Mail Room: Draw Steel

I got my Draw Steel hardcovers today. This looks interesting, but wow, it is a lot of rules. I expected this to be a little lighter, but there is a lot packed on each page to digest. For a game with such a simple mechanic, I expected the system to be less dense.

The art is good quality, but a bit too modern-fantasy for my tastes, and it has way too many smiling or smirking people in situations where they should be fearing for their lives. I want that seriousness to the art! Happy people killing things either looks flippant or psychotic, and neither is good.

The races are all over the place and odd. It is good to see them try to break the standard mold, but some of their choices feel like strange ones better suited for a science-fiction game.

This game competes with Nimble 5e, and Nimble is far easier to grasp and play. I could get a group of people new to the system to try Nimble, just like I could Shadowdark. Draw Steel is on a Pathfinder 2 level of commitment and buy-in, and desperately needs a starter set.

Thank you for the evil-looking eye-tyrant like floating eyeball monster on the cover of the monster book. Wow, that became topical overnight, serving as a warning about making monsters too cute or humanizing them. Keep the monsters as monsters; otherwise, those in charge are poor shepherds of the game, and we will have no classic monsters left to fight. I don't get what this whole saccharine cuteness overload is with D&D these days; it sucks, and most old-school players barf at the sight of the infantile cartoonification of D&D. Looking at D&D art these days feels like watching Muppet Babies or the Care Bears cartoon. At least Draw Steel keeps things relatively consistent and follows a solid theme.

A good-looking game, and this and Daggerheart are taking people away from 5E, along with the usual suspects: DCC, OSE, First Edition, Shadowdark, and a few other hot games out there.

D&D 3.5E: Hail to the King

I am not signing up for an "online 5E character creation tool" ever again. D&D 5E has proved to be a trail of tears and a source of subscription service scams. The rules never needed to be this complicated, and every time I put faith in a version of 5E, here comes the website to "make it all easy."

5E is painful because the entire system is designed to force you into an online support model, free or not, creating dependency. Digital book sales. For-sale character options. Digital goods. I love A5E, but if I had to choose between this and D&D 3.5E, the OG game of the 2000s would win. D&D 5E is so hard to support. 2024 D&D, ToV, or A5E - they all need a company's website to help them be playable.

D&D 3.5E is from an era before "software as a service" was a thing, and it is mostly immune to the concept. Since the game is still complex enough to warrant using a software tool, we have a good option for this.

I have D&D 3.5E, and it says D&D on the cover, so I can say, "I am playing D&D." The art doesn't suck, and the fantasy races are toned down and not so silly. The books are cool and edgy. They are frozen in time, so I don't need to worry about someone coming along and messing up a setting, adventure, class, or rules. The game is all about tactical combat, so I don't need a special "fantasy tactical combat RPG." I don't need a storytelling game because that is what you do with this.

The DMG in this version is one of the best they ever wrote. And it does not have the "Pathfinder" feeling. I loved Pathfinder 1e, but the game was too focused on Golarion for me, and it stopped being neutral regarding the setting. Pathfinder 1e got too focused on "it's stuff," and the game felt more like Golarion: the RPG. Straight, on-the-metal, clean 3.5E does the job.

Is the system broken? Well, 5E is, too. So that is a silly question. At least characters can die in this edition. The complexity and time taken for a turn are the same, as 5E at high level is marginally better than 3.5E. It is not that much of a difference with a skilled group that knows what they are doing.

If I want a digital character sheet, I have Hero Lab. One purchase and done: no subscription fees, local storage, the ability to create custom data, and I have it all. And this gives me all the "complicated character builds" I will ever want or need. It is fun to "mix and match pieces" and "play with the stuff" in these tools, and there is that nerdy side of me that still likes this part of the hobby. If I still want to have the "Wizards D&D experience" without the monthly subscription fees, I have Hero Lab and 3.5E.

If Hero Lab ever goes away, I will be back in first edition and enjoying that. I will have had my fun with 3.5E and then roll back to something I can create character sheets for by hand. Part of me wonders why I would even spend time with 3.5E, given I have one of the best first-edition games ever written on my shelf, and that may be the case.

This is the rub with 3.5E versus a game like ADAD. In 3.5E, I need to jump through hoops and build a character, choosing from the ways the designers intended them to be. There are a lot more "working parts" to a character, and you fit them together to make a character build. In the first edition, you just level up and record changes. Any random things that happen or are added to your character (outside of the skill system in ADAD) are just added to your character sheet, and you "just play." There is no feat system here, nor are there illegal choices that result in an invalid build.

First edition says, "Who cares about all that stuff?"

And I get it. Do we need all this stuff in D&D 3.5E? Not really. You need to ask yourself how much of it is essential and whether any of it adds to the story you want to tell. I like navigating the character builder in Hero Lab and making choices. It frustrates me when I have to create hacks to the system to add a "claw attack" to a character, figure out how to do it within the interface, and then not have it come out perfectly. Does it need a feat? How do I add claws as a weapon? Do I need to add a new database entry for this in a custom file? Please stop fighting me, user interface! In ADAD, guess what? Write it on the character sheet. You are done.

The strengths and weaknesses of D&D 3.5E lie in the character design framework. If you love it, you love it. If it fights you, limits your ideas, and you struggle with it, play something else and walk away. Different types of games will be better in other systems. Wizards D&D has always been more like a video game in that regard, where you don't have many great choices, and if you try to work outside the ones they give you, you start running into huge problems.

Still, of all of the versions of Wizards D&D we have, D&D 3.5E is the best of the bunch.

Outside of that, Adventures Dark and Deep is the perfect first edition retroclone, with plenty of new material and quality of life improvements.

Retrospective: Level Up: Advanced 5E, Part 2

Level Up A5E is part of the reason Tales of the Valiant did not launch as strongly as it should have. Many of the "Alt 5E" players were already on Level Up, and when ToV did not introduce many new features, people stayed with this system. I don't blame them, and I was one. I had everything I wanted here: the nods to the old school, the challenge, the improvements, the support for the pillars of play, and the better martial classes without resorting to silly "tricks" with weapon properties.

Many felt, "We have A5E, why do we need ToV?"

ToV and D&D 2024 got specialized weapon fighting wrong. Putting "special tricks" on the melee weapons is lame and increases complexity for everyone. Making these moves, fighting styles that martial classes get, and tracking a stamina resource, is far more the "5E way" of doing things. A5E does fighting styles right. Martial classes are fun in A5E, offering options and a new tracked resource. The martial characters and half-martial characters in this game are fantastic fun to play.

A lot of what made D&D 4E special is in this game, and you see the influences. There is a "battle commander" type class, and the 4E races are represented well. You can use this to play a 4E-style Nerrath campaign and have everything you need right there. The system is the best of the 2014 5E and 2008 4E systems, with an influence from the OSR.

Fatigue has real meaning, and pop-up healing can doom your character permanently. Rangers are needed, and aren't just "ranged light fighters" like they are in 2024 D&D. You need rangers to survive the wilderness. Oh, and they finally fixed Goodberry.

Many of the stupid problems in D&D were addressed four years ago, and they fixed them all in a complete rewrite of the system and the SRD, just to remove the OGL. A5E is like D&D with a sanity upgrade and quality of life features.

Oh, and the safety tools presented in the book? They actually went out and got permission to use them. Whether you like safety tools or not, thank you for asking for permission and mentioning that you did in the book, along with who created them. I don't use them, but doing the homework and giving community attribution for elements like this means something.

Your heritage (race) gains an advancement at the 10th level. Your culture (where you grew up) matters. Your background (job) can advance through adventures. The destiny system elevates the inspiration system to the next level, enabling you to achieve long-term goals and reap benefits from pursuing what drives you. D&D's inspiration system seems lame and too "toggle switch" compared to this.

Everything in this game has a deeper layer of depth and detail, which is incredibly satisfying.

With so many walking away from D&D and 5E, and the rest of the D&D crowd handing Wizards the fantasy monopoly and creating the next litigious "video game company" out of them, it will kill the hobby. We already saw Wizards try their hand at a form of "software patents" with the OGL revision, where other VTT platforms "could not do spell animations" and similar nonsense. More of that is coming, and while it will make the D&D YouTube content creators happy, they will get more outrage clicks; the rest of the tabletop hobby will be flushed down the toilet.

I refuse to hand one company a monopoly on gaming, "just because it is easier to play there." I know where this all ends up, and I can't do that and have a clear conscience.

A5E falls into a "Niche 5E" market, and with 5E in general slowly becoming "the D&D Beyond game," it makes me kind of sad to see honest innovation marginalized. Even ToV is like "hold your nose D&D," a sort of facsimile edition that is "hot swappable" for 2024 D&D, but with few core differences, mainly in the areas of class design and subclass power progression. ToV is the better game, but A5E went much, much farther to address core structural problems in 5E, such as the lack of meaning in social and exploration, and the dullness and weakness of martial characters.

Death means something in A5E.

Death means nothing in ToV, D&D 2014, and 2024.

A5E is the 5E that the hardcore players would be playing if they hadn't all jumped ship to the OSR and Shadowdark. There is a level of maturity here, the silly cosplay elements are not in my face, and there is a grittiness and realism to the rules that tell you "this is still a dungeon crawling game."

It is not playing baristas, rescuing corgis, ripping off Harry Potter, visiting planar socialist utopias, or breaking into a goblin birthday party to murder them all like in the new Keep on the Borderlands. The tone of anything D&D these days is like a narcissistic cosplay murder hobo simulator.

And honestly, all those diverse and special citizens of the Keep? If this were original D&D, they would be killed and looted, too. I hate this trend of "art code" characters as "default good." It's more inclusive to have every character potentially be a hero or a villain and let them play the roles they want.

A5E is the only version of 5E that I miss. The design sensitivities were close to how I saw 5E when it came out, and it makes nods to the old-school gamers. While ToV is new and exciting, it doesn't feel that much different from either 2014 or 2024 D&D.

A5E hit differently.

It is a strange game from an alternate universe where 5E is still cool.

A universe I wish I were in.

Retrospective: Level Up: Advanced 5E

Level Up Advanced 5E is the best of the Open 5E clones. Unlike Tales of the Valiant, they did not "power up" characters to a CR+1 balance; instead, they worked within the original math to refine it, streamline the rules, and add numerous options for characters. A5E is a CR+0 game and very compatible with the original adventures written for the system.

The math in Level Up is very tight, rebalanced, and the exploits are fixed. This has that flat and dry 2014 balance that many fell in love with back in the early days of 5E. They also fixed so much in terms of "pop-up healing" and put real consequences of death and getting reduced to zero hit points.

A5E has all the fixes people wanted in 2014 D&D, but we never got them in 2024 D&D, and Tales of the Valiant never delivered on them. The mechanical support for the exploration and social pillars of play is excellent, and what we should have gotten with Tasha's. Where 2024 D&D strips out all the softer "roleplaying powers" to make AI-based VTT play easier to develop, Level Up A5E doubles down on the roleplaying, social, exploration, and combat powers and gives us more of them.

If 2024 D&D feels too combat-focused and doesn't deliver on social and exploration, give A5E a try.

EN World's newsletter and web team got into a spat with Goodman Games this year over the City State Kickstarter, which was one of the year's lowlights. What was said by the new owners of Judge's Guild was abhorrent, but it is wrong to attack Goodman Games for its efforts in game preservation and its attempt to correct a wrong. Goodman Games also contributed to the issue with terrible communication, so there is blame on both sides.

And both of these companies are pretty forward-looking, and to have seen them fighting just makes me sick inside. We don't need this sort of vicious infighting during an industry downturn; it drives people away from the hobby. However, to put all this on Level Up A5E is just as wrong as the entire ugly episode.

Goodman Games came out for the better, and they had a fantastic showing at Gen Con this year, so they are doing well, and I am happy for them. Their games have a creativity and imagination that this hobby desperately needs in an era of nostalgia-baiting and endlessly rebooting old adventure modules with fresh coats of paint. How many times has Keep on the Borderlands been rebooted? Do we really need this again, only with worse art? There are times when I feel that Wizards will never create something truly great again, such as a Tomb of Horrors or another classic adventure. They don't have it in them.

The best we will ever have is what we already got.

Other than that, head to the indies to find the new classics.

Level Up A5E felt like it came out on the worst side of this fight, and I have seen no mention of it on YouTube in months. I like the game, and there are excellent design choices here. The fight felt like it hurt A5E more, and none of this needed to happen.

Both games were hurt, and I walked away from this, putting both DCC and 5E in storage. DCC is out again, but all of 5E for me is on ice.

Also, Level Up is the older game. Tales of the Valiant is better supported, with regular crowdfunding and new products, as Kobold Press navigates the 2024/ToV tightrope. ToV is better than D&D 2024 by far, but this is where the interest and excitement are these days, not in Level Up A5E. I don't see many people talking about or playing Level Up these days, and my copies are currently in storage. If it comes down to it, DCC will get shelf space over any version of 5E.

ToV is the best supported version of 5E, once you factor in the Shard VTT and owning PDFs.

A5E is the best custom version of 5E.

I like ToV and tried playing this, but I ended up missing the improvements A5E made to the system. Ultimately, the absence of a robust character creation tool doomed both games, with only Shard being the best one so far for ToV, and nothing much for A5E.

ToV's art varies in quality, and it is distracting at times. Level Up does a better job with the art, although it lacks those amazing pieces, by remaining consistent and good throughout.

I grew tired of relying on character creation software for 5E as a whole, as well as the multi-page character sheets. I have DCC. I have OSE. I have ADAD. I have Swords & Wizardry. I have Shadowdark. I have C&C. None of them needs software. They all do the same thing.

GURPS, admittedly, needs software. However, the calculus is different since it is primarily a one-time cost, or Patreon-supported for the other tool (which is still free, but please consider supporting the hard work that goes into it). If I want realistic fantasy with the best characters, GURPS is my game of choice.

Do I need to play with the 5E math, or is B/X and First Edition math superior? I did the numbers, 5E does not maintain character power as well as B/X or First Edition. 5E has a lot of bells and whistles designed to distract you as your character grows weaker in power as they level, and in that regard, it is like any MMO, but far more challenging to jump in and play.

Where ToV gives you about six "special abilities" after character creation, typically A5E gives you a dozen. This makes A5E characters very heavy, and character creation is slow going. I prefer A5E's final characters to ToV's, and the latter feels like a simplified version of this game. Then again, if I am going to take 90 minutes to create a 5E character, I will play GURPS, spend the same amount of time, and have exactly the character I want with better depth and options.

A5E has some of the best exploration mechanics ever developed for 5E. Resting is not easy. Rangers are needed. Rugged terrain can kill you. Survival is important. Supplies are critical. The hardcore 5E gamers from 2014 want their game back, and they've got it here. This was back before 5E became a player empowerment circus and everyone got soft, in the pre-Tasha's days, where serious gamers could still play 5E.

If I ever return to 5E, it will likely be with A5E. Despite the fight between Goodman and EN World, A5E is a good game. It is wrong to attribute "guilt by association" to anyone, and doing so to A5E is equally unjust.

ToV feels too cartoonish, like modern D&D, with goofy characters and their clown-like appearances. Death means nothing. Resting is far too permissive. ToV also makes minor improvements to the system, and the high level of subclass compatibility comes at the cost of the core game not being significantly better than 2014 5E. The power distribution and fixes in ToV are the real improvements, even surpassing those of 2024 D&D.

A5E rebuilds everything, sacrificing subclass compatibility for improving every pillar of the game. The martial classes and fighting styles surpass 2014, 2024, and ToV. You can find rare and unique spells. Everything is cool.

Level Up A5E is 2014 D&D 5E in a bottle, a game from that era before the hardcore players walked away. This was from that time when people still took 5E seriously, and it wasn't this constant stream of identity marketing, the overused Baldur's Gate 3 GMNPC characters, overpowered classes, designed for a failed VTT, zero-risk gameplay, and games that lacked challenge and got boring the higher level you reached. There was a moment when old-school players still played 5E, and A5E was created for them.

By the time Tasha's came around, we got Strixhaven, Spelljammer, and a whole mess of missteps; very few could take D&D 5E seriously. D&D slowly became a joke, a parody of the genre and itself. People went to Shadowdark and the OSR, and after the OGL, other games entirely.

Pathfinder 2 and ToV captured the alternative 5E market. Shadowdark took the rest. Many have left 5E entirely, sick of the entire mess the market has become.

This left A5E to sit there, still supported, still a good version of 5E, but seemingly forgotten.

The Post-D&D Era

Why play?

That is my question, and there is a wealth of alternatives available for D&D-like gaming, especially in MMOs and other online games. I play World of Warcraft, and it is an "instant group" sort of game, which only gets better if you find a great group of people to game with.

Is it "roleplaying with a story?"

No. It is nowhere near tabletop gaming.

But with the new version of D&D leaning heavily into mechanics for VTT gaming, where "soft roleplay" abilities are done away with (check out the 2024 ranger), and all we are left with is "mechanical crunch," then there is very little difference between 2024 D&D and an MMO.

With 2024 D&D leaning into VTT mechanics, all it ends up being is an inferior, clunky, frustrating, slow, and VTT-focused MMO. In fact, if all you want are combat mechanics and gameplay, most players will be better off in an MMO. It is often cheaper, with no "digital book purchases" you will never own, less reading, and instant groups and gameplay. I don't "own" my MMO characters either, but I get more "fun per hour" out of them than these shelves full of dead-tree books that have been patched and updated into obsolescence.

D&D 2024 is a lousy VTT-based MMO.

It is the wrong game designed for the wrong market.

If the D&D team wants to be MMO or mobile game developers, then they should pursue that path.

Why I play is the stories and character building. 5E does an okay job of that, but still, the entire framework of the system is so heavy that it is no different than playing a system that gives me everything plus more, like GURPS. One of the best "character builder" versions of 5E is Level Up A5E, but it takes me 45-90 minutes to create one character. It is a slow, methodical drag, and all I end up with is a 5E character with a dozen special abilities. Many of these are social abilities, so they are welcome and buck the "combat only" trend that 2024 D&D follows.

Tales of the Valiant sticks to 2014 inspirations and has a balance, while A5E excels in exploration and social aspects, albeit at the expense of character complexity.

But 5E relies on limiting your choices depending on the choice you make. Rangers only receive X, Y, or Z. This lineage, however, receives A, B, or C. In the end, I am picking items off a menu and lamenting the fact that I can't find anything else that suits my character concept.

Yes, I can make custom choices, and yes, I can multi-class. But those are hacks in a system that was never designed to support them, and there are better games that give me the complete freedom to have what I want.

I could spend the same time creating a GURPS character and have the exact character I want and imagine. For the time I put into character creation, a system that is full, open, and allows me to get anything I want is superior to 5E's "limited choices" model. The "roleplaying support" is also better in GURPS, with a full advantage and disadvantage system that provides me with everything in 5E's limited toolkit, plus infinitely more options to play with.

For what brings me enjoyment in tabletop gaming, GURPS does a good job for me of checking all the boxes without the limitations and designer hubris of "others knowing the better choices" for me.

But there is a larger question of "why play?"

If D&D only focused on combat and VTT mechanics, it would be a hard pass for me. The MMO is a better deal with far more people to "play with." I can get a group instantly. It takes months to build and find a "good group" in D&D, whereas in World of Warcraft, I can probably find a good guild in a few days. The pain level is about the same as dealing with idiots and bad players, but the MMO gives me a firewall. I can block the bad players and focus on the good ones.

But when I find a good, supportive, and active group of players in an MMO? That is a great situation where I'd love to spend time playing with them every night.

Yes, there is very little storytelling and roleplay in an MMO. That takes more work to find. It is out there, and it is good if you can find a solid community. Again, there is a firewall benefit to consider for online games.

We are in a post-5E world. Yes, it is still played, but nowhere near the levels it was a few years ago. D&D lacked the staying power to sustain that level of interest, and people grew tired of it due to the extensive effort required to make it work. For most people, the MMO is the better choice than D&D, especially if the game is all about combat and mechanics. Boil the choices down, and if all I want is "fun combats, loot, gear, and the sense of progression and accomplishment," the MMO is a clear winner.

For those of us still here, the question should be "where do we look for games that speak to us?"

What are the strengths of the tabletop, and does D&D 2024 serve them?

If not, what is the better game?

Dungeon Crawl Classics & The Others

Despite my feeling down on the system, I still like my Dungeon Crawl Classics books very much. I have too much stuff, and sorting through it helps alleviate the situation, allowing me to focus on the enjoyable aspects of the system rather than the clutter. Too many books drag the system down for me, and if I just focus on the core and a setting book, the game quickly returns with all its charm.

Where DCC shines is as a 5E replacement. It does 90% of what 5E does, but better, especially with the "mighty deeds" dice of the fighter replacing hundreds of pages of rules for feats and subclass abilities. And that die is far more flexible and "cool" than anything 5E can offer, without all the digital purchases, options, extra books, and fluff needed to make 5E "play right."

Every other class has "fun designed in" with clever mechanics and a minimal need for rules to make it all work. Spellburn, thieves and luck, clerics and their deities, and all the others are just so "classic" with their iconic gameplay intact, and nothing needs hundreds of pages of rules to figure out "where the fun is" by building down feat trees and being overpowered and disappointed as you level.

Other games, such as Old School Essentials, provide a great base. This game is glorious in its simplicity and expandability. It stays out of the way. It replaces 5E and then disappears into the background. The flexibility of this system means it can handle any fantasy game. This features some of the best expansions and dungeons ever written in fantasy gaming, even the ones from Labyrinth Lord, and all of them are directly compatible.

Where DCC outshines is in the emergent gameplay, creativity, and "fun classes" that simulate a modern fantasy game, without creating too invincible characters. This and DCC can replace 5E. OSE for the sheer amount of options, and DCC for the fun factor.

Adventures Dark & Deep is the definitive version of the first edition, surpassing the original in quality and organization. Only OSRIC comes close. However, when I start to feel the need to play something this in-depth, I will go for GURPS as my hyper-realistic fantasy game. While ADAD is amazing, DCC wins for fun-factor, and OSE wins for flexibility.

Still, this is such a fantastic game. I wish I had this instead of D&D 4E. This would have replaced it without a doubt.

GURPS wins for hardcore realism. Once you get any level of system mastery over GURPS, the universe opens up to you. People will criticize this game as complex or math-heavy, but it isn't. Once you know, you know, and nothing replaces it.

Still, as a "pick up and play game," it is hard to beat DCC. The level of imagination and creativity is truly remarkable. The speed of play makes this irreplaceable. The emergent gameplay, thanks to its wealth of tables, makes the game unpredictable when played solo. This is still one of my absolute peak 5E replacement games.

Yeah, D&D is on the Decline

The D&D YouTubers I still watch are all reporting DMs Guild sales are massively down, and the best support they see is from their own storefronts. Still, the heyday of the 5E market is long over, and we are in the decline phase of the system's lifecycle.

D&D, in general, feels post-prime.

This is now a "brand and franchise," and it has lost its special appeal. D&D used to "unlock the worlds of fantasy and magic," and now it is a side-brand to Stranger Things and Rick and Morty, or any other pop-culture phenomenon that comes along, allowing them to hitch the D&D wagon to leech relevance.

The death of an IP occurs when it becomes a "leech brand" and is only used in cross-promotional marketing. Nobody eating Pop-Tarts? Link them to Star Wars. Your brand needs to be the one the leech brands come calling to, not the other way around.

And the slow death of 5E D&D is taking down the rest of the market. Interest in roleplaying in general is slowly dying. The clearance sales, the demise of dice companies, and branded junk appearing on Amazon are already evident signs. A new edition of anything won't save a dying game; it only puts a fresh coat of paint over it and hopes to delay the inevitable.

People still play 5E, and the community remains huge. 5E will continue to be played for decades to come, so if you still enjoy it, keep having fun. I would like to support Open 5E, but that is a tough call due to the need for computerized character creation. Either Tales of the Valiant or Level Up is a great choice.

That said, many are dumping 5E and returning to the niche games they loved before 5E came along and became "the only place to play." There is a resurgent OSR crowd, and First Edition is gathering interest. GURPS is still doing what it does, which is everything. Mythras is gathering "walk away" fans who want a more serious game.

Some of the games I see as waning in my interest levels are ones like Traveller, Shadowdark, or Dungeon Crawl Classics. These are late-cycle, bloated, library games that have become harder to play now that I have two shelves of books for each. I need to cut these libraries down to save these games. DCC is frankly losing my interest in comparison to the following three games:

Old School Essentials still does everything DCC does, but faster and easier. You don't have all the charts and special mechanics, but the essence of the simple, fast-playing, zero-reference game is there. This game stays out of the way; you are not constantly going back to the books for a table, and if I have to reference something, it happens in a few seconds rather than minutes.

Also, OSE does the entire "5E thing" with the various "race plus class" combos the best, and it has all the classic and new options that you will find in today's version of the game. OSE is the "5E Lite" that Shadowdark wants to be, but with the classic hireling and stronghold play intact. Shadowdark is still a fantastic game, but it is not as expansive and campaign-supporting as OSE.

Stay out of my way, get rid of all these charts. I don't need the board game scaffolding, and let me play the game as it was back when it was good.

Adventures Dark & Deep is the best First Edition game on the market, supported, and it has a sane license that allows for third-party support. Do not play or support the reprinted games that can't be supported by third parties! You are hurting the community of creators and continuing an unfair practice of supporting a game that can't be supported by the fans. The Lite version seamlessly transitions into the whole game and serves as an ideal entry point for the First Edition hobby.

Even For Gold & Glory is a wonderful reimagination of the Second Edition of the game. If your memories of the game date back to the 1990s, this is your new home, and the art is flat-out terrific, featuring public domain selections that add to the experience. Granted, there is not that much difference between First Edition ADAD and Second Edition FG&G beyond the former being a rules-expanded 1E and the latter being a clone of 2E.

Generally, opt for FG&G if you prefer a streamlined experience and don't need extra options. You want to recreate the classic Second Edition feel, along with 100% compatibility with Second Edition books and adventures. With the reprint of the Monsterous Compendium and the Outer Planes Appendix, you have a complete 2E game.

Plus, the FG&G PDF is free to download and redistribute. Nobody needs to buy anything to play or referee the game. It is one of the best values in gaming.

Go for ADAD if you want an expanded First Edition with numerous rule improvements.

The more detailed First and Second Edition games compete with GURPS, which is becoming my "everything else" game. Once you learn GURPS, there is little else you can't do. Everything from hyper-realistic, gritty fantasy to science fiction opens up, and I am not buying and collecting boxes of games that will go into storage.

GURPS is my only "library game" that holds up to having a large number of books and maintaining my interest. Other games, like Pathfinder 1E, Traveller, DCC, Shadowdark, and others? I get the feeling the more books I have, the worse it gets. GURPS holds my interest, and it gets better with more books. You don't need 95% of them for any genre, as they are just references.