Off the Shelf: Ultramodern 5

I don't know why I like this version of 5E, I just do.

It is quirky, strange, cool, different, and it mechanically breaks down the 5E design into a series of interconnected modules. This is a vertical slice of 5E; instead of doing the traditional class-and-subclass thing, they tear the game's internals apart while keeping it at the same level of power and balance as the original. As a result, you get this interesting mix-and-match system where many of the subclass choices exist outside of the class, and it is a really ingenious design that reduced the typical 5E bloat we see from expansive listings of subclass powers (most of which we never use). I would love to see a fantasy version of this game, since the character building is on a step above most 5E implementations, with cross-class archetypes being used instead of subclasses.

Modern weapon damage is also kept under control, with class abilities providing the damage boosts rather than overpowered modern weapons. It seems counterintuitive, but the entire 5E design hinges upon class abilities being the force multiplier, so it makes sense. Less skilled people will not be able to use modern firepower to its full effect, and what matters is the warrior, not the weapon. If you want a modern gun simulation, play GURPS.

Many 5E science fiction designs tend to fail to land for me, being oddly specific, one-note, or just feel like "D&D in space." This has more of a Shadowrun meets Moebius vibe going, and it can sort of be generic "Heavy Metal" science fiction anywhere you put it. It has a default setting, but really, you can throw this at any homebrew "futurepunk" setting mixed with fantastic races and have it work. It works with realistic races and with fantasy races in a science fiction setting. If you wanted to use this with a "Starfinder" type setup where the game's initial promise was "fantasy races in space," this would do that just fine.

This delivers "D&D in space" while maintaining its own unique, gritty, dirty, and broken future aesthetic, whereas many other games are too "Mass Effect"- clean and sterile. That "plastic future" aesthetic is the bane of many games and TV shows, covering up a great moment of societal change with plastic wall panels and slick-looking Hollywood laser rifles in bright white molded plastic shells. That "plas-fi" future is the state selling you hard on giving up basic human rights for the honor of living in a future where everything is covered up in a slick plastic shell and veneer of social order.

Dirty science fiction leaves room for individuality and personal freedom, and even early Star Wars knew this. The future is dirty and mostly broken down, but you can find honest people among the mass of criminals and downtrodden. The white plastic stormtroopers are state symbols of fascist control. Massive defense projects promising world domination are inherently evil. If you never knew New York or LA in the 1970s, right after the Vietnam War, you don't know science fiction.

In this light, Mass Effect-style science fiction that is overly militaristic and clean comes off as some defense contractor hype video for a multi-billion-dollar weapons program for corporate welfare. Modern Star Trek almost always falls into "plas-fi," and it does not know what it wants to be. Like many IPs, including modern Star Wars, it has no place in today's world since it speaks to no one.

There is no message or pain; the false future sold to us by the architects of the Vietnam War, the promise that military force would solve everything, was a lie that got millions killed. Is that message resonating today, or has the machine taken over the messaging? Modern Hollywood is the machine; it can no longer make science fiction or compelling dramas that speak to the human spirit. Hollywood is a generation waiting to die, destroying the world on its way out the door. You can't speak to the future through an aging group of bitter creators dragging you into their graves.

This is why YouTubers' movies are decimating Hollywood, and there will be a science-fiction answer, likely soon. When you fail to speak to people, they will find ways to speak to each other on their own, and your IPs and properties will be excluded from the conversation. This is also why Marvel, DC, and Star Wars are failing. The original sin that created them is fading from memory.

I hate to speak like that, in such dark and broad-brush terms, but you need to understand the underpinnings of Star Wars, and most of the science fiction IPs came from a world that promised us floating cities, flying cars, and daily rockets to Mars in the 1950s, which ended up in the Vietnam War of the 1970s and the failure of the Dream State. That is a 20-year promise of tomorrow, well within a lifetime, sold hard, and it crashed and burned.

Reality set in.

And Hollywood is echoing those same promises of the rockets to Mars and flying cars, and the pen-and-paper industry writes games to echo that failure. Fantasy in this context isn't escapism; it is morphine meant to dull the massive pain of living in today's world. This is where D&D 5.5E is right now, removing any sense of hardship, pain, or triggering content to purify the numbing hit of painting its players as false gods. D&D 5.5E and the world it presents is a painkiller, safe, and corporate-friendly, and it won't upset Wall Street.

The cyclops are fortune tellers. The lizardfolk are eco-defenders. Orcs are character options. Any mention of people enslaving or slaughtering others is wiped clean. Any semblance of playing in a harsh and bitter, Conan-like world is gone. Death and failure are near impossible. D&D as a fantasy game feels dead and numb.

Modern D&D is a fantasy painkiller without a prescription. It is acetamino-fantasy.

Ultramodern 5E is still very much a "dirty" game, science fiction that smells like burnt oil, lived in, unclean, and broken. It manages to restructure and rebuild 5E into a unique, subclass-specific free framework that delivers on the 5E build process. A lot of 5E compatible games either deliver the traditional "dozen page long" heavy class designs full of subclass options. Here is a paladin, and here are 32 pages of paladin subclasses bloating the game to infinity and beyond, most of which you will never use.

D&D 5.5E is a distraction by design.

Ultramodern was designed in an age of system hacking 5E, and of trying new approaches to that monolithic framework, trying to tear it down and make it a better system for science fiction, diverse occupations, and character types. The dream of hacking and remixing 5E died around 2020 when the streamers took over, and the system has been design-stagnant until Shadowdark rolled around.

There is no starship combat; instead, a mecha system gives the heavy-metal vehicle a combat hit. It is a lot like the original Star Frontiers in this regard; it is just a "ground pounding" science fiction game that focuses on personal action, and you could conceivably use "any science fiction naval wargame" as your ship combat system. Frankly, this is a better option, as many science fiction RPGs fail horribly at delivering ship combat. The only exception to that is Stars Without Number, which does a good job of delivering the ship combat goods while keeping the system light and approachable.

The game also has its own magic system, combining all sources into one, and delivering a "spell point" style system that works well for universes that mix magic and "space magic." It avoids the tropes of the D&D 5E spell list and delivers a good selection of powers that build on the system's strengths while remaining simple and usable.

If you ever wanted a 5E spell, put it in a one-shot artifact or scroll, and be done with it.

Ultramodern 5E is a different design ethos from a different time, when 5E was still much more of a "currently hacked" system, constantly remixed with homebrew. In late-stage 5E, 5.5E set in rigor mortis, cementing many of the design expectations, with massive subclass collections and monolithic class designs. 90% of the subclass options in 5E you will never use. Ultramodern opens them all up to you while keeping the base-class designs focused and simple.

For a science fiction 5E game, that works for me, reducing complexity and the number of pages read while opening up the character design system to a box of Legos I can assemble any way I want. This is the version of 5E where I could take a random "fantasy race guide" and throw them all into a science fiction setting, delivering on the promise of "magic and tech" that many games failed to deliver in the past. From Dragonstar to Starfinder, a lot of games have tried, but very few have endured, Starfinder being one, and on the 5E side, Ultramodern 5E feels like the answer to that system.

Perhaps that is why I still like this game; it approaches the massive problem of 5E's class complexity in a novel way, and remixes the rules into a framework that handles the dirty, post-fantasy-world sci-fi that I like.

Off the Shelf: Genesys

If you play the Edge Studio Star Wars game, you typically play Genesys. Star Wars is the entry point for this game and provides setting-neutral support for its unique dicing system. For Star Wars, you play Star Wars. For everything else, you play Genesys. This system transplants the cinematic system used in the Star Wars game to other genres, allowing you to use it for anything you can imagine.

These two are sister games, same rules, different dice, and less Star Wars.

This is "Movie: The RPG," the game. Any Hollywood movie from 1920 to about 2019 can be recreated with this system, and it works better than many of today's narrative and storytelling games since the dice leave "what happens" up to you, instead of "telling you what happens" through the rules. I put an end dat of about 2010 on this simulation system since Hollywood has changed so much in the 2020-2026 era that filmmaking is practically unrecognizable and alien compared to earlier times, due to streaming and the collapse of the theater model.

Genesys feels like a forgotten system at this point, with Cypher System feeling like it replaced it (and Cypher System fading), and these days, Daggerheart is the RPG darling of the narrative crowd. This was always in the same sort of narrative simulation systems, such as Cypher System, FATE, Savage Worlds, and other generic systems.

I bounced off Cypher System many times before I finally learned it. It is a good system, but a part of me preferred Genesys, since the dice in Genesys are more solo-friendly than Cypher's GM-driven narrative model, which is honestly better with other people. Daggerheart, I have, but never got into, partially because I have Nimble, which does everything I need for superheroic fantasy.

What I like about Genesys is that you are playing with oracle dice, there is no narrative control system, and you do not need to drop out of character to reference narrative rules and determine outcomes. There are no "hope and fear mechanics." I am not dropping out of character to accept a GM Intrusion (or trigger a Player Intrusion), tripping bennies, nor am I dropping out of character to create a situational aspect.

There is a pair of "story pools" for the GM and players, with each player getting one point and the GM getting one point. When a point is used by either side, it flips to the other. These are mainly used to upgrade dice (positive for players, negative for enemies), to activate talents, or to affect luck and slightly change the narrative (we find a crashed cache of survival gear).

The dice roll tells me "what happens in the world," and I can stay in character to make it happen, or suffer the consequences. It is simple, straightforward, and keeps the action in the "mind space" of the game and in-character" situation.

This is a classic, fun, and elegant system that relies on special dice, and it is the best "special dice" system out there. The pool mechanics are limited, and enforce a currency that flips between the players and the GM.

Weaknesses? Some people get tired of constantly interpreting the special dice symbols. The game does have a fatigue to it if you are constantly rolling the dice for every little thing, and having to look at charts, cancel symbols, and interpret the remaining pool with every single roll. I recommend that dice rolls in this game be used for the macro-level actions: one roll to sneak across the town, avoid guards, and stay out of trouble. Do not roll for every city block, and every action without consequence!

In many cases, just do not roll; let the character's skills and abilities grant automatic success, and only roll when it means something, when there are consequences for failure, or when the path forward is uncertain and potentially dangerous.

Landing your starship at a starport in normal circumstances? No roll needed; that is a routine action and should be covered by your normal training and ability as a pilot. If there were a situation that made it difficult, such as enemy fire or severe weather, roll. But - only if you need to! If the bad weather can't force anything to meaningfully change, then why roll?

"Just to see" is not really a good enough reason.

If there are others being chased by stormtroopers, and you need to stick the landing on the first attempt, or else that group will be stuck down there, playing a desperate defensive last stand, then, yes, roll. If the bad weather just means a sloppy landing, or landing in a far-off, clear spot where no roll is needed, then don't roll. Why? Does it matter?

Before you roll, think of the dice as the director of the scene "on the set" wanting to film "the best movie possible." Does the scene have conflict? Is there an uncertain outcome? Does failure have consequences? Is the scene interesting enough to even film?

If the scene is a nothingburger, assume success and move on to the next scene that the audience does want to see. Why waste film on filler? Why waste a die roll on the same?

Being frugal on your shot selection makes for a great movie.

Being selective in rolling the narrative dice will avoid burnout.

Part of why I fell out with Genesys was GURPS, and GURPS is its own amazing thing that can do anything, too. GURPS tends to enforce a gritty reality on everything it touches, which is amazing to see superimposed over Star Wars or any other "false reality" game (including D&D). However, gritty realism does not always work across genres, and it can dramatically change things.

If I am playing "D&D with GURPS," I can get those moments where a goblin is hit in the leg by an arrow, hobbling around, and bleeding to death. That is a dark, gritty, and hardcore level of reality that is cool to experience in a hyper-realistic system, and it gives a wonderful feeling to "see D&D through realistic glasses."

If I want to play a movie game, GURPS can do that with a few tweaks, but there are times I want to play a narrative, curated experience where the rules have a lot to help me. The dicing system in Genesys is fun and produces unexpected outcomes. This is good stuff, and things that GURPS does not give me without adding oracle dice or other tools.

The system is more weighty than Savage Worlds, FATE, or even Cypher. The dicing is simple, but there is a lot going on behind the scenes, special rules, and sections of the rules to master. Once you get the hang of it, everything runs smoothly, and you can mostly play with just a GM screen reference and be fine. There are fewer "toys" (cards, bennies, tokens) than Savage Worlds, and no XP and per-character pool economy like in Cypher.

Cypher is still a lot easier to convert into, requiring only one challenge number and a few special abilities for monsters (or any challenge). This requires source data and conversion, so it is par for the course for games like GURPS or Savage Worlds.

The real advantage here is that the dice are all oracle dice, and you are not taken out of character to figure out what happens next in the narrative. The flip-flop story pool between the players and GM is an acceptable extra pool to track, and accounts for momentum shifts and narrative control flips.

The characters are also top-notch, with the talent trees being an excellent part of the design, solving the character depth issue in a single page of the character sheet. The characters here are far more fun to build than Cypher or Savage Worlds, with only GURPS beating them in design flexibility.

Dated? Compared to the game-of-the-week that comes out on Kickstarter? Yes, a touch. Clunky? Not really, the narrative dice are the reason to play. VTT support? I haven't seen too much, so that is a minus, but I play solo, so not for me.

The community content on DriveThruRPG is excellent.

If you are playing Star Wars and want to stay in the Star Wars groove while playing in other settings, Genesys will work perfectly. The same types of dice are used here; the mechanics are identical, and there is not much more to learn to play.

This is still a solid generic system; it still holds up, and the solo-play factor is high due to the assistance from the oracle-like dice. A strong recommendation.

Off the Shelf: Edge of the Empire

Part of me misses this classic game, the old Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG with the funny dice. Made before the Disney movies came out, this is the last, best window into the world of Classic (Legacy) Star Wars that we have left.

If there is such a thing as an "Old School Revolution" regarding D&D, there is such a thing as "Old School Legacy" when it comes to Star Wars. The OSL regarding these movies and books should be a real force in the galaxy, as powerful as the force itself. If all you want to do is ignore the modern movies, play in the original universe of the movies and the expanded universe, and just bring back all the good times you felt while you were growing up, this is your game.

I give you the power to do this. It is fine to ignore the new movies and just enjoy the old ones. You have my permission. Be a kid again and live in those moments. May the force be with you.

And you can still get this game, now published by Edge Studios and not Fantasy Flight, and I am happy to see it still in print and being sold. This one brings back memories.

I played this game with my brother, and we enjoyed the low-level play before things started to fall apart at higher power levels. Rolling four of those yellow dice for a skill meant you were the best-of-the-best, and you needed to be real stingy about character improvement to make the experience last and have meaningful play for any length of time.

Also slightly annoying was constantly deciphering the symbols on the dice and constantly coming up with "what this means" for every attack for every character. Special dice systems have this problem built into the game, and we often used them as a positive or negative modifier to the next turn's actions to speed things up.

One rule we had was not to "overroll" things and let one roll stand for a longer sequence of events. If you were trying to cross the town and blend in, avoiding Imperial contact, make one streetwise-type roll for the entire scene, interpret the results, and move on to the next scene. Do not make this entire scene six separate skill rolls with cascading special die-result interpretations! You will slow down the game, and, as a result, punish players by "forcing stupid stuff to happen" for every little thing they try to do.

The game played fast, especially if you kept the action macro on, and we even used the macro rule in combat. The turn-by-turn combat for us was more like playing through an action scene where a few blaster bolts were exchanged by each side, and we were not doing a GURPS-level, shot-by-shot, down to the second time tracking of a simulation system. One die roll and its consequences were the simulation of a short combat sequence, like what happens during this 5-10 second cut shot to the character, instead of trying to handle things at too granular a level of simulation.

Another issue the game had was that many of the classes in the "sister games" were too similar to each other, and you could double up by picking one spec in one book, and then cross-training in another spec in another. You will see the same sort of ability reprinted across the games, and some of the classes felt like ability shuffles. Still, the talent trees were fun to build up, and it is a more satisfying game to build a character in than D&D 5E. The build paths here beat the pants off D&D 5E's subclass system by far and allow for greater depth of control and planning your character build.

If you want a detailed, satisfying, talent-by-talent build system, drop the d20 and pick up the OG OSL game for Star Wars, and play through your childhood memories. These characters are fun to progress and build, and you start to become a specialist in areas that actually matter to your character concept. Never did I feel I was being forced to take a worthless power I would never use, and this happens all the time in 5E when you get something at a level, and you are like, "huh."

Since you don't have "magic items" or "levels" and character equipment is pretty static, your talents and experience define character power. The characters, while detailed, are still far easier to run than D&D 5E characters, and today's online character sheet games feel like a mess compared to a clean Legacy Star Wars character in this game.

When you start to add sourcebooks, things get more complicated, and the game begins to slow down. It is best to just stick to the core books when you begin. Have fun with the amazing amount of stuff they give you, and never play with too many expansion books.

Mixing characters between games felt like a "fish out of water" moment for us, and it felt best to keep characters and campaigns in the games where they belonged. You had to do this if you wanted to start adding Jedi into games, and forget canon when it comes to Jedi; there are Jedi everywhere in this game. Order 66 was an obvious failure, and what we saw in the prequel trilogy was the version they released to the press. Fewer than 1% of the Jedi and force-sensitive people were killed, and there are still a lot of these "magic users" running around the galaxy, good and bad.

It is more of a "game view" into this universe than a canon one, and that allows you to do whatever you want. I appreciate the freedom. This is my universe, and I will do what I want to. Also, do not feel beholden to canon in this game; if you want "Gray Jedi" or "Red Jedi," just do it and ignore the huge number of people on YouTube who will complain.

It is YOUR canon now.

Do time travel, mess things up, make Han work with the Imperials like a galactic scumbag. Play the Rebellion game, but play an Imperial campaign where they are the good guys and paint the Rebels as a terrorist faction. Work for the Hutts. Play as students in a Sith temple that backstab each other like it is "Evil High School." Whatever you want to do, you are free to do here, and never let others judge you for your take on Star Wars and "how you play with your action figures."

Because this is an "action figure game" even more so than D&D. You get a bunch of toys put into themed toyboxes, you are given a handful of toy dice, and you go make stories and play with your toys. Every character you make is a new toy; some of them may have short lives as you never want to leave them on the lawn for the lawnmower to eat, but, hey, that's life in the galaxy. You are not losing anything, and you get to make a new toy for the next story, next time.

All I want Star Wars to be these days, as a source of happiness, is as a "story simulator" - and that is exactly what I get here. Why am I endlessly watching YouTube complain about Star Wars, when what means more to me is "playing Star Wars" and "telling my own stories."

As a happiness delivery system, the Edge Studio games are more Star Wars to me than anything else right now. This, and the original movies, can deliver decades of happiness, and that is all I care about.

D&D has lost its way. It isn't about "play and fun" anymore, like these games were. D&D feels more like an online identity cosplay system than it does a storytelling game where you play with cool action figures and tell stories. In this game, I create a smuggler, run him around a remote outpost city, and try to steal his ship out of the Imperial impoundment yard, fail a bunch of rolls, get drilled and filled by Stormtrooper blaster bolts (they are a lot more deadly in these games and more accurate), and have him die on the street.

Sad? Yes. But did this serve the purpose of telling a tragic tale in this universe that I will always remember? Definitely. You are not invincible here; it lets you tell stories with a rotating cast of characters who may not make it to the next session, but there could always be a special connection among them. Characters do die or retire in Star Wars, and that is a part of the natural cycle of life in the universe.

My next character would be an eyewitness to the event who is handed the starship's control codes in his dying words, and he tells her, "Have a great life, kid. Take care of her."

And that is where the next story begins...

Off the Shelf: Nimble 5e

The best part about Nimble is that it is a tiny game. It is everything 5E should be in three thin OSE-sided books. The biggest criticism is a lack of utility spells, but since this is directly 5E-compatible, put those on scrolls and let players find (or buy) them, or rip them from the SRD or any 5E game you have on your shelf.

Other than that, this is a perfect, rules-light, fast-and-fun version of 5E. It scratches the 5E itch perfectly, and remains math-compatible with any 5E adventure. There are two questions here:

• If you like 5E, why not stick with that?
• Doesn't an old-school game do all this better?

A smaller version of 5E that doesn't take a thousand pages of reading and has all these interlocking and special action types? Sign me up, sanity has returned to modern gaming. We have a clean, three-action system here, and a combat engine that greatly reduces whiffs and worthless turns. It plays cleaner and faster than 5E, and that is a clear win for everybody.

And 5E has gotten too big. This is one tiny box of fun. There is a compelling argument for Nimble just in how bloated 5E has become as a game. You can design a smaller, more streamlined, and just as expressive game with a minimal set of rules. There is a point at which all the tropes of D&D hold 5E back, and Nimble managed to take the best of those tropes and craft a game around them.

Nimble tossed out all the D&D tropes, just like D&D 4E did, and ended up with a better game without all the baggage. If they had only gone this way with 4E, they would have had a winner. It makes me feel that the only true home for what we think of as "D&D" is the OSR.

That is the only place that can do it right.

But leave the new games free to innovate and create new, fun experiences like Nimble, Daggerheart, DC20, Pathfinder 2E, and Draw Steel. These are the "next generation" of gaming, here today.

D&D feels like it is trying to play catch-up with every new edition, stuck fixing legacy issues, and forced to support a boatload of spells, magic items, and options that are better left to the OSR. Otherwise, what? 6E will come along, trying to pander to nostalgia while being weighed down by a few thousand options they need to design around. It will not be a good game since they need to constantly pander and design backward, when they should be designing forward.

These new games are fantasy gaming reimagined.

And they are cool.

The second question is harder to answer, and depends on your tastes. Do you like the fantasy superhero-style play in 5E? Do you like the focus on battles and light narrative play, and not worrying about dungeon turns, burning torches, and wandering monsters? Do you just want to "get in the game and beat up monsters?" The larger-than-life heroes of 5E are replicated perfectly here, with iconic roles and amazing powers. The fights here are tactical and satisfying.

Or do you want less of an emphasis on superpowers and a more methodical and structured style of play where the over-the-top powers are turned down a few notches? Do you like the classic gameplay loop, the dungeon turns, the wandering monster checks, mapping, and the burning through of torches? This ain't it, and you will be happier with OSE.

This won't replace OSE for me. It can't. I like the old-school play too much. I grew up on it.

For me, Nimble replaces 5E. I feel good about playing this. I have fun. It is my "transition drug" away from VTTs and online character sheets. It shows that 5E can be a simple, fun, and focused game again. This is proof that 5E can be a better game for everybody. Nimble 5e gives me hope that 5E can be salvaged and built into a better game, one in a small box that does not need all these pages of rules and complicated action types. The 5E rules can be saved by great design and a lot of love and care.

And I am a huge fan of small games.

This year's crowdfunding will address the lack of native monsters and add more character options. I am looking forward to that release. As it is? A good game, solid and simple, very well put together, pulls in 5E monsters as much as you want, and it all works together nicely.

Nimble will compete with OSE, and that is an uphill battle. But I feel Nimble's design lets it compete and find a space in my game rotation. For adventure gaming that is 100% 5E math-compatible and has that rollicking band of epic heroes feeling, Nimble can find a compelling spot in my lineup. This is for those times when I don't want to follow the dungeon-turn structure too closely, and I just want to play the "battle adventure" style of game that 5E does so well.

Well, wants to do well, since 5E is bogged down in too many heavy rules and action types.

Nimble does it easier, faster, and without the messy character sheets that run a dozen pages long.

And this is a game so small that it seems to find a way to sneak onto my best-of-the-best shelves quite easily.

Off the Shelf: HARP

If you like Rolemaster, but you do not want the complexity, there is always HARP. With the HARP implementation of Martial Law, you get a good 75-85% of the Rolemaster experience with the crit tables, and you can always make up results similar to have more variety. But the rules are far easier to understand and manage than those of Rolemaster, especially for character creation.

What does playing Rolemaster gain you? You get the full crit tables, all the spells in Spell Law, and the original game experience. The characters are more flexible, and the system is far more robust and classic. Most players, I would say 90%, do not have the time to put into Rolemaster and enjoy the complexity and depth. Most players, especially those coming from OSR games and B/X, will enjoy HARP far more than Rolemaster. If you picked up Rolemaster, bounced off character creation hard, and gave up, give HARP a try. If you do not have the time for Rolemaster, honestly, play HARP.

Rolemaster does the best job of simulating the effects of specific weapons versus specific armors, whereas in HARP, this is all abstracted. If you crave that "weapon X versus armor Y" style of combat,  and having the effect or crits change depending on that interaction, play Rolemaster. There are optional rules that add this depth in HARP Martial Law, but they slow down combat somewhat and force adjustments to the numbers depending on target armor.

If all you want is to grab a sword and wander the hills to battle orcs and collect their loot, where story means more than simulation, play HARP. You will see the benefits of a more engaging simulation game than a B/X, and have the best parts of Rolemaster without the complexity. HARP is a good middle ground between B/X and Rolemaster, and perfectly captures that Tolkien-style adventure and storytelling, far better than 5E, which has lost its way and become a planar superhero game.

If you want the OG, mace versus chainmail, hard realism game of simulation combat, play Rolemaster United. If you don't want the complexity and just want a close-enough experience, play HARP. Both have a place, given your interest levels and time.

And HARP is a complete game, ten books (plus an adventure), and you have a nice-sized library. The secret to enjoying HARP is just starting with the core book, which has everything: monsters, treasure, magic, and more, and ignoring the rest of the library. The crit charts in the core HARP book may get repetitive, so pull in the expanded tables from Martial Law if you want a little more variety and complexity; otherwise, they are not needed, and you can just make up similar results.

The criticism of the original HARP book's crit tables stems from the fact that it lists 19 results per attack type. It sounds like a lot, but in large combats, the same critical results can happen twice. For example, a result of 51-60 on a crush attack gives us, "You broke his collarbone. Foe takes 15 Hits, is stunned 1 round, and is at -10." Keep rolling that versus orcs, and you have a lot of broken orc collarbones, and you start to break immersion. But we can avoid breaking immersion by simply choosing to break other things.

HARP, Hit Location optional rule, page 99.

Now, if we use the optional hit location rules, you have 10 locations to factor in on top of that. We could simply change that "collarbone" to "whatever we hit and break that." It does not matter too much; just reinterpret the result and perhaps force a roll to keep hold of a weapon or shield if a hand or arm is hit, or to avoid falling down on leg or foot strikes. Now, we have possibly 190 results per attack type, and the problem is far less than we imagined.

You could even add a d10 qualifier to the word "broke" to allow for a variety of interpretations, such as grazed, bruised, crushed, broken, broken open, or completely smashed. How bad is it really? Roll a d10; let 1 be the most forgiving, with 10 the least. Now modify the result by ±50 %, and you have 1,900 results per attack type, and you are starting to eclipse Rolemaster (and you are inserting your imagination into the tables). Perhaps the bruise is 8 extra hits, no stun, and a -5. Perhaps the smashed result is 23 extra hits, 2 stun turns, and a -15.

With 1,900 results per attack type, I would say that is an insane amount of damage results. Mind you, I am only talking about using the base book. I do not need Martial Law to do this. I am not adding in any of the expansion books, and the combats are already this good.

Perhaps the result of a 1 is that the blow is deflected and no damage occurs at all, or it hits an enemy next to the player, sending that insta-killing head blow meant for you into the nearest orc. Perhaps that 10 result is not even damage at all, but the blow sends the magic shield the fighter is holding flying off a cliff and is lost forever. Maybe the attack sails into the party's light source and smashes the lantern, spilling flammable oil all over the holder (or a nearby ally). "The worst possible thing" on a result of 10 can be interpreted in many ways, just as the "best result of 1" can be as well.

That d10 qualifier roll is a tool to introduce environmental, situational, material, physiological, story-based, or even psychological factors into the damage equation.

Just by adding a few drops of our imagination, and only using the basic game's "supposedly limiting" tables, we are beating Rolemaster in both variety and outcomes in combat crits, adding in environmental and situational dependent elements, while keeping HARP's simplicity. HARP was designed to be flexible like this, and it did not take me much tweaking to craft critical results that excite me to play this game.

Let Rolemaster be the wargame-like, X versus Y, medieval simulation game.

Let HARP flow with the story, and leave much of the interpretive work to you.

Off the Shelf: Adventures Dark & Deep

While Castles & Crusades is the fantasy game for me, nothing can touch the king, which would be the heavily modified and improved 1E clone, Adventures Dark & Deep. This is the premium edition of 1E, starting off as a "what if" game: "What if Gary Gygax had never been forced out of TSR, and 2nd Edition was a logical continuation of AD&D 1E?" Joseph Bloch did his best to answer that question, and a revised edition later emerged, becoming its own game while retaining those strong theoretical roots. Nevermind Castles & Crusades was the last game Gary Gygax was associated with, so the two games share that bond.

And nothing touches this game.

Do you want to play the best version of 1E, with all the fiddly 1E bits, like weapon speed and attack tables? This is your game. I like descending AC and the tables! There is a cryptic, runic, old-school feeling about writing your attack matrix down and cross-referencing it during play. This was the way we did it; this is the way you should be doing it. I don't care about "the same math" or "streamlining," and sometimes those take away from the experience.

What is your chance to hit AC 6?

14.

Ooooh!

There is a magic and feeling of mystery here that, once you know the math behind it, something is lost. If your "attack modifier" is +3, and the referee gives you a further +1, it is now +4, so what? If the AC is 18, you still need to roll a 14 or higher, but the magic feels somehow diminished.

With that 14, if the referee ever gives you a positive modifier for an attack, it feels more special. Even if the math is the same, a bulk "plus to attack" feels less special than "looking it up on a table" and "getting a further bonus." Why are we ruining the magic of the dice by factoring everything down to the lowest common denominator?

It sounds silly and stupid, but there is something to this. Back when we were kids, we didn't factor this in. We trusted the "kind wizard Gygax" and his "magic dice rocks." We trusted the methods by which his game could unlock worlds of adventure. Get the math majors and mobile game producers out of the hobby, and get the superstition and mysticism back into it.

And the monster book is amazing, the best-of-the-best 1E foes and creatures, all laid out in exacting detail and glory. Since this is a 1E game, you have complete OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, and many other bestiaries to choose from. There are almost too many monsters to count in 1E books, and that is a wonderful thing. You get the best monsters here, and many you will recognize immediately from any edition of the game.

If I am supporting one edition of the game going forward, with the best books you can buy, this is the version to get. Sure, C&C and OSE are easier and more streamlined, but if I am playing 1E, I want all the fiddly bits and strange table references. I want weapon speed to matter. I want the RoF and all the modifiers in the weapon charts. I want the ability score modifiers, the level limits, and all the strange race-and-class combinations allowed.

Is it fair to allow a drow to be a paladin? Yes. Is it allowed? No, there isn't that hierarchy or tradition in the drow culture. Could they? Sure, as a special case, but that should be left for the referee to decide and the player to ask for.

Why are game designers making the "special case" the "every case"? Again, here we go with streamlining, optimization, changes to fairness, and the blandification of the game's "inbuilt" culture and assumptions: "everyone can be everything and all math is optimized." You are taking what should be the game's strangeness and mystery and allowing "all to be all," and now nothing really matters. Gnome barbarians? Orc bards? Dwarf wizards? Lawful good assassins? Any race and class combo to any level? Sure, why not? The absurd becomes the everyday.

The designers just took away all my "special player requests" and "allowed everything."

Gee, thanks.

I used to be able to do favors for players with really great ideas, but the designers took all that away to please imaginary people. In short, this is the number one problem in gaming right now. Trying to please everyone, yet pleasing nobody.

We also have a quick-start set of rules that covers about 70% of the game. Lite is an amazing value and worth having as a one-book reference guide to all the best options and lower-level powers, spells, and monsters in the game. You can start a campaign with this and run it through until the end, and never know you were playing with the lite rules until a few special cases come up, if they ever do.

The Lite rules are a near-complete game focusing on the lower levels (and the iconic choices), most of which many groups will never venture past. The only major missing piece is the optional skill system, which is easily ported in from the main book and not really needed for most play.

And the books go on and on with this game, not needing many, but each one is a winner. We have a Cthulhu mythos book, an expansion (Book of Fell Wisdom) on the way, an answer to Oriental Adventures, and a few more that are all amazing. These are all fully compatible with OSRIC and AD&D 1E (and 2E), so you get the best game ever created, with more.

If I want a rules-light AD&D-style game with modern improvements, I will play Castles & Crusades. If I want the best version of 1E ever imagined, Adventures Dark and Deep is a behemoth. For realistic fantasy gaming, Rolemaster is still my go-to game, but if the 1E "stuff" is what I want, then ADAD is the game to play.

If you are a mega-fan of 1E, this is the mega-game for 1E.

Off the Shelf: Rolemaster Unified

Rolemaster is a classic, possibly one of the greatest pen-and-paper games of all time. The original game was a "reaction game" to AD&D, written as the "X Law" rules expansions or as a complete game alternative to AD&D systems, so it existed alongside the game but also as a better system in parallel.

The unified system is a streamlined version of the game, possibly the best ever written, and it only has a few flaws - the art and a few strange monster stats. Neither flaw is a game-breaker, and that's why we are here: the art in our minds, not the books. Monster stats can be quickly adjusted by 10 points here and there, as needed. No monster should be the same as the other, and as long as you are in the ballpark, who cares? We will be getting "monster design" rules in Creature Law II, so the tools to create new beasts are coming, and the only downside for playing this game is the slower release schedule.

That said, we do have a complete game with the four books we have: Core, Creature I, Treasure, and Spell Law. Creature II and a pair of other character-focused books are in the works. We have enough for a full. stand-alone adventure game with the books we have.

So, why pull Rolemaster out of storage?

First up, just the four books are coming out of storage, and none of the previous versions. If I am looking for a "forever game" to support, I will leave the past behind and focus on what we have and the company's efforts going forward. The best way we can ensure Rolemater is played for a long time is to support the new stuff, and the new stuff is pretty good. It is solid, works well, is cleanly presented, and streamlines much of the game.

Post-house-disaster, I am focusing on the "best of the best" of my library that I will keep. I know the games I want, GURPS being the biggest, but there are a few other key games I am rebuilding around. Why is Rolemaster in this group?

So many played Middle-Earth Role-Playing in the 1990s with a variant of this system that it became imbued with Tolkien's legacy. The builds, skills, success system, crit charts, spells, and so much more became part of the legacy of "true fantasy," and the system feels like home. If you want to play serious, literate, meaningful, deadly, story-based tales of adventure and heroism, then this system should be your go-to game.

If you played MERP in the 1990s, gave up on AD&D 2nd Edition, and threw your dice in with the legacy of the Lord of the Rings, then Rolemaster feels like home. HARP is the "best close" version of MERP these days, and still a worthy game, but nothing sings like "full Rolemaster" for having it all. HARP is more Rolemaster Lite, and Rolemaster is the deeper, more hardcore, grittier game. HARP is still a worthy choice if you do not want all the depth and just want a more pulp-adventure game with a lighter level of detail.

Rolemaster is the full experience. Narratively, this game rules.

Every attack coming at your character could be their last, and also could possibly stay with them the rest of their life with a crippling injury. This is the deepest "story consequences" in roleplaying, where a sword to the gut leaves your character injured for a long time, and scarred for life. This is not the trippy fantasy land of D&D 5E, where you can sleep off a shotgun blast to the face and be fine the next day. Every blow that lands in Rolemaster is serious business.

And every blow you land has the potential to turn into pure awesome.

The d100 rolls explode, coming in or going out, so even a minor attack from a lowly goblin can end your character's story. Think before you jump into battle, and pick your fights carefully.

GURPS comes close, but it does not equal this in terms of narrative, detailed, engaging combat. GURPS is more "hex tactical meets character builder" and a few steps less narrative-focused than Rolemaster. GURPS does have the better "in character" disadvantage system with self-control rolls, but if you want detailed battles where weapons work and hit differently, Rolemaster is your game.

Every weapon blow and spell attack in Rolemaster tells a part of the story. Other games do not give me this. Rules-light games fall flat. 5E just fails to deliver engaging combat. The legacy of video games and cozy influences in modern games means character protection is a non-negotiable part of the design, and players are near-guaranteed "death never happens," and "terrible things that could trigger me" are not even considered.

My cute fox-person will never get shot in the spleen by an arrow and bleed out, then have an Orc crush their skull as they lie there incapacitated and dying. This brutal Dark Souls-like permadeath experience never happens in these new games.

Games these days have gotten too safe. They are far too cozy and soft. They are too afraid of causing mental health issues in their audience. If you are too tied to your cute, idealistic, self-insert anthropomorphic animal hero, do not play Rolemaster. Walk away. D&D 5E will be a happier place for you. Do not expose yourself to this game. You will end up upset, hurt, and angry.

Some people can't handle Rolemaster.

If you want more, play Rolemaster. Some crave this deadly, detailed, gritty, and impactful experience. They want their dice rolls to matter, and for each roll to have insane potential or tragic heartbreak. They want their sword to slice through flesh and slay in clinical, realistic, gory detail. They accept fate, in that their perfect character could fall to a thief's dagger in an alley, a poisoned blowgun from an assassin, or a lucky blow of a goblin's rusty axe. That perfect character's story could end in tragedy at any moment, and the ideal ending, or even the one that makes the most sense, could stop at any time in the most unsatisfying way.

But you will feel alive at every moment along the way.

And in the end, if you make it there, it will be far, far, far more satisfying than anything a modern game could ever imagine delivering.

Off the Shelf: Dungeon Crawl Classics

This is my fourth "off the shelf" article for Dungeon Crawl Classics. I write one of these articles every time a game returns to my "gaming shrine" and most-played shelves. I had DCC in the garage twice over the last four years, grew disillusioned with the game for a while, put it away, and then realized the games I felt would replace it failed me and never were as fun as this one.

One reason is that some on the OSR YouTube channels don't like DCC much, and they are entitled to their opinions. Sorry, DCC is worthy as Shadowdark is. And even Goodman Games says, "DCC does not equal OSR," and that break is good for everyone. This is a beloved game, a throwback tribute rock band to the 1970s and 1980s era of role-playing, when the game cared more about fun, and everyone could play.

The OSR and DCC are different things.

The OSR is the actual game we played in the 1970s and 80s, and there is an open question of whether today's players can understand how it was played back then, amid the mess of other games and sources we brought in. They are a faithful recreation of the rules, often without the context of the time they were played in. People who never played in the era will wonder what the fuss is all about and return to 5E.

A big problem in the OSR is being excellent while replicating rules, but terrible at providing context.

DCC captures the feeling of those times, and how a modern set of rules (3.5E-derived) could recreate that moment and feeling. DCC is more of an "early-age role-playing simulator" that pulls in external influences into the experience, like listening to Asia and Styx at Shakey's Pizza Parlor while Pac-Man and Defender arcade cabinets buzz in the background. Then someone has a story about their game, and something insane and cool happens (that, by the rules, could never happen since it is clearly not in the rules), and you are all in awe of the coolness that is this game.

A player in 1980 at that pizza parlor is saying, "Your character turned into a demon?! Wow!"

A player in 2026 is flipping through the original rules, "Nowhere in the rules does it say that this could happen. Were they even playing the OSR correctly?"

While DCC is not the OSR, DCC is the context of the OSR.

Castles & Crusades is similar; while it is not AD&D 2E, it is an AD&D 1E/2E simulator in a modern rules framework. It captures the feeling while not being the thing it is inspired by, opting for a modern play experience. Call them throwback games, but they capture the experience rather than replicating the rules. If all you want is "how it plays" without "all the confusing tables and junk," then DCC will sing for you.

DCC is worthy, fun, imaginative, and it displays on my selves incredibly well.

This is the time I grew up with in gaming; if not the original game, it captures the feeling well enough.

Take me back to that pizza parlor and let me live in that moment again.

Off the Shelf: Castles & Crusades (Reforged)

There is a class of games where many players tire of all the rules, bloat, books, website character sheets, and drama, and just want a simple game that works.

Old School Essentials and Shadowdark are two of those games.

Castles & Crusades is another.

Even games like Dungeon Crawl Classics, while simple in theory, are a mess to play since it is a huge, disorganized, chaotic book with numerous tables to reference during play. OSRIC? It is not ideal, unless you are such a mega-fan of 1E that every little percentage modifier matters to you. Adventures Dark & Deep? Wonderful 1E clone, but again, why do we need all these rules and charts? Swords & Wizardry comes close to C&C, but C&C is the more modern game with leveled class abilities and unlocks.

Those modern-style classes with the leveled abilities and unlocks that go all the way to 24th level are the secret weapon of C&C. The SIEGE Engine throws away every chart, ability score check, and special saving throw for a rules-light, simplified system. You can play from a character sheet on a 4x6" index card without opening a book.

If you want more than what a traditional BX or 1E game will give you, and you want "new stuff every few levels" where the OSR refuses to unlock powers and abilities, then C&C is the game for you. This makes the game easier than BX, as expressive in character builds as 5E, and with the original 1E math. The game is a hybrid 3.5E without damage scaling, and, in play, feels exactly like AD&D.

C&C is a step-up game from OSE and Shadowdark, if you want more character detail, lower complexity, and higher-level campaign play.

And the game is OGL-free. Honestly, you can play with the pre-Reforged books and see very few differences; just a few names have changed, but everything else is exactly the same. Anyone with a Castles & Crusades book, of any edition, can play and CK a game.

Any OSR, BX, or 1E adventure can be used easily. The math, damage, and AC values are identical. If you like the OSE adventures and their "easy peasy" bulleted formatting, you can use those. You can play the crazy DCC adventures. You can play the classic AD&D adventures. You can play adventures written for Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry. All of it is usable.

And the game has built-in modding support. The CK guide is mostly a "hacking guide" for the game. Don't like the primary and secondary ability score system being so harsh with target numbers of 12 and 18? Introduce a tertiary attribute level for 18 and have a secondary target number of 15.

This way, if I want my human cleric to have primaries of CHR, CON, and WIS (12), I can set DEX and STR as secondaries (15) and INT as my tertiary (18). If I want to force open doors or balance along a ledge, that middling target number solves a lot of problems people have with the system. My cleric is not so helpless with physical feats, and another reason to not play is gone.

Want feat-like "advantages"? There is a system for that, and you can set the rate of gaining them, or ignore the system entirely. You can create custom advantages, port in 5E feats, or do anything you want.

Porting in 5E races? This is super simple if you use the advantage system to cover the feat choices, and you can use the 2014-style ability score modifiers as-is. I can have any 5E race I want in my game instantly.

Pulp adventures? We got a SIEGE Engine game for that, too, with Amazing Adventures. This covers modern and science fiction gaming nicely. BYO starship combat system, though, or just use another game's starship combat system to handle it all.

And the multi-class system in this game lets you build anything you can imagine. It is a bit advanced, but the flexibility of combining any of the classes to build something new gives me near infinite options, and it beats 5E's system handily.

C&C will kill 5E anytime I get it out, so I am trying to give ToV a chance; it's currently in one of my closets. However, ToV is 5E, and it requires character designers and all sorts of technical hacking to get it to do what I want. Do I want a special character race? I need to enter it into Shard, set the values to match, perhaps create custom feat entries in the software, and do all this work for just one choice.

C&C will just "do what I want" with zero effort. I just write it down on my character sheet, make a few adjustments to the feats I want ported in, and it all works easily.

With the time I have for games dwindling as I get older, and my patience for systems that just take "too much effort to play," having games like C&C and OSE handy is the difference between "playing a game" and "playing nothing." I would rather be playing than flipping through books to find the rules for every little thing.

I can pick up a 4x6" character sheet on an index card and play without needing a book open.

Very few other games can do that.

Off the Shelf: Hyperborea

Let's pull Hyperborea out of our storage crates and put the game back on the shelves.

Hyperborea is very similar to the classic first edition, and it's compatible with both Swords & Wizardry and OSRIC. It is a strange game meant for swords and sorcery and not high fantasy. Hyperborea is a better choice (for some) than Dungeon Crawl Classics, offering a more traditional experience that lacks much of that game's table-based play and randomness, while retaining an intense, gonzo, Conan-style feel.

I have not really gotten into Hyperborea, as I am more of a fan of first and second editions than I am heavily modified derivatives. Still, I see the strengths of a game like this, where the experience is more like savage sorcery than your traditional Arthurian knights. Modern Dungeons & Dragons tends to slip into a pseudo-Renaissance setting mixed with the Knights of the Round Table. These days, D&D is more an allegory for modern street adventures than anything in the fantasy genre. I like a heavily themed game that gives me a barbaric feeling, as this one does.

The game is contained in two books, one for players and the other for referees, and it is a tight implementation of the rules. It is 100% compatible with any first edition or even Swords and Wizardry, so you will not go without adventures or monsters.

The magic is more traditional and does not have spell failure or spell mishaps like Dungeon Crawl Classics does. The original game never had wacky spell failure, so I understand where they’re coming from. The gonzo and crazy nature of the world is where the focus is, instead of an internal focus where magic mutates you. Here, the focus isn’t on mutation and randomness. Referees and players, not the rules, enforce the gonzo, insane nature of the world.

This is the key difference between Hyperborea and Dungeon Crawl Classics. Hyperborea does not rely on randomness to convey its theme and feeling. The game will be as gonzo and insane as you make it. If you want something to happen, make it happen, and it does. There are times when Dungeon Crawl Classics feels like “gonzo with training wheels” when it is far easier to be less reliant on charts and tables and random results, and do it yourself, given what you know and like. You will always get the result and craziness that is closer to your heart if you do not use a table and let it tell you what happens next.

That is why some prefer Dungeon Crawl Classics as a game that you migrate from the fifth edition. The charts and tables tell you what can happen, and you need that level of training to understand what savage swords and sorcery all are about. For experienced groups and gamemasters, it is far easier to say something crazy happens and then enforce the genre through direct rulings instead of chart results. I still like the tables in Dungeon Crawl Classics, but having played these games for decades, I don’t really need them. There are times when I find the results on the charts limiting and less imaginative than what's in my head. I suppose I would have more fun with the game like Hyperborea, where I can “say what happens just happens.”

This is going alongside my first edition collection and my second edition books, along with the grandmaster game of OSRIC, and joining my games on my living room shelf. A solid tabletop game, fewer books than my bloated DCC collection, and I look forward to reading this and having some fun.

Off the Shelf: Tales of the Valiant

One of the things that I love about Tales of the Valiant is that it is a drama-free version of the fifth edition. I can play with all my fifth edition books and never need a physical copy of either the 2014 or 2024 Dungeons & Dragons. I own my PDFs, and I do not need to sign up for a website to have an electronic copy at hand or on my phone. It makes it easy to support the 10-year legacy of great products for the 2014 D&D.

Everything works. People complained that the game offered nothing new, but there are plenty of balance improvements and other tweaks to the system that significantly improve the quality of life. The game is designed to be easy to teach and learn. All the exploits are fixed. I don't need to patch the game with a later book, as all the fixes are in the player's guide and ready to use.

Inspiration or luck? Whatever you want to use, plenty of people prefer the luck system to the inspiration system. You could use both if you wished, but luck is enough. I like the luck system in Tales of the Valiant because it does not require a game master to grant inspiration. A player can manage the system on their own, occasionally receiving bonus luck points from the game master if they want. This speeds up play by giving players a trackable resource without gaming the inspiration system or exploiting role-playing for mechanical gain. One of the most annoying things about 5E is when players constantly try to take advantage of the inspiration system to gain an unfair advantage.

I have a library of my best-of-the-best fifth edition books on my shelves, and Tales of the Valiant runs everything without me needing a single book from Wizards of the Coast. It's zero drama, and I don't get constantly sucked into D&D YouTube, watching the latest drama videos posted by that clickbait crowd over there. I understand that clicks pay the bills, but at one point, I just get so tired of it all, watching the outrage of what the company did this time, and I stop caring altogether. I don't have any time, energy, or emotion left to spend on the stupid things a Wall Street company does.

I want to play a game that works without drama.

Tales of the Valiant also does not insult old-school players. Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, gnolls, and all the other classic humanoid monster creatures are in the Monster Vault. They were removed from D&D due to fake Twitter outrage by people who likely don't play the game. I want the real world removed from my games as much as possible, and I enter my fantasy world to enjoy the adventures there.

Being reminded of current-day social strife is the last thing I want when I'm playing my fantasy game.

We left a silly few years of history, and we are living with the damage. I want a game that is made for the fans. Tales of the Valiant does not go out of its way to anger people. There are some admittedly progressive nods in ToV, and I understand and support them. But the designers realize that people love how the game was, and that experience should be preserved and supported.

Tales of the Valiant feels like playing Windows games on Linux while sidestepping Microsoft and our AI overlords. I can support the game companies I like, protect my privacy and freedom, not hand money to Microsoft as they sell my personal data, and own my hardware all at once. With Wizards and D&D Beyond, the AI is coming, and I want to own my PDFs, characters, campaigns, and ideas without having them fed to the digital beast.

I can create ToV characters on the Shard Tabletop and even print character sheets. Everything D&D does, I can do here, and I can own my digital copies. Not changing the game too much from 2014 D&D is a feature, not a problem. If you want a completely different game, play Shadowdark, Draw Steel, Dragonbane, or Daggerheart. If you wish to play something slightly different, play Level Up A5E.

Now, I have a choice when playing 5E.

I am making an informed and ethical one.

This is not just about anger, either. I enjoy the design of Tales the Valiant far more than I do either 2014 or 2024 Dungeons & Dragons. Everything that I like about the fifth edition is here, cleaned up, ready to go, and fun. Everything on my shelves works without change. All of the dumb exploits are fixed, which I understand makes some people angry, but I don't like having to sit there and ban exploits. All the money I spent on books for the fifth edition can be used and enjoyed, and I can get my money back without having them sit in my garage and storage crates. 

There isn't too much wrong with the fifth edition; my biggest complaint is that characters are too invincible and heal too quickly. This is easily fixed with a few mods. I can tune this game to run exactly like an OSR game with just a few minor changes. The game can be just as deadly as I would like it to be with just a handful of tweaks and adjustments. I can enjoy the in-depth character builds and the progression without having to abandon the game and feel I wasted my money on my entire fifth edition library.

I like Tales the Valiant and keep it on my shelves. The money I have spent on the fifth edition will not be wasted, and I will get the gameplay I bought.