Here in the OSR, we have no gated content where part of the game is locked behind a subscription paywall. I can say the same for Tales of the Valiant and Level Up A5E over there in Open 5E Land. Pathfinder 1e and 2e (and Starfinder) are available for free online, and you can play without books or a subscription service.
Every other game I play, I own my PDFs.
My only problem with 5E now is buying the books twice, no matter where you go, and the lack of free character builders that are kept up to date. I got sick of paying for VTTs monthly just to host 5E characters, and not having 90% of the books I own as options, so I quit the system.
Old School Essentials and Swords & Wizardry are far superior options that do the same exact thing, but much easier, much faster, and much better. Daggerheart is still the better narrative game than 5E. Nimble is faster and easier and does the same thing. Pathfinder is practically free to play. Draw Steel is a good tactical game. Basic Fantasy RPG is free for everyone. DCC? C&C? OSRIC?
Any game in the OSR is a better guilt-free option.
And GURPS is always cool.
And now we have gated content for the haves and have-nots. It has been this way for a while with most VTTs with character builders, so this is a logical extension of the greed and grift in the hobby, especially around 5E, which was designed for live-service model support.
Pretty soon, if you defend this or keep playing games that lock up content and force most of the world to be have-nots, you will be a part of the problem with the hobby. Enjoy being the elites with your exclusive content. No wonder D&D YouTubers are quitting en masse. They probably have morals and a conscience and see the writing on the wall.
Blindly support these business practices and continue to support the game?
I'd quit too.
I'd hope it gets better in a few years and wait this out. But I am in the OSR, so I am happy.
And what to drop is pretty obvious at this point.
No comments:
Post a Comment