd party content and subclasses as possible. Using online character creators is convenient, but it is anti-competitive. It can lock out almost every 3rd party who makes books for the game, and it especially hurts small independent publishers.

If a game is so complicated that you need computers, consider playing another game. This is especially true if that character creation system is locked behind a paywall and "everyone can't come inside." My answer is to do them by hand and play games where it is not too much of a hassle.

Level Up pushes the boundaries of my tolerance for complexity, but then again, that is the game. It is the Aftermath! of 5E and details everything.

Tales of the Valiant is streamlined and simplified, and it feels more like a B/X version of 5E. The game is more accessible for new players, which D&D can't claim (especially with 10 years of backward compatibility being critical parts of many character builds).

ToV is also a one-book implementation of 5E (for characters). It is a fresh start. While you can pull in your favorite 3rd part books, you don't need to, but the door is open.

That...I like.

Tales Of The Valiant Archives

https://koboldpress.com/category/tov/

I added a small link collection for ToV on the sidebar. It is worth pointing out that the blog is giving away free content for the game, and you can find a number of new lineages there now. Go check it out!

Mail Room: Tales of the Valiant Player & Monster Books

My hardcovers for the Tales of the Valiant Kickstarter came today, and wow, these are impressive books. The art is excellent, and it feels like a mix between original 5E and Pathfinder 1e art, which gives me a nice feeling. The art is more mainstream to the hobby, and while it nods to being inclusive, it also does not go out of its way to create controversy. It is very mainstream for a 2024 book, feels adventurous, inspires adventure, makes old-school nods, and welcomes everyone.

Excellent job on the art here.

Typically, I prefer old-school art, but this is good for a book made today. The monster art is beyond excellent. It feels modern and conveys the theme well.

These books are not just an 'alternative' to traditional 5E gaming materials; they are a complete, cohesive, and compelling experience in their own right. They offer a solid and worthy gaming experience, divorced from the constraints of Wizards, and are far from being seen as inferior.

ToV is the 5E standard-bearer going forward. The system can outlive the company that made the game and be passed on to better stewards and friends of the community.

In many ways, Tales of the Valiant is superior to D&D, especially with additional books from Kobold Press on magic, monsters, magic items, and adventures. If you add Midgard, you get a complete, supported, and excellent campaign world - which Wizards does not offer. Midgard puts the Forgotten Realms to shame, just in support, honestly. What good are campaign worlds if you don't support them with hardcovers, gazetteers, and adventures?

Want more spells? Deep Magic is a two-volume set with 1000 spells ready to go.

Want more monsters? There are three Tome of Beast hardcovers and a Creature Codex to collect. There are plenty of adventures, too, so the first-party support for ToV is there on day one and rivals Paizo's support of Pathfinder, but this is for 5E.

Want subclasses and player options? Any 3rd party book should be 99% compatible, so just pull in what you need and tweak based on when the ToV subclasses begin (3rd level). This is the same as 2024 D&D with delayed subclass progression, so it is not a big deal or game-breaker. The Wizard's subclasses are outside my games and I took a hard pass on them; I never used them and felt they were designed to sell books for power gamers.

The only thing missing is the GM Guide, coming in September. You don't need this book to play since the player book has all the classes, spells, magic items, and toys you need. This book is more for GM advice, modding, altering creatures, and creating adventures, so there is no real need to wait for this book.

My advice? Get playing now. Crib from other GM books you have. Back in the day, we played B/X with one or two pages of GM advice and made the rest up ourselves. You do not need the GM Guide to start other than to have this "completionism" feeling, which is silly.

Begin your adventures today. This is what "the party" would do.

And put your old Wizards books in a closet. Go 'clean room style' and enjoy this on its own. I would stay away from even quality third-party books to start and learn and enjoy this game on its own.

Surprisingly, the Tales of the Valiant Kickstarter books aren't receiving more attention, given their excellent execution of a 5E version. These books successfully create an independent version of 5E, maintaining compatibility, fixing exploits, modernizing rules, and enhancing the overall gaming experience.

One of the most significant changes is the introduction of a luck mechanic, replacing the traditional inspiration system. This new mechanic works well and addresses many issues plaguing the old system. It eliminates the 'missed by a few points' problem, enhancing the overall gameplay experience by removing adverse outcomes.

Some complained the game did not go far enough and introduced new mechanics. This is not that game; MCDM or DC20 will be the game for you, or even Shadowdark. This is the game you pick up if you want guilt-free 5E and want to keep compatibility with over 10 years of 3rd party books you still want to support and get more use out of.

This is 5E entering the OSR. We will see games split off and go their own way, with some compatible with 10 years of content and some not. Some will be flashes in the pan, and some will go big like Pathfinder 1e did during the 3.5E and 4E days.

Tales also avoids the predatory AAAA-game pricing and digital goods mess over on Wizards, and you own the PDFs here, too. If I can't download and own a PDF to read wherever and however I want, I will never buy or support it. I am not paying for digital books accessed through a website or subscription service.

Granted, I like my point-buy systems and GURPS. But when I am in the mood for 5E, this and Level Up are my games. Level Up is far more complicated, and ToV is a fast, streamlined, and compatible game version. ToV is my "quick play" game for 5E, which does an excellent job.

The 5E Model

 Having witnessed the rise and fall of every D&D version, it's clear that we're currently in the 'go' phase for all things 5E. I've invested in a few 5E replacement games, but I won't support the 2024 version from Wizards. I can't back companies that lack ethics and show hostility toward the gaming community, and I'm sure many of you feel the same.

D&D is a framework that can't maintain a steady version for over 10 years.

• The 1980s: AD&D
• The 1990s: AD&D 2nd Edition
• The 2000s: 3.0 and 3.5 D&D, D&D 4E
• The 2010s: 5E

The dates shift slightly by the end, with 2015 being 5E, but we are located at the end of those 10 years. D&D 4E had a 5-year blip that messed up the nice decade chart.

I like the 5E clones; Level Up Advanced 5E and Tales of the Valiant are excellent games with much to offer. Tales is the newcomer, while Level Up is the mature game.

It's disheartening to see the lack of enthusiasm for the 5E clones. I'm hopeful that the communities around these games will start making some noise, but everything feels stagnant. Those still playing Wizards D&D are the hangers-on with a dwindling community, Pathfinder 2E benefitted the most by taking the lion's share of the refugees, and 5E itself feels like Wizards killed it and the interest in the play-alike 5E games.

It's a concern that many of the best players have left the building, so to speak. Their absence is keenly felt in the gaming community.

The old-school fans who hung out in 5E feel mostly gone. Level Up feels like the last bastion of the old-school crowd in 5E. Most old-school players left for older editions or SRD-free OSR games. The best players are gone from 5E. Other games are picking up the slack. Shadowdark, Dragonbane, and many others are now popular in their niches.

I hate to be negative. But here we are.

I play 5E, but it does not reflect my vision of fantasy gaming. I get the feeling characters are "planned constructs" of game designers with different ideas of how paladins, bards, rogues, and other classes work in my mind. My characters need to "surrender to the game designer" and play by whatever flavor of 5E we are playing, rather than my characters being mine - with my ideas driving their progression and powers.

And don't get me started on multiclassing, which exists as an artificial construct of "how you cheat the system" rather than existing to "define a character with multiple specialties." You don't multiclass because your spell blade knows fighting and magic; you are multiclass to take advantage of a broken system that was never designed to handle the concept well.

Will 5E speak to fantasy gaming in the next 10 years? I wonder if it will since no version of D&D has ever lasted commercially longer than 10 years. I say commercially because there is a big difference between a few people playing AD&D 1e and a game supporting a substantially sized company with employees. A patched game is still the same, so people may decide to move on.

Level Up A5E has plenty to enjoy, just from 1st party sources. The amount of primary-source support here puts many "indie darkling" games to shame, and some excellent 3rd party books, too, are dense with extra content to enjoy. Level Up is 5E done right.

I am still exploring Tales. It is a solid system with plenty of world support. I want to see more character options sooner rather than later, and I am also waiting for the GM Guide in September. Tales plus Midgard puts the Forgotten Realms to shame.

Who else is shipping an actively supported campaign world plus adventures these days for 5E? It is this or Frog God and the Lost Lands, but Midgard has the advantage of having a complete 5E set of rules backing it up. Wizards sure isn't shipping campaign worlds with linked adventures these days, nor do I ever think they can do them right and pay the original creators some respect. Some of their IP they won't even touch out of fear. Pathfinder 2E is the only other one, but that is different from 5E.

It is sort of coming down to using Level Up to explore my old worlds, and if I want a new world with new stories, it will be Tales.

ACKS II, Preview PDFs

I really like the ACKS II rules, and I have been following the Kickstarter and have the art-free PDFs to read. They removed all OGL content from the game, and the game is better for it. D&D has enshrined certain immersion-breaking tropes into the genre, and I noticed all ESP is gone from the game. Displacer cloaks, invisibility 10' radius, and detect secret doors are gone. Wizard eye and spell storing (spell and item) are gone. Wands of detecting secret doors and traps are gone.

A few ability scores have been renamed; intelligence is now intellect. Wisdom is now willpower. Clerics are now crusaders. The race-as-class entries are thematic and tighter-tied to the world.

One of the most exciting aspects of the changes is the removal of problematic, game-breaking spells and magic items. This shift requires players to engage in more strategic dungeon-crawling, relying less on spells and magic items and more on their own wit and skill.

If you make the SRD a golden idol over fun gameplay, you will inherit all of its flaws and weaken your game. If you approach fantasy gaming with a "completist" attitude, where you must have everything, you will bring broken things into your game and hurt the player experience.

Another improvement here is tightening the official world to the rules and eliminating the assumption of a generic world. I have enough generic B/X systems, and seeing something different is refreshing.

Of all my B/X games, this one looks like my "last one standing" after I put many in storage.

Game Designers

Any version of D&D and almost every OSR game shares the same flaw. They assume the game designers can do a better job than you. This one thing kills my interest in both the OSR and Open 5E, and it sucks.

I am proficient with GURPS and other classless games, like Runequest, Basic Roleplaying, and Open Quest. I look at all these new 5E games, and it feels like a bunch of Seattle game designers all arguing about who has the best implementation of each class - a set of assumptions based on stereotypes that define your role in the game.

They are trying to sell games to people with strong senses of personal identity, and the message is, "Please conform to a class."

Who says that a game designer knows who you are at the table?

Aren't YOU the best expert on who your character is?

It is hard to get excited about new versions of 5E, like Tales of the Valiant. I love what they did with this game. It is one of the best versions of 5E out there, evenly matched with the excellent Level Up Advanced 5E, which brings a flat math model and old-school sensibilities to 5E.

This even hurts old standbys like Castles & Crusades and some of my OSR favorites. All of them are fatally flawed. Who says my bard has to take these choices and nothing else? Why do I need more "killing power" if I never use it? Why do these games give me powers I never use or am interested in? Do the game designers "expect" me to follow some script through "discovery" that they know far ahead of me "discovering" it, and I can't form my own combos of skills, powers, and abilities?

Class-based games feel like this big railroad.

Yes, a class-based game is more accessible to sell to a group. You aren't all going in a thousand directions during character design. They are quick. You have established party roles built in.

But for solo play?

Why?

I get bored of these games and their safety rails and train tracks. I know what every character is and will do, and they never develop organically.

Games that give me power interests me more, and they are killing my interest in the offerings of "expert game designers."

You will know the day you look in a mirror and realize you are the same thing.

Level Based Games vs. Character Builders

I like Community 5E; I really do. It works well for stories with larger groups with more cookie-cutter characters. But the entire "level track" with "pre-picked options" really sucks for me. I still find myself drifting away from 5E and towards games that allow me to build a character through play.

I don't like how 5E "forces you to get better at killing" and how it puts classes in tightly restrictive boxes. The designers tell you, "This will be all that you can do," and there is no freedom or ability to grow in ways outside of that box.

If all my bard does is social stuff, why is he getting better at killing and casting magic?

Character Builder games like Runequest, BRP, Open Quest, GURPS, and Dungeon Fantasy capture my imagination. I can play these solo and have my character progress organically; if all they do is social roleplay, they will start growing in those areas. If all they do is combat, they will grow there. I will spend points on thief skills if they only do stealth and roguish activities. If they need to be skilled in culture, history, and specialized knowledge, guess what? That is where they focus their improvement. And they can fall behind in every one of those areas. If they only use magic and concentrate there, that is what they become better at. 

They can choose to be "good enough" in combat and defense if that is their thing.

They can fall behind in every area, too, but improving those abilities requires using them. Even in a point-based game such as GURPS, it is easy to say, "If you did not use it, pay for training, or somehow find a reason to say why you got better in an area - you can't improve it." BRP is a more direct system of putting checkboxes by things you used and rolling for improvement.

5E sucks like AD&D sucked, especially in forcing characters down "set paths." It sucked in the 1980s, and it still sucks today. There was a reason everyone quit AD&D and played GURPS through the 1990s. Class-based games sucked. They were relics of the 1970s. That is the way almost everyone saw them back then.

If you play D&D for the "nostalgia flashback" to the 1980s, you will eventually drop the game for GURPS. We all got sick of D&D. Roll your retro-flashback clocks forward to 1988, and you will see what I mean. And many were playing Runequest and Rolemaster, too. Oh, and there was always Rifts. The Stranger Things kids would be playing Rifts in the sequel series. You play Rifts because everyone you know hates it, making you the cool kid.

By the end of the 1990s, you will have given it all up for Vampire, BattleTech, and Magic the Gathering. Most just left for video games and MMOs and never looked back.

Character-builder games are superior in every way to class-based games. With a class-based game, I can "see" the progression ahead of time. It is boring. I know what I am getting. I look at the next level, and nothing surprises me. In fact, I look at the next level and see how I will not improve in an area - such as social skills - so I give up doing social-skill stuff. Let the bard do it. I will never get any better at it as a fighter. Even with the "new style" background, heritage, etc., generation systems in 5E still fall short. So I can pick a few things before I get on the rollercoaster; it is still the same ride.

With a character-builder game, the adventures I have will shape my character.

With a class-based game, my class tells me what adventures I should go on.

Open Quest Redux, and GURPS

Open Quest has put Mythras in storage. This is just the more accessible and complete game, especially compared to Classic Fantasy Imperative and the base Mythras book (still too small type to read easily). I want Mythras to rock, but as they convert to the ORC license and get material reprinted and cleaned up, it does not feel like either Mythras or Classic Fantasy is there.

Open Quest stands out for its simplicity and directness, a design choice that sets it apart from other games. Its most intriguing aspect is the absence of traditional classes, which paves the way for a unique gaming experience. This is akin to the fun and diverse play options offered by GURPS, where the lack of classes opens up a plethora of exciting possibilities.

The one thing that keeps me from using 5E for many stories is classes. I will have a more social or story-based campaign, and a character that should not be "becoming more and more of a killer" is suddenly becoming one and not improving social and story skills. I like the concept of a character "falling behind" in fighting power because they aren't getting into fights and having to go back and train to compensate for the lack of combat ability.

All of this is slowly pushing me back into GURPS. Open Quest is a great game, one of the best BRP-style dungeon games on the market. But for how I play, it would still fall short. It would be better than 5E for me, but GURPS is the king of character builders. GURPS also lets you design a 1,000-point historian with zero combat power; in that element, they would be the best in the world.

I get it; 5e is fun from a "structured play" aspect.

But when I tell stories, they are never structured. Do you mean to tell me that if my mage spends six sessions in social situations, talking, solving problems, and not casting a spell - the XP will be enough for them to get a level and be a better killer and user of magic?

I didn't even use one spell!

Now I know more?

What is even dumber is that I have zero social skills and problem-solving abilities. Here is some killing power! Thank you for being social and solving all those problems!

I have a game in which I am doing X, Y, and Z, which gives me more power to do A, B, and C.

That sort of "no reward play" leads me to quit. I will never get rewarded for XYZ (social and problem solving), never do ABC (combat and killing), and at every level, it gets worse. Nothing helps me do XYZ, and I get worse at it as my combat power goes up like some JRPG character on a preset, hardcoded into the ROM progression track. They will never be good at anything other than making a damage number go higher and higher.

Some classes force you into killing. My fighter isn't given many social skills since the game has a built-in death bias towards some classes. This bias is lame and has been the fatal flaw in D&D and class-based games for 50 years.

This is why we left D&D in the 1980s for GURPS.

If the king sends my character to stop two warring tribes, I can approach it however I want. I could get history books, spend character points on specialized history skills for each tribe, and come at them knowing everything they are about. Your tribe did this 300 years ago, but this tribe still holds your sacred hunting ground; let's make a swap and figure this out peacefully.

Or I could go combat, get tactics and battle leadership skills, pick a side, and wipe the other out.

I could go stealthy and subterfuge.

I could go 100% diplomatic.

I could use history against them.

Anyway, there is a skill that can support my problem-solving.

You get a typical 5E module, and it is either an OSR-like "dungeon atlas" to kill through, or all of the above solutions have to be "thought of" by the writer of the adventure and put in there as options they choose for you - since 5E characters kill first and think later. 5E Adventures presents killing as the first solution and has to go out of its way to show a few non-violent options (if they do at all, since combat is "fun," just like a video game).

Open Quest would do this style of play nicely in a d100 BRP-style framework. You control your advances. Thus, you control the areas in which your character improves.

GURPS is still the master of this style of play. It has everything Open Quest doesn't, but in some ways, doesn't need. However, I still like being able to design characters down to the point, buy advantages and disadvantages, and specialize in skills most games would dismiss as "needless, pointless detail."

If I am playing a game where needing to know specialized things matters?

It matters a whole lot.

Solo (Zoser)

The Solo system for Cepheus Engine has always been strange to work with, and it differs from the more popular Mythic Solo tools in a few significant ways. For one, in Solo, you make a plan, determine the difficulty and danger level, tally up the modifier to the roll, and then roll the dice.

Success means the plan worked, and you are done.

Failure means the plan failed, and now you must adjust.

Consequences are rolled for either result. If the plan succeeds, this has a positive modifier and can include results where characters get killed, with a greater chance of this on a dangerous plan that fails.

Then, you write a story answering the question, "What happened?"

It is a strange system because I don't see the need for skill checks. You just determine if you have the skill, which is a positive modifier. It is like I don't need characters at all, just plans. Skills play into positive modifiers, and characters play into plans, but I don't see too much of a need for characters.

The system is innovative in that I haven't seen too many "plan-based" solo play systems.

Myself? The future is not predetermined. If a plan signals a failure, and something terrible happens, I will start the end of the mission in media res and have characters fight to avoid that fate or make it worse. Most "easy-peasy" plans, yes, just say what happened, but there are times when I want to know what went down, have a chance for characters to play a few turns of combat, and try to salvage a bad situation for the better.

Something worse could happen. A result where nobody gets killed could be that half the party gets wiped out. That is the price for trying to change history. Could they change history, turning a failed plan into a success? It may be possible with a few critical success rolls, but that adverse fate will haunt them later.

Is the failure or success still predetermined?

Yes. A failed plan is still a failed plan.

How it fails will be how you play it out. The same goes for success. You may get to the end and wonder how you could fail, but you still do. You could lose it all, yet that roll for success means you still won. It may fail or succeed in a way you did not expect.

The consequences can change more drastically. You tried to change fate. Or maybe you did.

I like to use my starship combat systems, run interpersonal combats, and do my Car Wars battles. I don't want an abstract system taking it all away, only for the boring parts. So "be kind, rewind" is still how I use the system to lay out what happened. I go back and fill in the middle. But that is when I start playing if I so choose. If I don't like the result, I can change things. Maybe.

But I always leave the door open to return to the critical moment, set up the scene, and begin a short play session to figure out what happened. This has full combat, skill rolls, exploration, and all the other parts I love using. A character may be able to talk themselves out of trouble. They may have failed the mission, but what damage did they inflict?

It is a different take on solo gaming, but I like deciding when it is "play time" versus "plan time" and letting the dice fall where they may.

Autoduel GURPS/Champions 2024

I am working on converting Classic Car Wars to a 3d6-or-less system, such as GURPS or Hero System. The ideal goal is to use the 3d6 system for the to-hits, while everything else—damage, handling, combat, and vehicle designs—still use the Car Wars system and keeps the "metal underneath" the same.

Damage is going to scale. Car Wars to Champions is a 3-to-1 scale, so 1d6 Car Wars is 3d6 Champions. Car Wars to GURPS is more like 18-to-1, based on the 0.50 cal. M2HB (7dx2) and the 66mm LAW (6dx6). So if a LAW in Car Wars does 2d6, that is 36d6 in GURPS, and the 0.50 MG in GURPS does 14d6, which is close enough to 18d6, so 1d6 in Car Wars, which matches the MG damage.

To-hit modifiers in both games are doubled. So, if firing at the front of a car is a -1 in Car Wars, that is a -2 in Champions or GURPS. Use Car Wars for all to-hit modifiers, with the only exception being the OCV and DCV modifiers in Champions - the driver's OCV and target driver's DCV do apply to the to-hit roll (if they have Combat Driver skill otherwise it is zero), as they do in Champions. This was a cool rule in the Autoduel Champions days, where a driver's abilities could make the vehicle harder to hit.

Do not do size and range modifiers with either system! Stick with Car Wars' range and to-hit to calculate the final CW to-hit modifier, then multiply by two.

To-hit modifiers for weapons are based on a Car Wars 7+ to-hit number. Every point above or below is a +/-2 modifier to hit when using the gun. Targeting computers factor in as usual, so a hi-res target will give a -4 to-hit modifier (lower is better).

For handling, use the Car Wars Control Table. If you get a 'safe" result, do not make a driving skill check. If you get a number 2 through 6, that is your negative modifier to your driving skill check to avoid a roll on the Crash Table. So if your vehicle is at 60 mph, and you have a current -2 HC, the number on the chart is 2, so you need to make a driving skill roll at a -2 to avoid a Crash Table roll. HC resets as it does in Car Wars.

With GURPS, the combat turn is one second, and you usually get one attack, so this is a very clean conversion. The Hero System rules use a Speed system from 1 to 12 and a 12-second turn. This does not work that well in Classic Car Wars, and the old Audoduel Champions' way of handling it is allowing characters to make a vehicular weapon (not hand weapon) attacks every second (like SPD 12) but zero out OCV and skill bonuses on non-acting phases.

This means an SPD 4 character in the Hero System who acts on phases 3, 6, 9, and 12 and gets their full skill and OCV bonuses on those phases only. They can attack in phases 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 11, but at an OCV or zero.

Hero System DCV always applies; this helps balance the "firing every phase" issue below!

Stick to the Hero System phases when making hand weapon attacks or using superpowers. So that SPD 4 characters can make a hand weapon or superpower attack every 3 seconds. This is a change from Car Wars, but given the games, it makes sense. This also puts people on foot at a more significant disadvantage than vehicles since they can get fired at every phase.

This has stayed the same since Autoduel Champions, and letting characters keep their full DCV (even in non-acting phases) helps balance this out and keeps superheroes from being sitting targets by a stream of per-phase machinegun fire. Haying for a DCV of 6 is going to be a huge benefit when the attacking vehicle is acting off-phase, and the attacker can't use their OCV and skill bonuses.

Movement should be done in Car Wars, with everything in mph, including foot movement. I know this will mess up Hero System movement rates, where characters only move during their phase, but we are entering "simulation land," where all foot movement is done per phase.

Hero System uses meters, so do a rough conversion and multiply by 3 for feet. For simplicity, assume Hero System "meters per turn" equals "miles per hour." Most characters in Hero System move 12m, which is about 12.5 mph in Car Wars, which is running speed foot movement (Car Wars Compendium). If a character has a running superpower of 40m per turn, he runs at 40 mph, and all movement is done according to Car Wars (every second).

Speaking of Autoduel Champions, we were sort of inspired by this project since we played it a lot in the 1980s. We had our own Traveller-like system for our game, but having Champions' superpowers convert easily was a huge plus. It allowed us to do the mixed superheroes and Car Wars campaign we loved.

And you can tell we played many of these games since these conversions are very natural for me to bust out as I think through how the games are played.

If I were to do our game today, our Traveller-inspired 2d6 system, I would skip all the newer versions of Cepheus and go straight for the digest-sized Cepheus Light. The skills are 99% compatible with Car Wars and are all 2d6 and N+ compatible. The personal combat rules can be used instead of the ones in Car Wars. The only rules I would add are the optional Traits system (30 XP to buy a new one) and the Cepheus Enhanced Edition rule for raising an ability score (3x new level in XP).

Why Cepheus Light and not one of the newer versions? I don't need anything in the newer versions. It is digest-sized and feels like a Car Wars book. The game even has a "cargo" system that works directly with Car Wars to haul loads between cities (Grav Vehicles would be Auto Parts or the cars themselves).

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/257644/cepheus-light

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/262129/cepheus-light-traits

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/342060/non-random-character-generation-for-cepheus-light

Those three are really all you need. Another benefit? If you need a simplified RPG for Battletech, that works just as nicely. For Battletech, you may want to use a more complete and modern edition since you will get a lot of extra "sci-fi stuff" you will use, but for Car Wars, Light is all you need.

Goodbye, Pathfinder 1e

My Pathfinder 1e books are in storage now.

I tried running a GURPS campaign, but meh. I was fighting the world more than I was having fun. With this much work, I would create an original world and have fun there instead. Dungeon Fantasy needs its own world and setting, which I have and will talk about soon.

Theme park worlds were excellent in the 2010s. Today, it is a cultural appropriation city. I would rather have a dedicated Egypt setting and Fantasy Africa than this. Everywhere you go, a Fantasyland, Adventureland, or other Disney-like little theme park area sits there and says, "Not Ravenloft, not Egypt, not Vikings, not science-fantasy, but close enough!"

Dedicated settings where it is one world, all Norse, with races and cultures that fit in that world, are far more immersive than this messy mix of everything, every culture, every race, and every culture. They end up being buffets of low-quality food but with great choices. At the end of the meal, you end up feeling sick.

Theme park worlds are also a source of the rot within the hobby, inviting in endless expansion books, grift opportunities, and encouraging every player to pick an "alien" background and nothing fits together; no one has to be a part of the culture of the world, and everyone is a special something or another. Pathfinder 1e was going there with the Advanced Race Guide, and there were far too many player races in the game by the end of the edition.

I would rather play in a Norse-themed world, where I have to read about the cultures, understand the diverse peoples, and make some hard choices on who my character is in this world. You play D&D or Pathfinder 2, and you will get the person at the table wanting to be a talking plant or Muppet and be the goofball when everyone else is trying to play seriously.

Theme park worlds invite everyone to be "the outsider," and they just feel touristy. Once you get the tourist, the planar crowd is not far behind, and then everyone is a particular "someone from somewhere else," at that point, I don't care about their characters since the players are not showing any effort to care about the world I am running.

One of the most toxic trends in modern gaming is escapist identity marketing; the game has to support being an anything tourist, and everyone that plays wanders through a theme park.

At this point, most locals look at the PCs like the locals look at tourists who wander through, destroy things, and take all the parking places.

Runequest's Glorantha killed the Pathfinder Golarion theme park for me. There are "elder races" here, but most of the backgrounds are a variety of diverse humans and mixes in between. There is much diversity here; you must read and care about the world to unlock it.

The world has a few themed areas that aren't blatantly "theme parky" like other worlds. These cultures may mirror some on Earth, but they are ultimately their own, with history and plenty of detail and flavor. And there is a ton of history to read. Runequest describes the world in one book, and there is a unique two-volume set if you want to dive deeper.

The Great Wheel and Pathfinder's Golarion have become far too cartoony and childish for my taste. I outgrew them. They are turning into this mass market; look at the cute things, smug heroes with attitudes, and mass market experiences that any 3D Hollywood animated movie for kids is these days. Both feel like Pixar or Dreamworks animated movie games; the worlds are bland, too much steampunk, and uninteresting. Some of the worlds rely too much on the old guard remembering them, and they are currently unsupported and left to decay.

Pathfinder 1e was visually appealing because of the "rule of cool" art. All of that has been erased and feels like a hangover in the setting today, a party the company wants to forget happened. The art can't carry a campaign setting alone, though. It is also dated and a little silly, and I prefer stylistic realism with a more serious tone. Even the remastered art tries too hard, feeling strangely surreal and unrealistic. Final Fantasy swords larger than a body belong in video games for kids. This is fantasy, but I outgrew that style when I gave up my PlayStation 1.

Give me a serious-toned world with history and a defined set of cultures and backgrounds, and let me enjoy digging in deep and being rewarded for my research.

And I was a super fan of Pathfinder 1e, and it all fell apart. I realized I had outgrown it, and there were better things to spend time with. The whole theme park thing made me cringe. I don't want to play in a rip-off of ancient Egypt, and Castles & Crusades has a Fantasy Egypt campaign guide where you can play in the actual setting in a fantasy context. There is far better out there, and a dedicated setting will make players invest in the setting with their background choices rather than play "another Dragonborn."

I am not selling the PF 1e books, but they are stored away and out of my mind.