Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 14

Old School Essentials is so hackable. Hacking a game is the heart of old-school gaming. I am free to modify this and make it mine. I have already reviewed numerous books for this system, and the classes are so easy and expandable that this serves as a quick and simple 5E replacement.

I am done with 5E and our AI overlords. The 2024 game is 100% crunch now, with all mechanical rules in place, and it is a war game, not a role-playing game. There is a current crop of designers working on the Seattle games that focuses on tactical rules and tightening everything up, and you see this also in Pathfinder 2E, Draw Steel, and other games. I don't want to have to "spend actions" on the most trivial things, and leaving some decisions up to referees is a good thing.

And I don't want role-playing to be just a miniatures game.

There is no room left for interpretation and imagination in these games. Our imaginations are being ruled and regulated to death. The entire world is trying to reinvent Warhammer figure battles, but with a small party and in a dungeon. Every little thing needs a rule.

 

Add the Index Card RPG (ICRPG) to our 5E replacement toolkit, and you'll have a fun book to enhance our modded game. Index Card is a far better narrative game than even Daggerheart or Cypher System. This has the advantage of speed, ease of play, and the right level of abstraction to get the point across.

And like Cypher System, the challenges in ICRPG are rated on a d20 target number, reduced by special gear or training, adjusted by difficulty, and rated with a "hearts" of difficulty to overcome them.

It also revolutionizes abstract play while keeping the familiar d20 mechanics intact, far better than Nimble 5e, and without needing to mess around with the broken 5E damage scaling.

And it is a small book, able to do any genre or setting with a straightforward set of rules, portable, easy to reference, and it can also work as an add-on book for OSE (or any d20 game), offering novel ways to up the tension, present challenges, and resolve interesting situations. The encounter design in ICRPG is far better than Cypher, in that it gives you tips on story architecture and room design.

• D.E.W. = Danger, Energy, and Wonder.
• The three T's = Timers, Threats, and Treats
• The three D's = Damage, Disruption, and Duration
• And various types of encounter structures for rooms.
• 10 are given, but many more are possible.

ICRPG is far more mechanical, interactive, and environmental than Cypher, setting up each "room" like a board in a Zelda video game to solve and navigate through. Where Cypher embraces the traditional RPG, ICRPG embraces a board or video game, much like Shadowdark's tight, board-focused play style.

If you are playing Shadowdark and looking for an excellent narrative game that doesn't require hundreds of pages of rules, can be played in any setting, and doesn't require a complete Daggerheart approach, consider ICRPG. In fact, playing ICRPG will make your Daggerheart and OSE experiences much better, since you will begin to understand the mechanical environment and structured encounter design.

ICRPG trains you to become a "board designer" for video games, a skill few modern games teach. These skills are directly translated over into any game you use them for, but ICRPG builds a game around them. And the book is small, portable, and packed with fun.

I wish Wizards knew how to write "small games" these days. The indies are killing it, while traditional publishers are mired in the shelf-breaking collector's market.

Sorry, games written for collectors can't be played. 

I like the small books that pack a lot of information. So many of today's games are bloated, expensive, terrible masterpieces of paid-by-the-word bloat and excessive, overwritten rules. If it takes 1,000 pages to present your game to me, you are wasting your time. It is obvious these designers do not know how to deal with limitations and simplifying rules to they become iconic, simple, and classic.

Once you "go simple," your mind is freed from these bloated hot-mess games that take up shelves of space and force you to defend their sunk costs. You will never play it all. They are preying on the collector market and the whales. The games are not even written to be played.

You are free to mod and change things in a small, one-book game. Or two.

You are far less dependent on the enlightened game designer royal class with smaller games.

Your life is arguably better. 

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 13

Today, we have a great video from a solo player using the BECMI system, as outlined in the Rules Cyclopedia, to play the Gunderholfen mega-dungeon. Please watch this all the way through, like, and subscribe! I am always up for great solo content, and also videos discussing the struggles and challenges of solo play.

One interesting point he makes is how cumbersome using the Rules Cyclopedia is, as compared to Old School Essentials. He now carries the OSE Classic Fantasy rules book with him, as it is a small, concise book that is far easier to reference.

I get the same feeling about "large" OSR systems, such as Adventures Dark & Deep, Dragonslayer, ACKS II, and a few others. That somehow, they are too big to have fun with. They are harder to play because they are so huge. While I love having "so much," this also starts moving into an area where the game becomes "too big to play."

I know, you are a GURPS player, what are you talking about?

I expect GURPS to be huge, but nothing outside of GURPS Lite is really what you need to know for 90% of the game. GURPS is a small game filled with infinite options, most of which can be ignored. There are vast parts of ACKS II and ADAD that I can't skip over and feel like I am playing the game as intended.

The reasons I play GURPS are that it offers three things B/X does not: point-based design, inner character motivation, and gritty realism. You do not even need a narrative game if you have GURPS; all the narrative you will ever need in a session will be designed into your character, and you will have the rules ready to go.

With B/X, the Classic Fantasy rules tome is all you need. Advanced Fantasy just exists for options, but that Classic book is just about the best book in role-playing right now. The bloat of 5E, and this applies to every version of the game, including Open 5E, kills the game for me. There is no way to simplify the game to something manageable, and it requires flipping through hundreds of pages of rules to play.

Shadowdark is your best option for 5E, and that is not compatible with all the 5E junk I have in books. The whole system feels like a waste. Even then, why do I need Shadowdark if I am playing solo? I want the dominion and hireling rules of OSE, along with the broader variety of options, without the glut of filler content.

OSE is the best way to experience this thing we call "D&D." You can keep buying new editions of D&D 5E and 6E for the next 10 or 20 years, but you won't surpass this. You can keep hopping on the next OSR bandwagon, these gimmick-filled narrative games, or another game trying to reinvent D&D 4E - but you will never find a better game than this.

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 12

Old School Essentials is very close to being the perfect game. What I love about it is there is so much packed into something so little. There are worlds and even universes packed away in this tiny book. Even the two Advanced tomes are more wonder packed into two tiny books.

All you ever need is here.

And there are other games built off of this engine, science fiction, cyberpunk, post apocalyptic, other fantasy games, all just as easy, open, and immersive. You don't need to learn much else, nothing  much needs to be changed, it is all here, working together in harmony, perfect in its simplicity and expansive in its depth and reach.

The lie 5E sells you is that "complexity is choice." When it is not. Complexity limits choices. I have far fewer options in 5E than OSE. An OSE character sheet grows and expands as the character adventures, and picks up all sorts of interesting things along the way. I have books that change the classes, or add training options, so anything is possible.

Much more than 5E. With 5E, every option you need to pay money for, sometimes two or three times before you can use it on a character sheet. And you need to keep paying someone to give you those choices and store that character. That is not freedom. That is being a slave to a game that abuses your generosity and suckers you into getting others "in on the scheme."

And they use the mechanics of social networks and peer pressure against you to get you to buy.

Every time you play one of these newer games, you are the sucker. 

Also, the concept for "paying for everything" makes no sense on an old school character sheet. If my warrior gains an ability to "speak with animals" he does not need to pay for that with a feat, by losing another ability, pay with skill points, take a disadvantage elsewhere, sacrifice ability score points, or balance it in any way. Just add it to the character sheet as "something that happened" and move on with the adventure. Nobody needs to "consult the rule book" to see if that is fair, allowed, breaks the game, or upsets the game designers in Seattle. 

And the people "bought in" will do or say anything to "keep people in the game" to "justify the dropped cost" into all those "digital goods." When, in fact, all that money they spent on a silly game is gone, or will be gone when that website or service shuts down in a few years when the world moves on. It happened to D&D 4E, it will happen to D&D 5E.

They aren't telling you 5E is any good. They are afraid the money they spent has been wasted. 

The only way you need to "pay for everything" in an old-school game is with that pile of gold the party has, and it is all imaginary money. Buy training, strongholds, hirelings, magic items, mounts, armies, and exotic pets.

The only money you spend in an old school game is imaginary.

The money you spend in a modern game is real.

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 11

I had a moment there where I wavered and considered using Dungeon Crawl Classics for my 5E replacement. DCC is one of my beloved games, and my Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5E replacement, but it still does not match the elegant perfection and simplicity of Old School Essentials.

Old School Essentials is the perfect role-playing game. People will come along with their simplified 5E, 5E fixers, two-die story systems, tactical combat games, and all sorts of other avant-garde nouveau-riche RPG systems of the week, but none will ever compare to the original.

Anything based on 5E is based on a flawed system, and thus built of sand and flawed itself.

The massive problem with DCC and Shadowdark are the casting mechanics, allowing wizards casting rolls and multiple casts of the same spell destroys the fundamental "miracle-like nature" of magic and turns it into a commodity. At this point, you are a video game, and not a role-playing game. DCC is the best of that bunch with its emergent mechanics.

This may sound un-fun and extremely hardcore, but as a caster, I want a my spells to be single shot miracles; and never repeat-use, do-them-every turn, magic attacks the rest of the party takes for granted. The infinite-use cantrip and the "spell slot" system in D&D 5E are profane and blasphemy to the nature of D&D and the myths they supposedly represent. Even the DCC and Shadowdark casting systems are supposedly better alternatives, but built upon lies, and thus they do not represent the truth.

This is all "tech-bro video-game BS" sticking its Axe Body-wash smelling self into our hobby.

Yes, who cases about a 1d6+1 magic missile that is one-use? But given how few hit points every living thing has in a B/X world, it is death to any commoner. This spell at 6th level this increases to three missiles, and five at 11th, that is the AR-15 of the wizard world. At 11th level 5d6+5 damage (23hp on average) removes half of a red dragon's 45 hit points, and all but kills a 27hp white dragon in a single cast of a first level spell. Next turn, cast the other one you have memorized, or read it off a scroll you made.

5E would never allow this. Most of these newer story games would never allow this. 

No attack roll, no saving throw. No 2d10 or 2d12 roll to mess up. No causing corruption and losing the  spell on a bad roll. No hope and fear. There is no gamification to this, it is a miracle out of myth. Expend a first level spell slot and kill a dragon. In OSE and most B/X games, magic missile is an "instant death" spell when cast at higher levels.

A magic user is not a "wizard" but a being who is almost a god in power.

Still very weak in body, but that is the trade off. 

Fighters are no slouches, either. I am over here with my girdle of giant strength and gauntlets of ogre power doing double damage with my weapons, +3 to-hit and damage for STR, and +2 for my magic weapon. With a long-sword that is 2d8+5 damage per hit, and another +1 if we are using the weapon specialization rules, for an average of 16 points damage per hit. A bugbear has 14hp, so you are killing a 3 HD monster each turn, and you alone could take a white dragon down in two hits, or a red dragon in four.

The martial and caster power difference in old D&D was a myth, and it only really became an issue (and got progressively worse) once Wizards took over the game and started scaling hit points.

This isn't opinion.

This is math. 

And it is not because dragons are weak. They can kill a 10th level character in a single blow. Death is real in this game since the Advanced rules limit the number of resurrections, decrease CON each time, and put a percentage chance it fails and the character is happier in the afterlife. That character has had enough of this would and would rather be in Valhalla with all of their ancestors, awaiting another chance at life and 3d6 down the line.

Death saves, pop-up healing, and all this gamification around death is garbage video-game mechanics where you die and come right back, just like an MMO. Even the new "pop-fad" game mechanics like "go out like a hero" and "I take a emo scar" narrative death rules of the newer games are more ego pandering to players, and will only foster comfort and boredom.

No death? It's not D&D.

Do I want more character customization and options? There are plenty of mods to OSE, such as the rules from Into the Wild and On Downtime and Demesnes. These two books put 5E and its sub-classes to shame, and give me more options to tweak and customize my characters so they feel both thematically and mechanically unique.

And ODaD allows me to pay gold for feats and training, so those "level based progressions charts" can go back to the lands of centrally planned economies and gaming and stay there. If I have the gold, and blow it all on myself for the ability to shoot into melee, then that is capitalism, baby. If I fall in a pit trap it all goes to waste, but at least my OSE characters have a reason to get and spend gold.

And we are not given "state housing" like bastions either, and then getting hounded for micro-transactions from a VTT. If I want to pimp my crib and buy 66 towers for my castle, and a grand library for each day of the week, and a 10,000 man army, I can do it here.

Game designers, you are not telling me when I can "take a feat" on some "level chart." Sorry, I am going out there, beating the hell out of Dungenar the Dragon, taking his gold, selling his hide for shoes and suitcases, and blowing that treasure horde on me and my friends for college tuition, lavish housing, and partying.

The lack of a big-money treasure game is also a flaw of DCC and most all of these other modern games, including Daggerheart, Draw Steel, Shadowdark, D&D 5E, Pathfinder, and many others. Shadowdark is closer to Warhammer in that you will live poor and die poor, and you have nothing to do with a few thousand gold anyways.. They are often self-centered games that play to the "hero's ego" and ignore the wider context of living in a world.

If gold means nothing, it is not D&D.

If magic fells like a video-game, it is not D&D.

Don't be fooled by lies and games pandering to your ego.

They are not worth it.

You will get bored, drop it, and be on to the next one in a year.

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 10

You will do well with Old School Essentials or Dungeon Crawl Classics.

If you are staying in 5E, do Shadowdark. 

And Wizards is trying to sell D&D to older markets outside the hobby, and they have no clue. The people who do crochet likely do not have the time to sort through a thousand pages of rules for a game, nor grasp the action economy of 5E. The character builds alone are hard, or near impossible, to do by hand. Older gamers outside the hobby, such as those who buy crochet books, are honestly better off with Shadowdark or OSE.

I could never recommend D&D 2024 to older people outside the hobby. I tried to put together a group, but the complexity of needing software, signing up for D&D Beyond, and dealing with the prices of the books killed my D&D group before it even started. My system veterans were hesitant to upgrade to 2024 and stick with 2014. They bailed, too.

I should have stuck with Shadowdark, which would have given me a chance to be in a group.

The older gamers who can understand D&D 2024? They already know D&D, and many have been turned off by the OGL. Many have abandoned 5E entirely. The Open 5E clones are fading and will only gain traction once 5E is surpassed by D&D 7. One could stay in the Open 5E clones, and that is a valid place if you still like 5E. To me, the system and interest is fading, and I like other games better. I only have so much room on my shelves.

GURPS, Traveller, OSE, DCC, and Call of Cthulhu are my top five games. 

Daggerheart has carved out a niche, but its interest is waning somewhat, and it is not the next Critical Role campaign's system, which is a massive missed opportunity (especially with those new hires and hype). Draw Steel is a new, more tactical game, but I don't see it taking over. Daggerheart will be a niche game only for the fans. They lost the chance to ride the wave when they announced campaign four.

History is filled with lost opportunities and companies that could have been king. Being a second player or a niche product only means fading into obscurity in the mass market. My feeling is the new hires were made since the next edition of D&D will be licensed out to Darrington Press, and they will pay for the rights to print "an edition" much like rights holders do these days.

I don't see any of the new games of 2025 making a huge impact. Changing the rules does not fix your game, or make it fun again. The hobby is a social one.

DCC is OSR compatible, and I like this game since the staff is nice and works hard. They put out some of the most imaginative stuff in the hobby these days. Some say there are too many tables in here and the game is "too much" for an OSR-style of rules, but to me, every table is just a suggestion and it is all meant to be changed and interpreted by the referee as inspiration, not written in stone.

I like DCC over 3.5E, since it is far easier, even with all the tables and the silly dice. I was a big fan of 3.5E and Pathfinder 1e, but DCC is my game for that now. It shares the saving throw system and that over-the-top feeling of 3.5E without all the bloat and crunch.

That said, DCC is less ideal for larger games where I may want to run a dozen characters solo. At most, I would run four in DCC by myself, since there is a complexity level to each that needs to be managed. If I run a dozen characters it will be for OSE since I will not lose my mind. there is a point to every game where "too much is too much" and you start to regret all the bells and whistles the system brings to the table. DCC is one of those "high character detail" games, where there is a lot going on, and quite a few choices a character needs to make during a turn with their resources and options. 

OSE will always be my go-to for classic play. This is infinitely expandable, and stays out of opinion and advocacy. It does not push itself as a silly "vibe" to adopt, it is what it is - just the rules. And what you do and create with them is your thing. There are plenty of mods and alternate rules for OSE and it blows my mind. All the adventures work together. you do not worry about compatibility or conversion, the OSR is a standard to write for, not a feeling or way of playing. Anyone who tells you you can play 5E "an OSR way" does not understand the OSR.

So, while I like DCC, OSE is my campaign game. The reasons and rules have not changed. All the best stuff that I have is for OSE, and it is 100% directly compatible without needing the DCC charts or extra stuff. Random charts for emergent play are nice, but they do not make a game.

For my 5E replacement, OSE is still it.

My 3.5E and Pathfinder 1e replacement? Yeah, that is still DCC. Mind you, DCC has flaws and weaknesses, but it is still fun.

OSE and that B/X style of rules are the perfect game. 

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 9

I had this article written to justify Old School essentials over Dungeon Crawl Classics, but then Goodman Games turned out to be incredibly nice during a recent shipment, and I gave it a little more thought.

Why would I still use OSE? Well, for one, OSE is a smaller, more compact, more expandable, and simpler game. If I want a game I can expand however I want, it will be OSE. I am already expanding it some by considering the Downtime rules and the Into the Wild alternate classes, and that is a solid mod of the game. So, yes, I am modding the game to start.

OSE has a good collection of 4E-like races to use, but to be honest, OSE supports "race-plus-class" so I could just as easily port in the OSE race templates into DCC, and use those to modify some of the existing classes to create Dragonborn warriors, Tiefling thieves, and Drow clerics. It is not that hard.

OSE also supports classic content easier, and it drops into any OSR or classic setting seamlessly. DCC sometimes wants to do "its own thing" and be weird and strange, and that is cool. If I am running a classic setting such as the Lost Lands setting from Necromancer Games, my first picks would be OSE or Swords & Wizardry. Those feel "at home" here. I have not tried running classic settings, in a serious manner, using DCC, and that may be interesting.

There are times I feel a too-fantastic "base world" of DCC takes away from some of the amazing and unexpected moments the game offers. If everything is strange and fantastic, then nothing is. There are times you just want to live in "strange world" and be a fish out of water, and that is more like the Dying Earth and Purple Planet settings, which again, Goodman Games does the best job at giving us worlds that we have never seen before and blow our minds.

Then again, I also get tired of the same-old, same-old. Why am I playing in another faux-European setting again? I could argue there is no real difference between Mystara, Greyhawk, and the Forgotten Realms since they are essentially the same place with different names and maps. especially these days with the current crop of writers for Wizards who write level-select adventure compilations. You say Waterdeep, I say Specularum, and someone else says Greyhawk City.

None of them are Middle Earth.

It is hard to care about these legacy settings without real support, and new adventures being written for them and delivered regularly. They are classic rock, great, but a nostalgia trap, and no one can sing it anymore without screwing it up.

This is one huge problem with nostalgia marketing, we will never see anything truly amazing, new, fresh, and mind-blowing from Wizards ever again. It will all be the reheated leftovers of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, and they did horrible jobs at recycling Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and Dragonlance. All we will get from Wizards is recycled, vaguely European, Ren-Fair settings with the thees and thous, Irish, British, and Scottish accents everywhere, and those stereotypical Russian Tieflings. Yes, Greyhawk is a classic setting and I loved it, but notice the past-tense there. I still love it, but I have DM-ed that place when it was first released, and I am ready for something new.

The last new thing TSR did was Dark Sun, Spelljammer, and Star Frontiers. Eberron from Wizards was more of a remix than a new idea entirely, and it relied too much on the Wayne Reynolds art (which became Pathfinder's iconic imagery) to ever have its own identity. Outside of Magic the Gathering, Wizards never really did anything new or original, risk-taking and mind-blowing with D&D.

Baldur's Gate 3 is seriously at risk of being overused and overexposed, if it is not there already. 

Then again, Wizards isn't loved by much of the community anymore, and even if they were to do something new and original, it would likely not be received too well. A nostalgia play is the "scent of death" for a declining company, and you even see that in all the inane D&D cartoon callbacks. They are also pretty much well ignoring the authors of their classic settings and novels, and this is a huge loss to the lore and worlds once we lose them to time. Their current talent pool is not up to the task of supporting the settings they have.

If you want new ideas, buy a set of Zocchi dice and pick up the DCC core rule-book and one of the settings. You won't get "new stuff" from Wizards anymore.

With DCC, I don't really need to mod the game all that much, the game has a solid core engine and plenty of random table support. I would still like to use the Downtime book, along with an additional OSR resource (my Labyrinth Lord book is my add-on game to DCC for treasure tables, but OSE is also perfectly capable of being that), and I have it all covered.

On Downtime and Demesnes would work well with DCC. DCC has "skills" and ODaD has training costs, though "skills" in DCC would not be the +3 of this set of rules, but be the normal d20 roll of DCC (unskilled is the d10). I would rule expert is a d24 while master is a d30, sticking with the DCC dice chain instead of flat modifiers. We have the dice, so use them! Talents, raising statistics, crafting, and weapon mastery training work as they do in the ODaD book.

Also, with OSE, there is an element of "going back into the cave" and retreating into the too-familiar and nostalgic. There is a reason OSE's covers are so wild and out there, and I suspect even they are trying to fight that perception of being "a rules reference for an old game" and trying to keep the concepts fresh and away from the too-familiar.

DCC is already a "perfect" 5E replacement. Nothing more needs to be done and said. The system, at its core, is a simple 3.5E-style game, no different than OSE. I could use either and be happy. OSE would be lighter-weight and faster. DCC would have random table support for emergent play.

When two games are equal, it comes down to preference.

And, of course, the company you prefer to support. 

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 6

"What happens when you give a cleric a sword and shield?"

"A paladin shows up."

Into the Wild makes a few interesting design decisions, like when you pick a cleric, you get three weapons your deity approves of, and these can be edged weapons. It makes sense, and I never really got the D&D-style nonsense of clerics not using edged weapons, when some of the classic gods are shown with spears, bows, two-handed swords, and all manners of blades and piercing weapons. You mean, my goddess uses a spear, but I have to use a mace?

This has always been a strange "show mercy" holdover from a Christian tradition in D&D, but ancient religions were not always so merciful and peaceful, just ask a cleric of Ares, the god of war. Maces crush skulls and break skin easily enough, there is little difference other than a damage die limitation.

Also, you are not a half-caster, so you still function as a cleric in the party, which is nice. The whole concept of a half-caster class is lame when they can easily be variants of a stronger, more iconic role.

So, Into the Wild foregoes having a paladin class, and just lets clerics be clerics and use whatever weapons their god prefers. They are full casters, too, with no spells at first level, so the balance works out. You also get knacks at level 1, 5, 9 and 13; which can increase your hit die by a size (from a d6 to d8), give you a lay on hands ability, and offer other interesting customization options.

So you can play a "paladin" with a d8 hit die at level one, get lay on hands at level 5, and extra weapon mastery maneuvers (or leadership) at level 9. There is enough here to simulate a traditional paladin role quite nicely, and since you are the holy warrior, you can call yourself whatever you want.

You could customize this class to be more "priest like" and get extra spell slots, lay on hands, and improved turning. There is even an option to get a spell from another spell list (one per level they can cast) and slot it in as a level higher, so your fire priestess can have a fireball as a level 4 spell. this is an area I would allow training to add to, as well, to expand the character's available fire spells if they were in the domain.

Yes, you begin to overload characters if you go overboard, but as long as you are careful things will work out. Ask yourself, "Will this ruin the game?" and "Is this fair?" 

There is a lot more in the Into the Wild book than I expected, and some interesting options for characters. I like that paladins are full clerics with weapon choice, and the ability to customize the class with knacks and skills. Add a few more training options from On Downtime and Demesnes, and you start to have a system that does more customization and specialization than 5E could ever dream of.

All without having to pay people to host your characters. 

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 5

I think our rules and options are laid out nicely for our 5E replacement, and we have a rock-solid base game with Old School Essentials: Classic Fantasy. We use Classic to start so the book sees some use, and this is identical rules-wise with Advanced, so it can be used as our "table copy" for players. We are purposefully keeping the base options simple for a number of reasons:

• It speeds play.
• It makes expansion races and classes feel special.
• Our party composition is predictable and the strongest for dungeon crawling.

Remember, we are doing a game where we use another book to expand player options for gold as they level and train, so these classes are just starting points and they will morph and change as players get treasure, find trainers, and work on that "out of class" progression. Progression will not be the same for similar classes! If an archer wanted an "arrow cleave" feat, they could train that and nobody else would have it.

If we wanted heavy classes and to de-emphasize training, like we just wanted adventure content and not "sitting characters out" I would use Into the Wild and OSR Advanced Player Options and replace all the base OSE classes with these heavyweight designs. There is some excellent design going on here and it is a shame to let it go to waste. Why would I pick this over OSE? It is less work when designing and customizing class abilities later, and you get a lot of "feel good" abilities that are a bit OP, but they fill a niche power fantasy within the game.

The fighter here is excellent. They cleave a number of times maximum per round equal to their level, so if they slay a target, they can attack another, if they slay that, then another, and so on until their maximum cleaves are reached. They get a once per day negation of a physical attack. They get "damage advantage" with two-handed weapons. They also get a fighting style to choose at first level, and another at 7th and 14th. They have a minimum damage die with all weapons. There is also a knack and skill system.

Is that OP? It is no more OP than a DCC fighter, to be sure. The fighter still has normal AC and hit points, and two lucky goblins with short-bows can make quick work of a first-level fighter. You get a few special abilities to start, and the rules seem like "fun enhanced" house rules for a heavily tweaked OSE fighter, developed and balanced over years of play.

With Into the Wild, you start to need On Downtime and Demesnes less, and training is far less important. In fact, skills and trainings are given every few levels, so allowing extra training may be even more OP for this mod, unless it is for skills and abilities outside the system, and that is also offset by the time and gold cost. I would be careful not to allow "doubling up" and replication, but if someone wanted a special ability not covered in these rules, I may allow it to be trained. Be more selective here, and if they are something interesting and specialized, like "Elven cooking" then allow the skill or training and have fun. Anything related to combat and raw character power should be situational and limited in focus, where role-playing skills and abilities will be more permissive.

More next time as we sort through the things we have and keep crafting our perfect game. 

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 4

To be honest, there are a lot of books out there for OSE that add classes, races, and all sorts of things to the game. One of these is OSR Advanced Player Options, which is a nice book with tons of random ideas. This is less an "all in one" mod than it is a collection of campaign notes where you pick and choose the things you like. I would not use this entire book for a game, since it repeats some classes (Dwarf, Elf, Knight, Monk, Necromancer) found in other books, creates fighting styles which conflict with CC1's combat talents (CC1, p28), adds a more in-depth skill system which conflicts with On Downtime and Demesnes' skill system, and there are a lot of optional random systems here to use.

Most of the book are new classes to use. This is why I like using an "unlock" system for new content and explicitly defining what can and can't be used. There are a ton of classes in here that can quickly muddle and confuse a game with new stuff, but there are some good classes in here that would add to a game. A note, all of the classes are very heavy and in-depth, and almost feel like 5E classes in the length of each class description with all the special abilities. This is more of a "class replacement mod" for OSE and it brings an AD&D level of depth.

To be fair, the same author in "Into the Wild" revised all the base classes for OSE to these new, more in-depth options. So if you use the first book, definitely pick up the second and completely replace all the classes in the game with these two books. For me, I like the OSE simple classes and prefer to add skills and feats using On Downtime and Demesnes, allowing for more player customization instead of these heavier classes. My Unlocks & Downtime design is more of a "basic simple classes that progress with player-directed training with gold" than these "planned abilities and progression" that is given all for "free" when you level up.

The OSR Advanced Player Options book has the "skill list" that Into the Wild's classes mention (OSRAPO, p19), so if you have both books, you are covered and have all you need. 

I would love to see a revised collection of all classes from this author as an alternative character system for OSE in a master omnibus just focused on characters and races. These are some of the best "heavy" classes for OSE and have that crunch and depth that first-edition games provide, while staying in the OSE framework. I would be hesitant to mix these with pure OSE classes since the depth of abilities and special talents are not the same.

As NPC classes, maybe. As its own "deep classes" game that replace all the classes in OSE, sure. So this is not on my "required book list for U&D" but it is an interesting stand-alone mod. These new classes are "all or nothing" and could make an interesting mod for OSE.

To be honest, Shadowdark has this same problem, too. We see new classes in the game that are designed with a deep level of complexity and they do not "feel" like Shadowdark classes at all. Shadowdark is currently in a "glut" of third-party content, and it is hard separating the wheat from the chaff. I have a lot of junk books on my shelf for Shadowdark, and I find it is easier sorting through a more mature, but not as "hot" game like OSE right now.

The thing is, I like the Into the Wild and OSR Advanced Player Options by Third Kingdom Games. These are a bit confused in presentation and take time to sort through, but the class designs and implementation is solid for a standalone and heavier game with robust class designs. While building one game, I found another interesting one with a lot of solid design and work put into it. This isn't like a lot of Shadowdark content these days, rushed out for a quick dollar, but a solid design built over years of play and refinement. The fact this uses OSE as a base makes it amazing and keeps the adventures, spells, monsters, and content from the base game intact.

I would love to see just a character-focused book here, with all the extra bits needed to play in one place, like knacks, skills, and all the extra rules needed for just characters. I would combine OSRAPO in there, too for a massive, all-in-one tome with this "alt game." 

My design for U&D is different. Instead of leaning on that designer flex, I want simpler base classes and to let players develop them however they want. OSE shines with simple classes, and my U&D game relies on simple classes that leave players hungry, and use the ODaD training system to allow for customized progression in different areas. So, my game needs the "simple" OSE classes, since depth comes later through gold and training. I don't want classes to get all this "free stuff" as they level, that should be skills, talents, and mastery areas the players train characters into.

So both Into the Wild and OSR Advanced Player Options are out of my U&D game, but I will put them to the side for another possible campaign later. These are solid "heavy" class designs for OSE, and worthy to replace the game's base classes in a more traditional, first-edition style of world.

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 3

While I like Swords & Wizardry, nothing beats Old School Essentials as a "neutral base." Other B/X and first-edition systems, and ADAD and OSRIC fall into this category, have a lot of "extra stuff" to them, a wealth of class abilities, and a complexity level higher than the core OSE rules. With OSE I can use books to add abilities and not break the game, or have characters that get too complex and unwieldy.

There are times when a basic, simple, to-the-point game does a better job than something with 500 pages and rules for everything. All I need is my basic OSR system as my cake, and I shall decorate it from here myself and have exactly what I want. 

Which works well with books that add abilities to the game, especially On Downtime and Demesnes, which treats OSE characters as "open starting points" from which you can add skills, trainings, and all sorts of other things through the downtime system.

We get trained by Wizards and Paizo so hard, and ever since 3rd Edition this was true, of the concept of "legal characters" like a "legal Magic: The Gathering deck build." The whole concept of "legal characters" is stupid, and runs counter to the old school ethos. If a character touches a magic fountain and gains the ability to "speak to ghosts" - guess what? Write that on character sheet and move on. There is no need to spend a feat, skill points, give up an existing ability, swap a language, or somehow "pay for it" in any way.

In old-school games, the ultimate balance for characters is retirement or death, and then never giving out that unbalanced power again. Most of the time, you will have a good sense of what would be balanced from the game, since it is simple, judging balance is easy. Talking it over with the player if a "granted ability" is too powerful is also an option, and this is something we also did in the old days. People knew if their character was "ruining the game for others" and we worked together to fix it.

It was nothing like today.

Death is also why you never, ever fudge your rolls. Nothing wrecks a game faster and throws balance in the bin when you change rolls to "be what you want." You will end up bored and walk away from the game. If you can't stand losing a favorite character, give them an "after death adventure" to escape the "land of the dead." That is also very classic fantasy inspired, and having the character return to the world changed is good fiction. Or, rule-zero it and have them get captured.

Or just come up with equal options, all interesting and plausible on a d6 for what happens at zero hit points, make a result of one equal death, and roll the die. Make a roll of a 6 recovering with one hit point. If you don't have the heart to do it, let the dice decide.

Fudging your rolls is how you create the characters that you end up regretting. All the player agency is removed, the skills players get at knowing "how far do we push it" are destroyed, and you are cheating yourself, your players, and the game.

There are a few more books to consider for this creation, and also we need to decide on a starting campaign. I will keep thinking this through and continue this series. I have this feeling of excitement that I am onto something here.

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 2

Okay, we are still on our quest to get rid of 5E from our gaming shelves once and for all. Personally, I am slowly coming to the realization that 5E breeds dependency on the attached digital services they want you to sign up for, and it is purposefully designed with these "strings attached" and an inferior game.

I do not want to pay subscription services to play a game that could have been designed to make things easier and without the need for all this heavy online support, digital book sales, and subscription services. When the next edition comes out, guess what? All those digital purchases will be useless, and you will need to buy it all again. Also, if a VTT or character creation service shuts down, you lose all those "paid for" digital books you don't own, and they disappear.

I love you ToV, but you are following a failed, exploitative business model with the "classic 5E" style rules and not eliminating the digital dependency. OSE keeps a higher level of character power without the digital sheets and monthly fees. With On Downtime and Demesnes, we get a high level of gold-based character customization that beats 5E's preprogrammed progression charts.

By sticking to Classic Fantasy as our default game, we get a predictable, limited set of options that all games start with. We do not have "too much stuff" and our game gets muddled and confused. The options are all classic options, with no half-casters, specialist classes, and high-skill options that change the nature of game play. We do not have too many character races, and the basics (human, elf, dwarf, halfling) are the core of the world, and this is more equitable to the classic non-human options since those rarely get played these days.

Okay, our base campaign framework as laid out last time is this:

• Our campaign starts with Old School Essentials: Classic Fantasy
• All options in Classic Fantasy are what players start with.
• The only Advanced Fantasy rule we allow is Weapon Proficiency and Specialization (AFP23).
• Carcass Crawler Issue One has combat talents for fighters, and those can be used.
• Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy (or any other book or Carcass Crawler option) can be unlocked in entirety after enough of the options are unlocked, or the campaign reaches a certain level, like 10th or 12th. You decide.
• You can adopt "fairness rules" if you want, like max hp at first level, and a minimum "half the die size" for hit point gains for new levels; you still roll, but there is a floor to the roll.
• The campaign progresses with a system of campaign unlocks.
• Unlocks are like achievements in video games and are tied to quest completions, successful adventures, or discoveries, as set by the referee.
• The options in Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy not in Classic are campaign unlocks.
• Similarly, any race, spell, or class option in a Carcass Crawler Zine or other OSE book we use is a campaign unlock.
• Spells outside Classic need to be researched, unless they are needed for an entire class.
• Track our campaign unlocks in a journal, and those open up for future characters in our current campaign. 
• We are using On Downtime and Demesnes (ODaD) for downtime rules and the special training options.
• Talents, Skills, Expert/Mastery, Training Proficiencies, Crafting, Research, and Raising Statistics rules are used.
• All the other rules are optional, but very useful.

This gives us a focused campaign to start, with better character customization options than 5E gives us. It also breaks us from the invincible character system of 5E, and the immortal characters. We are playing old school, like Shadowdark, but without the torch timers and random progression. Characters need thousands of gold for advancement and training, as you cannot rely on class progression alone for specializations and abilities.

Also, if a player really wants to start as a druid and have that unlocked, and offers to bring the pizza for the first night of play, why not let them have it? Do a very nice thing for the group, and we can work together and make something fun happen.

Our campaign type needs a cool name, so it can be popularized. Let's call this the OSE Unlocks and Downtime campaign type (OSE U&D). You playing by the "unlocks and downtime" game? Yes, that is better than Shadowdark for campaign play, and my players are hustling for gold right now. I my game has three characters in training, so players had to roll some alts to pick up a few other things that came up in town. They are currently doing underworld quests and hoping to unlock the Drow in the game as characters.

 

Yes, there is a gamification of the campaign, where achievements are needed to unlock classes and races, but this is exactly the sort of gamification Shadowdark uses in its torch timers, darkness rules, and random progression. This takes OSE and makes it into a "Steam game" where campaigns start in a basic "new game" state (with Classic), and the players need to work to unlock the cool stuff through achievements.

Do we want to play the campaign more and unlock the Bard and Paladin classes as character options? Can I be a Drow Paladin? Sure, but we will need to advance the campaign a little to get to that point. This can happen as fast or slow as you want, and it makes each new option special while maintaining a "classic game state" for the world each time a new campaign begins.

A little bit of gamification can be a good thing if it provides structure and goals. In Shadowdark, gamification is used to enforce negative game states, such as the torch timer and darkness rules. There is also a little bit of negative game state reinforcement in character progression with bad rolls, but that is mixed with some positive, so that is a wash. Shadowdark is very effective with where it gamifies things, and this is what makes the game compelling.

OSE U&D uses gamification to enforce positive, goal-based, campaign-supporting game states. It sets a "default state" to all games, and then creates a structure to add options as the campaign progresses, and puts a gold piece cost on new character abilities. On Downtime and Demesnes is a pivotal book here, as it sets up that progression model that is outside of classes and is shaped by the players. OSE plus ODaD is an entirely new game with a different power dynamic.

Also, our campaign embraces gamification and keeps players coming back to unlock cool stuff, and as each campaign progresses, each one is different. The players will drive the unlocks and what they work towards. If they see that "circus adventure" and feel they will unlock bards and acrobats by completing it, they will charge in and advance the campaign through this story goal. The circus could be the source of all bards and acrobats in the campaign, and that will make the characters' story drive the game's options and choices. If we find the "Dragonborn city" and this is where the Paladins are trained, that is also a powerful motivator to drive the story and have it meaningfully change the campaign. 

5E has terrible gamification, and it only really exists inside subclass choices and multi-classing. There is no "campaign state" progression in 5E, and the entire game starts from an ever-worsening "default state" where "all options are available." Every time you buy a new book, your game gets worse and worse. Campaigns get harder and harder to start.

I had a group, presented the modern, current set of options to them (in D&D 2014), and they all quit even starting the hobby due to choice paralysis. Nobody wanted to sort through dozens of classes with hundreds of options in each of them. Add to that they had to all sign up for something to create characters, and get presented with "digital book sale" push marketing. They quit D&D before they even started. Never again.

The hobby is jumping on Shadowdark as the "next big thing" and while that is cool, I feel the bandwagon is getting a little overloaded and we are in an early glut phase of the game's life. We are trying to use Shadowdark to solve all our  5E game and campaign problems, but Shadowdark has a unique set of gamification rules that drive the action into a predictable state. This will not be great for everybody! Another thing that is happening is we now have far too many classes for SD, and we are just recreating the mess we had in D&D.

I love Shadowdark, but too many people are using new games to solve old problems. And the game won't solve every problem, and if you can't identify the problem you have with the game you are leaving, then you are probably just doing a "soft reset" and will have that same problem again after a while with the new game. I have the same problem now in Shadowdark as I did in 5E, far too many class and race options, and we are back to choice paralysis and garbage choices.

Why not stay in 5E? Well, I have to go to ToV to own a PDF, and I am still doling out money for character creation services and throwing money in the bin with fake digital books. 5E has its own problems that are structural that would require heavy modification to solve, like gold being worthless, and progression tables and multi-classing ruling the game. Even with limited choices, I still have a ton of problems with 5E to solve that OSE fixes with zero effort, plus OSE preserves character power better than 5E by far.

Just look at fireball damage, +2 magic sword damage, and ogres. OSE beats the pants off 5E (magic and martial damage output) and any version of D&D that Wizards ever made. Once you do the damage output versus monster hit point comparisons, you can't unsee those numbers. TSR had the math right, sorry.

But we can take the games we already have and use a very light touch, creating a little gamification of our own with proven and solid options like OSE, and create entirely new games with that structure we desire. With OSE U&D, I am setting out to solve the "too many options" problem of D&D, and using the system's often-ignored "Classic Fantasy" book to set a default game state, and then expanding from there. My gamification is very simple, true/false unlocks for anything outside of Classic Fantasy, linked to the campaign story. The Downtime book for character progression opens up new options for players, puts players in the driver's seat in picking what they want, and puts a hefty gold piece cost on new abilities.

OSE U&D is such a solid campaign setup I may recreate my "D&D 4E campaign world" with it and play that again, and work on unlocking all the cool options we had in that game. The lack of character power, too many choices, progression chart advancement, and meaningless gold problems 5E has are all solved with this OSE campaign setup.

Instead of chasing new games, focus on identifying and fixing the problems with the old ones.

Many times, you have everything you need with what you already have.