It Begins

I got an email today from Wizards (from my D&D Beyond account that I never use) stating:

Big changes have come to Wizards Accounts

It now runs on a new account system, giving you more digital access across Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast brands.

Sign in to check out your account profile and make sure everything looks up to date.

If you have social accounts connected to your profile, you'll need to relink them the first time you sign in.

Your Wizards Account is an all-access pass to the Hasbro + Wizards Family of Brands.

So it is not really a D&D Beyond or Wizards account anymore; it is a Hasbro "all-access pass." Notice they put Hasbro first. We will look back on this moment as the first signal of the next major change in D&D and every other game they make.

When I log in, will I get Transformers, MTG, and GI JOE news pushed to my feed before I have to dig for the D&D section? I get why they did this; why let new products fail to reach an audience when you have a huge platform here that isn't helping them? But I also don't want Transformers spam before I set up a D&D game. This also solves the problem of platforms like YouTube not pushing their live-play shows, and having those wither and die because nobody knows they exist.

This is clearly a "my audience is mine" sort of play, and also a statement that social media platforms aren't doing their job pushing the hobby they once were (or the price to feature content as a premium partner has skyrocketed). YouTube telling D&D creators to "find something else to make videos on" seemed very sus at the time, and I always wondered if the checks stopped coming in and YouTube started pulling D&D videos off people's recommended lists.

If that is the case, I can't blame Wizards for taking their audience and running. If Wizards can get D&D YouTubers to create over there and share revenue, that would be good. I doubt it, though.

From the FAQ:

Which brands, websites, and products are included?

You can use your Wizards account to log in to a variety of existing and future Wizards and Hasbro products. Current products include:

• Magic: The Gathering Arena
• Magic: The Gathering Companion App
• EventLink
• Wizards Play Network (WPN)
• Store & Event Locator
• SpellTable
• Secret Lair
• Dungeons & Dragons Beyond App
• Dungeons & Dragons Beyond Website
• Dungeons & Dragons Store Website

When future games such as Exodus release, you will be able to sign in with your Wizards account as well.

So this unifies the MTG and D&D logins, which is a bit surprising it took this long. This feels like they're trying to become a more generic "gaming platform" rather than a collection of games with different sites and audiences. With new releases coming out (such as Exodus) that people have low confidence in, this gives them a channel to farm interest and push the IP, and the same could be said for some of their video games, though AAA gaming is dead and dying.

If the next Xbox and a good video card cost close to two grand, then yeah, consoles and AAA gaming are dead. People will run games off CPU graphics for the next 10 years. Video cards will slowly die, and will the silicon be affordable enough to replace them? It is a good time to be a retro gamer, though, and even the retro RPG space is better than many current offerings. Cutting-edge PC gaming is facing an extinction-level event. As PC gaming gets more expensive, Wizards and D&D will have less money.

So, survival is job number one. If Wizards has to pay through the nose to get its new products out there, fewer channels are covering them, D&D YouTubers are quitting and cutting back, and YouTube isn't recommending D&D, it might as well consolidate its market and push new games directly to its customers. What else can they do? I don't blame them.

This also feels like something a company does before it preps itself for a merger or sale.

DOA Sun

https://www.ttrpginsider.news/p/fighting-oppression-in-new-ways-d-d-s-designers-on-adapting-dark-sun-to-modern-times

Forget it.

Cooked.

It's done.

There Is No Ethical Brain Donation

https://www.polygon.com/dnd-baldurs-gate-3-mind-flayer-tabletop-transformation/

I hate to be the spoilsport, but there is no way around it.

Vampires can live on animal blood or willing donors. You can write a tragic, even sympathetic vampire if you want. The hunger is a problem you can negotiate.

Mind flayers do not have that option. Their food is the entire mind of an intelligent creature. Their colonies do not function without a steady supply of thinking beings kept as livestock. That is not flavor you can file off. That is the creature.

Wizards has spent years scrubbing slavery and “people-owning” out of every other culture they print. Then they release a feat path that lets a player become one of the few monsters whose entire society is built on exactly that. They will give you the tentacles and the Mind Blast. They will not give you an honest accounting of dinner.

As a story option that mimics the BG3 struggle, it is fine. The tadpole, the slow loss of self, the choice to stop or go further - that can be a good character arc. But if the transformation ever completes, you should lose the character. What remains is an evil NPC. That is the traditional take, and it is the honest one. Ceremorphosis is not a prestige class. It should not end up as a power-gaming feat chain you take because Mind Blast looks fun.

D&D has spent years making sure you never lose control of your character. So of course they won’t take the sheet away when the transformation finishes. They’ll just let you keep playing the thing whose society they refuse to describe.

They want to sell you the squid. They just don’t want to talk about the farm.

Go Big or Go Home

What did Gen Con 2026 reveal about sustained RPG interest?

Looking at the announced play sessions and how the tables actually filled (based on available seats, player-hours, and final sell-out patterns), a clear hierarchy emerged: 

• D&D: Still the clear top tier by a healthy margin, but the 90% leader narrative no longer applies
• Pathfinder + Starfinder: The institutional alternative
• Daggerheart / Pirate Borg / Call of Cthulhu: Mid-tier systems that convert attention into filled tables
• DCC + Shadowdark: The strong fantasy alternatives
• Shadowrun + Marvel Multiverse: Established but lower relative heat

The ranking is not random. It tracks closely with publishing scale, cadence, and independence.

The Core Pattern

Systems backed by operations built for volume and continuous output tend to hold or climb. Paizo maintains Tier 2 through institutional infrastructure and steady product flow. Chaosium keeps Call of Cthulhu in the mid-tier with a large, expanding catalog.

Goodman Games runs the most aggressive mid-scale version of the same model: near-constant crowdfunding, megadungeons, crawl collections, and special editions. Dungeon Crawl Classics is no longer a critical darling or the hot newness; it is an older game, yet it ranked in the same statistical band last year and this year. Sustained support and a deep indie community are what keep it alive and filling tables, more than media attention or novelty. That relentless catalog growth is why DCC continues to place consistently highly despite its age.

DCC being its own system with its own dice also creates a stickiness factor that is hard to escape. We have seen this with a few other special-dice systems (Genesys, the Fantasy Flight Star Wars line, and a handful of others). They either fail to find an audience at launch or, once they do, the proprietary dice keep people engaged simply because “they already have some.”

The high-heat test cases Shadowdark and Daggerheart currently occupy the opposite position. Both have strong design and cultural momentum. Shadowdark remains the most visible pure-OSR-style system that cracked the fourth tier; Daggerheart sits in the mid-tier as this year’s critical darling. Yet both operate with thinner, slower release pipelines. The data pattern from previous breakout systems suggests their long-term Gen Con footprint will depend on whether the support infrastructure scales — or whether they settle into the “excellent but constrained” category.

Necessary Qualifications

Volume alone is not enough. Kobold Press maintains a massive professional catalog, yet remains largely invisible in system-level rankings because so much of that output lives inside the 5E ecosystem. It supports the dominant game rather than competing with it for independent tables and identity. Tales of the Valiant has not yet broken that gravity.

Traveller offers the genre counter-example. Mongoose has one of the deepest catalogs in the hobby, but pure science fiction consistently underperforms fantasy at Gen Con. Even large-scale support hits a lower ceiling when the genre itself draws a smaller share of attention. Starfinder only performs as well as it does because it combines Paizo’s infrastructure with science-fantasy positioning.

What Drives Interest?

Sustained high engagement at Gen Con scale tends to require volume + independence + favorable genre positioning (especially fantasy).

Volume without independence gets absorbed by the larger ecosystem.

Volume in a smaller genre hits a structural ceiling.

Independence + high-cadence support inside the big fantasy lane is what converts popularity into durable table presence.

Old School Essentials sits as the cautionary case on the other side: real reach and critical respect (especially via Dolmenwood’s awards), yet a publishing approach that left the core line feeling under-supported and statistically quiet.

In a crowded field, design quality and early heat still matter. But the systems that keep filling seats year after year are the ones whose publishers treat catalog growth and delivery cadence as non-negotiable. The rest, even the breakouts, tend to peak and then settle.

Gen Con 2026 RPG Observations: Five Tiers of Interest

Looking at the announced play sessions and how the tables actually filled (based on available seats, player-hours, and final sell-out patterns), a clear hierarchy emerged:

• D&D – still the clear top tier by a healthy margin, but the 90% leader narrative no longer applies
• Pathfinder + Starfinder – the institutional alternative
• Daggerheart / Pirate Borg / Call of Cthulhu – the mid-tier systems that convert attention into filled tables
• DCC + Shadowdark – the strong fantasy alternatives
• Shadowrun + Marvel Multiverse – established but lower relative heat

D&D remains the biggest single block of seats and player-hours, but the gap is no longer the old “everything else is a rounding error” picture. The second and third tiers are visible, active, and drawing real demand. That’s the story the 2026 schedule told.

The Gen Con Announcements

From what I hear, EDGE Studios is not losing the Star Wars license, but Wizards will still produce 5E Star Wars books. Wizards is also releasing a handful of D&D and World of Warcraft books.

I do not yet know how deep these two product lines will be, or whether they will be one-off books with little follow-up support. These two IPs alone deserve libraries of material: bestiaries, race and culture books, era sourcebooks (not just a couple of quick releases). If they turn out to be limited, self-contained products, I am far less interested. What I want is a full, complete game experience that can sustain years of play.

The announced World of Warcraft book includes 50+ monsters. That does not even begin to cover the depth of WoW’s creatures, which could easily fill multiple bestiaries. Every major race deserves its own lore, history, and background treatment.

At the same time, Dark Sun is returning, along with Dragonlance and Greyhawk. In some ways it feels like the 1990s again, when too many settings helped push TSR toward bankruptcy. We will also see the D&D engine power G.I. Joe, Transformers, Power Rangers, and other licensed games in the coming years, further splitting attention. Traveller 5E is on the way. Many other publishers are announcing 5E-compatible versions of their own games.

We are watching partners brought on board to share financial risk, and other companies spending time and resources on D&D books when that energy could go into their own systems and releases.

Does flooding the channel with 5E-compatible versions of every popular IP, and every classic D&D setting, risk the same kind of consumer fatigue that hit the video-game industry in 1983 and TSR in the 1990s?

This is not a question of popularity. It is a question of volume without focus.

GURPS: Bundles of Holdings!

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/G4Essentials2026

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/G4Infinite

We have two GURPS bundles on the Bundle of Holding; they are really worth checking out if you are new to GURPS. Jump in now, and open your mind to a universe of gaming!

Resolved: Paizo & The Archives of Nethys

It is nice to hear that the issues between the Archives of Nethys and Paizo are resolved. This should never have gotten to the level it did, and it feels like a lack of communication on all sides. Our community sites are special places, and they help share and promote the games we love. I bounced off Pathfinder 2, as it is better for groups than solo play, but I still like the system.

It's good to hear that this part of gaming's current woes is resolved in these horrible times for everyone.

Kickstarter: Hackmaster XXV

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kenzerco/hackmaster-25th-anniversary-edition-a-fantasy-rpg

Well, this is interesting. HackMaster is getting an updated version of the rules. The Kickstarter announcement page just dropped, and it looks like they are cleaning up and patching the 5th Edition of the game.

"We painstakingly honed the mechanisms and strategy of HackMaster to continually improve and streamline game play and make it something truly unique in the RPG world: a perfect blend of old-school feel with modern mechanics, offering fast tactical play combined with the most immersive roleplaying experience." 

-HackMaster Kickstarter announcement, July 2026  

This is an interesting development, and a welcome return. Hopefully, the new edition balances the expansion books more toward the 4th Edition (which covered all classes and also had adventures) than the 5th, which seemed to focus only on cleric classes. But it is also true that a great game needs no expansions.

I am looking forward to this, having been watching from the sidelines and never really into the game, but appreciating HackMaster's unique take on fantasy. There is a lot of room in the Grognard OSR for this game, which includes DCC and many other greats.

Are Modern Games Doomed?

https://www.archivesofnethys.com/agreement.html

Some terrible news for open gaming today, as Paizo ends its partnership with the Archives of Nethys, the free online rules resource for everything Pathfinder and Starfinder.

At this point, if you invest in digital, ot support games that live behind paywalls, you need to ask yourself some hard questions. Many games are guilty too, such as 5E versions, where the SRD is free, but what you actually need to play (subclasses and character options) are locked behind book or PDF purchases.

When the major VTTs shut down and all those digital books are lost, nobody will get anything back. If D&D Beyond ever folds or is sold to a group that shuts it down, all of that is gone.

I also get why Paizo would go this way. Who would ever buy digital copies of Pathfinder 2 rulebooks with Nethys out there providing the more popular and free alternative? Major VTTs don't see any money from supporting Paizo games, nor will most people buy VTT books for something they can get for free, better supported elsewhere.

At this point, why wouldn't I only support games like Basic Fantasy or OSRIC? Kevin Crawford put a few of his core rule sets under a public domain CC license. The excellent 2E clone game For Gold & Glory, you can distribute the PDF for free as long as you aren't selling access to it; you can share it freely and post it on a website. Basic Fantasy's PDF is free, and the books are printed at cost.

We have far better alternatives.

When does modern gaming get to be too much?

If this were the world of open-source software, Pathfinder would be forked and cloned, and the free version would start development. It took far less for OpenOffice to be forked into LibreOffice. This is how the real world works.

But this isn't how the silly world of gaming works.

One group would attack the other for "hurting the game," and nothing that people swear they believe in, open and free gaming for everyone, would ever get done. People who complain that capitalism is ruining gaming will not support games owned and run by the community, and will go out of their way to attack those communities as they keep playing games printed by Wall Street. They won't consider free and open alternatives.

I will miss the old Nethys site.

It is the end of an era.

The End of Physical Media

If it is not in a printed book, it isn't real, and it does not exist.

Those of us who have been through D&D 4E know this one, and it is not rocket science. Once this edition drops support, what do you think will happen to all that "digital DLC content" on D&D Beyond? All the "D&D Drops" I see D&D YouTube gushing about weekly for clicks and views?

It is gone forever; it is like it never existed.

When D&D 5.5E finally "drops" support, and it isn't printed in a book? Gaming loses those things forever. Sure, people will remember them, some of them may get cloned somewhere and renamed, but those things not printed in physical, hardcopy books will be lost media.

This is the same as PlayStation dropping physical disc support.

Level Up A5E? Tales of the Valiant? Even Daggerheart or Draw Steel? The entire OSR? Previous versions of the game? Most every other game out there, from Traveler to Call of Cthulhu? Pathfinder 2?

It is all in print. Every option is in print.

Fifty years from now, all these books will still exist. Two hundred years from now? It will still exist. If you care about this hobby and its legacy, it should matter to you. If this material is later compiled and sold in a book? Not a problem. This is an easy problem to fix, and it supports game preservation.

Also, printed books are pro-consumer; I can sell my library, pick up used copies, and give them love and attention. People in the future will be able to enjoy the things we enjoyed. The used book and media market is part of how Earth's culture is preserved and passed on to the next generation.

Otherwise, the digital conversion of gaming is more of the same, and it pushes this hobby into becoming a more manipulative, exploitative, and worse pastime.

HAPPY 40th GURPS!

 I went back and checked a few sources, and to the best of my knowledge, this is GURPS' 40th anniversary. This is backed up by SJG, with Origins 1986, July 3-6, being the first release of GURPS:

https://www.sjgames.com/ill/archive/2026-07-03

40 years of great gaming, and only 4 editions, with the 4th lasting more than half of that time?

GURPS is more than just a legendary game; it is an icon and milestone in gaming. They rolled a crit when they developed GURPS.

40 years of amazing gaming, and here is to many, many, many more!

Happy GURPS Day to you!

Renegade Games: Hasbro IP Goes 5.5E

https://renegadegamestudios.com/blog/june-2026-renegade-reveal-stream-recap-/

So, the Transformers, GI JOE, and Power Rangers RPGs are moving to the D&D 5.5E engine?

Interesting, and a smart move, since I never had time for the GI JOE game, nor the need to learn a new system. I am interested, and the more they make this directly D&D 5.5E compatible, the more interested I am. If they make this their own game, with their own systems, math-compatible but not class-compatible, then I am less interested. If Snake Eyes can take a level of wizard, then I am very interested.

The D&D Community Advisory Group

So, D&D put together a "D&D Community Advisory Group" for what I guess is work on the next edition of the game. They did this to "discuss early product concepts and D&D Beyond tools" and likely as a sounding board for the work on the next edition.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/2180-introducing-the-d-d-community-advisory-group

They are about who I expect, with a few too many who seem to be "tone police" on the group, and not enough "old schoolers." It really doesn't mean much, except as a hype machine, which is why the D&D YouTubers were chosen. D&D YouTube needs a lot of help, ever since Google told a lot of them to stop making D&D content and move on to new content.

The algorithm no longer wants D&D, and I don't know how they can fight it.

I doubt forking money over to Google would help.

Still, the group is likely handling both D&D and D&D Beyond feedback, so even if there is a new edition, don't expect it to magically eliminate the complicated characters that require a live-service support model. I do not have much hope that the complexity issue that drove me from D&D 5E will ever be fixed, if they ever will, and my hopes for D&D 6E are nearly nonexistent.

BX is my game.

5E blew up for me in a live-service support model, a mess of digital DLC, and books I could not own the PDFs of. Even the games that let me do that blew up under live-service conditions due to character-sheet complexity issues. I doubt I am keeping many of the books. The game is too bloated and obese to survive.

And BX is now open-licensed and free of interference and threats. The future is bright for BX, and that is where my support is these days. BX will never need a live service model, nor will it ever disappoint me.

Still, I wish them well, and I hope they are listened to. They are not really a group I would pick for the job, but they are going to pick people they feel will help them with whatever direction they go in. Based on the group, it is not really a direction I am interested in. I am more neutral toward them than negative, but I am not seeing too many in that group that I follow regularly. Of the few YouTubers they have on there, I never watch more than the first few minutes of any, and I avoid a few.

I am over D&D YouTube, mainly because of the constant negativity there, and it no longer gets suggested to me. The algorithm has seen my choices, and it no longer delivers D&D to me much, and I do not mind. Also, bringing in a constant source of terrible D&D advice from the YouTube crowd seems like a huge mistake of committee-based design, and many terrible ideas will be added to the game.

There is a difference between a masterful, crafted, unified, and elegant design and a game-by-committee.

Still, the 5.5E playtest packets were more hype than they were for gathering feedback, so the track record of D&D and community feedback is pretty sad. 5.5E was an in-house game, and the playtest packets (I felt) were just used to bait-and-switch D&D YouTubers into giving it coverage. I do not have too much faith in the community feedback process.

In a way, D&D is too big to be cool, too big to survive, and too big to ever be compelling and a must-play game ever again. We are in the maintenance phase of D&D, where the MMO still has a huge player base to milk, but it will never be as big as it once was. Like World of Warcraft, we are post-prime and looking for new ways to monetize a shrinking crowd.

The committee will generate YouTube buzz, but YMMV, especially with YouTube being uninterested in the game. They have an uphill battle just to sustain interest in D&D Beyond, to keep the player base from slipping away further as people move on to games like BX, Daggerheart, Nimble, Pathfinder, Dragonbane, Shadowdark, Draw Steel, DC 20, and others.

While it is tough to be positive, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

I hope they do a good job there.

But I don't have much hope.

OSR Buyer's Guide Page Updated

https://sbrpg20.blogspot.com/p/osr-buyers-guide.html

I updated the OSR Buyers Guide page to cover BX, and here are my best suggestions for getting started with various editions in the hobby. Today, information, links, and discussions of BX are laid out, with my picks for the best in the genre, both in inspirational material and rock-solid books for play.

Gone are the discussions of alternate editions and versions (Labyrinth Lord, Dragonslayer, etc.), and a page will likely be added later to discuss them. Times change, and those need to be updated.

One Million Pageviews

We broke the one-million-pageview lifetime-hits mark yesterday, which, in the world of blogs, is a huge achievement. Very few people read blogs regularly, which puts us in an elite club. I ask Google's AI, and it says only 5 to 10 hobby blogs have cracked this lifetime number (take that with a grain of salt, as I suspect it is far more). I started this blog because I missed reading the classic Grognardia way back in the day and wanted my own space to reflect on gaming's long history.

"I don't always agree with you, but this is a great blog..."

I don't expect anyone to, which is the beauty of our hobby. Back in the 1980s, we were all just figuring this out, and there was no standard way to do things, and everyone had their own ideas. This is why so many amazing games originated in the 1980s and 1990s. My views and opinions constantly change, depending on my mood and frustration with live service models. I will put a game in storage, multiple times, only to realize later that I really miss it, and back out it comes again. Some games now permanently live in storage, and I realize I can live without those.

But like you, my thoughts change, and I work them out here. Others may agree or not, or be struggling with the same things I mention. It is all good. This is a discussion. Discussions make the hobby special, and being able to have them without some ideologue coming in and telling us, "this is how you must think," is an openness and conversation that I like to encourage.

We have seen the "MMO culture" merge with the hobby, with people declaring "everyone must be on one platform!" That is against the spirit of gaming and experimentation with which this hobby began in the 1980s, when we would play several games and be exposed to many ideas that helped us grow and learn. If all you know is 5E, you have a very narrow view and experience from which to talk about gaming. And someday, 5E will go away, and the platform adherence crowd will move on to the next thing.

Preaching loyalty to a single Wall Street corporation is not what gaming is about. We are free thinkers, tinkerers, experimenters, game designers, thrill-seekers, and fans of the hobby and its culture. We mixed games, used Rolemaster crit charts for AD&D, played Car Wars all day, loved Battletech, collected Rifts books, played Star Wars, went to Pizza Hut, and jammed to the best music on the radio, playing our favorites.

And I never expect any views on what I write. I'm not an influencer, nor do I have a YouTube channel. That may change, too, depending on my time and how I feel.

But a million pageviews?

Thank you.

WotC Workers Try to Unionize

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/wizards-of-the-coast-and-hasbro-miss-deadline-to-voluntarily-recognise-workers-union

I will always support a union.

However, I will find it hard to support the workers in Wizards who, for years, have insulted old-school players and blamed them for every perceived problem with the hobby. This group is more on the card-game side, but you know if push comes to shove, they will all stand together. I wish them well.

There is a difference here.

Unions are good.

But this current crop of Wizards creatives, I do not care for at all. They were certainly happy to blame us and put warning stickers on our childhoods, as if we were playing with damaged goods.

THAC0 the clown?

We're not clowns, and THAC0 is still better than bounded accuracy and the current mess you have in 5E.

The old school crowd is the first people kicked out the door when the game gets popular, and the first crowd they come crawling back to when times are hard. I have better in the OSR these days. Sorry, I moved on with my life and found another game.

"D uhn D" means nothing to me now. It's a sound associated with people who don't like my generation or the games we played. It embraces outrage for social media clicks. It is a live service model.

Good luck trying to tilt at the windmills of Wall Street, people. I hope you get your union. But you won't win. You will be fired en masse and replaced by contract workers running A-I. Welcome to 2026.

I don't understand how people still play those games.

OSE 2026 Update

OSE 2026 Update FAQ – Necrotic Gnome 

"The 2026 Update is not a new edition of the rules; it's just a new printing of the game with an updated presentation."

I put a link to the OSE 2026 Update FAQ, where they are cleaning up the core books and presenting a unified product core. They are breaking from the OGL and using CC content (finally), and cleaning up the game and providing examples of play.

Assassins get the thief backstab, and fighters get an optional "under 1 HD" multiple-attack rule. We are also getting an option for AD&D-like hit dice. We also include optional rules for "hovering at death's door" at 0 HP, which better align with 1E rules.

We are also getting a book for demons (launching tomorrow), which is a long-awaited addition.

The game is becoming OGL-free and more like the amazing OSRIC 3.0. OSRIC and OSE are already highly compatible (a 1-point ascending AC difference and the advanced class HD differences), and OSE 2026 gives you a rules-light BX version of the game, compared to OSRIC's 1E. It comes down to personal preference what you play.

Do you like the slower, more methodical, survival-focused play of 1E, and don't mind the extra rules baggage? Play OSRIC. I love 1E, and there are times I am down for all the extra rules, but there are times I want something where I can turn my brain off and just adventure with a rules-light game. For those times, grabbing a digest-sized copy of OSE and just starting to play instantly is a winner for me.

If you like the OSE race options, those are easily ported into OSRIC 3.0.

OSE, to me, feels like the rules-light, instant action version of the game. This is also the most compatible game with the world of BX, including the Without Number games, the modern versions of BX, Dark Places & Demogorgons, and everything else. If you want cross-compatibility, OSE is the winner. The Carcass Crawler zines also bring the game up to date with 5E, especially in terms of race options.

Another strong 1E option is Adventures Dark & Deep. If you want "all the extra stuff, plus 1E, and the kitchen sink," then ADAD is your game. If you want an easier game that focuses only on 1E, stick with OSRIC 3.0, and you will have less to learn and manage. I love ADAD, but the part of my mind that does not want all the extra complexity leans towards OSRIC 3.0.

OSRIC 3.0 and ADAD are essentially the same game, just done differently. It comes down to how much extra stuff you want, the additional systems ADAD introduces (revised combat, skill system), and the minor differences and tweaks to class designs. ADAD also raises the level caps of non-humans by the ability score modifier of the class's prime requisite ability, so ADAD feels heavily house-ruled. But these are all likely popular house-rules and logically consistent.

Both OSRIC 3.0 and ADAD are OGL-free for guilt-free gaming. Swords & Wizardry is here, too, OGL free and a solid choice. S&W is like OSE for 1E (built off a 0E base).

OSE is the easiest of these games.

I would put Swords & Wizardry here, between the middle and rules-light, but still strongly 1E.

OSRIC 3.0 is the happy middle.

ADAD is the most feature-complete, but the most complex.

It feels like the OSE 2026 Rules Update is a realignment towards the 1E rules, OSRIC 3.0, and ADAD. The BX side of the game remains the default mode of play, but the popularity of 1E seems to be driving this shift toward a presentation that supports the most popular 1E options and traditions, with optional rules to support them.

Also, OSRIC 3.0 and ADAD come with "batteries included," and the demons and other classic monsters ship with the core game. OSE wisely keeps them separate because the original game didn't have them, but there are times when it's just easier for me to have everything together in one place.

Is the hobby moving to standardizing on 1E and OSRIC 3.0? We still need a strong BX core, and OSE fills that role. But OSE shifting more towards 1E feels like the strength of 1E coming home and becoming the de facto standard for 2026 and beyond.

Is the OSR moving towards 1E?

I guess we shall see.

Nimble 5e: They Broke a Million

There is something so fun about watching a Kickstarter campaign inch toward a million-dollar goal, especially in the face of all the naysayers and those on the bandwagon of billion-dollar corporations, and watching true gems like Shadowdark and Nimble 5e rise and find an audience.

This is the little guy winning.

This is cool.

I still play "full 5E," but this is just so much easier. Like a 2d6 game, it packs a lot into a small book that does so much; that feeling of infinite adventure in a small package has to be felt to be described. The original Traveller Little Black Books captured that spirit, and many of today's Cepheus games keep it alive and carry on its legacy.

Shadowdark captures that "magic in a small book" feeling and brings endless enjoyment to millions, being the OSR gateway game of choice for many 5E players.

Nimble is this generation's "Savage Worlds meets Traveller" in a clean, fun 5E package for fantasy gaming. It does everything D&D does, but without the whiffs, mystery action types that can and can't do various things, and general endless rules referencing and page-flipping that we have all come to loathe over the last 12 years because VTTs are too good at hiding the true complexity of D&D from us all.

If you want superheroic fantasy gaming, Nimble is the clear winner. It plays fast, satisfies the character builder itch, captures the essence of 5E, all without getting dragged down into the weeds. It is a game more about adventure, less about references to rules, pointless monster stat blocks, and rules interactions that bog the game down. You have all the same character power that you do in 5E, without needing a 16-page character sheet at level 14.

It feels like D&D, without all the problems of D&D.

Nimble joining the "Shadowdark club" is a great thing for gaming and the industry, opening up doors for competition and innovation, and allowing more people to play and expanding the hobby. This is the death of the "network effect" on which the OGL was based; the success of D&D does not foretell the success of other games, and the success of other games does not automatically "feed into D&D" anymore. The death of the OGL was also the death of the "D&D Network Effect."

All we need is the concept of fantasy adventure, and the indies can take it from here.

We have eight more hours, and I hope they can break the million-dollar mark.

Go, go, Nimble.

We are opening the book on a new chapter of the hobby.

...

UPDATE: They broke a million with four hours to go. Congrats, guys.

Nimble is Pushing 1 Million

Get ready for the new Shadowdark, because Nimble 5e is pushing one million dollars in its Kickstarter.

Congratulations to the team.

This is now one of the post-crash 5E Kickstarters to approach this level of success. This is actually huge news. I am happy for them. We need these sorts of small 5E book versions on the market, and I hope they achieve Shadowdark levels of success in the future.

Well done, and I am in on this one and looking forward to this in the mail!