The Perception Check

Something feels wrong about the perception check.

This is a "screw the players" mechanic that forces players to roll to learn secret information. In the old days, there was no perception check. The referee carefully described the environment, and players pushed, poked, looked, searched, and prodded the environment to find its hidden secrets. Even spotting an ambush did not force a roll; the referee described an environment, perhaps laid a few hints in there, and then the players could react accordingly.

The tracks stop right before they reach the pass.

If they look closer, then, yes, someone attempted to cover up the tracks.

And those tracks lead towards each side of the pass.

I am not forcing a Perception check for that. The players need to figure out if there is an ambush there on their own, using common sense and good judgment. Granted, those two things are in short supply these days, and with everyone a phone addict, many do not know how to interact with a natural environment or spot trouble like this.

"Why would people who hid in the bushes cover their tracks? I don't know! Hello?! Why are you hiding in there? Can you come out and explain why you covered your tracks?"

There is no rule to cover it in older games; it was what it was. The referee described the environment, the players were not on their phones, and they paid attention. Some skill-based games of the time did have perception-like skill mechanics, but D&D never did. Then again, the old D&D way of doing it was superior, and we only used those perception mechanics in edge cases and for situations where things weren't that clear.

These days, the entire passive perception "industry" and the "roll to see everything" sort of design slows the game down, and it sucks. It feels like the characters are looking through the world through tiny holes in cardboard boxes and rolling or having to check a number to see anything in the environment. Perception isn't a skill anymore; it is a set of blinders to view the world through.

In older games, we never needed the entire perception dongle.

Describe and let them react.

No rules. No numbers. No checking character sheets. No rolling the dice.

Player skill, listening, and using your head instead of your character sheet matter. The referee's descriptions matter. The skill on both sides heightens the experience.

Yet the perception trope seems overused, and this one mechanic defines 2/3rds of the interaction with adventures and the game. It is too important, too overused, and anything this prevalent should be designed out of the game. Otherwise, the game feels like it relies too much on one mechanic.

Imagine if every turn, you needed to "roll to move." Fail your movement roll, and you can't move. Fail your perception check, and you can't see or hear. The perception check is every character's eyes and ears into the world. Granted, it is only for situations where there is uncertainty involved in "if you see it," but the entire mechanic is far, far too overused, slows down play, and eliminates player skill.

The perception check is a terrible design.

Also, Wisdom should cover perception. This also falls into the category of having a "lift heavy objects" skill to replace the STR check. We have skills that duplicate ability score checks, and that is another sign of a terrible design. I don't know how you fix this other than admitting it is a flaw in the D&D 5E design and designing around these "rules bottlenecks" in the next edition.

When it started, it felt innocent and cool. These days, it acts as the default eyes and ears of every character in the game.

Design Room: Simplicity is Depth

There is a beauty to a simple, clean design that no amount of detail or crunch can improve. One can go on and on, providing tactical depth but adding nothing. At a point, you are taking away options just to give them back later, and the design becomes "rats in a maze," but the maze here is rules and paragraphs of subclass options. And with every new subclass added, you are taking those abilities away from those who thought they had them.

Oh, I thought as a druid, I was always a bit of a beastmaster. So you are telling me the new beastmaster subclass does that better? Oh, okay, I picked healing. I guess I am a little more inadequate these days. I just will never use my beastmater powers, since they will never be seen as good as the subclass that specializes in it.

In OSE? All druids are druids. If you want to do druid things, just make them up and ask the referee if what you are doing is druid enough. If it is a spell, well, then, it is automatically druid, and what you can do. You don't need subclasses "carving off" things you can't do with each new one added, either because you never knew you could do that and it was just taken away, or "someone else does it better now," and you have the specialization curse.

In the OSR, classes are how we have party specialization, not subclasses. I don't need rules to solve the non-problem that "all fighters are the same," since that's on me to solve. I will do that through my roleplaying, gear choices, social role, and stats. A party of four or five probably will solve the specialization problem through everyone picking a different class, or some using race-as-class to play an elf or a dwarf.

The game isn't giving me rules or subclass choices to make my elf different from other elves; that is on me. This is where my ability to play a character, roleplay, and craft a unique character comes into play. The player skill needed to do this is much higher than 5E.

5E solves the problem by cutting off parts of your class role, forbidding them from other builds, and making you a false specialist instead of a master of all. If I am the druid? I want to be the weather-caller, wild-shaper, druid of growth, beast-master, and harmony priest. I get that in OSE. Thematically, that is much easier for me as a role-player and much better for me to play my class role. I can call myself a "specialist" in one area, but there aren't any rules for that; it is just my choice.

I am likely the party's only druid, so I get to do it all.

Easy. Simple. Clean. Flexible.

We saw the "lie of specialization" begin to seep into the game with AD&D 2nd Edition and the kitbash design introduced in the compendiums. The game began to accumulate the debt of inferior game designers, and it diverged from the original clean, flexible simplicity it captured. 5E enshrines the lie of specialization and writes it into the structure of the game.

Without specialization, my druid is free to embrace all the tropes of being a druid, and I am freer to craft the character I want to play. Nothing is telling me "I can't do that since some other subclass is better than me at it."

D&D doesn't need specialization.

Class choice more than covers it.

D&D is better without specialization.

Design: Older Gamers Do Not Have the Time

This video is from last year, but it relates to the Conan RPG I am interested in. Designer Matt John speaks with the official Conan the Barbarian channel about the game. Around 6:40, he says:

...I approach this as a 40-year-old gamer, I do not want a system that requires me to do a lot of homework because I'm busy and have a bunch of other things to do.

I love my rules-heavy systems, but I honestly only have time for one of them these days. GURPS will win over Rolemaster, 5E, and all the others. While 5E is a simple game, it has so many books that it can feel rules-heavy. Castles & Crusades will kill my interest in 5E, since I can "pick up and play" without needing a dozen hardcovers and over a thousand pages of rules to run a campaign.

Savage Worlds, Castles & Crusades, and many other rules-light but experience-driven games fill an important niche in the hobby. While many people love the 2d20 Conan game, it wasn't as approachable or quick to pick up as he wanted. People who play need to be taught how to play, and GM'ing the game requires a lot of knowledge just to get started.

Savage Worlds is in this genre and does pulp adventure well. I played a Conan-style game with Savage Worlds before, and it was a fun time. The benefit of a Conan game is the art, background, monsters, and adventures tailored to the setting and rules. You are not seeing "Orcs" in Conan, for example, and generic games tend to pull in a lot of non-canon elements that take the experience away from a more authentic one.

An official Conan game from a publisher is also an easier sell to new players than "let's use this generic game you may have never heard of to play this thing you know." This is the "GURPS problem" that all generic games have. While those of us who love generic games can make them do anything, new players like themed experiences and seeing a design deliver on a promise rather than a generic design and someone's interpretation of making it fit a concept it really wasn't designed to simulate.

I love GURPS, but getting someone new to gaming to play "X using GURPS or Savage Worlds" is two jumps I need to make with them (plus a translation layer for me), rather than just "playing X." For people without time, that is more time needed to spend before playing.

For Conan, people need to be able to jump in and play. This needs to be a game you can play at open tables at conventions, like Index Card RPG or Easy d6. The character sheet tells you what you can do, and you can be told what to roll by the referee, and you never need to open a book to sit in on a game and play.

People who have seen the movies should be able to play the game easily.

This is not designed for the hardcore rules simulation and 30-book collection crowd; this is targeted at new players and those who watch the movies and read the books. That feels like a solid choice, especially when competing with D&D and other games. A heavyweight game is a tough sell these days, since you are asking your audience to give up other games to make time for this one.

D&D is going in the wrong direction by increasing the size of their books and providing too many options in the core rulebooks. You get into the danger of "writing for the experts" and "losing the casual audience" with any game or new edition. D&D 2024 is written for the expert 5E players, not for new 5E players. Tales of the Valiant is a better "teaching game" for 5E than even 2014 or 2024, since it was designed to appeal to new players and its core options focus on successful paths rather than niche role choices.

The industry is moving towards smaller, more focused, easier-to-learn, and faster-playing games. This is sort of like D&D before Wizards of the Coast got its hands on it and turned it into a rules-heavy monolith to lock people into digital platforms. The OSR is popular since it is simple and fast, and this version of Conan is clearly OSR-influenced.

The 2005-2015 era monolith of overly complex systems is slowly dying as the new generation lacks the reading and mathematical comprehension to understand them. This means Wizards D&D, Pathfinder, GURPS, 2d20, and many other systems are long overdue for a change. Look at the education numbers and tell me 500+ page D&D books are a good way to design a game for the next generation of players.

You can't get them to put down a phone, let alone read and comprehend 10% of a book like that.

I like the design theories behind the new Conan game, and the more I learn about it, the more excited I am getting about diving in and playing. This has not happened in a while, and the promise of a thematic, instant-play, brutal combat, and "fast and fun" Conan game excites me.

ADAD: It Morphs Into My Game

I wrote down house rules from our past AD&D games this morning, and it hit me.

Any first-edition game you play will become "your game" after a while.

Granted, this is also likely true for any B/X game; we did house rule those back in the day, but this is very true for any first-edition RPG since they are so fiddly and have lots of little parts to set and tweak. OSRIC, AD&D, and ADAD all qualify, and you have tons of little settings in here, from hit points, racial level limits, allowed races and classes, and so many other things to tweak to your liking. B/X did not have that much to tweak, so we more-or-less played it as-is.

As I write down house rules, any first-edition game becomes mine increasingly.

And I remember the game we had, and it was highly tweaked and tuned to our liking. This wasn't your usual "mix of B/X and AD&D" but a vastly expanded game with pages of house rules, tweaks, classes, monsters, spells, adjustments, weapons, powers, and so much more.

With Wizards of the Coast, the design mentality is "you all will play the game our way." Sure, there has been a lot of homebrewing in every modern version of D&D since 3.0, but the game's mentality is set to a default of "only what is in the official books is legal play."

Even the new edition focuses more on "mechanics and rules" than "you and the act of playing a role-playing game." This is a huge loss for the game. People don't play because of mechanics; if they do, they will play Pathfinder 2. Crunchy, mechanical editions drive players away.

The design of D&D has become heavy, with intricate subclasses defining character power, and those subclasses "level up" and get increasingly complicated. The longer I play 5E, the more books I collect, and the more complex the game is. It gets to such a point of obese overreach that the game is impossible without referencing a dozen books from the company and third parties.

With every 5E book, Kickstarter, or crowd-funded book I buy, my 5E game becomes less mine and more theirs. This is the fundamental difference between today's games and the ones we played.

5E is a game where you will never own your game. There is no investment or attachment.

Could I house rule 5E? I have.

Will I? No, there is too much to buy. I own too much stuff.

I never needed to house rule 5E. I bought a version of the game that worked for me. The framework of 5E puts you in a dependency relationship with the company that makes the game. You don't need to house rule; you have enough stuff! Look at all this stuff! I have more books than three lifetimes of stuff!

When I have eight shelves of 5E books, why house rule?

Here comes another Kickstarter for another 5E book; I do not need to be creative or imaginative. I need to be a good consumer and pay for the next thing. The new edition does not include monster design rules; they tell you to buy theirs.

I have one book for OSRIC, AD&D, or ADAD. The first edition is more of a simple framework, and the game has room for my ideas. I am not overwhelmed by 5E's rules, subclasses, multi-class exploits, relationships, and all sorts of action economy or cross-class issues.

But the first edition is designed to house-rule. I started a page here with my thoughts, preferences, and optional rules. I will improve, tweak, and test them as I play so they will get better. This set of house rules will grow and be my investment into my game - making it mine. If things are broken, I will fix them. If things are blah, I will drop them. If things work great, they will be kept. It is just like getting into the hobby of modding games like Skyrim; it makes the game yours.

The characters are simple.

The classes are simple.

The races are simple.

The rules are simple compared to 5E. If I want the easiest, I will go with OSRIC. If I want some of the modern classes, I will go with ADAD. I have both books, and they are nearly identical regarding the engine.

The game is built to mod.

The game will become yours, given time.

5E is in Storage (Again)

Here we go again. I gave 5E three chances, and I am putting my books in storage again. Why? The game takes too much effort, the characters are stacks of special abilities, the character sheets are huge, and it takes too long to create a character.

For me, the character sheets kill this game. I can have a character with more depth and detail in a 2-page GURPS character sheet than a 5 to 6-page 5E sheet, with unique abilities described in paragraphs printed on the character sheet. This has always been a problem with any Wizards-designed or derivative game; I remember Pathfinder 1e character sheets that started at 12 pages from Hero Lab. Some reached 24 pages of printed paper for one character (with spells), almost book-length.

These games start simple and add ability after ability. The "choice every level" designs attract power gamers and focus too much on ARPG character builds. I like games where choices are made every few levels or not at all (skill system games); the focus is more on role-playing and the world. Also, by forcing "choices at every level," many choices become meaningless and are balanced out by the designers, so many of these choices become false.

They are meaningless make-work and take the game's focus off the story. If I am playing an ARPG, I will do that in a video game.

The best part about Tales of the Valiant is its open license, extensive supporting library, and Midgard's campaign world. I look forward to seeing what they do in the future, but the game needs time to cook. There needs to be more subclass and character options. I still have the pocket books out on my shelves, and I hope this game does well.

I had the most fun with Level Up Advanced 5E. This is the best version of 5E, and it has an old-school feeling. This game gives you double the unique abilities of Tales of the Valiant, but both games share the same fundamental flaw: "taped-on abilities." I am writing down note after note of unique this and particular that and looking up the rules for each.

After four characters, I am sick of it.

5E characters are stuck full of notes of how they have a special action that can break a rule that, or in this specific situation, they get a bonus. You are writing down paragraphs of game rules on your freaking character sheet. GURPS? Ability scores and skills. The rules are in the rules. 5E relies on the West Coast design of forcing players to keep a virtual "card deck" on their character sheets of all the extraordinary things they can pull. At least in D&D 4E, these abilities were actual cards that could be easily tracked and flipped over when used. Instead of keeping it accessible like D&D 4E did, 5E hides the design and puts all the work on the players.

Level Up is still the best version of 5E. ToV is very compatible, and a drop-in replacement for D&D, but LU A5E was rebuilt from the ground up for fun. Still, the characters end up vast and complicated, but if you are going to go all out, go all out and sticky note the heck out of those character sheets.

But if I am playing A5E for the old-school feel, why not just go back to Swords & Wizardry or OSRIC? I don't need the 5E framework for old-school, and in many ways, it gets in the way and has to be patched heavily to support that style of play. This means more rules are needed for an already rules-heavy system. I pulled out OSRIC and was won over instantly; this is gaming how I remembered it. This is the original "Lake Geneva" design, sensible, rules-based, that Midwest sensibility, and it doesn't play like a mobile game from a tech-company wannabe.

Old School Essentials is impressive. This is still a gold-standard game. And we have others on the way, including ACKS II, Shadow of the Weird Wizard, the Castles & Crusades remaster, and many others.

GURPS lets all characters do all "special attack" combat actions and some skills will default to a value. You get penalized heavily for trying, and you fail. You have high combat skills and a better chance of success, and your character looks like a complete ninja master. GURPS characters are more accessible than 5E, and the complexity stays flat. It is more complicated than 5E at the start but does not ramp up in complexity like 5E does when you get all the interrupts and particular action types involved.

5E characters feel like B/X characters, with many sticky notes attached to the character sheet for special abilities. It is a West Coast "sticky note" design, and it comes from Magic: The Gathering, where a card will change the game's rules or affect another card with an override of this or that. It puts too much focus on rules overriding other game rules, and the system gets too complicated and breaks down after a while. And now weapons have tacked-on rules, and it goes on and on...

5E pretends it is B/X at level one. Then, by the time you get to level 5, you are a frog in a boiling pot of water and never realize how much complexity snuck up on you, and you have not even started taping those sticky notes on for even more special rules for the levels you have coming. GURPS? Basic Roleplaying? Traveller? B/X, zero-edition, first-edition, and BECMI? And almost every other game typically starts at "complexity X" and, for high-level play, stays at "complexity X."

I don't have time for 5E's overly complex character and rules. If I put time into a heavy game, it will be GURPS, and I will get much more out of it. With GURPS, every choice in the design system is valid. With 5E, whatever the designers give you, the next level is valid.

Look only as far as Shadowdark, a 5E game that avoids the sticky-note designs, and any special rules to classes are done at the class level, not buried in subclass options. You will never get an ability that gives you a "bonus action" or hugely change the rules. Characters can be written on index cards; that is all the paper you need. Shadowdark is the "real 5E" since it plays more like original D&D than D&D does these days. This game is not going into storage, and it is sort of my "final game" in the 5E lineage. It will take more work to make a better 5E game than this.

With a few house rules, I can get the "look and feel" of 5E and the power level into Castles & Crusades. A 5E-style feat, every even level, plus 5E-style races, easily take this into the high-fantasy super-heroic fantasy realm. C&C is what did in 5E this time, just like Runequest did in Pathfinder 1e. The game requires near-zero book reference to play, and all the silly charts you need to reference during play are gone. One 4x6" index card character sheet is all you need to play.

Other than that? OGL-free fantasy gaming and a few other gems are my go-to games. Swords & Wizardry went OGL free, Castles & Crusades is moving free of the OGL, ACKS II is already there, and many other games are tossing the West Coast license overboard. A few big names remain, such as Dungeon Crawl Classics, but I suspect they will follow soon behind. The upsides of tossing out the license are too significant, and it is a happy thing to see the transformation of the OSR into a dynamic and creative place that will never be "compared to D&D" ever again.

No, none of my OSR games have the flexibility of GURPS, and 5E beats OSR games in choices as you level. But 5E is too heavy for far too limited options, and GURPS wins this war. The OSR games win in simplicity and compatibility with each other, and some of them, such as Dungeon Crawl Classics, have a fantastic "fun factor" when you play them that outstrips 5E. DCC is still very 3.5E in its heart, and I would love to see them ditch Fort/Ref/Will saves, go back to a clean zero-edition design, and toss the accursed OGL and SRD into Mount Doom where they belong.

Oh, and Wizards, please release earlier rules into the Creative Commons. I give you a lot of flak, but holding onto those old rules holds you back. If you want D&D Beyond to be what you want it to be, a massive social media and gaming platform, then you have no use for the older rules, and clinging onto them holds back your business agility.

Indie 5E is a fantastic place if you are playing 5E. D&D, as it is, holds more promise in D&D Beyond than it does as a tabletop game. The books and older editions hold them back. Even Apple makes some ports, keyboard keys, and longtime "PC standards" obsolete and depreciates them. It forces their internal units to innovate and lead.

However, 5.5E is not the best version of D&D, which hopefully comes next, but I doubt whether the company can transform itself. The 2024 version is a stop-gap patch, and 5E as a game is too much work to play for the time I have. The 2014 to 2024 rules of 5E are the old, legacy USB-A ports, and they need to be eliminated from the design of D&D. The previous games, zero-edition through D&D 4, should be handed over to the community, like the old LPT serial printer ports. The problem with Wizards is that they brought in Microsoft employees, not Apple employees.

As for 5E?

I have too many other games that give me more fun and less work.

5E, with its complexity and structure, is the Blackberry keyboard of smartphones. Everyone says a phone (or fantasy gaming) needs it, but when it is gone, everyone agrees it was for the better.

5E is Too Soft

The short rests, the healing it all on a long rest, the 5.5E happy art, the utter lack of death, the prevalence of overpowered characters, the embracing of a non-violent cartoon for kids, and the general sense of frivolity and lightheartedness of 5E, these days... it's like the game has lost its edge.

What is this game anymore?

5E has become too soft for its own good. Even the 2014 books look like hardcore OSR games in comparison, and even those already had the pliancy of foam rubber. 

I love the game but get bored with every version I play. I fall into this "safe mode" when I play, knowing exactly what to do next. Even the exploration is overly safe, with the resting mechanics restoring my depleted resources, the only ones I use. I am beginning to miss 4E, with at-will, encounter, and daily powers taking the constant resting out of resource recovery.

Still, I love 5E enough to buy into the Kobold Press version and support the indie creators. But I know how easy it can be and how overpowered the character becomes. And the things coming down the road for the game make it worse.

People play Shadowdark and the OSR for a reason.

Stopping to rest every encounter robs the game of urgency, threat, and momentum. I miss pulp games like Savage Worlds, where you go all-out on an adventure without stopping to rest, like some action movie thrill ride that does not stop. The situation is dire; you keep pushing, your resources are depleted, and you keep going no matter what.

By contrast, if you took a group of 5E characters to a theme park, it feels like they would stop at every bench for a break. Are we really resting again? Why can't the casters spend a hit die for spell recovery of resources instead of stopping the adventure again?

Why, in these games, is "when do we get to rest," the number one source of tension?

Resting and recovery mechanics in 5E are garbage-tier rules. I don't care if they speed up play and eliminate going back to town every encounter. For a game demanding immersion, action-oriented play, and the looming, constant threat, they overemphasize "rest" and pausing constantly.

The first thing I do when playing 5E is turn up the difficulty. I grab a rules mod and use that to start making the game more like...

An OSR game.

All of my OSR games do the "dungeon thing" better than 5E, giving damage, rest, and healing real consequences. It is like the trope of the 15-minute adventuring day in 3.5E, where the party would go into an encounter, use all their best attacks, blow all their resources, and then walk out of the dungeon to return to town to rest and reset for the next room.

As a DM in those days, the person you were trying to rescue is dead, the monsters cleared out, and the treasure is gone. Or, I would organize an ambush of the party on the way to the dungeon with an overwhelming force and repeat that (slightly differently) each time they went back to town for a videogame reset - if they survived.

Sorry, you surprised the bad guys the first time you found the place.

Every time you go out, they get more and more ready for you or clear out.

The monsters aren't as stupid as you think they are.

However, 5E has entirely too generous rest mechanics and healing, which makes every danger inconsequential. In the old days, a fighter who took 4 points of damage from an arrow trap needed to suck it up and live with it for the rest of the day, and the party was required to conserve healing spells for critical moments. You went forward with damage and conditions since the clock was ticking and resources were depleted quickly and scarce.

A lack of care and attention to the environment burns resources faster, possibly leading to the loss of party members. Proceed too carefully; you take more time and encounter more wandering monsters. Developing the balance of momentum and caution defines great players, just like it does soldiers.

And if you do not have to deal with the possibility of loss, it isn't a game. Too much of 5E is a safe, all-ages amusement park ride, which is how the game and adventures are designed nowadays.

I love Tales of the Valiant and support indie and open 5E. But why am I playing a game I have to mod to get it the way I like when other games do the same thing but are easier? Is it the character's power and options? If that is why I play, those high-level overpower options will work against what I want in the long run. Why play a game as deadly as the OSR at a low level but then turn into an overpowered 5e at the high levels?

I remember the original Skyrim, where I had to heavily mod that game to turn it into a survival simulator. Then, better, more focused, and more feature-complete fantasy survival games came out that did the same and better with crafting, settlement building, and so many other things that supported the genre. The modded "Survival Skyrim" was still broken and cheatable in so many ways that I gave up trying to fix it to play the way I wanted.

Hardcore 5E feels like the same thing. I can get it to work at low levels. Still, eventually, the characters overpower the difficulty, and we are back to the same old 5E where the party hides in a small room in the Tomb of Horrors and takes a long rest, cooking over a campfire and posing for happy selfies as they bake cookies and pursue romance options.

In my game, the clown from Terrifier shows up and kills them all for being so stupid.

But that isn't in the module!

Obviously, you have never played an OSR game.

It is not AI art; it is my hand-made MS Paint art!

While it doesn't have to be a recognizable horror movie clown, it could be anything else in the monster book. When the players complain that it should have never happened to their characters because the rules protected them, you know where the 5E game falls flat.

Do the rules exist to protect characters or challenge them?

Some players prefer 5E because they are too afraid of the alternatives. The core design, 5E clones, and future versions of 5E become a safe-fulfilling prophecy. Players choose the game to be protected, so the designers add more protection with every book and expansion.

The concept that a GM is unfair because they are breaking a rule needs to go away.

Part of the definition of being a GM is being granted the power to break all the rules of the game. And don't get me started on the rules sections stating that "the GM wants to see the players succeed." That is another stealth player protection concept working its way in. A GM is a neutral arbiter of events and actions. As the original SBRPG game stated long ago, "A GM isn't a god; you just play one."

Otherwise, play with AI and turn on safe mode.

The OSR exists, and it is a unique, open, accepting, and vibrant place. There are plenty of challenging games here; even Shadowdark is an excellent example that goes halfway yet retains the fear and challenge. I embrace this game as a gateway to the fun of old-school gaming.

Also, I hear stories about players responding to the difficulty of Shadowdark by over-relying on negotiation as a tactic. In the old days, if the party made a deal with the goblins, the kobolds across the dungeon would hear about this and attack them on sight. There is a price to pay when dealing with the dungeon monsters, and what you get from one side will often take away a lot of other options and negotiations with others.

And if the townsfolk ever get wind of you making side deals with the goblins that burned down several farms, you will hear about it back home. There is always a price to pay somewhere. While non-combat solutions are great, constantly wheeling and dealing with the forces of evil will have a huge price later.

Corruption systems, reputation mechanics, and shifts in alignment help a great deal here. If your game doesn't have them, make a GM ruling that puts some hurt on the characters for being too chummy with the Devil and his pals.

But that isn't in the rules! You can't do that!

Obviously, you have never played an OSR game.

Swords & Wizardry: Great Design

The more I read Swords & Wizardry Revised, the more I like it. There is this fascinating use of "negative space" in some ways modifiers are applied, in that not everyone gets every modifier. D&D and B/X have been too generous with ability score modifiers for too long, and the inflation of hit points, character stats, and the overall numeric range of the game has suffered.

It is like someone making a mod for Monopoly and giving the car a +2 movement to all dice rolls. Okay, fine, as long as the other pieces have equal benefits. Well, in the game's next version, that bonus is the car rolling 3d6 for movement instead of 2d6, and, well, since dogs can be fast, the dog gets the +2 movement modifier. After a few game versions, all the pieces roll 6d6 for movement, different properties have different "movement point" costs for various pieces, and people still wonder why the game takes so long to play and why movement phases are terrible.

This didn't improve the game at all. This was a "shell game" with the math, which worsened the game.

In Swords & Wizardry, the to-hit and damage bonuses from a high STR score are exclusive to the fighter class, maintaining a balance in the game. All classes get a missile-fire to-hit bonus from a high DEX, which further stacks with the STR bonus for fighters. This means the only positive to-hit modifier for every other class comes from leveling, ensuring a fair playing field. You mostly roll an unmodified d20 versus AC for all to-hits, except for magic weapons and attacks from behind (or elevation, which can give up to another +/-2 for to-hits, p41).

The modifiers in Swords & Wizardry are straightforward and not universal, split into different categories. The highest to-hit modifier for STR is a +2 (17-18), and for DEX, it is a +1 (13+). An 18 STR gives a +3 damage modifier. CON modifiers to hit points are capped at a +1 per HD for a 13+.

The modifiers are far less than B/X, AD&D, 3.5E, and 5E.

AD&D started the "ability score stat inflation" by making ability score bonuses too good, and the 4d6 and drop the lowest ability score generation method. B/X and BECMI simplified modifiers to appeal to a younger market and simplify math. They gave bonuses to everyone since that was "fair," and that was a mistake.

In other words, zero-edition had "bounded accuracy" long before 5E did, and using the term "bounded accuracy" is just a polite way of saying, "We got the math wrong since 3rd Edition, and we still can't get it right." The original math was perfect. There was no reason to change it in AD&D other than to break compatibility for royalties, and it has been downhill ever since.

If you keep overall to-hit modifiers low, there is little reason for AC values to surpass 20. Suddenly, all armors work better now! Also, the to-hit bonuses from leveling and magic items mean much more. Letting fighters have this massive buff makes them the "lords of battle," which is how it should be.

If damage modifiers are kept low, a d4 damage dagger still means something. When 5E characters do d4+4 damage, there is little point in keeping that die around. A die roll modifier equal to or larger than the die means your design is broken, and the point where it reaches half the die is a warning sign.

Will players complain about rolling flat d20 versus AC to hit? This is how it will be for most classes until level three, when the first +1 kicks in. Yes. This is a more demanding game. Just because you are getting a +5 to-hit in 5E versus that AC 15 goblin does not mean you are getting that modifier in S&W, which is a +0 versus AC 13.

Notice the goblin's AC bump in 5E? Remember the Monopoly example?

The ancient red dragon in 5E has an AC of 22. In S&W, it is 17.

There is a curve in S&W where a 20th-level fighter gets a +13 to-hit, so assuming an STR bonus of +2 and a +2 magic weapon, this is a total +17 to-hit versus that dragon. You are not doing multi-attacks, and your highest damage modifier possible with that +2 weapon is a +5, so your damage will not be in the hundreds of hit points per turn, it will average ten points of damage per hit. 5E, we will probably have a +12 to +14 to hit modifier, so they are on par with each other, but the AC values in S&W are lower.

This is how it was in the older editions. The low levels are tricky. But the higher levels start getting better and better. Damage output in 5E is artificially scaled, with high hit points and a flat to-hit curve, combined with a logarithmic damage curve. In S&W, damage output stays flat, but your ability to hit increases, thus increasing damage output.

The difference is that a d4 dagger versus an adult red dragon with 44 hit points in S&W is still a threat. In 5E, there are 256 hit points for that adult red dragon. Who cares about a dagger? You need a +8 damage modifier and multi-attacks to even be noticed. More die rolls, rules references, attacks, long turns, and certain classes limited to smaller weapons become worthless. Lower hit points mean the weapons and attacks you make stay powerful and mean something, and the original die shapes hold value longer. Higher hit points only mean more time spent in the rules (and during your turn) figuring out how to nullify Wizard's hit point scaling.

Remember the Monopoly example?

I would rather be a thief in S&W backstabbing that dragon than a thief in 5E doing the same thing. Even if I am "doing more damage in 5E," the amount of character building, rules references, stacking bonuses, and special subclass powers needed to get there means I spent "more time in the rules" than the S&W thief.

The S&W character, by comparison, is more powerful.

And players spend far less time in the rules.

Traveller: Worldbuilding

Creating planets for a Traveller game can be a complex task. You start with a set of basic stats for the world, and from there, you need to interpret and transform these numbers into a fully-fledged world.

Terra 1827 A867A69-F (N,W)

The above? That number? That is Earth. The UDP is planet name, hex number, followed by:

1. Star-port Quality
2. Size
3. Atmosphere Type
4. Hydrographic Percentage
5. Population
6. Government Type
7. Law Level
8. -
9. Tech Level
10. (Bases)

Numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 are size, atmosphere, hydrographic, and population, in this case, 867A. Now, think about Earth. We are supposed to imagine Earth from those four numbers. For some people, this is an impossible task. How are you supposed to come up with the deserts of North Africa, the jungles of the Amazon, the frozen ice sheets of the Antarctic, the mountains of the Himalayas, the nearly-infinite oceans, the splendor of Hawaii, the glory of some of the great river valleys in China, the pastoral fields of France,  the great forests and lakes of northern Canada, the endless urban New York area, and all the other places in this world from just four numbers?

867A.

And then, add most of the worlds you will create, which could be fantastic alien landscapes?

While I am moving away from AI art (because of the ethics and theft from artists involved), I can't deny the potential of an AI generator (legal, artist-sourced, and with contributors paid) to inspire ideas you could never imagine. The idea generation aspect of AI is truly remarkable, and while using it commercially is something I do not support, it can be a powerful tool in the right hands.

If you have one of the sector guides, you will find information on a few planets in the subsector, but not all. But remember, 99% of the universe, including random planets, colonies, and stations in systems, is yours to create. You can let your imagination run wild, and anything goes.

In addition, fantastical weather, geology, nature, vegetation, tidal flows, swamps, marches, salt flats, geysers, mineral formations, insects, volcanoes, mineral deposits, islands, beaches, natural arches, canyons, badlands, sea life, winds, atmospheric layers, rings, moons, oddly colored and shaped terrain features, animals, creatures, and space anomalies are all involved. Not every desert looks like California, and not every forest looks like Oregon.

And there isn't just "one location" in every hex map location. Each is a solar system, with a main planet and many other worlds and places within. Again, think of our solar system, Earth, and all the planets. Put a sci-fi civilization in there with ships zooming all over, colonies, space stations, satellites, and places on every planet to explore and do business. A typical Traveller subsector map can be very deceptive since you tend to think "one planet per hex," but it is not that way.

There are probably millions of "points of interest" in every hex. The trick is understanding they are all there, not getting overwhelmed by them all, and deciding the very few that interact with your players and game.

Imagine being sent to find a suitcase in our solar system—just one suitcase. It could be anywhere from Mercury to the deserts of Morocco or even in a cargo container in Jupiter's orbit, in a random ship's cargo hold, sitting in an airport bathroom, or in the back trunk of a car in any parking lot in the world—any world in the system.

Naturally, because your players are so awesome, they will be able to find it with a few vague clues and a matchbook from a random restaurant.

But the players could detour to an infamous "spacer casino" in a side mission. That place was never on a map or in a subsector guide, nor did it exist in anyone's ideas or campaign. But it is in yours. This is why when you play Traveller, people always say, "It is your Traveller." There is no way for anyone to play in the same universe twice. Ever. Not in a billion years. The map and system names could be the same, but none of what is in those planets or subsectors will ever be the same.

This is more challenging work than most fantasy games, and it requires a much more free mind to dream, create, and imagine the speculative and extraordinary. If the players want to help fill in, do some of the imagining, and make suggestions, go for it.

The universe is big enough to hold everyone's imagination.

Make it your own.

ToV PDF Thoughts, Part 5

There were videos on YouTube in the 5E community defending pop-up healing, saying, "This is the game's balance!" We have outstanding fixes to 5E's lack of lethality already in print. 5e Hardmode has plenty of optional rules to fix everything everyone complains about.

Pop-up healing is just dumb. It is not classic D&D or tabletop gaming. This comes from videogaming and MMOs, where you can die in a fight and get resurrected immediately with no consequence.

The game loses all meaning when there is no consequence for the character's death. You aren't even playing D&D at that point; you are playing a story game where you are talking and rolling dice, and there are far better story games on the market, like FATE, Cypher, and many others.

Shadowdark proves that dungeon gaming needs hard-set resource limits and a definite game-over mechanism. This is classic risk versus reward. People love this stuff. It is excitement and tension. If people don't get this in D&D, they will leave the game and find it elsewhere, and Shadowdark proves it.

The community has also proposed some practical fixes for spells banned in 5e Hardmode, many of which are addressed in Tales of the Valiant. For instance, the ToV rules prohibit people from relying solely on good berries for sustenance. This practical approach ensures you will begin to starve on day two of trying to live on these things, a situation akin to surviving on Pop-Tarts alone.

Interestingly, there is no 'Hero's Feast' spell in ToV, nor a 'Find Traps' spell. Could it be that the designers are intentionally keeping spellcasting classes from making rogues and rangers redundant?  The Find Traps spell is also better than a rogue since it also finds magical trap-like spells (which makes Detect Magic redundant). This design choice raises questions about role protection and invites us to consider our preferred game if we play a non-spellcasting class.

Do rangers need to hunt and forage? The party can't rely on "magic Door Dash" for food delivery? Does somebody care about rogues and rangers again? Wow, what are we playing? Pathfinder 2?

It is almost like the community can rebuild and fix 5E a lot better than the "professional designers" at Wizards can. Where have we heard this before?

Could you repeat that? Where have we heard this before?

This again? You get the point. The more I force myself to examine 5E, the more I realize its problems have nothing to do with 5E.

The problem with 5E is Wizards and D&D.

At this point, any community-designed version of 5E is better than the main game. Most third-party versions address most of the problems people have with the game. And 2024(5) will do nothing to address issues like a "Find Traps" spell since backward compatibility is a design goal. In the new version, D&D characters will still be surviving off good berries alone (though the spell will probably be replaced by the Pop Tart spell for product placement), and Find Traps will be forcing rogues into a life of crime, unable to find a job in an adventuring party unless they 'learn to magic.'

We also have fixes in the community for many of 5E's problems to make it a more challenging game.

There is a point where all the slick, Wall Street marketing firm-produced videos hyping D&D falls flat for me. The designers in those videos do nothing to fix problems in the game's design. All those videos are meant to reinforce platform lock-in and make it seem like Wizards is the professional publisher with all the answers.

I look at them and ask, "Shouldn't you be fixing your game instead of sitting here and talking about how great your game is?"

Their answer will inevitably be another poll to ask us about the problems we already know about.

The more I look at other games and consider them the true flag-bearer for the game, the sillier this situation gets. There is nothing wrong with 5E that the community hasn't fixed. People who complain about 5E aren't angry about the rules being broken; they are angry about platform lock-in with a broken version of the game - and those who are stuck on the platform.

The entire situation is like the Windows dominance of the early 2000s, when nobody would consider Linux for anything serious. These days, almost everything on the cloud is Linux.

Free, community-developed, and open systems will always win.

Lock in is a temporary state of the market at one moment in time.

WOIN: Statistic Ranges

Two of the more exciting changes What is Old is New makes regarding the dice is implementing a split scale between statistics and the dice given. In older D6 dice pool systems, it was almost always a 1:1 scaling; one point of an attribute is one die in a roll. They do this for both skills and abilities, which helps keep the number of dice manageable.

Next, they implement a grade system where most characters start at level 5. This caps the total dice pool a character can create to one die per grade. So if you are in grade 5 and have a dice pool 7 from the total of skills and abilities, that roll is capped to the character's grade or 5 dice. Again, very few D6 die pool games do this, and it limits contributions of ability plus skill dice to the character's grade rating. Modifiers (gear, situation, etc.) are outside grade and can raise the pool.

This system effectively introduces a 'character level' dynamic, strategically discouraging excessive optimization at lower grades and making higher-grade monsters and characters more formidable threats. It's a fascinating element that adds depth and intrigue to the gameplay.

Dice in a pool can also be traded off for extra damage or effects, which factor in the total pool, contributing to character power. The grading system allows for more dice and more damage and special effects once characters raise their grades.

When we played the old D6 System games, those die pools routinely shot up to 12 to 18d6, and we would toss buckets of dice around the table. It was fun, but even the players began to wonder, "Is there more to this system than huge die-throws?" This was one of the enormous weaknesses of the original D6 System pool mechanics and is also a weakness of many D6 die pool games today.

Most D6 Systems games ended with that "one big roll" by a player, and then after that, the players began to lose interest since the game seemed like a Yahtzee game where the more dice you threw, the more you won. They did not have staying power without the low-level rules crunch.

By breaking attribute and die pool contributions, the system provides players with a tangible sense of progression without overwhelming the game. The system's XP can be wisely spent to raise the character's grade or individual skills and abilities. Moving from a six to a seven may not immediately change a character's dice contribution of skill or ability, but it's a clear step towards the next dice-pool level, fostering a sense of accomplishment and growth.

They used a good amount of system crunch to insulate the slipperiness and over-dicing of earlier attempts at D6 pool systems. This is good game design and avoids some of the insane stacking of dice and power these games have. This is a good use of game design to solve a problem, and whenever designers "tamp down" out-of-control elements of a design (hello, exponential scaling damage in D&D 3+), it is a good thing.

The Scaffolding

One of the worst parts about Wizard's D&D is all the rules scaffolding they brought from Magic: The Gathering. The team invents unique sorts of actions, like bonus actions and reactions, and this is just one area—but there are many. Then you get into problems like double-casting spells with a bonus action.

TSR D&D wasn't like that; the designers understood the game to be more straightforward without many of the frameworks card game designers brought in. Again, you only get into some of these layered rules, which are primarily designed to be cheated and taken advantage of, like in a card game, where they create card synergies and situations for one particular card or deck build to shine.

Wizards' D&D also has the concept of "deck builds" in characters, which is what multiclassing and subclasses provide. A character is like your deck; each subclass, power, spell, and ability gained is your deck composition.

This is why some love 5E and some hate it. It is also why the break with Critical Role is inevitable. They are story gamers, and they need a system that appeals to that audience. It is unacceptable to ask their fans to do these 5E "deck builds" and constrain their stories to those few viable options. This is also why the OSR exists; we remember the TSR D&D as it used to be for the first 30 years of its life. Even Paizo is an offshoot of the Wizard's model, with many of the same 3E designers.

D&D and Pathfinder are character-builder games, like MtG is a deck-builder game.

GURPS has far more rules, so it should be worse. It is more of a character builder than 5E. The rules here are all built to maintain a simulation and character-builder system; when you get to combat, you take one action on one turn. It is even more fine-grained than D&D since readying a weapon is all you can do. It is just one thing; moving and attacking inside one turn is penalized. You don't have a lot of action types here or bonus actions to try and turn stuff before another 45 minutes go by for the table to decide what they are all doing next.

While you can "deck build" to take advantage of a rule in GURPS, it is usually bad form and highly unrealistic since the build system is supposed to reflect a lifetime of learning and experiences. In any Wizards' version of D&D, optimizing is typically seen as a good thing, and the same is true in Pathfinder 2, where optimization goes much harder regarding gameplay.

I can only play GURPS with 3 characters, which is a huge ask. It is better-played solo, as a single hero game, and doing that hardcore simulation.

But I don't see GURPS as a character-builder game, unlike how 5E or Pathfinder are designed. In those games, paths, and synergies are built into your limited choices. In GURPS, you have unlimited options and no paths to follow. The 5E designers put in trick builds and good combos; in GURPS, you are what you are and the game designer.

Cypher is a rules-light system, so it should be the best. Not really; while I love Cypher, I sometimes must be in the mood for the game's abstract nature. Running many characters in this rules-light game is also as much of a chore as GURPS, since after a while, the numbers, pools, edges, and abilities all start to blur together in a jumble of rules-light game linguistics and special terms make my head spin. The more rules-light a game gets, the more abstract and conceptual it gets, and I feel my brain slowly leaving reality in some FATE-induced mental haze. I still love Cypher.

With these new games, my eyes glaze over when I see 5E and Pathfinder 2 "tier lists" for classes and abilities for builds and videos going over this on YouTube. Don't take this. It's the wrong choice! It's a garbage-tier ability. Overall, it's the best pick. Why would you go with this? Terrible pick.

It has come to a point where I am selling all these other character-builder games. GURPS is my favorite; I can build with my own choices, and I will stick with it.

Shouldn't your story take priority over optimization if it is all about the story? Or are people steering their stories into optimized builds? I feel that this is why Critical Role is doing its own story system; how can players' stories be vital if they are beholden to the builds that Wizards decides are "hot" this season?

With a digital game, prepare for seasonal builds and options that are moved out of live support and into legacy. This will be like the ever-changing ground of an MMO, Magic the Gathering, or even Warhammer 40K, with entire armies or cards removed from active play. A digital game will never stay the same and be constantly flipped over like a compost pile to keep options fresh. Prepare for classes, races, subclasses, spells, powers, magic items, gear, and every other game part to move to live service models. Legacy options may still be supported, but I feel 'official play' builds will only be allowed with choices the designers think are viable and in "live rotation."

To their credit, Pazio has avoided live service models, and they deserve to be commended. If GURPS did not exist, I would be doing PF2. GURPS keeps random game designers out of my character builds, and I make the choices based on what suits my story.

Modern character-building games are one step away from a live service model. Don't be fooled.

This is the MtG and Games Workshop model, which has proven to work and drive profits. I don't have to like it to acknowledge it exists. And this is precisely how I would move D&D if I were in charge and had to answer to shareholders. It's the same thing; you get put in that position and don't have a choice.

Answering fans is a different thing.

The Three Level Pause

Every version of Wizards D & D has been a disaster. I know, biggest RPG of all time and everything, but when you look at the game historically, Wizards keeps changing the formula.

• 3.0
• 3.5
• 4E
• 4 Essentials
• 5E
• You could make an argument Tasha's was 5.25
• And now, 5.5

Six (or seven) versions in about 20 years? TSR had two "core versions" of the game in the same 20-year timeframe, AD&D and 2nd Edition AD&D. The D&D books were always considered the introductory game, so they don't count.

And AD&D and 2nd Edition are pretty close regarding rules. The game is mostly streamlining and clarification, along with a bump in monster hit points. That is arguably one version of the game in 20 years, and if you apply the same logic to Wizards D&D, that is three versions with one streamlined version each.

Wizards are three times worse at making a stable, long-term support version of D&D than TSR was. Nothing lasts. Things are always changing. They have to constantly sell books to maintain profits.

There is no such thing as a 'profitable' roleplaying game company, books alone.

B/X has been around 40 years, still works, plays well, and is much more moddable, compatible, and resistant to bad rules than 5E ever was. One bad rule, a multiclass combo, or subclass will break 5E and blue-screen the game. The endgame is horribly broken; nobody dies.

Pathfinder 2 is even tighter-tuned. Compared to 5E, that is like a Swiss watch.

Yes, 5E is popular; it is essentially a pen-and-paper video game. The 'player agency' is in the character-build system. B/X players don't have that investment where they feel research and character builds can create success - B/X players need to be more involved in character and story. Character and story reach longer than the "player close" build and multiclass system of 5E.

5E makes the promise, "Character builds equal success."

You don't need to be invested in the story or environment. Like an MMO, you can sleep through most low-level quests, not even paying attention, and the DM will tell you everything your passive scores say they should. It is an exaggeration, but 5E gives me this impression. It isn't bad, just what it is - it appeals to a different type of player.

B/X does not have this. You either pay attention, or your character dies.

Shadowdark takes away the certainty of character builds with random progression.

Good 5E DMs make sure people pay attention and don't fall into that "5E autopilot" thing that happens. If the DM says you angered the townspeople or your character is dead, guess what? Your build ain't helping you.

Every "2.0" version of 5E (2024, ToV, A5E) eliminates the multiclass exploits of 2014 and puts subclass choices at 3rd level. You will see the "universal suggestion" of 2024, and all these games as "starting at 3rd level," and starting at 1st level will be seen as punishment.

Mark my words. People will ignore the first and second levels almost universally. People want their multiclass exploits early. We live in a world defined by impatience.

B/X requires the patience of a statue. Part of the reason it isn't as popular (and never was) is that it needed an entirely different "brain wiring" than "normies." This is why the game was "for nerds" in the '80s and '90s; nerds were wired to appreciate the long wait for benefits. 5E is written for the impatient, and the 2024 version putting subclass options at the 3rd level will be seen as a negative.

5E is fast food. I don't go to the leading brand since I disagree with their business practices.

I am still optimistic about ToV and A5E because I know what I am getting. I like the 3rd level pause for subclass combos, and pick one at 4th - and you may wait until 6th for the new class combo to come online. That is a long time to pause for a dual-class character to "realize power," the 6th level is the beginning of the end for many campaigns since very few play past the 8th or 9th level.

Compare that with a dual-classed character at 2nd level realizing their power in the 2014 game.

This is a massive change nobody seems to see.

I want my combo cheat power at the second level! Halfway through the first session!

Sorry, you have to wait 3-4 weeks until 6th level.

I don't hear anything about this. This is as "big" as putting a waiting line to get into McDonald's. Many people just will not go. I bet the following option book to come out for 2024 will be Tasha's style book that addresses the "slowness" of the game by adding "training options" starting at 2nd level, and we will get another subsystem patch to fix a flaw in the design.

This may turn people off to all three games, 2024, ToV, and A5E. There is a crowd who "wants it now," and they are a sizable part of the community. With Open 5E, I hope they make their own game and stop being so dependent on a company's design flaws for what game they like.

That game could be MCDM RPG, and I say this humorously, but it looks like it caters to the "instant power now and more power" crowd. It is fantastic since we enjoyed that play style in 4E. Everyone should play a game that caters to their tastes.

Yes, ToV and A5E have the 3-level "problem," but since my brain is wired like an old-school player, I don't see a problem.

I can wait.

They Don't Care Anymore

I am slowly getting the feeling that the 5E and OSR communities are fracturing.

Not in compatibility, but the old guard of websites and portals controlling access to games is completely gone - nobody cares what the dominant gaming press, YouTube, or hub sites think anymore. The whisper networks are exposed. Site bans for creators are flying, and those who had control are losing it - and their minds. Even some YouTube creators slowly lose their grip on reality as the scaffolding of 'what once was'' buckles, folds, and comes down in a crash.

The zeitgeist is dead.

Let's go pre-2022. You made an adventure or supplement for the top OSR system (Old School Essentials) or D&D 5E a few years ago. There was no question you did.

Then the OGL was killed.

The ground was no longer stable anymore. 5E blew up, and many left for Pathfinder 2. Many of the 5E community split off, and we have Shadowdark and Tales of the Valiant. And we are seeing that in the OSR, with the 4th generation OSR games just doing their own damn thing and throwing the middle finger to anyone who thinks otherwise.

Shadowdark is a good example. A group of amazing creators found they had more fun with OSR games than they did 5E, so they set out to build a 5E-like system that simulated old-school sensibilities. Shadowdark is the gateway drug for the OSR, and I welcome this game into our community with open arms - since this helps a vast group of players only used to 5E discover the joy of a hardcore 'Dark Souls' style dungeon experience that D&D refuses to supply.

Dragonslayer goes hard on the old-school, with a refined mix of B/X and 1st Edition. There is even artistic nudity - just like AD&D, don't complain - in this book, and the creator speaks openly about what he likes and criticizes the direction of many newer games. He takes flak, and nobody cares. The game slaps me back awake like it was the 1980s again, and roleplaying was something only the cool college kids did, and I wanted in on it.

Since this also is the game for all the fantastic mega-dungeons: Barrowmaze, Highfell, and the others - with a new one coming this year, this one game and those dungeons can provide 20+ years of play without needing to buy anything else. This is expensive, but a 300-page book packed wall-to-wall with consistent OSR art and sensibilities is like a rallying call to me.

It is worth the money. This isn't "just another B/X."

It is B/X+.

The classes in DS are fun, especially compared to OSE or Labyrinth Lord. Fighters are worlds better in DS, since they get a cleave ability when they kill any target at level 1, getting an extra attack, plus another every 2 character levels. So, if you kill an orc at level 1, you can immediately attack another. At level 3, this improves to two attacks after a kill, and at level 5, that is three attacks - and this applies to both melee and missile weapon attacks. This has no HD limitations.

Clerics get a divine channeling power that lets them swap a 1st level spell to cure light wounds, and mages get that but for detecting or reading magic. These are "fun changes," I bet a little inspired by 5E, but it gives casters better-prepared spell choices and keeps them flexible. Some of the pain points of B/X have been house-ruled away and made official rules.

Thief percentages are not horrible; they get a d6 hit die, and a failure margin built into the pickpocket skill could be extended to other skills for fun. They can also appraise treasure. The rules also say, "roleplay precedes thief skill die rolling," - which means in many cases, with solid roleplay, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ROLL. If you care to creep behind a low wall, out of sight, the referee can rule - it just succeeds, good plan. No game has a "roleplay trigger" for thieves, which makes playing them incredibly fun and interactive as you try to think up strategies to avoid rolling.

Using a rope and spikes, no roll is needed for climbing. If you studied the key, no roll is needed for lockpicking. If you recently disarmed the same exact type of trap, no roll is needed to remove this trap. If you have a good hiding spot, no roll is needed to hide in shadows. If you drop your pack, have a quiet approach, and just creep up with a dagger, no roll is needed to move silently. If you watch your target and know which pocket a wallet is in, and have someone distract them, no roll is needed to pickpockets.

Ninja roleplaying is back with the DS thief class, which is excellent.

I feel like my eyes are open.

OSE. 5E, and Labyrinth Lord don't do this, and their classes feel very "one note" without tools that can provide fun opportunities at the table and player options. If someone asked me to play a fighter, cleric, mage, or thief, I would choose DS over OSE, LL, or Shadowdark.

I get the same feeling 5E gives me - I have the tools to deal with situations. However, here, roleplay and creativity matter a lot more.

Dragonslayer is the next B/X standard bearer. They took the unfun parts of B/X away, or parts where you sit and feel "I am stuck doing nothing," and gave characters options and tools. And these changes have been tested over the years at the mega-dungeons mentioned above, so they are proven winners.

And I get the feeling DS is closer to a Shadowdark than B/X, at least in the design philosophy of "making the game fun" coming before "making the gameplay just like the old one."

And it isn't a digest-sized book, which I see as a positive. Small books never stay open, the information-to-page ratio is horrible, they go on hundreds of pages, and their type, for my older eyes, is a pain to read. Give me a full-sized book with excellent art and page layout any day.

Another amazing Kickstarter late last year, and shipping this year, is the B/X-inspired ACKS 2. This did better than his previous Kickstarters by 3-5 times, and he rewrote the game to eliminate the OGL. All the monsters and spells have been reimagined to fit the world he wants to see, not a world where B/X is forced in there.

Another game that wrote the OGL and SRD out of existence? Basic Fantasy 4th Edition.

A game that went Creative Commons? Swords & Wizardry.

You can't compete with Wizards of the Coast! They are like [throw some considerable number here]! Well, Kobold Press thinks they can, and for that matter, Paizo is doing an excellent job. We are getting a complete replacement for all core books, compatible with 10 years of 5E books - and that is a wonderful thing because people's libraries and investments are being protected.

Add Level Up Advanced 5E to the list of games throwing the middle finger at common wisdom, though they were three years ahead of the curve. This is a complete rewrite of the SRD, with no licensed language, and is free from any OGL license mess. This game is still strong and is another favorite of mine that mixes old-school design with 5E.

But we are seeing a crumbling narrative and a death of the gatekeeper sites and zeitgeist. Wizards killing the OGL killed these cliques' control and the feeling you needed to "play along" to "play at all." If they are unfun, the old ways of doing things get tossed in the bin. Nobody feels beholden to exact copies or Xeroxing games anymore. If a part of a game sucked in the old days, why do we have to replicate it?

And the games coming out in this period, especially the 4th generation OSR games, are fantastic.