The OGL nonsense going on with D&D has me thinking that I should try to broaden my gaming horizons.
Diaper dragon who likes diapers
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in reply to @snazzy's post:
Is Jadeclaw still a thing? I remember playing that years ago. X3
Yeah, one of the OG furry RPGs. Its a companion book to Ironclaw. Can be a very brutal and unforgiving system.
I've been having chats to a lot of my D&D friends about it, it's going pretty terrible all round for Wizards though
My biggest problem I've been facing is that all my books are already on D&D Beyond and all my stuff is on there, so getting all my books to a different platform that's not owned by Wizards means either rewriting everything for every character manually and that will take years or spend about $800 USD just buying everything again
There's a ton of great stuff out there! If you like d20 fantasy specifically, 13th Age and Pathfinder 2e are both really good, or if you're down non-d20, there's stuff like Dungeon World (which you should at least read, the book is fantastic, as are most pbta games), FATE, or Savage Worlds
It's been my opinion for many years now that the genre, Pen&Paper as a whole, has greatly outlived D&D. There are so many incredible systems out there now, so many worlds, so many ideas, so many options and possibilities, and I haven't felt like D&D out of all of them could fill any significant gap in, uh, forever.
I honestly don't even know what "D&D" stands for anymore thesedays, it feels so "aimless" sometimes, like it wants to do everything just for the sake of doing it. It wants to be a universal setting, apparently(?), but the system itself is so restrictive and clunky and, frankly, in my opinion, after all these years, often just plain boring. 🤷♂️
When I get groups together nowadays, I just use one of my own mini-projects completely detached from the official ruleset. Anything is more accessible and user-friendly than 1000+ pages of tabletop-like rules, of which 50% will get constantly forgotten or misinterpreted anyway and that I need an app for so I can keep track of all the stuff that's supposed to be going on.
Of course, it can be fun to READ through a bunch of rules and flick through hundreds of pages, especially if they're filled with art and fluff, and it makes sense as a PRODUCT I guess, but for the actual PLAYING aspect I really see almost no value in the D&D-approach unless literally every group member is 100% proficient, loves technicalities and rules-discussions, has unlimited time, and lots of money available. And even players that say they need a ruleset for guidance and such just seem overwhelmed and confused half the time, at least from my experience.
Ultimately D&D is nothing but another tool, and entirely up to personal preference. But, with the latest news, D&D has definitely vanished even more into the realm of obscurity and uselessness to me, and I very much hope that other, smaller, more concrete, innovative and better systems will gain some extra attention now.
I actually had a small session with some folks that were annoyed at D&D and wanted to try something new a few days ago, and it was an absolute blast! Some dice, some paper, 2 pages worth of rules, and an entire evening of fun and adventure.
There is a wondrous world out there, beyond D&D. 🎉
I think it really depends on what you're looking for! Personally, I think that having crunchy combat with lots of detailed rules and mechanics is fun.
The value in D&D, Forgotten Realms specifically, for me is that I literally grew up reading the content. I grew up with Drizzt books and tons of other FR media. So the big advantage for me is that I know the setting extremely well and it has special meaning for me.
I'm definitely looking into other options, specifically a wuxia/kung-fu game that the party I play with seems interested in!
Oh yeah that definitely makes sense, once you've gotten deep enough into an established franchise it can just feel very homely and natural, and it becomes fairly easy to handle shortcomings. Nostalgia can also play a huge part, as we all know. There's always a big difference between the "system" and the "cosmos" sides of things, obviously.
And if you already have tons of materials, there's no reason to impulsively throw them away or ignore them or anything like that. They don't spoil. They can still be used for things like reference and inspiration, and/or just altered to taste. At the end of the day, that's what makes this hobby so amazing. You can mix and match anything together until it is PRECISELY what you want, for an unlimited supply of concepts. And whenever there are limitations or borders, you can simply make them vanish. Like a good stew, maybe the real secret ultimately lies in just taking the best ingredients from all sources.
That does sound pretty neat yeah! I always love it when games have a strong focus that all players are mutually involved in! Still need to get a Pokemon-esque game going at some point 😄
I've been eyeing up Shadow of the Demon Lord. Not sure if it's up your alley, as it's more dark fantasy/horror than the mainstream, but it has an amazing class/leveling system. It's also an easy system to wrap your head around.
I may be working on a homebrew to babify the corruption/insanity system...
Currently I'm looking into Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades, which is a wuxia/kung-fu game. I think that would be a fun change of pace!
I agree but at this point I don't even know if I could blame capitalism. It's just stupidity. Because like, anyone could have seen this coming if they had even a passing knowledge of the industry and its culture and history.
I mean fuck a duck, the last time they tried to fuck with the OGL Pathfinder overtook D&D in sales and average player numbers.
At the bare minimum in capitalism you shouldn't just be torpedoing your brand for no real benefit.