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.

The Sad State of HR-Mandated Gaming

The coverage has turned against D&D, and the tide is going out. D&D YouTube is now defending the game, indicating everyone knows that views and popularity are dropping. The five-year fad, "Pandemic D&D," has run its course, and gaming is moving on.

But what we are left with is a complete mess.

The last people left on the sinking ship playing the game argue "how to play it" instead of just playing. The companies making the game feel a new edition is needed, telling you "what is right and wrong."

Any creator telling me, "I am doing it wrong?" - unsubscribe! Sorry, I know how to play these games, and whatever this is feeds into negativity.

I'm sorry, and I don't care; your books are getting sold or tossed in the recycling bin. There are enough petty dictators on social media spreading shame and anger; that era is over, too. Both sides do it, and I don't have the time to worry about "how a game is played."

When I can be playing it.

The hardest part of playing D&D is not learning the rules but knowing how to avoid offending people. Getting your feelings hurt replaced character death as the way to lose the game. To play D&D, I now need to learn the game and the attached list of political and cultural "do's and don'ts," which have now been codified as rules in the game.

It feels like playing Diablo 4, killing a monster the game presents as a legitimate foe, and being forced to click through 50 dialog boxes, video essays, and quizzes on why your actions were wrong and insensitive just so you can keep playing.

The HR departments of corporate America have invaded our games, and they all suck now.

Because everyone at these companies must watch these HR-mandated workplace sensitivity workshops, we now see those same things written into our games. It is like the employees are punishing the customers because they can't say no to management. It is likely "sick company syndrome." The shops with their "stuff together" don't feel they have to ship HR-mandated sensitivity content to punish customers for wrong-think.

News flash, you can work at a company producing "potentially insensitive content" and still treat each other in the workplace respectfully and decently. What goes out the door is a different thing. A company can ship a game like Cyberpunk 2077 with all sorts of offensive content yet still be an inclusive and progressive workplace that doesn't reflect what it shipped as an entertainment product.

I am all for excellent, inclusive, respectful, and sensitive workplaces. I am all for HR departments that make workplaces better. Great workplace cultures keep the best people.

But there is a line drawn at the front door.

Watch out for end-stage companies trying to "sell their values" instead of "a product you want."

You are being guilted into supporting a fading brand.

The Checks Didn't Clear?

And just like that, D&D YouTube is nearly dead.

I wonder if the money being paid by companies pushing D&D to up-rank D&D YouTube channels hasn't run out. YouTube asks these creators, "Got an idea for another channel?"

Was D&D YouTube's "popularity" artificial? Was it all just paid corporate ranking? Were all those creators, often putting in long hours, being "paid" pennies by the hour to push a game, just free advertising for Wall Street companies?

You must ask yourself, "Is being an unpaid content creator even a worthwhile investment of time?" YouTube will pull the plug on an entire community; that is it—lights out. Please make a new channel covering the next thing Wall Street wants to be popular.

Is Marvel Rivals popular? Bey-Blade? Go make videos for that. On a side note, I think Marvel Rivals is killing interest in D&D right now. The next colossal fad has arrived.

D&D may be dying in its 2014-2024 5E lifecycle.

Live by the d8 longsword, die by the d4 hit die.

I really don't know what to say. The easy money is gone. I am sorry to see many of them leave, but I am happy the abusive reliance on a big tech company is finally ending.

You are free now.

Many of you are talented creators, and you have the drive and talent to succeed outside of the D&D space. Those who transform themselves entirely and re-compose that existing audience into something new and not D&D-related may be the ones who emerge from this rebirth.

And, likely, for the better.

If you are still in the tabletop space, prepare for some hard work. Leave the platform, go to another site, and build an audience that will not be taken away from you. Play a game from a hungry team that cares about its community. You must make a loyal audience, one subscriber at a time.

Influencer Culture

I get the feeling Wizards pays YouTube to drown out every alternative gaming video to D&D, and thus, this paid influencer culture on that site keeps thriving and spreading like a colony of mold. I see some very nice coverage of Pathfinder 2, but most D&D channels have crawled back into the cave, and all I see are D&D videos.

And I saw videos there that said, "D&D gets so many more views! Thus, no other game is worth covering!"

Also, recently, "The mainstream media is attacking D&D! We have to protect D&D!"

When the recommended video push cash runs out, we will have a better view of the actual market. Money is being burned to keep the hot air flowing into the balloon. I don't see YouTube as a truthful indicator of what's popular other than the fact that paying them tips the scales, and we know nothing about what game would be the most popular if that money were gone.

There is a lot of coverage; in reality, VTT numbers better indicate what is being played and popular. It is still D&D, but it isn't as lopsided as YouTube would have you believe. Call of Cthulhu is the 2nd most popular tabletop game (by VTT rankings), but I see fewer videos than GURPS videos, so YouTube as a "reality metric" is heavily biased and skewed.

I am unsubscribing from my D&D influencer channels because of their constant noise. Every week, it is Wizards drama, or even the lack of drama is drama, and I just get the feeling the entire D&D influencer culture is getting desperate again. Can we cover something else in 5E YouTube besides optimization guides, tier rankings, and drama? Maybe review adventures? Do inspiration or lore discussion? World building?

All those "class tier lists" that D&D influencers make mean nothing if nobody loses the game. What does it matter how high my DPT is when no character dies? I can pick D or F-tier classes, spells, and gear and still win the game. Nothing matters. Even if most of the party is sub-optimal, chances are there will be a few hardcore optimizers at the table, and what you do won't matter much anyway.

In fact, picking bad choices may make the game more challenging and fun for the rest of the table.

I get it; even the channel owners who are honest about their views and share the data say the drama receives ten times more views than "useful game content." There comes a point when "useless information is useless," and I no longer care about the drama and hype. I don't care about ranking charts for games I don't play. Whatever dumb thing Wizards does next is the next dumb thing I don't care about, nor do I want to invest any time in my life caring about dumb things Wall Street companies do.

Why is everyone wasting their time?

Oh, clicks equal money.

Some creators have been mocking the clickbait titles, which is probably healthy. However, I have lost interest even in the situation's humor. It is all noise. I would prefer to create and play rather than engage in this endless, pointless, circular discussion. There was a point of 5E videos with mild interest, then cuteness, disinterest, and now aversion.

Blogs died 15 years ago, and ad money can't be applied to blogs anymore. I am not an influencer of anybody, nor do I get money for views. I keep this blog up out of my love for blogs like the classic Grognardia, an excellent endless stream of thoughts and experiences that inspired me to start this one.

Even my thoughts shift and change, and I rediscover games I had put in my garage and try them again. I gave Pathfinder 2 a lot of heat for the first books of the second edition, and the tone of their world is off some of the games I like. There is too much technology in some books. The game was challenging for me to learn since the books I got for it were too big, had too many classes, and had too much stuff in them. I bounced right off and could never grasp the system to the point I was comfortable with it.

I swear that someday, I will make yes/no checklists for these books as a "campaign crafting guide" just so I can better organize my thoughts and have something I can hand players to say, "This is in, and that is out."

Yet, here I am again with the remaster, giving it another try. The remaster is ten times better without the OGL and SRD content, and we finally have a game that fits the fantasy theme but has new stuff in it. The ideas are fresh. The new monsters we have not seen before. The spells are different.

I give it another try since I am fair, and people are having fun with this. I need to see if I can, too.

Don't listen to people who say the remaster books aren't needed. They are the better and more focused game.

Every game that dumped the OGL and SRD has gotten better. From Castles & Crusades to ACKS II, the designers are forced to show us "their ideas," suddenly, the game isn't "D&D with alternative rules." When I have SRD stuff, I default to it because I am lazy. Oh, hey, here is, uh ...the green dragon! Yeah, that green dragon. With the new monsters and breaking of the SRD, I am reading the new monsters and liking them better. The door is open for me to make my own. The players' expectations and assumptions about the world are broken.

What is out there?

We don't know.

They said a dragon was in the hills; what type do you think it is?

I have no idea. This world isn't SRD. For all we know, it could be a death's head dragon, and who knows what that does?

All of a sudden, I feel a sense of dread and fear. Even though Pathfinder 2 is a new-school game, that feeling of fear and dread is very old-school. Also, it is possible for characters to TPK and die in Pathfinder 2, which makes it an actual roleplaying game instead of play-acting rules.

The remastered books are also better for your own campaign worlds. The Core Player's book does not include GM information or a world guide. It is just a player's book. This empowers me to fix the campaign world and adopt more old-school "settings" to fix the world to my liking. I could do that with the earlier books, but not if the game was such a beast to learn I did not even want to start.

D&D 3.5E: A Secret Club

The D&D 3.5E community is full of deep, labyrinthine, twisting rabbit holes. I get the feeling most of the hardcore 3.5E players want people to play other games, such as Pathfinder 2E and 5E. Just stay out of this amazing place, a secret club of those of us whole knew the time, knew the spirit of the game when this was created, and the confusing and overly complicated rules of D&D 3.5E serve to keep the idiots out.

And this is a cool place.

Even Pathfinder 1e seems sterilized and overly clean compare to this edition. Yes, Paizo used a lot of sex and edgy content to sell their game, but looking closer, they cleaned a lot of the edgier, more controversial, more taboo elements of 3.5E up. Pathfinder 1e feels remarkably mainstream compared to the original D&D 3.5E books, especially with what was done in the "evil" books in the system.

D&D 3.5E went to some dark places.

I found some of the original OGL sources that the Pathfinder 1e lore pulled from, and they cleaned a lot up, broke things up, sanitized the more abhorrent subjects, broke up key NPCs, and put everything that were in those system-neutral OGL books into little places in Golarion so they could own a version of them, and by default, own the idea.

There are two demons in the Book of Fiends (2003), by Green Ronin, Socothbenoth and his sister Nocticula, who are into all sorts of depraved things, and always at each other's side in their plane of Hell. When we meet him again in Pathfinder 1e's Book of the Damned (2017), they break the two apart, make them enemies, and link them tightly to the Golarion cosmology. Yes, they have an interesting story now, but I somehow feel they have been cleaned-up and co-opted. They get some amazing artwork, but they feel they have lost their edge and cool factor after they left D&D 3.5E.

These weren't official demons in the Wizards world, but they were resurrected for Pathfinder 1e, and seem to have lost what made them cool. Of course, these were pulled in by the OGL, so it is likely they are not even in the official canon anymore. I liked who they were, an almost wicked, evil, twisted version of "Team Rocket" that could show up and raise hell. Who they became in Pathfinder 1e felt like they were just another OGL thing ported into the massive gravitational pull of Paizo, cleaned up, and shoved somewhere in a junk drawer.

It was nice to see them again, but they had become gentrified and placed into Golarion. I preferred their original, put them in any world, raw and uncut versions.

Part of this is Paizo changing and becoming more progressive by 2017. The original 2003 source was written during different era, much more raw, explicit, and unfiltered. All of D&D 3.5E is like that, you will come across things that make you do a double-take; and in Pathfinder 1e, besides the occasional cheesecake picture (which are all gone these days), what we get is a safer version of what we had in D&D 3.5E.

And having these figures of ultimate evil is what D&D is all about. Even D&D 4E felt sanitized and cleaned up, like in the 2010s everyone changed, and the concept that there could be absolute evil in a fantasy world was done away with. Even in the 2017 Paizo book, the evil figures don't seem to be as truly evil as they once were, but just Skeletor-like cackling evildoers who have some redeeming qualities. They are too cool to be depraved and wicked at heart.

D&D 3.5E came from a different world, just pick up any videogame magazine between 2003 and 2008 and you will see where this came from. There are absolutes in this world, like every humanoid race being evil, worshipping demons, have their bodies twisted by dark magics, and being in perpetual war with the forces of good. It was more like Warhammer Fantasy, and less like Harry Potter and Cartoon Network.

Yes, parts of D&D 3.5E are horribly broken, complicated, and overly complex. The fights take forever. There are so many things which connect with other things.

But the game is a zenith of the era, and the scion of our time back then. It is the last bastion of D&D where evil was evil. Nothing was redefined and recontextualized for the audience. We didn't need filters. We didn't need some social theory ported into the game to prove a point, rally people to white knight behind, or make people angry for clicks. Social media? What's that?

We were all mature enough to handle it, having lived through 9/11 and seeing what true evil was, and what it did to the innocent. We earned the right to write and play this game, and to express ourselves freely and without fear. We were living in a world of good versus evil.

We were the good guys.

At least, until the unjustified wars broke out. Then we became the bad guys. We saw our games change from epic, brutal, difficult, and unfiltered expressions of our generation - to easy, gimme, overpowered, die-rolling daycare. Pathfinder 1e, D&D 4E, and D&D 5E were all colored-over, filtered, cleaned-up, and socially acceptable versions of the something raw and primal we had back then. Pathfinder 1e was the slow-drip of morphine that dulled our senses of the brutality and brilliance of D&D 3.5E.

Sorcerers and wizards had a d4 hit die. Rogues and bards had a d6. They were classes that died easy. This is D&D, not some overpowered pander game that gives you dozens of hit points at level one. In Pathfinder, nobody goes below a d6. This die-step adds up, and causes hit-point inflation. Combats will take longer, and damages need to start creeping up.

If somebody doesn't have a d4 hit die, it is not D&D.

The rules were complex. If you want to be in this hobby and play at a high level, you put in the time to learn and understand the rules. The game wasn't for everybody, nor was it designed to be. Being difficult meant that only the great players stuck around, and those were worth spending time with anyway. The rules were the gatekeepers, and this was a good thing. They were a built-in test of dedication and commitment. If you had the patience and dedication to learn how to play D & D 3.5E at a high level, then you could be reasonably counted on to show up every week to play.

You still see the same thing today in high-end MMO raiding or online FPS games. There is so much to learn; if you are not going to put in the time, don't be expected to be invited into the groups that play at that level. It isn't unfair; they put in the time, learned the high-end raids and FPS strategies, learned teamwork, and spent hundreds of hours perfecting what they do. Those expecting to waltz in knowing nothing won't stay around for long.

It isn't elitism or gatekeeping. It is expecting people to put in the time and learn. The great groups that replenish and last will take a little time to teach the new people. If I spend the time to play at an elite level, I expect everyone else to do the same. And I would teach others, too, to give them a chance. It is up to them to take it, and put in the work. Even knowing how to DM the game, avoid the broken parts, and know the exploits was a masterclass of knowledge and experience.

Even AD&D and AD&D 2e were not this deep, nor did they have this mastery built-in as deep as D&D 3.5E. This was a game designer by the original Magic: the Gathering designers, and they knew how to design a game to build system mastery into the entire product. This created an elite community of expert players and DMs. You sought these people out. This was their magnum opus, taking MtG, and turning into D&D, the game they destroyed in the 90s.

With Pathfinder, the streamlining and ease of play allowed more casuals in the door. Every edition of fantasy gaming has gotten worse since then; it is easier to play, more casual, not as deadly, and requires less commitment.

Also, like every version of Wizards D&D, level 10 and up never worked right. I don't know what it is—maybe they don't want to pay play testers or listen to feedback—but for 25 years, Wizards has never been able to deliver a balanced high-level game in any version of D&D—3.0, 3.5, 4, 5, and now 5.5.

If it is Wizard's D&D, high-level play will be broken. Live-patch things and get your ban lists ready. If something starts to get stupid, fix it with your players. Be mature.

There is a massive difference between optimized and non-optimized characters, and casters take over the game at level 10 and higher with minion spamming. But, if every version of Wizards D&D is horribly broken at the high levels, at least this one is less censored and silly than the versions we have today. It sets a low bar, but, hey, Wizards D&D has always sucked at high-level play.

Playing to level ten and quitting is always the best option for D&D. Pathfinder 2 is better for high-level campaigns since it was tested extensively.

OSRIC vs. DCC

Dungeon Crawl Classics is an all-time classic and an A-tier game for me. I love the emergent gameplay and iconic classes. It is a modded 3.5E-style game and, for me, a drop-in replacement for all of D&D 3.5E that does away with all the overpowered builds of that game but retains the over-the-top outcomes.

The game was created as a reaction to the hobby's drift away from Appendix N sources and seeks to model an experience based on those books. It is a reaction to Wizard's mainstreaming of D&D from version three to today. The hobby has gotten so used to superheroes as a fantasy that we forget what made the hobby strange and extraordinary.

OSRIC is the best version of first-edition gaming. It includes all the strange and arcane limitations, ability score requirements, level limits, low ability score modifiers, and that "flat and dry" feeling that old-school games need. Too many games these days are "pander and gimme" games, where they give everyone ability score modifiers; things are far too simple, and you are given everything and expect even more.

In this game, your ranger's to-hit is what it is, you have no hit or damage modifier, and your AC is okay. Then, you decide if you want to open that next door. You don't get "free XP" for quest completion; killing monsters is a secondary source, and gold is the primary. If a referee wants to give out "quest XP" for destroying an abandoned fort housing orcs, the referee should say, "A nearby town puts an 8,000gp bounty on the destruction of the fort and all inside." When the deed is done, the town pays up, and the party splits it and anything they found inside as their reward and experience.

There are your "quest XP."

What do you spend money on? You can't buy magic items, but you can purchase retainers and upgrade fortifications. The only weak part of OSRIC is the stronghold rules, but there are so many games (and 3rd party books) that cover this, and you can always borrow one you like. The Into the Wild Omnibus has a sound system for domain management with costs, and this works well. Also, training for the next level costs gold; you must find a trainer or work this out with the referee.

Going back to DCC, I love this game for all the crazy stuff that happens, but a part of me wonders, "How did we get here?" We got here because a generation of gamers forgot what the first edition was all about. In first-edition games, if something strange was on the wall of a dungeon, nobody knew what it was unless they pushed, prodded, examined, and used a few spells to figure it out. Nobody knew all the monsters, and the referee was free to reskin and add abilities to the existing ones, creating entirely new monsters for their games.

You could not rely on rules, books, bestiaries, spell lists, or anything else as "reliable information."

Everything can be changed. This is rule zero.

Today's games rely on rules on certainty, fairness, sound options, and predictable character builds. Everyone, even the referee, should follow the rules. DCC comes along and tells you, "You can do this!" It gives you charts with hundreds of silly and unexpected results.

In OSRIC, it doesn't even need to be said. The game is not whacky and crazy, nor over the top or insanely silly. It can be played seriously or over the top; there are no rules for this, nor are there table results telling you, "You can!" This is greater freedom than DCC, as you are not opening a book and finding a table result to justify your creative urges. I love DCC since it opens my mind, but my mind opens far broader than that.

It happens if something happens to a character that gives them a permanent adjustment. I don't need a chart, table result, or something in the game which allows me to. This happens in DCC, but in OSRIC, it isn't said, so it is the rule.

AD&D 2nd Edition started the slide, and D&D 3.0 accelerated the decline. We are lost in a sea of rules, rulings, and books telling us what we can or cannot do. Gaming has been destroyed by overruling and printing books for every subject and topic and turning them into mini-games inside the structures of more significant games.

DCC is both remarkable and utterly unnecessary. While excellent and mind-opening, the tables and charts can ultimately limit your imagination. Those tables and graphs are only needed because we lost our way and need rules to return to what we once had.

To be fair, DCC says you can do away with everything. Any result can be substituted for "one more fun." DCC is still one of my best games, and the dice alone are incredible.

Still, I remember the old days. We never needed any of this.

Also, the modern concept of "Quest XP" puts the referee in an unwanted role of "XP welfare" for "good deeds" when the original games did not have the concept of rewarding anyone for the referee or module writer's "pet stories." This began in AD&D 2nd Edition to support the fiction, and it was a corporate move to mainstream the game. In the first edition, the referee could award XP for anything, but the main driving force of advancement was written into the rules one way for a reason.

Where did characters get XP from?

Gold and defeating monsters.

Whose stories are we playing?

The players.

"Quest XP" is the behavioral modification and control of player actions. It tells players, "You will not advance in the game unless you jump through the hoops presented to you by the referee or module writer." In the first edition, you only advanced by killing and taking the loot. Your stories, and the stories of others, were backdrops and motivation, but no rewards were tied to them.

The first edition got it 100% right. This is where the slide and decline began, and how we got to today, when the entire game is presented as a behavioral modification.

DCC gives you the tools to break free.

OSRIC is where you escape to.

Overpowered, Complicated, Theater Characters

When a game begins to give you everything to convince you to like it, something should fire off in the back of your head, telling you there is something wrong here. I ran a few 5E campaigns, and every time, my characters had piles of special abilities as if the game were begging me to "like this character" and "please level up for more!"

My characters had so many special powers and abilities it took me forever to decide which one to use.

I did not feel like a hero or like I was struggling. At about the sixth level, I was bored. Nobody dies, there is no risk or threat, we can rest off shotgun blasts to the face in 10 minutes, and the game feels dumb. No matter what version I switched to, 5E OGL, Tales of the Valiant, Level Up A5E, it was still that "pander bear" core gameplay. In these overcomplicated characters, the designers piled abilities on you you were forced to use.

At least in a well-designed computer ARPG, they know how the powers work together, how many to give, and how leveling should increase power without increasing complexity too steeply. In 5E, a slop bucket of powers is thrown at you. They "give you something each level," but very few classes have any sense of flow or well-thought-out design.

Your character feels like a plate of buffet food you piled on there that you don't want to eat when you get back to the table. I was rarely excited by 5E characters. They were all piles of junk. What is the 5E designer's answer to any design problem? Toss more powers and abilities at you. Give you toys like a child, and hope you stop complaining.

Level Up A5E characters felt the best designed of the bunch. That game is deep enough and has enough other systems in there that they can spread powers out and focus them on the new subsystems.

5E gives you so much power that you end up sitting around all session playing theater kids. Nothing can touch you, but your feelings can be hurt, so this is how you lose the game. It is fake.

ToV, I give you credit for trying to replace D&D. But you aren't competing with D&D these days. You are competing with D&D Beyond, the game and platform. You will never be able to compete with that. That is an entrenched software system; if it dies, all of 5E might as well be.

But why do I need subsystems or websites? Shadowdark works better than all of them. I can see why many groups are putting their 5E books in storage and just sticking with Shadowdark. You get "all the 5E" without drama or exploits. It does just enough 5E without taking up a dozen storage crates to get the options you need for a complete game.

You are immune from the min-max players, theory crafters, and level dippers. The game is the game, and the story is the story. The next room has something or nothing in it that could kill you. Get in and get out of the hole you wandered into, and try to stay alive.

I have not put this "5E book" in storage. This is my only 5E game. One small book, plus a few zines if I want, is all I need. Shadowdark does not go out of its way to anger people and stays neutral. The entire game pays respect to what has come before. The designer is brilliant and savvy and one of the best designers of this generation, up with greats like Monte Cook and others.

Shadowdark replaces D&D entirely.

If I want 5E, this is the one book.

If I want the actual D&D? I have my first-edition books and OSRIC as my guide. Why do I want Satanic Panic AD&D 2nd Edition or any other B/X-style game that lets anyone be in any class? I want my paladins to be rare and unique. I want to deal with the level limit charts. I want the allowed race and class combos. Descending AC is a part of the mystique. I want the original initiative system. I don't want a game designed for kids but repackaged for old-school gamers and simplified to the point of boredom.

OSRIC is a game that challenges you to determine how your character will live within this arcane maze of restrictions and combinations. You have to know something before you play. Most likely, your character will die, but a few will shine brightly.

You need to learn the rules, and you aren't given much. You must take what you get.

This is real D&D.

Everything that came after was fake D&D.