The RPG as Social Glue

Shadowdark captures the original D&D aesthetic just like how the original Traveller Book captured the 2d6 science fiction spark of imagination. Do these self-contained tomes have every option, provide the most detailed combat systems, or give your billions of combinations of options?

No.

Doing any of those things would ruin what these games are, and the possibilities they offer.

Forget today's encyclopedic games which are shelf fodder for the collector's market, and not games which can be easily played with others. The best game is one small rulebook and infinite possibilities. Very few games capture this. Even the new Traveller has dipped into the collector's market a bit too deeply, and that game is a hard sell for me to anyone interested in science fiction.

With D&D, you are talking nearly $200 in books to get started, a subscription service, reading hundreds of pages of rules and options, learning a VTT, and becoming familiar with action types, turns, and all sorts of special conditions, spells, powers, and abilities. The D&D Starter Set is probably the best edition of the game, and you should ignore the rest. Very few people play past the levels given in the Starter Set, and the game at high levels is horribly broken.

Just selling someone on "hey, play this with me!" is an impossible task unless they are already deeply invested in the D&D market. Most average people, when I go up to them and offer to play a RPG with them?

Forget it. D&D is too big to even suggest. Too big of a cost, time investment, purchase, reading requirement, and commitment for any average person to make. I bring D&D up to people outside the gaming market, and I get blank stares and a feeling I should "go play with people who already know the game." D&D as "social glue" only works on those already sold on the game.

Shadowdark is different. I can start up a Shadowdark game with those outside the D&D sphere, they say "what is this" and they see how easy it is, and they are instantly interested and know "I can have fun playing this!" Me, as someone who runs the game, has a "social value" to others as a "person who plays a fun game."

And I can get anyone playing the "full version" of Shadowdark with just the Starter Set, and me owning a book. The character sheets are so simple, and what you need to read and learn can be easily passed on in one minute of showing someone how things work. The game plays like the classic Hero Quest or Dungeon boardgames, where it is just "move your piece and do something" every turn.

Shadowdark is this generation's "Basic D&D." This is the game Wizards should be selling for the hobby, and D&D has turned into a grognard-like mess of rules, options, special actions, bloated options, and an almost "Advanced Squad Leader" feeling to the entire heavy and book-heavy framework.

I can't sell people on D&D anymore.

The 2014 books were an easier sell, honestly.

These days? It is a non-starter with thousands of backward-compatible options confusing the market, and the game depending on online character creation tools. I have to sell people on a game, time commitment, huge purchase, website, subscription service, microtransactions, and a huge buy-in to get started. There is even a social commitment (orcs, drow, half-races) you need to make to align yourself with the designer's vision of the game that feels like it overreaches into your imagination.

Shadowdark is my "social glue" for fantasy these days. I can play it with someone in a heartbeat, introduce it in a minute, show them a zero-cost point of entry, and get them in game with me without them needing to buy a book or sign up for a subscription service. Sorry, Wizards, I am not selling D&D Beyond to other people to play games with me. I am not doing your sales pitches anymore.

Shadowdark works because everything is kept dirt simple.

And once people play, they are hooked, and can join in the fun for free.

I tried putting Shadowdark in storage many times and walking away from the game. To me, it was too simple and did not fill my grognard need of rules, realism, and options. I loved the respect it paid to the classic hobby, and the art and how the game is designed pays a lot of respect to the old ways. I loved the presentation, but felt the game was too simple to hold my interest.

To be honest, I feel Dragonbane fits in this equation somewhere, as the power-fantasy game many play alongside Shadowdark. Where in Shadowdark you need to play carefully, Dragonbane feels like the "charge in, slashing swords and casting spells" style of fantasy many prefer (minus the D&D commitment and bulk).

But every time I gave Shadowdark a chance with others, outside the hobby, I made new friends who were interested. I know, after a while, someone will try to sell them on D&D, but they will likely end up disappointed and leaving the hobby because for them, D&D is too big to play. D&D is the wrong game for them. They will get in, make the purchases, and feel ripped off because they don't have the time in their lives to get involved with a hobby that demands a majority of your time and attention.

Shadowdark?

I can pick this game up and put it down like a boxed set of Monopoly. For others, that is the same level of understanding and commitment they need to invest. Want to play Shadowdark? Yes! Cool! And there we are, zero time and prep needed, hand out a few simple character sheets, and we are playing a game together.

The "social glue" of Shadowdark works, and it works well.

Shadowdark Wins Again: Instant Play

I had a friend who played MMOs with those who also played D&D but wanted to play pen-and-paper games together, "inside" the MMO as the characters. So, she pulled out her copy of Shadowdark and started "just playing" inside the in-game MMO chat window - by the rules, minus a map and torch timers, but 100% doing this by the rules.

It took her zero time to "start playing" - no session zero, just the sample characters from the free starter set, and there were no long pauses to figure out what happened during a turn. One move, one action - next character in the initiative order. The tables in the book covered even the "after combat" stuff like treasure rolls and other random events.

The player (on the other side of the MMO chat window) did not need anything, just a passing knowledge of 5E. If the player had the free starter set, that is all they need to play with someone who owns the whole book or PDF. Most of the time, the referee is the only one who needs to own a book.

The concepts and language used were all very straightforward, and no knowledge of special actions or rules was needed. The D&D game has become like the Blackberry keyboard phone of the 2000s versus Shadowdark's iPhone. Shadowdark is the D&D that Wizards should be selling as D&D.

If this were D&D, let's log into D&D Beyond, create characters, buy books, and set a date and time to learn a VTT. Realistically, with people's schedules and budgets these days, it would take a week and lots of hard-to-commit-to, out-of-game commitments. This game would likely fall apart and never happen if this were D&D.

With Shadowdark, this was the difference between "playing something right now" versus "selling someone on D&D plus the D&D Beyond subscription, learning a VTT, not owning books, setting up a time, lengthy character creation, and reading through and understanding hundreds of pages of rules and character options, and so much other "pre-game" stuff that it makes "instant play" impossible.

She just started playing after one or two setup sentences.

Everything was very easily grasped and understood.

The numbers were under control and smaller.

The game played fast, with full "stunting" support to allow for various player actions.

She "added spice" in her descriptions like a great old-school game master, so the attacks, action, and tension were compelling. The "spice" mattered, too, so if a monster got hit in the arm, it could drop its weapon. No rules are needed for that; this is the "spice" that matters and affects the game.

The game can also be modded quickly and can support different settings, classes, and races.

I keep a torch lit for the more complicated games, but her experience "playing right now" inside an MMO chat window, with self-apparent rules and the action happening right now, makes all the difference in the world. This sort of "ultra-low commitment" and "play can start anytime" is enormous, and it also mirrors people's time, commitment level, and hesitancy to join a game in the real world. Shadowdark is killing many of my more complicated games, even though I see those games as "better" and more complete experiences.

I can't beat this "instant play" capability. Her experience validates it.

D&D does not have "instant play."

The MMO chat window is a terrible way to play a game, but Shadowdark does it quickly. The game can be played well, by the rules, with instant action, or in the one of the worst ways (second only to playing in IMs), and it provides a high level of enjoyment and satisfaction—with nearly zero buy-in.

Shadowdark is far easier to play with others than any other game. The gameplay is instant and viral. You just want to keep playing. This is crushing D&D and Pathfinder 2 for me, because the game is insanely easy to play with others, and play with those who have a high resistance to trying something new. And it can be played in a heartbeat, and using the worst ways to play.

Big Gaming?

I feel that "big gaming" is dying, and my interest in these "shelf games" has fallen off a cliff. I have no longer interest in supporting a shelf of games, and if I do, it will be the best. I also feel that those buying the 2024 collector's items books are buying for the collector's value.

Any game that relies on a collection strategy isn't playable. I have been down that road with Pathfinder 1e, and even Paizo did studies on how many actually play versus collect and read. Most were to collect the books and read; as I recall, most buyers were not those who played the game.

All of 5E is in my garage. Pathfinder 2 is in boxes waiting for a space. Pathfinder 1e is in my closet. All my "library games" are going the way of the dodo. I am out of space. That's it. No more buying and collecting "just to have."

If a game can't be done in one or two books, my interest level falls off a cliff. I am serious about learning to be concise and efficient with words and publishers. These vast, bloated, overly padded, long essays on "what a fighter does" that go on for a full-sized book's two-page spread are such a waste, and nobody needs them nor reads them. They don't affect play or worth much as "flavor."

They are wasting time passing out the book to make it appear you are "getting more."

And all the AI art and text can't save some of these books. More is less.

Old School Essentials, Shadowdark, and any of these small-book games do more with less. Even Traveller, the game that was the essence of small-book gaming, has exploded into a library. I don't like the new version of Traveller as much as I do the old one. It has drifted into the collector's market, which makes them money, but it contributes to my unhappiness with gaming.

The old Traveller Book has that one-book magic to it. This one book lasts decades of gaming. The new books are a shelf-clogging mess of information, more like a set of science fiction encyclopedias. This is also a problem with the latest books; it is more work to look up a piece of information than it is just to "make it up in your head." The original Traveller book is still a fantastic game; you could play any modern Traveller adventure with it.

Is there "less here?" Yes, but that is its beauty. The game does not need much to do a lot. Two six-sided dice and a 160-page book can unlock a universe.

Cepheus Deluxe (and the Enhanced Edition) also captures that "one-book magic" I like in a game. This is the community version of Traveller, minus the official setting, and it still has a lot of great rules and improvements over the source game.

You can add any of the "Without Number" games to that list, too. These are fantastic games, and why they don't get more attention and love is one of the biggest mysteries in gaming. These are games you can disappear into and get lost for years. They also have one-page rules summaries, and they are not difficult in any way.

Shadowdark is my last version of 5E. One book and go. OSE is still on my shelves.

I currently have a shelf for D&D 3.5E alongside my Dungeon Crawl Classics books. Both are relatively small games, with DCC being one book (the adventures are fun and imaginative) and 3.5E being 3/4 of a shelf, plus PDFs. If you like modern D&D, but don't like its direction, just play D&D 3.5E and forget everything past 4th Edition ever existed.

On the plus side, you will have complete sourcebook support for every significant setting in the rules, which is something 5E can't say for itself. D&D "stopped development" at D&D 3.5E, and everything past that was either a mistake or making up for one and never regaining the glory days.

D&D 3.5E, either in the original game or DCC's version of the system, is a worthy, playable game. Even though you can fill four shelves with DCC adventures, it is still a one-book game. The balance of DCC is closer to D&D 3.5E than B/X. You could use the D&D 3.5E Monster Manual as-is for this game, ignoring some of the 3.5E-isms, and be fine.

I have three shelves for my best game, which is GURPS. Arguably, the game is just two books, and everything else is just a setting guide or genre expansion. The base game is small, and you can get away with running GURPS Lite for 90% of your session.

GURPS will be the last multi-shelf game I support.

And the often repeated line "GURPS is math-heavy and complicated" is a lie. It is no more complicated than 5E and more straightforward to grasp since there is one core 3d6 rule driving everything and no plethora of action types to spend 30 minutes figuring out what to do with during your turn. Get yourself a good electronic character sheet (GURPS Character Assistant or GURPS Character Sheet), and you will have everything you need, and the characters will be easy.

Everything else is 3d6 and roll lower.

The only hard part of GURPS is the first learning curve and grasping how to create characters. Play with pre-gens at first; it is all 3d6. Roll under, and design characters later. And unlike 5E, 90% of the rules are optional. This is why everyone misunderstands GURPS.

I swear, people hear the name GURPS and instantly recoil. Among the general public, the instant reaction is "not for me," and I get the feeling the game is a lot like Blender's 3D program. "Not for me" at first, and then "How did I live without this" after the learning curve is over.

That is where I am going. I am done with many games and am just using GURPS for them.

The last "big game" I played was Pathfinder 1e. These days, I am just as happy playing GURPS or Shadowdark on Roll20 and using maps and hex grids online, even as a solo player. I don't have time for a big game, and tighter games with fewer books are more enjoyable.

But in my experience, Pathfinder 1e was "too big to quit," - which is why I suspect many of these companies flood the market with books. What does this do? If you are unhappy with the game, you will buy more to fix it. You will continue to be disappointed, and you will keep buying. You will extend your time with a game that makes you unhappy for years or even decades and ignore simpler games you would have enjoyed.

I still like the system, but it is a behemoth.

I was like this with Pathfinder 1e versus D&D 3.5E, a game I dismissed as being "less" because Pathfinder 1e has so much "more." Later on, I went back and rediscovered a classic. The size of my library forced me to ignore a game with merit and style.

Beware of "big gaming"—these libraries will prevent you from playing other games, take up all your time and money, and lead you into an "unhappy relationship" with a system just because of the sunk-cost feeling you have with it.

Big games are less.

Et Tu, Orcs?

So, did D&D 2024 drop the orc as a monster?

Thank you.

I give them points for being honest and telling customers who enjoy movies like Lord of the Rings and old-school gaming to stay away from their game. The current books look like a joke designed by people who are bitter and angry at the hobby. The 2024 books aren't D&D.

And if 5E is still your thing?

Tales of the Valiant has orcs. They are also a socially conscious company that makes a good game.

Level Up Advanced 5E has orcs. EN World is very socially conscious.

Shadowdark has orcs. Another progressive group here and a disciplined team.

Outside of 5E? OSRIC has orcs. Along with every other OSR game I can think of.

Pathfinder 2 Remaster has orcs, and this is Paizo, a very progressive company. I wish they could stay on message, and I hope their current bad press blows over. Wizards may have just saved Pathfinder again by doing something more stupid that will take the headlines off of them.

People at Paizo are probably cheering this news right now.

Want an even more progressive company that makes an excellent game? Cypher System has orcs on page 347. You can have progressive companies with their heads screwed on straight and who make great stuff. They know certain things are part of the hobby; they try to appeal to the traditional gaming customers and don't let their HR departments write their games.

The D&D owners and designers did this to make people angry and get in the news. It is the same old sad "outrage marketing" where "you are either with us or against us." They want to paint all these other games in a bad light, which is wrong, hurts the hobby, and divides us. Go away, clickbait anger marketing. Go away, like the entire Internet era that fostered you.

Social media killed the hobby.

Good.

We can return to being a niche group of friends playing games we like.

Shadowdark: Hacking Classes

Since Shadowdark keeps it simple, the classes are easy to hack, modify, and create. Using our examples, we must set a few things regarding armor, hit dice, and weapons. Next, we get to the fun part, coming up with 2-4 class special abilities, and the class will have less if they are a caster.

Skilled classes, like the thief, are simple - a group of actions to have an advantage.

The spell list, if you have one, is the hard part. Still, it isn't hard; more than that, it is a little work looking at existing spells and modeling your new ones after those. If you have a spell list to convert over, just use the names and model the effects using Shadowdark spells as your guide. And just pick the best spells! Four spells per level of tiers one and two are all you need to start; if the class is fun, you can do the others later.

I could develop hundreds of classes using this framework, everything from cowboys to space marines.

I could put together a "ShadowTrek" game in about an hour with command, science, medical, engineering, and security classes. Looking for "position skills" to create navigation, piloting, and communications specialists? Use the "profession system" in the game and give the character an advantage on the rolls. Weapons? Two or three types of phasers that do a d10 ranged damage with a few settings, and you are good to go.

A scanner, technical, or med kit? Okay, just say what they are. They take one slot of gear. Try a profession without them, and you roll at a disadvantage. If you had an advantage since this is your specialty, it cancels out, and you make do with what you have and roll with no modifiers. Put a 3-use limit on them before they need a recharge, if you want to avoid "scan everything" syndrome. Bigger 2-slot kits with 8 uses? Why not?

The main rules will handle everything else. Hand out a sheet for the classes, and players can play just with the free downloadable rules in any genre or game.

Ships? Design them as monsters. A level 10 "cruiser class ship?" AC 17, 50 hp, two "phased laser" attacks doing 1d10, and two short-range torpedo attacks doing 3d6 damage each. A +10 attack modifier and +4 for the ship's "ability scores." It is good to start; if those stats are wrong, it will work out in your first few ship combats. The pilot for the show will be the first few games, and things will change for the better. Want shields? Give it a 20-hp shield that goes down as it is damaged and restored when the ship "rests." Take everything else from the TV show. It feels right.

I need 4-6 pages of notes; it is an entirely different game.

You can't do this in 5E without a 300+ page book and a Kickstarter. The current generation of "phat book" games is bloated and blatantly obese, and the frameworks of the games themselves are so heavy that they drain all the fun and imagination out of the hobby. Wizards designed D&D to need so much support that it takes over your shelves and puts a structural limitation on who can support the game. Pathfinder 2 is no different; it is a super-heavy game.

D&D was designed to limit competition by requiring all this "stuff" to work with the main rules, heavy subclasses, action support, multiclass support, and all these other rules-heavy dongles. Bloat keeps the little people out of the market.

Even many OSR games "miss the point" with this modular design. I could put my ShadowTrek character in any Shadowdark game and have them work correctly, and I would have no issues with needing a saving throw table or any other OSR cruft we enshrine as part of the hobby. The class? It works. The phaser? It works. The combat system is Shadowdark.

What compatibility problems?

One little book is all I need for a lifetime of fun.

Hacking Shadowdark

Shadowdark is awesome.

I love not adding modifiers to damage rolls - those things are flat on the die, except if you have a special modifier. There are many books out there on this topic that break the system or introduce complexity when it isn't needed.

The "Shadowdark" way of doing things keeps that "flat & dry" level of balance, where characters aren't stacked full of powers and abilities like some over-frocked 5E Christmas Tree with too many lights and ornaments.

That said, we have a few books adding extra "stuff" and filling in a few holes in the system. You begin to run into a problem with the community using the same names as other books or even the official ones. Speaking of official classes...

One great place to start is the official Bard & Ranger classes straight for the Arcane Library. Looking for a bard and ranger? Well, here they are.

Unnatural Selection is another excellent book with a few detailed classes, spells and powers, and many new ancestries. New spells, magic items, and monsters are included, too. We get premium necromancer-style, beast-master, and shaman classes, among many others. This is the best single-book expansion for the base game and has more of everything.

Player Companion for Shadowdark is a good "stuff book," but it has a few issues with quantity over quality. We have many new classes but no class and level titles; some have the same class names as other books. There is a necromancer here that is sort of like a mage, not as in-depth as the Unnatural Selection's Grave Warden, but still, the class holds up. There are some good options here, but be prepared to sort through a lot of chaff for wheat kernels.

I like this book because of the variety of options but be prepared to untangle many conflicts with similar-named stuff in other books. This is a solid book if you want to expand your game but pick and choose the best options that speak to you and your table.

Nashcraft offers a good option and a blackguard class if you are looking for the elusive Paladin. These have titles as well, so you are getting full support.

The Book of Shadows is a book with a bunch of interesting stuff, including an interesting expansion to the base game's skill system. If you want to "hack" Shadowdark into having a more traditional skill system, this is a good book to start with. This takes your professions, assigns three subskills to each, and gives you a +1 rank in each subskill.

The game is straightforward, which makes you want to expand it infinitely.

Without too much effort, you can add a special class or ancestry here or there and not break the game's great feeling and tight balance.

Please No More AI RPG Books

There is a trend in PDF game books to fill them with AI art and text, slap a cover on them, and ship them as books to "fill shelves." Random tables are filled with AI-generated results. AI art is splashed across pages. Only a handful of things in the book have any human input or thought behind them, or, honestly, I can't really tell.

What AI is doing is killing the market.

I see these books, and I turn away.

The AI art generation is bringing in a ton of censorship by corporations; even slightly risqué, historically accurate, or mildly offensive pieces are getting banned in masse. These programs would ban most of the 1990s cheesecake comics art by Marvel and DC. Violent and dark art is forbidden. Most of the classic Boris Vallejo or Frank Frazetta-style art is banned. Mentions of historical events that happened in real life have been erased.

AI is the corporate takeover of imagination and free expression.

It is massive corporate censorship.

It is the rewriting of history.

When an administration or government comes into power that doesn't like what you are saying or creating, your free expression will get turned off. Your grammar checkers will be turned off, leaving you sounding uneducated. Your AI art tools will be taken away. Your accounts will be closed.

You will become a digital non-person without a voice.

By relying on these tools or perpetuating the creators that use them, you will eventually be part of the Great Silencing to come. I feel bad since AI enables creators to have things they never could imagine doing.

But the damage outweighs the good here.

DIY.

How Shadowdark Won

Is it easy to invite players to play this game?

This is all I needed to answer. D&D isn't easy to get started with; there is a high initial cost, you need to sign up for a website, and even though most players "don't have to buy the books," - to have a full-featured set of options on D&D Beyond, you need to buy at least one. Not to mention, the rules for D&D are heavy. I am explaining subclasses, bonus actions, free actions, and other minutiae to a new player.

I have an online game where the following are true:

• I want to give someone a character sheet and have them play off that.
• No purchases or website sign-ups are needed. Zero cost.
• If they are familiar or not familiar with 5E, they can play.
• Class and race choices are elementary and straightforward.
• One choice per turn. Ticking clock to actions.
• Players can instantly feel like they are playing well and contributing.
• The game has a strong pedigree, won awards, and is popular.

Shadowdark checks all those boxes.

And it is hackable to no end.

I ran into a situation like this: I have this fun little side game. Would you like to come play with me? No one in their right mind will say yes since "selling a PnP game to nonplayers" is the equivalent of getting someone to go along with you to a timeshare presentation. So we start an entire city block, not one or two steps backward.

Any other game? Sure, I will just play by myself and enjoy it solo. GURPS, Traveller, OSRIC, and any of those others I will just play myself since I am no longer interested in the game when I find players and a few months have passed. I can talk about Rolemaster, given I am playing solo.

Shadowdark is the iPhone to D&D's Blackberry keyboard phone.

It is also an easy sell to people who want nothing to do with pen-and-paper games or feel they are a waste of time. I can't sell D&D to people since there is too much involved: books, subscriptions, many rules, endless references of powers and spells, and character builds.

It turns D&D into a boxed game, like Monopoly or Clue.

Here is your character sheet.

You move this many squares on a turn and can do one thing.

Start the torch timer.

Let's play Shadowdark.

The End of the 2014-2024 Era

5E has had a good run. It is still popular, but with D&D channels on YouTube dropping like flies due to YouTube saying, "We are not interested," - I feel that sense comes from the point of "big data" that we will never be able to see or understand. There is a level of trust you need to put into YouTube, but they would not draw down their support of this platform topic unless there were actual data behind the drop. Engagement, ad revenue, and other profit-based factors must have dropped quarter after quarter to the point where YouTube pulled the plug on supporting D&D content creators through recommendations.

It is no different than a TV network canceling a show that people love but has been dropping in the ratings season after season. YouTube has the data and tells D&D channels, "Don't even try anymore."

There will always be YouTube D&D channels, but the number of recommendations we saw over the last five years will never again be the same. As an ad platform, YouTube controls what is hot, not any outside group, fad, game, company, or hobby.

And D&D is no stranger to slumps and market collapses. Why do you think we have five versions? Some of you may remember TSR's bankruptcy and sale. It happens. This is the "games" market, and tying it to a "lifestyle brand" means you are tying the game to a ticking clock. Lifestyles always go out of style and seem dated. The 1980s will only be popular for so long, and then we will be on to the 1990s, and that was a horrible decade for D&D.

A few versions of Open 5E exist, but none have caught fire. I have too many other better games to play, and 5E requires computerized character sheets. Why bother with no great character builders online and the few we have feeling abandoned? Also, they still have martial-caster imbalances (ToV) or are poorly proofread (A5E). Of both, A5E has better rules, and ToV has better libraries.

5E is always a floating target in terms of balance. Companies will ship an unbalanced game, fix it in the next book, break something else, and repeat the process. It is the MMO model of releasing, breaking, repairing, and shipping a floating design.

Old 5E or one of the Open 5E alternatives is still fine. I don't see much point in 2024 other than if you are stuck on D&D Beyond and forced to upgrade.

And why do I need twelve boxes of 5E books when I have Shadowdark? Why do I want to play a game where it takes 30 minutes for one player to decide 'what to do' on one combat turn, and the party will win that fight regardless? Shadowdark solved the D&D problem; it is the best version of 5E ever created. Other old-school games do things their way, but if I have players used to 5E, this is a super easy sell, effortless to teach, and is designed for maximum fun at the table.

If you love 5E but hate what D&D has turned into, Shadowdark is your game.

If you want a super easy sell to practically anyone, with the basic starting rules as a free download, Shadowdark is your game.

Pathfinder 2? I can't sell that without a significant initial investment (yes, the rules are free online, but there is a massive learning curve). GURPS? Forget about recommending that; it goes in one ear and out the other for most people. DCC? It's a tough sell due to the expensive dice. 0e or 1e? It's not an easy sell due to the perceived complexity, but it does have a nostalgia factor working for it.

Shadowdark?

Here is your character sheet.

The starter set is a free download if you want to know more; most players only need that.

It's like 5E, what you already know.

Don't let the torch go out.

All my 5E books are in the garage. My Pathfinder 2 books are out and will probably be my last gaming books from 2014-2024. If the team over there can keep it together and avoid critical misses, which is tough for them due to the dice mechanics of the game, this game hopefully has another 10 years of fun going for it. The team lacks discipline, so I am doubtful, but this game is still good. If they blew it, it would be a sad end to something I love.

Right now, people who don't even play are jumping in to fight with each other. Discussion of the game is gone; all left are arguments and name-calling.

Sadly, the dark times for Pathfinder continue.

Traveller is still hanging around my shelves. I don't have much time for it. Still, a solid universe and game, but it doesn't hold my interest.

Dungeon Crawl Classics is still on my most-played shelves. The game is full of imagination and fantastic fantasy art and has many amazing dice. Some games are an excellent combination of potential and inspiration; it is hard to put this away. DCC is like the "Shadowdark of D&D 3.5E" and uses many of the same mechanic styles. This company is also inclusive but doesn't get dragged into the mud. They are a well-disciplined team that stays on message and keeps the game for everyone.

OSRIC is the OG. There is no chance this gets put away. When all else fails, and I want the best game ever written, give me OSRIC and my 1e books for inspiration.

The other competitor to the OG throne is Swords & Wizardry. No OGL and no SRD? Sign me up. This is also a small game compared to the others—very compact, great art, great feel, and it does not eat a shelf. It also has many amazing innovations and streamlining.

D&D 3.5E sits in the background, waiting for Pathfinder 2 to devolve into a party argument and TPK. Everything Wizards did past 3.5E was a mistake, and this is the pinnacle of "Wizards D&D" and setting support. It is broken but amazing.

And I am back in GURPS, the game that will remain, and be able to do everything any other game does after everything else is long gone. GURPS is a game designer's dream toolbox. People call GURPS the "B game" - as in the one you play when you don't have the "official game" - but as time passes, every official game dies, and we are left with GURPS.

Seriously, why waste years of my life waiting for the official game, watching it die, being versioned out far too quickly, or being disappointed again as the license changes hands? I would rather play a 10-year GURPS campaign than buy multiple editions, be strung along, and buy book after book. Yes, the official books will make everything easy, but it is a lot of money and watching support be dropped after a while.

GURPS 3rd Edition was released in 1988 (outliving 6 versions of D&D), and GURPS 4th Edition was released in 2004 (outlasting 4 editions of D&D), and it is, for the most part, the same game.

GURPS in fantasy is one of the best parts of the game. I love the detailed, gritty combat. I love the character designs. The hit point scale matches B/X, and the stats can be quickly assumed. You are not spending 30 minutes deciding what to do for a one-second combat turn, you do one thing and then you move on.

GURPS is solid.

5E can still be played. But the game is in decline. If you are happy with 5E, stay with what you have. For me, I grew tired of creating characters by hand for Open 5E, and I am not signing up for D&D Beyond.

Of the games on this list that need character creation software, those are D&D 3.5E (Hero Lab Classic), and GURPS (GURPS Character Sheet), and Pathfinder 2 (Hero Lab Online). All the rest of these games don't need software.

These are my 2024 games, and 5E has passed into the sunset for me. I have too many other better games, and the ones that need software support are fantastic. Traveller and Pathfinder 2 are the weakest here. GURPS is the strongest due to how flexible the game is.

D&D 3.5E

D&D 3.5E started the whole Pathfinder thing. Of course, Pathfinder has gone its own way these days, but if you want the original game, as it was in the early 2000s, you can still get this in print-on-demand. The PDFs are also very useful, and you can always get those printed spiral bound if you want those in a hard-copy format.

The system is broken, so you will be house-ruling, patching, and disallowing many builds that break the game. This is par for the course for any Wizards game, though. Caster power is insane, especially with summoned creatures, so you may want to put in some sensible limits as characters reach higher levels.

If something feels like cheese, you must fix it as a group to make it work better for everyone.

What I like better about D&D 3.5E, even more than its clone Pathfinder 1e, is that the game feels more focused on miniatures and dungeons. The skills are more map-focused than Pathfinder. Pathfinder is a generic 3.5E set of rules designed to sell adventure paths. D&D 3.5E is more D&D and is a tactical miniatures dungeon battle game.

Pathfinder 2 returned to the map, and the team worked hard to balance it. This is a laudable goal that shifts the game's focus back to the tabletop. 5E is too theater of the mind for me, and the multiple action types make the game's combats a slog to get through. But Pathfinder 2, at the moment, is stuck in the mud of pulling in both sides of a political argument, and the community frankly sucks right now. Suddenly, in my communities, people I had never seen posted were spamming flame-bait posts and inciting fights. Nothing kills my excitement for a game more than a toxic, negative community that pulls in external rage from the larger culture.

I still like this game and want to learn it, but the negativity has spoiled it. I am putting it aside but will keep my subscriptions for the following year. They still are a good company at the forefront of keeping the hobby open and accessible, but their team members need to show more discipline and not grandstand and use the game their team works on as a weapon for petty social media fights.

In the meantime, nobody really cares about D&D 3.5E, but the true fans and the community here is an excellent place for people who care more about a game than fighting. It is a small community, and most will be focused on Pathfinder 1e, but the original rules of D&D 3.5E are still superior in many ways.

And the D&D 3.5E DMG is a fantastic thing, along with all the world-specific sourcebooks for prestige classes linked to the game's worlds, something we have never really gotten in this depth and level of support since. If I were playing in the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or Eberron - you bet I would be playing D&D 3.5E, the game built and designed to support these settings.

The last, best sourcebook support for these D&D settings is in D&D 3.5E and nowhere else. Wizards gave up on supporting their settings, and shockingly, they are asking us to buy D&D 3.5E sourcebooks to have setting information.

My answer: Why not play the version of the game these sourcebooks are designed to support? There is nothing wrong with D&D 3.5E, especially compared to 5E and all its problems. If I am stuck "fixing a game," I would much rather do that in the better-supported version for these settings than the one that pretends to support them.

If you want to weather that Pathfinder 2E storm and take a break from the drama, pick up D&D 3.5E and the world sourcebooks and see where this all started. Grab a copy of Hero Lab, the D&D 3.5E module, and the community-supported resources.

You may find a game and a few classic settings you like better.

You may love prestige classes and character planning.

And there is nothing wrong with D&D 3.5E that an intelligent group can't fix.

D&D 3.5E is excellent.

Pathfinder 2, Dark Times

The game gets involved in a controversy.

People on both sides jump in and defend or attack the game.

People pretending to be on both sides rabble-rouse and keep the anger boiling. I swear, many people I see in Pathfinder 2 on social media are people I have not seen before, and it seems like they are just "using the moment" to swing in and destroy the community.

We got this.

We "saved" you.

Here is some more hate and anger.

You can thank us later.

Even some posts by people pretending to want to return their books are just trolls. They post some of the dumbest lunacy you have ever read, and then they get both sides in their posts, arguing, making points, fighting, and calling each other names. Some play different games and likely want to "drop by" to destroy a game that takes players away from them.

If a community ever got like that, and I was the owner and moderator, I would delete the group and walk away. Who cares? Why do I want "ownership" of a place that spreads hate and ruins the game for so many? Deleting the group is the best option at this point. The trolls will make their own group, and wasting your life energy trying to stand in front of a burst dam isn't helping all that much.

The Pathfinder 2 team does the right thing by saying the designer does not speak for the team. It is all they can do at this point. They can hope Wizards makes a colossal mistake to "save" them from this "outrage of the week."

But this is what happens when a team lacks discipline, and the individual members lack self-control. What you say reflects on the people you work with, for good or bad. Sometimes, people I have worked for have asked me to "watch my tone" and to "avoid saying things that could make people angry."

Yes, you have a First Amendment right, but as someone employed by an organization, you must think before you open your mouth since everything you say could come back on them, too—and the people you work with and the thing you are building together. What you say publicly reflects on your team.

This isn't rocket science.

This is how the workplace has been for centuries.

Other game companies also follow this line, and some are highly progressive and socially conscious. They have the discipline and foreknowledge to avoid letting their company fall into the mud-filled gutter of Internet culture and political arguments. And they still keep their values while smiling and delivering a product for everyone to enjoy. Even Goodman Games, a company built on old-school values, manages to walk this line well and shows respect to everyone. I see Pride merch in their store, but it is meant to include everyone and doesn't tell people to 'return the books.' This is a good company with solid values and runs a tight and disciplined ship.

Shadowdark's Arcane Library is another company that runs an amazingly inclusive and tight ship. Companies like this aren't unicorns, and they exist everywhere. These are the ones worth supporting. These games will keep their value and will not make you feel like you have wasted your money.

I still hope Pathfinder 2 can get through these dark times. The team that worked hard on this did a good job. It would be a shame if this is how it ended for them. I am keeping my subscriptions for the next year, but I am moving the game to a secondary shelf to avoid negativity.

Pathfinder 2, part 2

I still like the game; the company is handling this terribly.

Ugh, what a disaster.

Some progressive companies do it right; they don't feed into division and anger. They keep the door open for everyone to join the table and share ideas - this is how minds change and discussions begin. Good people and great ideas will win in the end.

Other companies are ticking time bombs, and this applies to both sides. They lack the discipline to put the customer first. They go off the cuff and "say stuff" to be popular. We saw this with Wizards many times, and it was almost weekly. I am rethinking my support of these companies since it is only a matter of time before they blow it.

These games by teams like this aren't worth supporting since you will regret sinking money into them. Sooner or later, something will be said, and the games will be put in the garage. They will end up being a waste of money and time.

Paizo's designer engaged in gatekeeping, which should never be okay. You can't say, "Gatekeeping is terrible," then turn around and do it yourself. I know it was the silly season of an election, but still, when you are on a team, you need to step up and show that discipline. The company's messaging is a mess and all over the place. This is another example of their lack of discipline. They are falling down trying to respond.

Look at the NFL; teams that lack discipline blow it and fall apart in the playoffs. The season is over, and I don't care how many games you have won during the regular season. You blew it.

Shadowdark is an excellent example of how to do business. They are also a reasonably progressive team, but one of their core values is keeping the game open for everyone and not closing doors or inviting political discussion into their community. They show a lot of respect to the creators of the hobby and the original ways we played the game back then.

The amount of discipline the Shadowdark team has amazes me in this day and age. They have their stuff together. They can control messaging and tone. They want to be a space people can escape to, so we can all game together and find an escape in a world where there is often no escape from the current thing.

They are the NFL team that has their act together.

Despite being an old-school gamer, I am still reasonably open-minded about many things. And here's the thing: the people with the best ideas will win the discussion. Why do we want to wall our tables off and only invite people who think one way? Don't we want a chance to have that discussion and convince others to have open minds and see things in other ways?

That may not be possible anymore.

The hobby as a social function may be dead.

Paizo's missteps only confirm what we already know.

Play dead, niche, and more minor games from teams with the discipline to deliver.

These mass market games?

Mistakes waiting to happen.

Pathfinder 2

Recently, some dumb things were said by the game's designer.

The tweet was taken down.

I am not quitting the game or putting this in storage, but the entire episode is disappointing. There is very little respect or self-control on social media. Every moment like this is fuel for the fire and a reason for the other side to go on a tirade. The wounds here are self-inflicted.

Pathfinder 2 is a great game. A considerable team put a lot of work into this. Episodes like this, where the already small and fragile community is divided again, hurt the games we love. I am still keeping my Paizo subscriptions. I will give them a while and see what happens. In a year, I will reconsider.

Shadowdark manages to walk the line in the current year just fine. The meek shall inherit the Earth, and they shall inherit gaming. Shadowdark is the better game. Everyone can play. This "be a good person" culture is part of the Shadowdark community.

This game is one of the few exceptions in the modern era of gaming.

How are we supposed to talk with each other and change the minds of others if we can't even sit at the same gaming table?

And my thoughts go back to D&D 3.5. Nobody cares to gatekeep a dead game. Perhaps D&D 3.5E is superior to Pathfinder 2 for this one reason alone.

There comes a point when I am so sick of "current year stupid" that I cease to care about the hobby at all. This hobby is so infected and diseased that every new book published today is suspect. They will let you down. Someone will say something. The culture vultures will descend from both sides. You will be forced to pick a side and be labeled something.

Current-day gaming is mostly a trap.

Stay away from it.

Play dead games.

Or the very few that keep their tables open to all.