The Scaffolding

One of the worst parts about Wizard's D&D is all the rules scaffolding they brought from Magic: The Gathering. The team invents unique sorts of actions, like bonus actions and reactions, and this is just one area—but there are many. Then you get into problems like double-casting spells with a bonus action.

TSR D&D wasn't like that; the designers understood the game to be more straightforward without many of the frameworks card game designers brought in. Again, you only get into some of these layered rules, which are primarily designed to be cheated and taken advantage of, like in a card game, where they create card synergies and situations for one particular card or deck build to shine.

Wizards' D&D also has the concept of "deck builds" in characters, which is what multiclassing and subclasses provide. A character is like your deck; each subclass, power, spell, and ability gained is your deck composition.

This is why some love 5E and some hate it. It is also why the break with Critical Role is inevitable. They are story gamers, and they need a system that appeals to that audience. It is unacceptable to ask their fans to do these 5E "deck builds" and constrain their stories to those few viable options. This is also why the OSR exists; we remember the TSR D&D as it used to be for the first 30 years of its life. Even Paizo is an offshoot of the Wizard's model, with many of the same 3E designers.

D&D and Pathfinder are character-builder games, like MtG is a deck-builder game.

GURPS has far more rules, so it should be worse. It is more of a character builder than 5E. The rules here are all built to maintain a simulation and character-builder system; when you get to combat, you take one action on one turn. It is even more fine-grained than D&D since readying a weapon is all you can do. It is just one thing; moving and attacking inside one turn is penalized. You don't have a lot of action types here or bonus actions to try and turn stuff before another 45 minutes go by for the table to decide what they are all doing next.

While you can "deck build" to take advantage of a rule in GURPS, it is usually bad form and highly unrealistic since the build system is supposed to reflect a lifetime of learning and experiences. In any Wizards' version of D&D, optimizing is typically seen as a good thing, and the same is true in Pathfinder 2, where optimization goes much harder regarding gameplay.

I can only play GURPS with 3 characters, which is a huge ask. It is better-played solo, as a single hero game, and doing that hardcore simulation.

But I don't see GURPS as a character-builder game, unlike how 5E or Pathfinder are designed. In those games, paths, and synergies are built into your limited choices. In GURPS, you have unlimited options and no paths to follow. The 5E designers put in trick builds and good combos; in GURPS, you are what you are and the game designer.

Cypher is a rules-light system, so it should be the best. Not really; while I love Cypher, I sometimes must be in the mood for the game's abstract nature. Running many characters in this rules-light game is also as much of a chore as GURPS, since after a while, the numbers, pools, edges, and abilities all start to blur together in a jumble of rules-light game linguistics and special terms make my head spin. The more rules-light a game gets, the more abstract and conceptual it gets, and I feel my brain slowly leaving reality in some FATE-induced mental haze. I still love Cypher.

With these new games, my eyes glaze over when I see 5E and Pathfinder 2 "tier lists" for classes and abilities for builds and videos going over this on YouTube. Don't take this. It's the wrong choice! It's a garbage-tier ability. Overall, it's the best pick. Why would you go with this? Terrible pick.

It has come to a point where I am selling all these other character-builder games. GURPS is my favorite; I can build with my own choices, and I will stick with it.

Shouldn't your story take priority over optimization if it is all about the story? Or are people steering their stories into optimized builds? I feel that this is why Critical Role is doing its own story system; how can players' stories be vital if they are beholden to the builds that Wizards decides are "hot" this season?

With a digital game, prepare for seasonal builds and options that are moved out of live support and into legacy. This will be like the ever-changing ground of an MMO, Magic the Gathering, or even Warhammer 40K, with entire armies or cards removed from active play. A digital game will never stay the same and be constantly flipped over like a compost pile to keep options fresh. Prepare for classes, races, subclasses, spells, powers, magic items, gear, and every other game part to move to live service models. Legacy options may still be supported, but I feel 'official play' builds will only be allowed with choices the designers think are viable and in "live rotation."

To their credit, Pazio has avoided live service models, and they deserve to be commended. If GURPS did not exist, I would be doing PF2. GURPS keeps random game designers out of my character builds, and I make the choices based on what suits my story.

Modern character-building games are one step away from a live service model. Don't be fooled.

This is the MtG and Games Workshop model, which has proven to work and drive profits. I don't have to like it to acknowledge it exists. And this is precisely how I would move D&D if I were in charge and had to answer to shareholders. It's the same thing; you get put in that position and don't have a choice.

Answering fans is a different thing.

$80 Books

I read people defending expensive roleplaying books as luxury items.

Then, I saw some of the new price points from one of the top two publishers, one of which was $80 for a sourcebook.

...

Luxury items? That is where we are going? Soon, these books will break $100. I bet softcovers will break $50. All for books that will need a second printing in a year due to errata.

Right.

It roleplaying industry is dead. The collectors are killing games.

I remember when $20 got you a game that lasted 10 years. We have games out there with free PDFs, and books are printed "at cost" for a tenth of what they want for a book these days.

Long live the hobby.

The hobby I grew up with.

Not this.

Mail Room: Car Wars Bundles

The Car Wars Bundle box sets from Steve Jackson Games are fantastic. All of the original boxed games are here, and they include both the original cardstock "cut them yourself" counters and a set of very thick-stock punch-out counters for all game pieces. A Car Wars game with thick "sneeze-proof" counters is impressive.

This is the original game, with the later 5-phase turn instead of the game's original 10-phase one, and it plays faster without losing too much simulation.

There is a new version of Car Wars with 3D-printed cars and cards, but this is the old-school, designed vehicles, cycles, rigs, busses, and everything else on the road - and take them to war. This is closer to an RPG than a card game, and it is what I grew up with. I have not tried the new game, and I am sure it is fun and fast-paced, but it is not the original.

The original is more than just "car versus car" - it is a game creation kit for any automotive mayhem. You could do motorcycles versus a big rig, races, road battles, arena PvP battles, street battles, police chases, heists, offroad racing, spy car versus pursuit, and any other vehicle battle with these rules. You can design today's no-armor vehicles or future armored battle cars and battle them all with hand or vehicle weapons.

They have four boxes with a collection of everything you need to play the original game, maps, counters, road sections, rules, and the original box sets. You may want to invest in the Car Wars Compendium if you wish to use all the rules in the final form (with the most options), but the pocket boxes work great, too.

This is such a fantastic throwback nostalgia ride, and you can also base an entire roleplaying campaign around the battles with a 2d6 Traveller-like set of rules (Cepheus Light is my choice).

This is one of my best purchased this year, and will give me a lifetime of throwback, nostalgia, thrill-ride fun.

Fallout Kills D&D?

It is funny how the Fallout roleplaying game sold out worldwide after the Amazon show.

A small team of creative showrunners captured the imaginations of the "wider audience." They did this by honoring the lore and original creators. Fallout has won over the "normies," Now, you will see a shift away from D&D.

Fallout has replaced Stranger Things.

If I were a YouTube live-play streaming show, it would be Fallout, Fallout, Fallout.

I would not be playing D&D to a small crowd of D&D players; I would be playing the Fallout RPG and attracting mass-market viewers. Chase the wave.

Fallout may replace D&D in the larger culture.

Is it a fantasy game? No, but it doesn't matter. People are fickle. Fads change. D&D fantasy cosplay and play-acting may be seen as "old" and "dated."

The sad thing is for D&D, they got taken for a ride by Hollywood, bought a movie studio (and sold it for a considerable loss), and are now falling into the trap of trying to modernize their IP for a small crowd on social media for a handful of book sales. All it does is destroy their brands. Keeping the lore untouched would make it a much more attractive property for people to create shows with.

They had the right idea trying to get into entertainment.

Where they went wrong was buying a movie studio.

They bet everything on one movie and blew it.

The original creators of these worlds are getting older, and they are being pushed to the side when they could easily be creative voices for projects like Fallout. The creators of Dragon Lance have been alienated, and the creator of the Realms isn't getting any younger. The people who could help create a Fallout TV show success are being pushed to the side by small-minded people who just want to make books for social media popularity, which targets primarily non-paying customers. Or a book-only crowd, which is tiny.

Here's a tip: Social media popularity and book buyers are nothing compared to having a hit TV show.

They had the IP to do this but needed the vision and self-control to do it right.

They tried to make D&D the only fantasy game with the OGL debacle. They angered so many old-time players that they tanked their movie. The rest of the hobby saw their OGL license as a threat and walked away.

Now, all they can do is make mobile games.

It is a sad end to many great stories.

It was also a happy beginning to many others in other games.

Good Video: How an 'Innocent' Game is Stealing BILLIONS from Players

 

Check this out.

And you wonder why companies hire people from the tobacco industry, and there is this revolving door of addiction experts going on in these circles.

And it is all 100% unregulated gambling being sold to children using familiar IPs.

The games are slot machines.

You get suckered in and keep telling yourself, "It is a hobby I enjoy."

"This is where all the good players are."

"I don't want to miss out."

"Look at everyone having fun."

"At least I will find a game."

"This is easier than playing the real thing."

There was a reason, in the old days, churches hated casinos and gambling. It drained the money out of a community, created heartbreak and strife, and sent people into decay and addiction, along with the place they lived in. It preyed on the young. Pretty soon, what was a nice place with people in charge of their destinies, finances, families, and futures became slaves to the dice and roulette wheel. The dependency cycle could never be stopped.

And all the money was gone.

This is happening in the book collectors market as well. The number of books to buy and collect is skyrocketing. Digital versions with subscription fees attached. Virtual goods on virtual tabletops. But the book market pales in comparison to mobile.

You let an app onto your phone; they own a piece of your soul.

It's not a phone anymore; it is the screen of an unregulated slot machine.

A tiny square of addiction and heartbreak.

Daggerheart vs. 5E

The Darggerheart game is the elephant in the room with 5E players. Few want to criticize it because there are so many fans, yet secretly, many of the 5E stalwarts want to savage it because it threatens the player base.

Daggerheart is the logical evolution of the Critical Role fanbase. They must get their fans on their own game and control their destiny. This is a good thing, in fact.

But what happened to D&D when Critical Role gained popularity is very telling. Notice how the 2024 celebrations of D&D omit or reduce Critical Role and, honestly, most mentions of the game as a spectator activity. This is all about the spectator sport of D&D, and this is the impact of Twitch and YouTube on the game.

Critical Role drove D&D for a few years and steered the entire game into "story gaming" mode like a FATE. I am hesitant to call 5E—as it exists today—a dungeon game. The DMG doesn't help anyone play that way, and every expansion leans hard into that "narrative bucket list" sort of "watch this or that group of YouTubers" play through a "shared experience."

The focus on character and identity in 5E has been so overwhelming that those who love pure dungeon crawls had to go off and make their own game, Shadowdark. The original designers of 5E, who still defend the numerical and mechanical aspects of the system, don't see the metric ton of my character as an ABCD... combo of all these particular terms and choices meaning different things like background, homeland, ancestry, etc. - along with class, multiclass combo, subclass choice, etc.

There are too many choices in 5E.

Every one of those choices is a custom set of rules.

It is killing the game.

And some Open 5E designs make it worse.

In GURPS, the skill system is the same and works the same for everyone. The same goes for powers, advantages, disadvantages, spells, and subsystems. I play Dungeon Fantasy, and does the same advantage work the same for any character type or monster? Does one skill work the same for everyone? Yes, to all of that, it all works the same. All combat options work the same way for everyone, and designers can't write custom combat moves into subclasses.

In 5E, you get a subclass, giving you custom-designed abilities for which other games would have skills. It is frankly a horrible design, inconsistent to hell, forces you to buy new books for new skills, nothing works the same way twice, and overloaded cruft and bloat that game designers solved in the 1980s.

In games that do it right, 'faith healing' is a skill on a skill list. Clerics, druids, paladins, and anyone with that skill can buy it. It works one way for everyone and is written down in one place. In 5E, it can mean a dozen things in a few hundred subclass choices and works differently for all of them.

These combo choices of heritage, ancestry, culture, background, class, and so on are further subdivided into deeper and deeper levels of madness—with unique abilities, powers, and skills written into each one! What's next? We need a choice for education, society, early development, family, and outlook! And every one of these choices needs a spaghetti-coded list of designer-imagines custom powers. If you went to college, please write down your ability to use a 'deduction' power! And reduce study time by 20%! That sounds great! Was your family life 'one of many'? Please write down a 'lost in the crowd' ability that gives you an advantage in not being noticed in crowds! Public school or private? Oh no, you need a new power for those!

And I am writing down huge lists of custom abilities and powers with no end. Everybody wants something for every unique part of their background and life. This is a terrible design trend of snowflake-ism, where we feel obliged to give everyone extraordinary power for every mundane and everyday aspect of their life. Subclasses are the same way. Are you a crusader paladin or champion? Oh no! More powers are needed because you are a particular word!

5E gets sickening after a while with this pandering custom options and power tossed at you like candy you don't want or need. The designers blew it by replacing universal systems with letting designers write custom-written tripe powers and abilities. This killed the game as if a diet high in cholesterol clogs the heart. The core books are fine, but get over three shelves of 5E books, and your game dies.

Will Critical Role force its viewers to sign up for D&D Beyond, potentially exposing them to other streaming shows being pushed via that platform? Or will they release their own rules-light story game with easier character creation so viewers can "play along on their own?"

The answer is easy.

Control your platform.

And rules-light story games come out every day. Good ones are tough to create, harder than a game with defined systems, but they must ultimately serve your market's needs and goals. Daggerheart is a game "that looks and plays like the show."

And that is all it needs to do to be successful.

You can't judge Daggerheart on the merits of 5E, and in doing so, you miss the bigger picture.

5E's mess of designer-driven, custom-hacked works differently every time. Duct-taped-together characters are a game design that locks you into a single platform because character complexity is so high you need a computer to figure it all out. You don't see it in a single character at level one. Give them a few levels, and once you pile on paragraphs of special powers, rules introduced in subclasses, and other custom designer flourishes, you realize every character is a trap.

With a monthly fee.

You are paying Wizards to control the complexity of the game they create. They need an incentive to simplify this design, and even Open 5E falls into this trap. At this point, D&D and 5E are D&D Beyond. Many say they can only figure the game out with it.

That is the plan.

The game was designed that way.

Daggerheart is an off-ramp for Critical Role's casual fans; no matter the quality or design, it is good for them. It will get better with iterations.

All they need to do is keep their audience.

Castles & Crusades: Reforged (OGL Free)

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/UdtYMs1

Troll Lord is celebrating OGL-free books and giving away a PDF of the 10th printing of Castles & Crusades Player's handbook - but you must sign up via the above page. This is a limited-time offer before they roll out the Kickstarter for the three core books, which are OGL-free and forging their destiny.

The link above came from Troll Lord's official Facebook page, which is legit.

The OGL disaster succeeded in balkanizing the hobby; good job, Wizards. Maybe they wanted to divorce their legacy, non-digital players, and go after the mobile gaming market. In that case, they succeeded. Tabletop D&D is dying. Even though it is still huge, like a dying whale, the time it takes for significant things to die can be pretty long. They are going to mobile gaming, and D&D has had its time in the sun.

C&C is my game; even without the OGL, the best parts are still here.