Class Structure

Staying with 5E, even the Open 5E versions, is hard. However, it is easier for groups to play class-based games since roles are easier to define. You are the mage, rogue, fighter, and healer. These roles are iconic and easily adopted. You can pick a class and play.

Class and level games are better for groups.

I play solo.

The 5E game structure gets in the way. I still like A5E and ToV and will keep and support them, but I need to see myself playing them regularly since I have better. Even with ToV's pillars of play support, I have games designed decades ago that do far better overland survival and social encounters.

New games are not always better.

I am slowly switching to GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy for my fantasy gaming, and I could not be happier. A more deadly system with fewer hit points, more combat options, and better character customization than anything I could ever get in 5E, no matter how much money I spend. I control how much magic is in the world, not the game designers.

The big difference here is that the rules aren't meant to be exploited but intended to be used. Sometimes I feel D&D has gotten too "Magic: The Gathering," where every class, subclass, multiclass combo, and option can be exploited and abused for maximum winning potential. The game is defined by the abuse of the rules.

I am also looking at Runequest. The BRP system does not have classes either.

Can GURPS be abused and exploited? Yes, but the exploit and abuse culture isn't ingrained here. A group can say build cheese and ban it, or pare it down to a level that works, doesn't blow out the game, and makes it unfun for everyone. Put a cap on Dodge and Parry. If someone is getting too many attacks, reduce them. Or you can play blown out, and every group will have a different feeling on how they like things to work. Put a cap on character points and disadvantages. This game has many ways to limit character power and complexity, and it isn't hard to recognize builds that exploit an area of the rules.

Then again, one-trick ponies in GURPS who put all their points into one combo usually die quickly once they realize a balanced character is better for survival. One freak ice storm will promptly sort out the cheese builds, so natural selection will care for characters who abuse the rules.

I am doing a GURPS Pathfinder game because I have all of the pawns for PF 1e and like that set. This is in the original world; the 3.75E rules never happened, and we are in the early days of the world. The world isn't 3.75E at all; it is more the classic Dungeon Fantasy and GURPS magic systems, where magic is still a mystery and strange to the world. It isn't low magic, more like medium magic. Magic isn't typical or every day, but some practice and are known - and feared.

One thing D&D gets wrong about magic is "free" arcane magic. Cleric magic can anger the gods, and you get turned off, so you may have to do quests to keep in good favor. Wizards and sorcerers are free spigots of magic power, and it leads to abuse. While I like DCC's costs to magic, the actual cost of magic should be societal, and reaction modifiers to magic should be based on the cultures and suspicion levels. Demons should offer "free spells" and "free character points" - just take this slight disadvantage, and more power can be yours! That should be enough to make the general population mistrust casters, and those seen playing with "evil magic" like necromancy could be run out of town or killed.

I hate the D&D and Pathfinder neutrality towards evil magic. My character is a necromancer and proudly proclaims it! I am a warlock who serves the elder gods of madness! What do you mean the town is trying to lynch us? Even druids could be seen with suspicion, and that has historical precedent. Witches? There is a lot there to unpack. Good towns will not see their characters as welcome, and they could even be hunted as enemies.

But you are punishing players by taking away options!

I'm sorry, but the town does not like you. They don't want you raising dead grandpa to use as a minion.

Too often, modern fantasy games put your mind in a state of the "MMO stupid zone" and force you to treat every option as equal and acceptable to all cultures. But it is fantasy! That is not a blanket excuse since fantasy can mean so many things - to put one definition on the word is highly rude to others who may have other points of view. Fantasy is what the group says it is, and it can be anything.

So, players need to be careful about how they build their characters. Even a thief with a kleptomaniac disadvantage could cause serious trouble for a party. Certain disadvantages are minor, while entire power systems and character types may have the peasants getting out the pitchforks and torches.

This also opens up evil campaigns if you look at it another way. Go to the World Wound and join the forces of evil. Start your beginner adventures there, spreading corruption and darkness. The rules do not "default to a heroic reality." If you play an evil demonologist, go live that life and get stabbed in the back—maybe. Stab them in the back first and prove your worth; this is evil.

This is another problem with 5E rulesets, the default hero mentality. Even the art is overly happy and heroic. The game isn't a simulation of anything; it is that typical "heroes doing dungeons" thing. GURPS doesn't have alignment; it has social and mental disadvantages. The world will react to your actions accordingly.

When you remove the Pathfinder 1e rules (or 5E, for that matter) and really think about how this world could be, your mind opens, and you realize there is much more depth here than that heroic party of level-one adventurers killing rats and goblins.