Interesting Video: D&D CANCELS Live Action Dragonlance

Another good one for tracking the mess that is D&D. I feel the underwhelming D&D movie killed this, followed by the fire sale of their movie studio. We have a pre-Deadpool Ryan Reynolds situation now, with a passionate creator and an owner who sits on the IP. He even offered to buy the IP with investors.

The title should be "Wizards sale of media company cancels" - since this was likely in production by the media company they sold and was likely canceled after the sale. I doubt D&D or Wizards had much to do with it at this point in time. However, I feel the mismanagement and collapse of streaming ended this project, so it can be traced back if you go far enough.

And we get a lackluster module and a failed board game. The company must gain the self-control to hand the reigns to their partners and let them develop an idea. They will churn out books that undermine and devalue their IP just for a few sales. I feel the D&D movie was the same thing; profit now over quality. Spelljammer seemed plagued by this too, rushed out, and obvious glaring issues ignored.

Every release these days devalues their IP.

The authors of Dragonlance are still with us, but those bridges are burned.

One TV show could rocket you into a billion-dollar valuation. Everything they own is a Star Wars-level IP, built-in nostalgia, and proven to drive interest in other properties. You need to play Hollywood's game.

I would have started with novels by the original creators and gotten those on the NYT Bestsellers lists. Build a world. Introduce this to a new generation. Build passion and excitement. Bring in writers, but have them work with the creators to build a larger shared universe with a creative vision.

Better yet, sell the idea; nothing will become of it here. The value of this only goes down from here. Like the Realms, I hope these get sold to people who care while we still have the original creators with us.

When a creative company loses the ability to create and dream, the ability to explore an idea and make it come alive in a community, you should quietly head to the lifeboats.

Level Up A5E: Hacker's Game

The more I look into Level Up: Advanced 5E, the more I love the game. They have these two POD Homebrew & Hacking guides to make your own feats, heritages, cultures, and backgrounds. The above is the feats book, and being able to handcraft your own is just what I needed for some of my builds.

A5E lets you go to town to customize and hack the game. The book for heritages, cultures, and backgrounds is nice too, and they let you point-buy design these so they are balance with other choices.

Do you want them already done for you? They have a magazine-like gazetteer that comes out six times a year, and there are POD options by third parties. There is a Kickstarter for the 2023 book collection, and the 2022 collection is available in hardcover.

The Gate Pass series is a great expansion for the game and should not be overlooked by a true fan.

These are all excellent, and you can get them in print. There are a few 3rd party books from smaller publishers, which are all worth your time and investment.

The MOAR Complete book is fantastic. Some of the game's designers did it to expand the rules. Want to be a dinosaur-riding spy? You can do that here. This book is nearly 300 pages of expansion content, new archetypes, classes, feats, spells, and destinies, and this is almost like A5E's "Unearthed Arcana" expansion. This one is highly recommended if you buy into A5E.

If you are a fan, get this book - seriously. It is like the "lost content" from the original game and a fantastic collection of fun stuff.

And there is a nearly 300-page Dungeon Delvers Guide with even more of everything. And this is just this game alone; you can pull in as much 5E content as you want. There is a head-spinning amount of options here without leaving the game.

One thing I love about the hacking guide is it lays out the A5E differences in an easy-to-reference sidebar, namely:

• The concept of the expertise die (d4) and how they chain.
• Maneuvers and exertion for martial characters.
• The culture and engineering skills.
• Legends and lore for monsters.
• Exploration knacks to support wilderness adventures.
• Supply replacing rations and waterskins.

I would add to this:

• Fatigue and strife, the doomed condition, and the concept of a haven regarding resting.
• Destiny and inspiration.
• Strongholds (the original and far better knock-off "Bastion" system)
• Ability checks: critical success and failure special effects.
• World actions regarding combat and initiative order.
• Exploration party checklist, supply use, havens, and journey activities.
• Exploration challenges as encounters! (4E! Yay!)
• The bloodied condition and gaze attacks for monsters (Yay! More 4E mechanics!)

I still love Tales of the Valiant as my simple B/X version of 5E. There aren't all these layers of detail to worry about, and if you just want to sword-swing and let spells fly - ToV is that perfect mix of simplicity. B/X sensibilities, and Open 5E.

If I want a 'pick up and play' version of 5E, Tales of the Valiant will be that game.

But I want a complete game that lets my players go to an adventure area, and they decide to stay a while, so they build a stronghold in the area. They worry about supplies. The world is alive and can present challenges to exploration, combat encounters, and movement. If someone rolls a crit, something unique happens. Characters can achieve their destinies. The best of 3.5E and 4E can be found here or even modded in easily.

And A5E keeps the fantasy standards, dragonborn, drow, eladrin, tieflings, and all my 4E favorites. It expands them massively with all sorts of excellent options - and lets me create my own. The game allows me to hack and homebrew extensively.

And I can pull in as much 3rd party content as I want for even more. But what I like about A5E is it allows me to have that more profound level of depth for all of what I have, where a party of eladrin adventurers looking to recover their family's lost manor needs to worry about supplies, navigation, camping, and even the strange changes to the landscape of lost areas and wastelands. Where their warrior has combat maneuvers and a stamina system to put the hurt on enemies.

A5E reminds me a lot of the classic Aftermath game. People mock this game but realize it was only 254 pages with a few areas where the math blew up to an insane level. Otherwise, this was all straight d20, d00, and d6 mechanics. Where Aftermath shined is that if you were in a section of the rules, you could go as in-depth as you wanted down to the wires and screws. You could ignore the depth and skim over the section. But if you want depth, and in the situation it matters, it is here in all its oily, gear-grinding, battery cable, steel wire, greasy pull wire, and tie-rod detail.

The depth of the game could kill your characters. Being in a game like this is exciting since you start playing intelligently and carefully. In a more straightforward game, like 2014 5E, nothing there could kill your characters regarding depth - especially in exploration and social encounters. If the DM says, "You all die from lack of a restful camp and starvation" in D&D, people's mouths will drop open, and they will scream, "Horrible DM! Time to put this horror story on YouTube! You hate my self-insert lifestyle-brand character and thus me as a person! X Card! X Card!"

In A5E, I have the rules for this. The depth is there. I know it, and the players know it. If we agree to ignore it, the arrangement is made. I still like my safety tools, but even I agree they can be abused and joke about them (because I am an adult and not a clickbait YouTuber). But the depth is here. If we all agree to this (again, put realistic survival rules and grievous wounding in the safety tool sign-up sheet for the game, reverse tools FTW), then the rules are in play.

Aftermath's safety tool sign-up sheet would look like a phone book because you could catch dysentery, get tetanus from a rusty can, be shot by a sniper, chop a lion's tail off, have a diseased rat claw your eyes out, have a robot slice your hand off with a laser (which sets you on fire), get bitten by a poisonous snake, and step on a land mine and lose your leg in one combat encounter.

If you were bitten by the snake on the leg that got blown off, I might give you a break, but you are still getting thrown 1d6 hexes in a random direction; please don't get tossed down the rad-zombie-filled mine shaft lined with rusty blades on the walls.

That X Card will have a hole worn in it by the night's end.

A5E isn't as bad as this, but you get my point - the depth is there to make these rulings. This is a freedom and an absolute blast to play once you understand how much danger you are in and have the tools to avoid all this with care and common sense. Oh, and what the environment can do to you, it can do to your enemies, so have fun.

One thing I love about A5E is its mod-ability. If I wanted to mod in Aftermath-style realism and wounding rules? I could go to town. Any system in this game can be broken down into subsystems and expanded upon to achieve any desired result. All of this while staying within Open 5E and maintaining compatibility.

Then again, the freedom to build a stronghold in an area and use the rules to work to your advantage is compelling. Martial characters hit hard. Rangers are cool. Social characters have tools. Rogues are like Lara Croft or Nathan Drake. If you don't have magic, you can still be cool. Not many 5E games can say this, and certainly not D&D.

Magic should not be a requirement for fun.

In A5E, there is a deeper depth to the entire resource management system that puts it above A5E and even ToV. When I want it, it is there, and I can play that deeper game. If I just want a simple, sword-swinging, cantrip-flinging adventure like a B/X, I have ToV.

If I want an Open 5E game where I can mod, hack, and enjoy in as much depth as I want - A5E is my go-to game. Both work similarly and have the same adventures; it is just that one is a more straightforward way to see a 5E game, and the other brings a lot of depth to the experience.

I feel good playing both and can have both at my table for different moods and needs.

Necrotic Gnome, OGL Statement

https://necroticgnome.com/blogs/news/an-update-on-old-school-essentials-and-the-ogl

Necrotic Gnome, the excellent Old School Essentials creator, has posted about OSE, the future, and how they are moving away from the OGL. This was posted last year, but I came by it again, and it brought up thoughts a year later.

The hurt and fear are still there more than a year after that disaster. Now you can see why I am selling all my Wizards books and going hard into Open 5E. I walk in both worlds, as do many old-timers, especially experienced DMs. When this started, D&D already had a DM shortage, and burning the bridges of the veteran DMs who "make your game work" is a colossal disaster few talk about.

Can I play D&D with good conscious hearing this news? No. There must be a leadership change at the top and going down. Anyone involved must go. Steps must be taken to make the OGL 1.0a permanent. Then, I may give D&D another chance, which is a fair position.

Holding people to an ethical standard for your business is not wrong. And it is your choice. Don't let people on social media make it for you; you could be talking to a bot.

I will support Necrotic Gnome in whatever they do, and I am happy they are considering a future for OSE beyond the OGL. Swords & Wizardry did a CC version of their game, so it is possible.

For me, Open 5E will be here 30+ years from now. The books I have and love will not be replaced or "stealth edited" because we can't download a PDF. I own both. They are mine. Open 5E allows them to continue to be mine forever.

Sad news, but hopeful.

Mail Room: Cypher: Rust & Redemption (PDF)

They are shipping out the rewards for the Cypher System Rust & Redemption Kickstarter, and I have my PDF for the book. This is a nice 224-page, complete guide to post-apocalyptic adventures, and I am surprised at the level of detail they went into. This is really a high-quality idea and toolbox for post-apoc and survival games, and it lets you stay as grounded as you like, or go as wild as you like.

Using Cyphers as a one-time reward to restock different supply levels is genius.

The book has a sort of Fallout meets Gamma World vibe to it, but tries to keep grounded in the survival game. I sense a little bit of Numenera here, too, but not as magical and fantastical as that setting.

The best thing about Cypher System is its "make stuff up" factor. Since every threat in the game is rated on a difficulty class-like system, I could pull an idea out of my head, assign it a threat level and a few special abilities, tweak threat levels for offense and defense, and create a new monster or danger in about 10 seconds.

I can take any monster out of Gamma World and turn it into a Cypher System monster in about 30 seconds, it would take longer to read the stat block and description than it would to make the creature. One of the best things about Cypher System and Numenera is players do NOT know what they are in store for next, even more than Gamma World or any other game.

Cypher System is a better Gamma World than Gamma World, and I would say, mechanically, it would be an excellent system for Fallout, too.

Since "everything can be a challenge," you can rate a dangerous balancing act over a collapsed floor a number, and then, if you want to introduce another layer of threat, trip a GM intrusion on the party while they are midway across. The players can shift the narrative in their favor with XP spending.

A lot of these "on the fly" challenges in a game like Gamma World are typically tied to a module, and it takes a very creative game master to think of these on the fly. Cypher System lets me pull them out of thin air, assign them a difficulty, and then let the players deal with it using their skills, gear, and ability score pools.

I know; I could always say, "You see a collapsed area of a building, and it takes a DEX roll to cross it." In a B/X style game, what is the big deal? Make it up and assign a resolution mechanic. The difference is that the game master typically needs to know the game very well, as in, how does the game expect this sort of challenge to be resolved? Is it a saving throw? A roll-under check? How was this done in a module? Is there an acrobatics skill I need to go read? Athletics? What skill covers this? Is there a "balance" section of the rules in the movement chapter? Every game is different, and designers can handle the same simple things in a million different ways.

Aftermath is a good example. There are many special-case rules hidden everywhere in this game, and once you "program your brain" to know how everything is done, the game is easy and relatively simple. The books are short too, which helps you create that "mental index" you need when being a game master.

Cypher System is different. As a GM, I use no dice. I do my narrative thing and assign numbers to threats. I am sitting in pure "storytelling mode" and relaxing, with my "mental index" being a few cheat sheets and a passing knowledge of the rules. Since character creation is the meat of the game, all the heavy lifting was done then, and that is mostly making picks by players off lists.

You would think, since Cypher System's threats are "just numbers," they would feel "all the same," - but they aren't. You can say the same thing about an orc versus a goblin in B/X; the numbers are so close; how are they different? Is it the description text? The art?

It is what you do with those numbers, and rarely do the numbers matter since it is you bringing them to life.

I am looking forward to getting the physical book, this one has been a long time coming, and I will be digging into the PDF here soon.

Interesting Video: Hasbro Fires D&D Book Team!

What 5E writers and designers do you like?

Yeah, they are heading to Open 5E too.

If you having trouble convincing anyone to head for the door and consider alternatives, here is your reason. I am always careful around breaking news on YouTube since they get many things wrong, but it feels like the writing is on the wall. He has been pretty good on his sources, but he recently got the "selling D&D" thing wrong, too. But I feel it getting sold is inevitable anyway.

Open 5E will protect your book investment for 10, 20, and 30+ years. Also, you could keep playing 2014, but the game needs a lot of fixes the Open 5E teams have already addressed.

Open 5E is the next OSR.

The 2024 hype train will sucker you in, get $200-500 from you (and every one of your players), and you will be back in Open 5E looking for alternatives. That, too, is inevitable.

The AAA gaming statement, "We need to condition gamers to accept not owning their games," comes to mind. They are coming for your books.

I am like, pass.

Hard pass.

The OSR model works, and that model is coming to 5E. Even if you hate ToV and A5E, someone can take what they did, fix it, and make their own version. We saw this in the OSR with Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, and Old School Essentials. We saw terrific forks like DCC and Hyperborea. The version you like is either already here and waiting for you to try, or it will arrive shortly (if you make your voice heard in the Open 5E movement). You could do it yourself!

The Open 5E game you will play, too, is inevitable.

I know history.

I am all in.

Ability Score Modifiers: Gone

Mark this in the "win" column for Tales of the Valiant. The game eliminates ability score modifiers. All of them. You create your ability scores with 3d6, drop the lowest, add 2/1, or use a 36-point purchase system.

You do not modify ability scores for race (D&D) or background (LU A5E).

If you encounter older content with ability score modifiers for a race/lineage - you ignore them. You start with more points; you do not need to modify anything. If your Dragonborn is strong, toss the points in STR.

Done.

This is such a simple system, and it moves Open 5E towards the GURPS model of point-buy - I love it. If your ogre is big and strong, buy it with points, just like GURPS. And you aren't writing down your character stats and then going back during character creation to erase holes in your sheet because a later pick gave you a point of STR.

One pass and done character creation, no going back - this is the future.

It also was the past if you played GURPS, but hey, we won't hold that against 5E players.

Level Up A5E gives the ability points as a part of the character's background, which is a dodge around the whole racial essentialism thing they were trying to escape - and they moved it to the background, which is just as problematic. If you use older content with race-based ability score modifiers, you ignore them here, too. If you had a player who really wanted the ability to score modifiers for a legacy content race, this is an either/or choice with the background modifiers - you do not get them both.

Only modifying scores once is the rule - if you do it.

Otherwise, give everyone more points at character creation and ignore it.

I like the latter.

Both games get character stats under control, eliminate the "favored race + class" combos, and prevent min-maxing. Thank you! 50 years of legacy junk modifiers were eliminated, and they are finally warming to the GURPS way of doing things.

The one thing Level Up A5E has over ToV right now is the diversity and depth of the choices for heritage (race), culture (culture), and background. ToV uses lineage (race), heritage (culture), and background - and the options in the ToV Alpha are limited.

A5E goes deeper into each system for everything in the game. It is full of "great idea" subsystems everywhere that give the game great depth at the cost of complexity. This is the "AD&D of 5E."

ToV is the "B/X" of the Open 5E era. Eliminating ability score modifiers after generation streamlines character creation, keeps you from needing to "go back" and change stats after you set them, and is more accessible for new players to understand than even 2014 D&D.

These games keep the promise of backward and cross compatibility, so I can buy one 5E adventure and play it with either game. ToV will have better character creation compatibility with 3rd party materials, whereas A5E does its own "advanced" thing. ToV will be a +1 CR power level higher than 5E or A5E, like Pathfinder 1e to 3.5E.

But both are excellent as long as you understand what they are trying to do and their design goals.

B/X sits out there shrugging its shoulders, saying, "I don't need any of this complexity around character creation, and you have designed yourself into a corner needing all this junk. Now you are incompatible with each other in different ways." I agree with that sentiment and feel that if I want all the "complexity" that 5E says it has and the depth of character creation - I will play Pathfinder 2 for that, or, better yet, GURPS/Dungeon Fantasy.

But Open 5E is moving along well. I have two primarily cross-compatible versions, with ToV being the better "character build" compatible and A5E being the more "math compatible" version of the original game. I feel that 2024 D&D will also have some power-level increase somewhere, likely hidden in the website as exclusive subscriber benefits.

To me, being able to do character sheets by hand is my core feature since it protects my investment in books and is a hedge against website sign-ups. I don't want to have a situation at my table where one player comes in with a character designed with D&D Beyond with OP website exclusive paid-for character options, and the rest of my table used the book, and they all feel they suck.

Pay-to-win is a real threat here.

If D&D Beyond falters and starts losing the company money, you can bet the PTW options will show up, and they will be ruining the game faster to prepare us for 6th Edition. This happened at the end of 3.5E and 4E; the overpowered options started flowing like water to retain players, and the net effect is destroying the game to keep attention on it. I feel 2024 will be a CR+1 game like ToV, and the old content will feel weak and underbalanced.

Wizards always start making a lot of noises and changes around the end of an edition. Big plans, new initiatives, patch versions, and many changes and noise.

Then, the new edition drops by surprise.

It was being worked on secretly, but we had to release it early since we needed numbers.

It may not be fully baked. 5E wasn't, many classes sucked. Open 5E efforts try to go back and fix those mistakes with hindsight; A5E's martial classes and rangers are cool. ToV will also have fixes for multiclass exploits, which are long overdue. I suspect the exploits will keep people in the 2014 edition because they are fun to combo.

And given the 5.5E only has a 3-year plan attached to it for profitability, 3 years from now, we will likely see a 6th Edition. Get ready for a rollercoaster of power-gaming options on the official site as finance demands more and more incentives, and the design team is forced to bend the knee and wreck the game because everyone's necks are on the chopping block.

You will go along with the subscriber target plan or be replaced.

I have been in companies like this, don't laugh.

Being on a short clock with finance guys dictating design sucks harder than you ever imagine.

3rd party lockout is another concern. Who cares about 3rd party options if they aren't on the site? In this case, you must use A5E or ToV to still use the books you paid for. This is my option; I will use my two games and keep my old books. I am not buying them twice or throwing them out.

We are seeing the free market develop viable Open 5E alternatives that cater to different audiences. I support those since the focus isn't on website sign-ups but on the game, book investment, and players coming first.

And 10 years from now, Open 5E will still be here, my books will still be usable, and I can still play the game I know and like today.

The 2024 release is all about "who controls your books."

You control your books. Open 5E solidifies that. Having print and PDF versions makes it forever.

It is not a company website with gated e-book access or a pay-per-month character creation program.

Tales of the Valiant: The New Hotness

As we get closer to release, it is clear that Tales of the Valiant is the new "hotness" and has the buzz around it. The Kobold Press team put in a lot of work, and as the flagship Open 5E game, this is a super high-quality release worthy of leading the pack.

What I like about ToV is the pre-existing support. Already out of the game, we have magic books, player option books, adventures, a game world, three (four if you count the one in the Kickstarter) monster books, and a shelf full of great stuff to read and collect. They start ahead of where Paizo started with Pathfinder 1e, and you can pull in all your other 3rd party books to use with the system.

They are brilliant for not linking the game to Midgard. They are trying to keep the core line as world-neutral as possible, and since 70% of groups (by my last research) play in their worlds - and not a published campaign world - this is a solid decision. Midgard is always there, and we have 5E Midgard-focused options books that will convert over for now.

They are trying to create a standard-bearer in Open 5E, which Old School Essentials did for B/X. This is way harder in 5E because of the page count needed for a thorough job; you are talking about 1,000 pages. This is in monsters, spells, character options, magic items, and all the other necessary parts. In B/X, you can do this with about 100 pages, which one person can do. But ten times the page count does not translate into ten times the work; it is more like 100 times the work since there are so many cross-references and other dependencies. Those pages need to be proofread and laid out, have art added to them, and so much more. For a decent Open 5E version done right, you are taking the effort of a small to mid-sized company easily.

I am behind ToV because the gaming community needs this project. Nobody knows what will happen with the Wizards team, especially after last year and the layoffs. I hate spreading FUD, but D&D is a Wall Street property that will be bought and sold until the end of time - the "open use rights" of D&D will always be in question. The following company to "own the brand" has no guarantee of being as friendly, which is relative to the events of 2023.

An Open 5E will never be questioned.

If you sit there saying, "I play 5E, so I can always find a game," - think ten years out. Can you say that about D&D? With the OSR and Open 5E, I can answer that with a "yes" today. I want players and myself to say yes, 10, 20, and even 30+ years from now.

For me, the community is more important than giving a company money.

And the 5E CC SRD is not enough. That can't be played as-is because it lacks critical play components, like most subclasses and character options. We need a complete game implementation that anyone can "pick up and play." You can't ask the average consumer to download an SRD and expect them to make up the missing parts.

Even community online character creators will not be enough to play D&D - they cannot use all the options excluded from the SRD. Do you want an open game that people of all backgrounds and income levels can play? Or do you like the paywall that pushes haves and have-nots? An open implementation creates a game that aligns with values that support equality of game access regardless of income.

Those missing parts will also be a source of incompatibility with base 5E. People who create Open 5E versions will need to rebuild what Wizards left out, and often, these rebuilds will be better done and more robust than the Wizards versions. OSE has specific changes from B/X, and the community accepts them as the price of having an open game. Those parts can't be taken as they are; they need to be rebuilt with things everyone can use and build upon.

And I always have Level Up Advanced 5E, a great old-school-inspired version of 5E. This is worth mentioning since the team with this game rewrote everything, so they have no SRD or license dependencies. ToV has better 3rd party compatibility, and it is a more accessible game to grasp and understand since it is written for a beginner audience. LU A5E is more for an advanced audience familiar with 5E, like 5E's AD&D. It is hard to recommend A5E to beginning players, but the new beginner box (coming out this year) should help solve that issue.

Level Up A5E is my Labyrinth Lord to ToV's OSE.

The Kobold Press team focusing on making the game easy to learn puts this on a cut above even 2024 D&D. This is forward-thinking. They are selling to new players, not just people tired of 2014. Given that 2024 is 2024 + 10 years of expansions, you aren't solving any systemic problems.

ToV's GM Guide adds optional rules that cover some of what A5E covers for social encounters, survival, and exploration. So I hope these cover the play styles that I prefer and that A5E does well. I am open to using one set of rules for everything, but A5E will always be one of my favorites since it pulls in many favorite options from 3.5 and 4E.

I am feeling the gravitational pull of ToV, and the 2024 D&D books are off my radar, nor will I be purchasing them. The lack of communication, open betas, previews, or even what will be CC in the 2024 D&D version is noticeable. People and 3rd parties making ToV adventures have a beta SRD right now.

I have all my bases covered with ToV and an equally excellent A5E. ToV is easy to invest in, and its design goals put your homebrew worlds first. Kobold's expansions, like Wastes of Chaos, only have a few pages at the end, which suggests possible chaos wastes in Midgard - the rest of the book is setting agnostic. It is nice to have a company that puts your ideas first.

I am feeling the ToV excitement here.

And it is nice to be excited about a game again.