Let the Past Die, Kill It If You Have To

The Last Jedi was this mess. An ugly, horrible, messed-with mess.

But there is one quote in here.

A good one. One the series should have taken to heart. One I feel the director was trying to do, and he failed miserably. This is like an ice skating routine, like at the Olympics, and the pair of skaters fall and fall again. At a point, you feel sorry, but at least they kept trying. The end was thought-provoking, too, like anyone could have the force. Instead, we got this typical" blood of kings" story from the last movie, and it wasn't empowering or engaging at all.

We should all feel like potential Jedi knights; that is where the fantasy was when we were kids.

It should never be a "royal bloodline." The prequels and the sequels got it wrong. Let it be a mystery. Let us dream. Let us be kids again.

But the biggest issue is holding onto the past. We all go back to nostalgia, even if it kills us; we want it so bad it is like a heroin addict should we ever be parted from our drug.

Nerrath, Greyhawk, The Realms

I was trying to start my Low Fantasy Gaming campaign the other night, and I wanted to set this world as "Nerrath 900 years after," which was the default D&D 4 world. I started the game with a young researcher looking into the past, fascinated by it, and trying to get as much information as she could...

And it sucked.

I quickly realized that despite any character I introduced into this world, my experiences with the past version of Nerrath I had in D&D 4 would always hang over this campaign.

She would never be able to escape it, either.

She would never be able to make the world "hers," and the specter of the past would always haunt me, these characters, and my entire experience with this world. There would be no great mysteries we unlock together. We would never get to discover a new world. The shadows of past heroes would always be what she stands in. Even the high-magic age of D&D 4 would be "a greater time" than the one we have today.

And it was grossly unfair to me and the characters I wanted to play.

If I have a shelf full of retro modules and a world I have never played in, like Lost Lands, that is cool. I got a thousand stories on that shelf, all waiting for a moment to be told. If all I got was a world that was never developed, abandoned by its creators, and all I have are fond memories of us trying to make it work - then that is not enough.

Bigger Issues

It reminds me that we keep wanting to reinvent the same superhero or storybook character by putting a new actor in the old clothes. Yet, this is unfair to both the audience and the hero.

There comes a time to move on.

To let go.

To look towards a future.

To discover somewhere new, tell a new story, discover a new world, or let a fresh group of characters enjoy their own destiny without a past chained to their ankles. What you are doing is telling people, "nothing new or fun will ever be created," and "stop creating." Diverse creators with original characters are getting shut out of the conversation or handed an old character's superhero costume and told, "here, fill this."

It is unfair.

I want to hear new stories with new characters.

And everything about our nostalgia-driven present sucks.

New Worlds Only

From here on, I am playing in worlds I have not experienced yet (Lost Lands) or making up my own. I am done with retro modules and world books. I am done with them.

It is time to move on.

Because the person I am shortchanging is myself.

Lost Omens: Travel Guide

I did not like this book, making me pause my Pathfinder 2e rulebook collection. I don't want to pay for books where 95% of the book is fluff, and 5% is actually helpful in character building. The book is shelf-filler at best and not terribly helpful at helping you feel like you are in the world.

And it is a waste of ink, paper, and my money, and it feels like filler content. About a dozen pages of rules out of a 120-page book.

I also paused Starfinder, but I am keeping my maps and accessory subscriptions going. I do not have enough time for either of those games, and at this point, I do not think I will be playing them anytime soon. I get 90% of my fantasy gaming fun from Castles & Crusades with a set of rules that is way easier to play and do the record-keeping for, plus the theme and tone are what I want it to be instead of this almost "pop culture" feeling of fantasy I get from the current books.

And everything in the Travel Guide is way too modern and cosmopolitan for a fantasy world.

Parts of the culture described here feels like the Victorian and Industrial Revolution or even early 19th-century technology. And it makes the world's ruins and lost civilizations feel like abandoned tourist destinations. The world is at peace, I guess. It is like a "happy idealized Earth."

Who is this book for?

It is too optimistic and peaceful, and the whole book feels like this "life experience bucket list" adventure trend is replacing traditional swords & sorcery. The book is short, too, with a lot of (while some is good) repetitive art. Some of it feels cut-and-paste like thrown-in stock art assets and put on a page just to fill space.

I still like the Pathfinder 2e tactical game, but I do not have the money to spend on fluff which feels primarily useless to me. Even if I started playing anytime soon, I would have very little use for this book.

Really disappointing and a release that made me step away for a while.

Evergreen Games: Swords & Wizardry

This had to be my least-favorite OSR game before it became my best favorite. Why? Well, why I initially did not like this game was a pretty hefty list of reasons:

• No bards.
• Ability score modifiers are mostly not used.
• Fighters are the only ones to get STR hit and damage bonuses.
• Limited race and class options compared to other OSR games.
• Game seemed strangely stuck in a pre-B/X and BECMI era.

The above list slowly became why I liked the game, except for bards, but we will get to that in a bit. The game gets a lot right, such as :

• Classic magic resistance mechanics.
• Simplified encumbrance.
• One save number!
• Exactly as I would imagine rules-light AD&D.
• Designed to be hacked and modded.

But Bards?!

To be fair, no bard does not mean "none ever." And since the game does not come with one, I can shop around in the OSR and use the best. Or I can just house-rule it.

Bards could be a background profession; use your saving throw number to do a "bard thing" if you need to, or just have the referee rule on the performance. We do not need a bard spell list because you can be a thief-bard just as well as a magic-user bard. I do this as an optional rule and include professions such as blacksmith, scribe, leatherworker, alchemist, herbalist, miner, and others for players to pick from.

Is bard music magic? No, but it can creatively be used in so many ways it does not need to be magic at all. Then again, if you want it to be magic, use the saving throw to determine if the desired outcome takes effect (and allow saves on the other end, if needed). The more I think about it, why relegate something so fun to one class? Let it be an optional profession, and handle this entirely in roleplaying is my gut S&W ruling.

But I could always borrow a bard from another OSR game, such as Old School Essentials or even one of Labyrinth Lord's class guides. AD&D 2e has a bard, too I could use. I haven't found an excellent OSR bard class yet, but I am looking.

Less Mods, More Fun

The game is more challenging than your standard OSR set of rules because of the lack of ability score modifiers, but it does some great things with asymmetric balance - especially with fighters - that makes me happy. On the flip side, because a lot is left up to the referee, the game could be seen as more accessible than the OSR since it does not rely so much on "rules as written" as it does "players and creative solutions."

Saves

The one-saving throw number mechanic is still genius. The only thing better is Castles & Crusade's Siege Engine. Unlike C&C, the game still leans into a slightly more complex character sheet, requiring things like thief abilities to be recorded and modified at every level. I would love for these secondary abilities to be simplified as well. Personally, I would use the thief saving throw number for all thief abilities and modify it for referee-set difficulty, and just toss out the chart entirely. Who needs a chart with a 5-10% difference between entries? If climbing is supposed to be easy, throw a sizeable positive modifier on it, but keep the base saving throw for the most impossible climbs as the default.

You could do this for all classes; use the saving throw number as a backdoor skill system, which is precisely what I would do to reduce bookkeeping and paperwork. Ranger abilities? Magic users knowing runes? Clerics knowing religions? Assassin disguises? Profession rolls? Use the saving throw number, and modify it for difficulty.

Monsters++

The support of monsters is incredible, and there are plenty of adventures written for the game. S&W has one of the strongest line-ups of support books and adventures I have seen in the OSR. With Frog God Games' Lost Lands, you have an entire world with linked OSR adventures in a unique setting. This world is my Greyhawk.

Hack and Slash

But what makes Swords & Wizardry so remarkable is the game is meant to be hacked. They offer you suggestions in sidebars, and my "backdoor skill save" rules are 100% in line with the spirit of the game. We don't need rules, cyclopedias, and easy-to-reference books of every situation to "make sure we are playing the game correctly."

Playing the game correctly is how you want to play it.

vs. OSE

I initially liked Old School Essentials more than this game since it had "more!" OSE had all sorts of fun non-human classes, a bard, and all the specialty classes, and the game was concise and compact. I have come to like S&W more since the game is meant to be hacked, and I do not need all those options. The fighter in S&W is a more Conan-like beast (parry, multi-attack, damage bonuses) than the OSE generic man-at-arms style torchbearer fighter (no special abilities).

OSE is still fantastic work and a great reference book, but due to the source material, it can feel a little too watered-down in the class implementations. If we have a fighter in our adventuring party or I play one, I will choose S&W every time. Flavor-wise, S&W gets it right, and the fighter is incredible.

OSE does a lot of handholding for new players, which is a good thing. With S&W, you and your players make up 90% of the game, even down to how ability scores work and if and how they are checked. There is far less reliance on ability scores and mods, and I find this frees up my imagination and rulings and lessens the need for 4d6 and drop lowest. Also, the hardcore character optimization is gone. A 14 is still a great score, but in many games with ability score mods and stat inflation, it feels average.

OSE is still the best "industry standard" for writing adventures and B/X content, and Labyrinth Lord is still a solid standby. I would recommend OSE to new players and almost everyone, but for me, the AD&D-lite feeling of Swords & Wizardry hits all the right notes, the adventure and monster support is off the charts, and the game is not so reliant on ability score mods and rules reference.

The OSR is Community Gaming

In this age where millions of people worry and endlessly opine, "what will Wizards do to our favorite game?" having a game where "whatever way you play is official" is an incredible feeling of freedom and control. And having a book state, "hacking is how the game is played," and supporting it with modding rules means you are in control.

Why would I play a game controlled by a central committee of corporate game designers that thinks they know better for my game table? Why should I be forced to rebuy my core rulebooks? Why should Wall Street have a say in my game and if we need a new edition?

Isn't this game supposed to be ours?

One D&D: Deleted My Negativity

I had three articles that were a little pessimistic about One D&D, which I feel is not really a great move and message, and I deleted them. I do not want to spread negativity about a game people love, but I have a few concerns. To me, Wizards trying to lock down the platform with a limited-function tabletop, tie all the book releases into that system and create an EA-like profit center is 100% against even how 5E players play.

I am not even talking about the OSR, but there are parallels and similarities in how both games are played.

The 5E game is already wonderfully diverse, with people playing the game heavily house-ruled, with 3rd party books, and I bet with as much diversity of style and rules as in the OSR. Just touching the surface of modern 5E, my head exploded with all of the support and options for non-Wizards content.

And frankly, it is terrific.

5E is a game I never got into, but I am looking at some of the 5E styles of OSR games, such as Low Fantasy Gaming, which look very fun. But 5E is just a set of rules; you can't hate on it. It is a mod of the OSR with doubled hit points, combat options, skills, passive abilities, and way too forgiving rest mechanics. Low Fantasy Gaming is very cool, it has that 5E feel, with what I love about the OSR, and the game is compatible with 5E monsters and magic books, so you can extend the life of your 5E purchases.

Frankly, at this point, someone should build a "Pathfinder 1e" and continue D&D 5 cloned as-is, like that game did with the 3.5 edition, and continue support. Time for the rules fork, game designers! Get to it; there is a massive market with this one. Think of it, you as the next Paizo.

And while you are at it, fix the rest mechanics and make it a modular system.

I do not like 5E as written, I feel it is too forgiving, and there are way too many rules for things that should be handled by the group. The character sheets are also complicated, with things like "tool proficiencies" added (the game has skills, use those). The character sheets get longer, the more terrible ideas, and the "oh yeah, this would be cool to have" add-ons are added in expansion books.

I feel that One D&D is when the game becomes a monetization platform like Madden (1.5 billion profits yearly) or Diablo Immortal (100 million profits since release). I do not trust any large corporation with Wall Street breathing down their necks to increase monetization and tighten platform lockdown. This paragraph is also pure speculation and negativity, but given the world we live in, it is also stupid and irresponsible not to mention. Still, time will tell, and I hope I am wrong.

But 5E as a game is fine if we are just talking base mechanics.

I do not like the current direction of the Wizards products, and I recently stopped my rules-book subscriptions to current-year Paizo since they seem to be following the trend. I do not like the splat-book build-stacking going on. I will see these optimization videos on YouTube explaining how to take this and that feat, 2 levels of this, to get a 50% to critical hit character, and my stomach turns as I remember late-edition 4E. I do not like the "setting plus rules" expansion books since they force me to buy settings and adventures I will likely not use just to have a few rules everyone wants to build a character with, and it is a waste of the book, trees, ink, and my money.

The base 5E system? Fine, especially if modded to be more like the OSR. It is just a set of rules, and those can be tweaked and modified. I wish the game was more modular so everyone could be happy.

One D&D tells me they want one D&D.

But my core belief, and I see this in how the game is being played, is that D&D is for all.

Every 3rd party book, every virtual tabletop, every house rule, and every group that plays their own unique way should be included. There is a beautiful diversity of ideas in the 5E community, much like the OSR, and while the two sides tend to think of each other as "they only play one way!" it is actually untrue.

There are as many ways to play 5E as there are OSR games.

The most significant difference between the OSR and 5E - is that D&D 5E is still controlled by Wall Street.

I hope, with the realization of what One D&D could lead to, that the community takes 5E and clones it, and the game can move from corporate control to community control - like open-source software. There is no fight between 5E and the OSR. One day, when D&D moves on to a new edition, 5E will be a part of the OSR.

This is all about the difference between games that belong to the people versus games controlled by one.

Evergreen Games: Castles & Crusades

I like Castles & Crusades, and I have settled on this as my primary fantasy game. I went through a few OSR games to settle here, starting at Labyrinth Lord, moving on to Old School Essentials, struggling with Pathfinder 2e, loving Dungeon Crawl Classics, revisiting Pathfinder 1e, loving Swords & Wizardry, loving Savage Pathfinder, and then settling on C&C.

I did not want too much gonzo Appendix N since some games lean into that heavily. I love the science-fantasy genre, but I want a game that hits that fantasy sweet spot of the fantasy novels from the 1980-2000 period, where there is no technology, space travel, wild anime-inspired races, planar living, classic fantasy background centric, and the entire world can be grounded and relatable.

If I want Appendix N, Dungeon Crawl Classics is the king.

Savage Pathfinder is a very cool game and one I hope to be playing more. I just don't have time for it now and had to shelve the game for a while to focus on my current projects. It is a very cinematic romp through the classic Pathfinder world. It delivers on the promises all that classic Pathfinder art makes of an action-packed, swords-and-sorcery world filled with fantastic locations and terrifying monsters.

Swords & Wizardry would be my game if I didn't have Castles & Crusades. It is perfectly AD&D-lite, and it preserves fundamental mechanics like magic resistance. The one thing Swords & Wizardry has - through the excellent Frog Gods Games site - is adventures that are 100% OSR compatible and some of the best classic dungeons and settings you can find in the OSR right now. All of these Swords & Wizardry adventures are my Greyhawk replacement world, easily compatible with C&C, and they realize the Greyhawk dream of a world filled with dangerous dungeons literally everywhere, ancient histories of forgotten empires, savage cults, kingdoms in turmoil, and ancient demonic evil rising up from deep below.

Lost Lands and the adventures within are a true treasure to the OSR.

And Swords & Wizardry is one of the best OSR games out there that remains faithful to the original rules and eliminates many problems introduced in later editions. You don't need 4d6 and drop the lowest stat-flation character generation; you can roll 3d6 down the line and be just fine. I initially did not like this game because of the lesser importance of ability scores, but now I see it as a liberating and pure OSR experience. This is D&D before the hardcore character optimizers got to the game, and all you have left is the "the player matters more" style of old-school play.

But Castles & Crusades is a masterpiece. No wonder the core rules have not changed since 2004; they do not need to. All the legacy cruft has been thrown away; lists of saving throw numbers, skill lists, proficiencies, skill points, thief skills, racks of extra numbers, feats, and the character sheets are wonderfully simple. The character sheet is even easier to maintain than Old School Essentials. You have your ability scores and roll against them, and everything from skills, class abilities, and saves are handled the same way.

The game feels like classic AD&D, without all of the chart references. You play from your character sheet and never need to open a book during play. Where a game like Old School Essentials spends a lot of time and energy on ensuring you can find the correct chart at the right time, C&C does away with almost all of the charts.

Simplification is the best organization.

If you ever feel your character sheet is a complicated mess, you have too many numbers to write down, long skill lists make your eyes water, multiple saves against strange effects make no sense, and your character becomes a horrid complicate mess beyond level 8, then Castles & Crusades is for you. And the characters level up and get new abilities up to maximum level. There is always something cool coming up next, and characters remain playable and enjoyable past level 10 - and level 20.

With C&C, the characters play remarkably like an OSR game. I really can't see that much of a difference. You have a full save and skill system "baked in" to the six ability scores you can use at any time. Need an STR check; the system has you covered. Need a mage to read runes? The system does that. Need to swimming skill check? Want a CHR roll? Diplomacy skill roll? Poison save? Spell save? Lockpicking roll? Tracking roll? The system does all that, too, from the base six ability scores.

Want to play the game more like OSR? Ignore most uses for the Siege Engine, use the OSR ruling GM system, and just use it for saving throws. Want it to play more like a modern game? Use the Siege Engine to replace skill lists and make social skill rolls with CHR. Or do a mix, make rulings as you see fit, and call for ability rolls if they are absolutely needed.

And numerically, the game is compatible with every OSR and classic AD&D, AD&D 2e, and D&D adventure with very few changes. My characters can adventure through classic AD&D adventures, Keep on the Borderlands, Labyrinth Lord's Barrowmaze, Swords & Wizardry's Rappan Athuk, and any other adventures I can find - new or old. It is like owning a "classic game emulator" and having it be compatible with dozens of game cartridges and systems, and being able to play everything and anything anytime you want.

The OSR is like that already, but C&C does them all, and the game rids itself of needless character sheet confusion and tax-form style number tracking that changes at every level. One reviewer said C&C added the Siege Engine and said an OSR-style game doesn't need this "extra system," and dismissed the game entirely. When you fully understand all the game throws out - the Siege Engine is a genius system to replace every legacy bolted-on system they taped to D&D and AD&D to make the system work. 

C&C is a clean, modern, simplified design that embraces the best of the OSR.

There is no uncertainty or upcoming rules update to endlessly watch Youtube pundits opine upon for clicks and ad money. I don't like falling into the trap of the Youtube "5E is popular thus, this is all we talk about" sort of consumerist mentality. They will talk endlessly until the new edition is released, and nothing will change. Instead of spending more money on upcoming rules updates, waiting for whatever Wizards has already decided, and worrying about how the game is changing, I can just play.

And I do not have to worry about the rules.

This is the beauty of the OSR and games that embrace that design theory. C&C is compatible with the revolution in thinking and how games are made, away from centralized corporate control that tells you something will be in the next edition or not, to a more independent creator and small producer economy where everyone gets to produce and consume. The games are evergreen and work together well.

And there are so many free options in the OSR, so money is not a barrier to play. Some systems are printed at cost, with books that cost under the price of a sandwich or cup of coffee.

And in the OSR, everyone is free to clone, write new games, use other games, or pick the one they love the most. If a game goes out of print or loses favor, someone will likely clone it and keep it going. It is an open-source movement but for tabletop RPGs. No one can "own" the movement or gatekeep; the OSR is for everyone.

If C&C does not do it for me one day or somehow "goes away" and someone doesn't clone it, dozens of other OSR games can step right in, and all my adventures still work. There is no versioning, re-buying, wasted money, forced upgrades, or feeling left out.

The books I have don't need to be thrown out, reprinted, or updated just because a few things change in the core rules. The OSR is arguably more environmentally friendly than systems that print new editions every 10 years and invalidate libraries of books. Shipping, production, printing, toxic chemicals, air pollution, paper production, and production costs all add up - especially for games that ship millions of books a year and go thru Amazon.

Someone with a 20-year-old C&C rulebook could walk up to my table and be able to play by the rules. Same with Labyrinth Lord, S&W, or any other OSR game.

That is an evergreen game.

Lost Lands: Getting Started

I love the Frog God Games adventures for the Swords & Wizardry system (and you can get these for 5E), but sifting through my library of them, I was not finding many great starting locations and those classic level one to six adventures. I had a lot of level 5-8 adventures and only a few great campaign starters. It is a bit of a confusing collection of random adventures, and I spent a night reading and coming up with a plan of "how to start here."

First up, I would start with the Stoneheart Valley module. This is a solid level 1 to 6 campaign that takes you through a bunch of linked adventures and starts you in the archetypical "small starting fantasy village" as a home base. Perfect! It has one problem, the map of where it is is not the best. Where is this place?

This is the old Necromancer Games map, and it is more of a historical addition than something very useful. I had a hard time finding this area in the Lost Lands world book, but I finally did and made some notes about other adventures and things to consider buying in case you wanted to support a campaign in this area.

The area is known in the Lost Lands as the Central & Sothern Sinnar Coast, and it contains several great adventures and reference books worth noting. I highlighted a couple areas of the published adventures and put in two areas that could fit other mega-dungeons.

First up in the upper left is Fairhill and the Stoneheart Valley adventure, and this should be your first buy for a starter book. Right next to that is the city of Bard's Gate, and you can buy a book describing the entire town. These two could anchor a campaign for many sessions, and they are close enough for a great one-two starting area.

Down in the lower-right is the city of Endhome in the Lost City of Barakus adventure, and this is another good starting campaign set. A little bit to the north of that on the coast is the mega-dungeon Rappan Athuk, and this is hundreds of hours of play worth of adventure.

To the south of Endhome is a large swamp area, and you guessed it, a perfect place for the Barrowmaze mega-dungeon. There is one blog playing this module with Castles & Crusades, and they are over 100 sessions and 400 hours of play.

To the west, I highlighted another area that would be perfect for dropping the Forbidden Caverns of Archaia into. This is another 100+ sessions, 400+ hour mega-dungeon, so if you want to go completely overboard in this area, it is entirely possible. I am sure other published adventures are hiding on this map, and I will discover them as I go. I would need to check the scale of these areas to make sure they fit, but I am sure I could just make it work.

So with this setup, I have two starting areas, two major cities, and three mega-dungeons. Rappan Athuk really needs Expansion Book 1 to be considered a starting adventure, but the other two mentioned are ideally suited as starting areas as well. Also worth noting are the areas south of the Forest Kingdoms are details filling in the Borderlands Provinces book, so you have more background detail about this area at your hands.

There are 5E versions for most of these books, along with Swords & Wizardry/Labyrinth Lord versions that are all compatible with the OSR game of your choice. I play with Castles & Crusades because I can run 20-30 characters as a solo player in different parties with ease and minimal record-keeping. Not having to track skills, saves, thief abilities, cleric turning, endless ability modifiers, and dozens of other things on every character sheet means I get to play more and do less paperwork.

There, this is a great plan! I have areas and adventures to get starting parties up to level 5, so they can tackle adventures in the Quests of Doom series or begin Rappan Athuk. I have plenty of room to expand and explore, and I can add adventures as I see fit. And this is just a seven-book set, with thousands of hours of play locked away in them, all in that tremendous old-school flavor.

In the game of your choice.

World Replacements: Mystara, Golarion

This is something I have always felt. The best replacement for Mystara, an ultimate theme park world, is the best theme park world, Pathfinder's Golarion.

Not the new Golarion, mind you, classic Golarion minus all the steampunk. If I wanted a steampunk game, I would have bought one, and I do not want guns in my fantasy unless this is pirates. No robots, automation, robot companions, android characters, walking cars, trains, airships, no, I am sorry, no steampunk in Golarion. Save it for Starfinder. Sometimes I can't tell Pathfinder 2E and Starfinder apart, which feels wrong.

Fantasy is fantasy - no guns, no cowboys, and no robots.

There are times I feel Pathfinder 2e leans too heavily into steampunk and gonzo sci-fi, and the world suffers as a result. I do not want androids walking around my fantasy world, nor do I want robot companions. I do not walk mecha-cars, trains, motorized thrones, or airships. The original Golarion world is very cool, a really strong fantasy setting with just a touch of sci-fi - but this can ultimately be ignored or replaced by "alien magic "if you wish. The 2e world has so many crazy species and ancestries running around it feels like Mos Eisley at times or some anime TV show where every living thing has to talk and have stereotypical human emotions.

On the other side, as the D&D Gazetteer line went on, the setting books got more humorous and way out there. The Thar supplement leans into the humor and really does a good job. And they started breaking immersion and introducing flying ships and all sorts of crazy technology by the last few additions to the line. At times I felt the designers were either bored, unsupervised, or TSR did not really care much about the world by the end and told them, "anything goes, do what you want."

Both worlds have a few huge problems, but Golarion 1e has the fewest, Golarion 2e has the most, and Mystara sits in the middle.

With Savage Pathfinder, I get all of it back in style, though I have to admit, Castles & Crusades is ruling my fantasy needs at the moment. I am waiting for the second Savage Pathfinder set to come, and then I will dive in with the Advanced Player's Guide. I love the classic world feel of the Pathfinder 1e world, and it is much more mature and confident, sort of like a fantasy book written for mature readers and older audiences. The new 2e world is incredible, but it feels more like a "for all audiences" game that includes kids; the tone has changed substantially, and I do not feel the world is written for me anymore.

But I always felt the Pathfinder world was a better Mystara, and it hits many of the excellent theme park notes with dedicated areas with flavor and fun. You have a Norse area, Ravenloft area, undead kingdom, lost continent, pirate place, your typical demon kingdom, demon invasion area, Kingmaker sandbox, the adventure kingdom, and many other classics. Anything you want is here.

I have to admit, finding these exact theme park locations in Swords & Wizardry with Lost Lands was surprising, and they are done a touch better here with full campaign support. They are not as integrated into the larger world as well, however, but that is a good thing and a bad thing. In Lost Lands, the theme park areas are almost standalone campaigns, and if I wanted to run them that way, it is an option. With Pathfinder, if I wanted to run one of the areas as a standalone, it would be very hard to pull the rest of the world out.

Mystara has a few issues, like a lack of an evil kingdom and a few tone-deaf areas, which seemed okay at the time but, in hindsight, made me raise an eyebrow. A kingdom that bans religion and gives clerics the death penalty? An Arabian Knights area that sounds fun but is way too small and shoved in there. A lack of an evil kingdom. The continent felt too settled and divided, like a Renaissance Europe, with little room for exploration and discovery. And some of the later iconic areas, like a spooky Ravenloft-style area, missing. The continent also feels small when I would love it expansive and with room for evil to lurk and heroes to settle unexplored lands.

Golarion is similarly divided up, but the scale feels much larger, and most areas in a kingdom's border feel all dangerous outside settled areas. Golarion has decades of hindsight on what is fun and what gamers want. It can deliver areas that support iconic experiences, and it does.

This was an easy one since it just fits so well. Plus Golarion has the adventure paths in style and those more than make up for the loss of the Mystara gazetteers.

The only problem is the rules. The Pathfinder rules are very different than OGL, so I am playing this with non-OGL or B/X systems, such as Pathfinder 1e, 2e, or Savage Worlds. The latter will likely be my pick since it is easier to manage than the other two.

If I want an OGL hit, I will stick to Lost Lands (Greyhawk) or Aihrde (Realms) and the C&C rules.

When I want that pulp Mystara adventure with a Pathfinder flair, I will dive into Savage Pathfinder.