Character Sheets are the Enemy

The 5E character sheet is an abomination. This is every bit as bad as the original Pathfinder 2E character sheet, which had so many boxes and bubbles that the page could trigger a fear response in people who get unnerved by objects with too many holes.

Modern designers do not care about the character sheet. They leave it up to the software and web designers. I have had 5E character sheets go two dozen pages of printed text. I struggle to get GURPS to do four pages with a thousand-point character.

VTTs hide the problem. They use web code to hide most of the complexity and present a character sheet that looks like something out of the OSR, but with tens of thousands of lines of JavaScript behind the scenes. The reason they push VTTs is to keep the lie going and to delay it from all breaking down, as people cannot run characters by hand anymore.

The OSR? BX? 1E or 2E?

Running character sheets by hand is how you play the game. You do not need a computer. After the bombs go off and we are living in Mad Max, the 5E books will be burned for warmth, and everyone will be playing BX.

Modern designers think web and software designers will save their games and create persistent online subscription models so people can play their game and make digital purchases to buy the same book multiple times.

These designers create the problem and get rich selling you the answer.

And, yes, just because a game "has a name," everyone sees it as "the gold standard" and gives it a huge pass for openly ripping people off. No, sorry, modern gaming is the problem with the hobby these days. I am not defending predatory and exploitative anti-consumer tactics. The sunk cost fallacy is a death sentence for the hobby.

Sorry.

Everyone gets to a point where it has to stop for them. I am there. I don't have the time to play a game that takes up eight shelves of books. It just makes me unhappy to look at it. I would rather keep easier games on my shelves and actually play those than stare at a monolith of disappointment and too much work to even begin. AD&D 2E died from splatbook bloat. Along with D&D 3, 4, and now 5.

Season play is designed to invalidate older books, and is another corporate garbage "content composting" tactic meant to invalidate your recent purchases and extend the life of games even they know are bloated beyond their ability to survive.

Why, people, why?

Why do you support this?

Like Star Wars, Star Trek, and many other franchises, gaming has lost its way as it wandered Wall Street.

It's dead, Jim.

And I get the feeling many have just given up on attaching their dreams and fantasies to suckling the corporate teat. They don't care about subscription services since they have given up on their futures and dreams, and what use is saving money anyway? Gaming has turned into the opium of a generation, meant to live a fake life that most have given up on.

Gaming isn't about imagination anymore.

It is about having a life that most feel they can never have.

And the game designers and their web service providers are laughing all the way to the bank on the backs of broken dreams.