Thank you for mentioning Jennell. She was as talented as she was kind and generous. She will be sadly missed.

@Anubid

6 ай бұрын

@@aceflashheart Imagine you dedicate your life to a hobby with the main goal to provide millions of people with entertainment and wonderful art. Literally your job is to make people happier in their day to day lives and you do it because you believe in it, pouring your heart into it. Your work is part of industry shaping projects others build upon. And then the supposed fans of the hobby can't even muster the most basic decency to use your own pronouns. They even deride you for them because so what if you essentially worked for them your entire life? You dont fit into their narrow bigoted view of the world and therefore your feelings dont matter, you dont deserve decency, respect nor acknowledgement. You truly are the lowest of the low.

@TabletopTiger

6 ай бұрын

​@@aceflashheartgood catch, her pronouns are she/ her

@TabletopTiger

6 ай бұрын

Jennell was also a champion of trans rights; her legacy was vast and she'll be missed.

@TabletopTiger

6 ай бұрын

@aceflashheart but gender assignment based on that is a social construct and historical cultures have not relied on a binary for gender expression.

Was nice to hear you address Jennell's sad passing. What a Titan of multiple nerddoms they shall always be. I'm surprised, even disappointed, that more KZreadrs aren't raising a flag for her memory right now.

@Dyundu

6 ай бұрын

@@aceflashheartA human being has died. I strongly recommend you demonstrate a little respect.

I like that every single time you pitch the City of Arches, ever since the first time, you always mention the bath and the basket of bread and cheese. I suspect the real inspiration for CoA isn't the poem, but Mike's dream vacation. Love it

@SlyFlourish

6 ай бұрын

it may be on the cover!

Rest in peace Jennell.

After ~40 years, I think I’ve just burned out of not just D&D, but fantasy role-playing in general. These days, I find my fun in the Free League (Year Zero Engine) games. Not sure what camp that puts me in. I have lots of good memories, but it’s time to do something different for a while.

@jessec3127

6 ай бұрын

I found a happy medium between Free League games and 5e, but I currently prefer to GM MYZ, FBL, Alien RPG, etc.

@DaVeO52

4 ай бұрын

Yup. Free League is getting a lot of my attention. Vaesen, Symbaroum (original system), and Alien I'm reading up on. Vaesen I have run and it's amazing. 5e(asy) I'm just, bored of. But I had my fun.

Just wanted to say it’s so cool that you’ve based the City of Arches on Ozymandias. I’ve been a fan of Shelley’s poetry ever since I read that poem for English class as a teenager.

As someone juggling a DND 5e, and Genesys RPG each week. I appreciate your nuanced takes on the recent Hasbro/WotC drama. I like DND for its ability to plug and play a lot easier with a big library of adventures, rules, tools, etc to use. Even taking older adventures can easily be dropped into 5e. Love playing and running Genesys or Edge of the Empire but its harder to find quality adventures and supplements because it doesnt have the same momentum as DND.

47:41 I’d suggest instead of fading other fronts (in your example, factions) into the background & have them not making any movement forward, to instead find a way to connect them to the front they’ve chosen to pursue. For example, they choose to follow Faction A, leaving factions B and C behind. They have to go undercover and attend a Faction A social gathering to get intel, and while doing that, they discover a Faction B spy is there as well and they are able to prevent that spy from reaching their goal. It’s up to the DM to connect these two seemingly different things with plot devices, utilizing “coincidence” helps activate stagnant plots They can also always find secrets/clues pertaining to Factions B & C in their journey through Faction A as well!

In regard to the question about managing multiple villain fronts: consider having one choice be the logical one, one the emotional one, and one the easy choice. To explicate, there is the most dangerous or most quickly-growing front, but one that will clearly be difficult to fight. That's the logical choice. The second front has some emotional tie to one or more of the character. It's threatening something they care about. That's the emotional choice. Finally, there's a front that they might be able to altogether vanquish if they strike now. Not necessarily dangerous yet, but might be if left unaddressed.

I'm definitely gonna try the Luck system next game I run.

@Dyundu

6 ай бұрын

It’s pretty great. I made some small tweaks that I like a little more for my groups’ playstyles: Three total points, no rollover/reroll with a d4, etc. Use 1 to get a +1 on any roll, use 2 to get a +2, or use all three for either advantage on any check/save, or to roll critical damage.

As someone very soured toward Hasbro/WotC it was great to hear your thoughts regarding using 5e, thank you! I'm struggling more with how to approach the new edition coming soon (6e, 5.5, ONE, whatever). Most people I DM/play 5e with and want to continue playing with are already preparing to move to the new edition. As it stands my compromise is that I won't DM for it but I'll buy the PHB so I can keep on as a player. I'd love to hear yours and others thoughts about how we're all handling the new edition coming.

@dadbodusa7352

6 ай бұрын

I’ll buy it because I love buying TTRPG books. I’ll look at it and decide if I want to use anything from it. And then I’ll continue on playing the game I love with people I enjoy and not give a flying f about all the completely ridiculous self-righteous boycotting.

@pewprofessional3181

6 ай бұрын

I'm ignoring the new edition, learning TSR D&D.

48:10 I have been writing the quest opens on a 3x5 card when the party is presented with options. It’s like the message board but I do it even for NPCs. It has helped a lot to get an idea on where the party wants to go, but it even gives them clarity so they can debate amongst themselves. I then move forward some of those other options a bit behind the scenes, but not to the point of punishment for the “wrong” choice. When I write each option, I have also used the Secrets and Clues as a prompter for my own planning where I’ll have some of the S&C best generic enough that they’ll learn of them through each option, but each quest will have 1-3 that are unique to each path.

I’ve tried a lot of other games and they don’t quite hit the sweet spot that 5e does and none of them have as much support. But I’m done buying wotc stuff. Mcdm, Kobold press, totv and level up are the ones earning my money

I absolutely love leveling magic items in my game for trackability and decreased magic item glut. Early in the game I make sure each player gets a leveling item which increase in power once the players hit a certain level. Its fun for the players, easy for me to track, and avoids handing out loads of magical stuff. Thanks for the resource heads up!

Just grabbed Trials & Treasures, which amazingly is in stock in the UK which makes getting the physical copy feasible here in Europe.

I originally became a patron just to support but so much of the content is useful. My next campaign, starting Friday, will be the city of arches

@SlyFlourish

6 ай бұрын

Awesome, thank you!

Thank you for all the great resources and for being a great resource yourself!

It makes me so sad to see you have to do a gofund me while mourning your wife in the US... I sincerely hope you'll get a good health system one day.

@sirmclovin9184

6 ай бұрын

Over one million dead because of COVID and a broken health care system and they still won't fix it. The drive for profit rules that country.

Hi Mike - for what it’s worth, I am 100% part of the group you mention are talking to. I love 5E and so much about D&D the game, but Hasbro is really making it hard to support this game. I know that there are a lot of great other 5e publishers out there but honestly as a GM and a player it feels daunting because it feels like a lot of work to learn the other related systems and expensive to buy new books. I’m sure there’s a lot of great options out there but also having so much choice also feels overwhelming. Thanks for your advice in the video though 😊

I'm new to RPGs and to DND (I've been playing for half a year) and I'm very happy you did this video because I'm exactly in that group you've been talking about. I do NOT want to support Hasbro but I'm also finally getting a grasp at how to play and DM for 5e and do not want to change games right now. As a newbie though, I find it quite hard to find these other ways to play 5e and I'm grateful to now have a few recommendations. So : thank you! ... And also, I would LOVE a video about how to get into 3rd party 5e for newbies because it's quite difficult (even more so because I'm french and my players won't read english books)

I love sooooo many in the great Indie setting books that use the 5th Ed rule set that I would never drop it, I’m not just supporting Wizards on their content.

I agree that if you like 5e you should still play with it - you have paid for these books might as well use them. I also wouldn't blame a new player starting out or joining a games to buy these books either or the new revised version that will be coming in 2024. 5e is a great version of D&D and if you are going to play it, the corebooks are very useful to have. After all, that why I bought them way back them in addition to Tasha, Xanathar and the Monster of the Multiverse books. However, I think we should strongly encourage everyone to: i) buy non Hasro/WotC 5e products and adventures instead of the Hasbro/WotC products if possible; ii) try other TTRPG that are not D&D; iii) don't subscribe to DnD Beyond, use other tools or VTT; and, iv) buy your Hasbro/WotC books secondhand if possible. I am personally doing all of the above and I am very happy with my current D&D 5e experience without any additional Hasbro/WotC.

Thanks man, I needed to have this conversation. I do want to explore other RPGs, I've even convinced my players to try Ad&d 2e and I'm making a kid friendly rpg that hopefully adults find it appealing also. But I have a few 5e supplements of my own that I wanted to publish.

About throwing out 5e: I’ve played a lot of it over the years and for me Hasbro’s bad decisions are a catalyst for me to try other games. I need a change anyways, this is the perfect excuse. I can always come back in the future if D&D the brand changes their ways. On top of that, I have to vote with my wallet. That includes letting independent designers/publishers know that I don’t support that game anymore. I want them to make their own games or make supplements for others. This doesn’t have to be true for anyone else, but I am okay with 5e not being as dominant and pervasive as it has been. Change is good.

@raymosmookle9373

6 ай бұрын

I rarely spent money on 5e, and have almost no one to play with. The few players I have won't try new games. After the OGL calamity, I spite-spent money on several other content creators for games I'll likely never get to play unless the "local climate" changes. So be it. I like studying game rules well enough to enjoy the books, anyway.

Hi Mike. Is the City of Arches going to be exclusive to 5E or system egoistic?

@SlyFlourish

6 ай бұрын

It’s 95% system agnostic.

@duieb

6 ай бұрын

@@SlyFlourish thanks

Absolutely worthwhile an issue for you to address... I have a feeling that there are alot of people in the other two groups you note you are *not* talking to... But they feel like they *SHOULD* speak *for* the slice you are trying to talk to (despite their self proclaimed love of other non5e ttrpgs). Basically a crowd that don't like 5e... USING Hasbros BS as a reason to attack 5e and get people to drop it (s despite them having already claimed to have dropped it and to be playing other stuff). Will be interested to hear from people that do love 5e, and want to play it, but to disown Hasbros.... To which, as you know, you are absolutely right - the *other* 5e publishers are knocking it out of the park at the moment!

FYI: Hasbro pays a LOT of money to their freelance artists. Example, $20k for 7 promotional pieces. Some of these may or may not even see the light of day in published material. That's just to one artist. Not even a big name artist. Hasbro easily has a budget in the many hundreds of thousands for MtG, DnD, and its toylines, and I'm being conservative. I am just telling you this so you understand the sort of money that they have to cough up (when they even get around to paying for work delivered). I'm not making an argument here for or against the savings they could potentially make by going AI, I just think the this is helpful for anyone trying to understand Hasbro's position and potential choices in the future.

In my experience, I am cool with moving over to a different game. I have wanted to do it for years even before Hasbro got stupid. My players however are only interested in playing D&D. This puts my table into the middle. I tend to do a lot of homebrew over buying other's stuff while my players run characters out of the official books.

Does your city have the Golden Arches?

We switched to pathfinder when the whole 4e drama happened. Haven't looked back since.

Thanks

City of Arches Kickstarter? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! No for real. Cant wait to back this! I came back from a month of travel in Thailand yesterday and found my version of Forge of Foes! Wohoooo! All the best from Berlin!

Wish I could get physical copies easier in the Uk

So if you spend one luck point you’ll either succeed or get it back if you failed the roll? I agree that DCs shouldn’t be hidden from the player, it’s just more table talk that doesn’t really need to happen.

I'm in the middle of running a 2 year long 5e game with 2 different groups, and the recent Hasbro nonsense has left me in the strongest possible terms to suggest to all of my players not at all buy Hasbro products again. I'm strongly considering something like a full switch over to A5e or some other 5e system, but since many of my players are new and use D&D Beyond to manage their characters, the lack of fully featured player support tools is a real hurdle to achieve that. I know that my players are almost all fully behind no longer financially supporting hasbro, but the lack of alternatives that aren't just "go over to pen and paper" is, I think, going to leave them in the lurch if I did. I do really appreciate the updates on the various 5e alternatives out there, because at some point, one of them will hopefully get to that stage and I can suggest the move. RIP Jennell. Video games and TTRPGs would be foundationally worse were it not for her work.

I think the inspiration issue you brought up is just a failure of everybody to actually read the words in the book. The PHB clearly states that, while yes, following your character traits and whatnot can get you inspiration, so can portraying "your character in a compelling way." The DMG simply expands on this "compelling way" by talking about roleplaying, heroism, rewards for victory, and genre emulation. The PHB tells the player what they need to know, which is that they should actually use the traits they've given their character and there is a chance to get inspiration, while the DMG expands upon the "compelling way" aspect, because obviously characters don't get to choose what a compelling way is, and they shouldn't have to, that's up to the DM while they focus on their character's traits. There is a major issue with people not reading the words of the D&D source books. 99% of the time people's issues with the game would be cleared up if they did. Another example of this kind of thing is with Hit Points. People always act confused how to describe and run them, but they're very clearly a combination of your energy to keep fighting, cuts and scratches, and more major blows taken. It's even explained in the PHB that the first 50% of Hit Points are just how winded you get effectively, where attacks don't show signs of damage, while after that they are more cuts and wounds, and you can see the wear. Then it goes on to explain that a hit that takes you to 0 Hit Points means you take a direct strike and have a bleeding injury, other trauma, or are knocked out. Going even further, people "homebrew" that characters have final last words before death, but you don't have to, because if you are just bleeding out and effectively unable to do anything because you're on 0 Hit Points who says you can't whisper out or muster a few final words. I know inspiration was only a short thing you touched on, but I think that the fact that these kinds of misunderstandings are so prevalent speak so much louder to me about why people like rules light systems and decide to find reasons to dislike D&D. It's not because D&D is some poorly designed game, it's because people didn't bother to read the 25 pages of the core rules (less than cause of full-page art), or the handful of character creation rules, which is as long as all their rules light systems same sections and then they get upset when they didn't understand how the game worked. More often just opting to watch some youtuber skim over all the rules to show them how to min-max a character.

Yes! It was worth reminding us that 5e isn't solely owned by WotC anymore! 5e worked fine for my group but ever since the OGL situation I've felt icky using it and have moved to DCC, which works for us too. I do appreciate the reminder that there are more independently published options if we don't want to permanently give up on the community and ecosystem surrounding 5e. I would hate for independent 5e publishers to suffer because of my ethical issues with WotC! And the game is fun!

The problem with "Don't drop 5e because of Hasbro" is that all my group's stuff is wrapped up in DNDbeyond...so continuing to play 5e means necessitating a month payment to Hasbro. Is this something we did to ourselves? Yes. But it means that 5e is dead for us for the foreseeable future.

@Dyundu

6 ай бұрын

My only problem with the 5e rules is just that I’m tired of running it. And that’s a “for now” tired. I’ll be back-I’m just having too much fun with Shadowdark atm

@seanhuckel9561

6 ай бұрын

@@Dyundu We moved onto Shadowdark as well...and will probably go to MCDM once that comes out

@raymosmookle9373

6 ай бұрын

You could try using Zoom or Jitsi and online rules. THere's always Owlbear Rodeo... We got sick of Roll20 and MapTool. My solution was a second computer, a second webcam ona folding table with a usb extension cord, and a giant pad of 1" grid paper. I secure the webcam to a mic stand with rubber bands and draw low-res tokens. For fog of war and vision blocking I use a second piece of paper and scissors, and I keep the last game's scraps handy. Players have to tell me where to move their tokens ("one north, two west", etc), but we have a lot of fun. You can't beat it for a virtual tabletop. I draw nice ornate maps when I have time, and just whip out a sharpie when I don't. I also have "Advanced Fog Of War". I look up almost all the rules online, and dice rolling is on the honor system. If someone has to cheat to have a good time, it's their problem. Write down your character stats and tell Beyond to kiss your axes.

@raymosmookle9373

6 ай бұрын

Setup takes about 5-10 minutes, but it's worth every one of them, and that *includes* dragging out all my books and paperwork. Plus I can reuse all the maps with my rare in-person campaigns!

I’ll start buying products again when they start to create good products again

I am in that 3rd group and it's been my plan all along to continue playing 5e without Hasbro. I'll be using Tales of the Valiant and all the other 3rd party content I have.

As someone who is in group 2 (old school D&D) with preteen kids in group 1 (Yay! D&D is fun!), I think there is still some value in having a lingua franca for game systems. 5e has been that common language for the past decade. I think trying different games is great, but a having a shared baseline for the hobby isn’t necessarily a bad thing either.

Please use a similar format to ptolus. It is the easiest book to reference information from.

As you say, the 5e SRD being in creative commons means there's lots of room to play 5e and stiff Hasbro at the same time. I think in this context its worth bringing up Colville's critique of D&D 5e from his "What are Dungeons For?" video... that clinging to a bunch of incompatible but recognizeable branded traditions and trying to please everyone prevents that game from being well-designed to support any particular style of play. Indie publishers are in a position to take the 5e core and address this, making better games in the process. From this perspective, ditching Hasbro but hanging onto 5e as a core ruleset may make sense not just in terms of brand loyalty, but in terms of game quality as well.

the only thing I left was D&D beyond, but I still play and use 5e

Maybe tangentially related but. Sometimes I feel that folks over involve themselves in ttrpg news to compensate for the fact that they aren't playing games/games they like. We all know it can be hard and takes effort to set up a game, scheduling, personal conflict, etc etc. It's much easier to yell at a corporation about whatever is hot this week, and might still give you a feeling of being involved in the hobby. And don't get me wrong, mega corporations are often Bad bad, but when i think of playing games with my friends, I don't think of wotc at all.

44:00 If they still fail after using Luck Points, then they still fail, and gain a Luck Points...

My biggest problem with D&D 5e right now is I'm just so bored with it. It feels limiting but I feel like you have to either go much more crunch with something like Pathfinder or more rules light which feels hollow to me. I feel stuck with mediocrity...

@gxantor

6 ай бұрын

All the other non hasbro content helps with this

@nunyabidness8870

6 ай бұрын

Have you checked out any of the BX based modified retroclone systems, like Basic Fantasy or Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy? They aren't so much rules light as they are rules smooth. They use the same d20 roll high add a modifier versus ascending AC combat rolls as 5e, but simpler resolution systems for things like saving throws and skills. You don't have to set DCs, the math is already baked in to the character sheets or stat blocks. You have the option of adding a bonus or penalty to a roll if you feel like something is particularly easy or particularly hard, but most of the time you don't have to worry about it. They have loads of optional rules so you can tailor the crunch level to your comfort level. They don't have subclasses, but they have loads of classes. I'm running an upcoming campaign where the players have the option of about 50 different classes, but you can also choose to run a game with just fighter, wizard, thief, and cleric as the available classes. They also have simple procedures for things like wilderness exploration and dungeon delving that provide great tools for making DMming easier. Monster stat blocks usually fit in a paragraph and always fit on a page. Character creation is simplified enough that, unlike 5e, you can actually follow a simple step by step process to have a character built from scratch in less than ten minutes. All in all, such systems let me preserve player choice, spend far less time in DM prep, drastically reduce the math and small decisions I have to make at the table, and if I don't feel like creating my own adventures, I only need one simple AC adjustment chart to run any module created for D&D in the 20th century.

@Uphold-your-Rights

6 ай бұрын

Same. I'm currently designing a campaign based off of the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. Death is just an XP loss of 5% per death. And she doesn't like when they die, so she scolds them for a bit before the old female Troll, with a southern-belle accent, returns them to life. The main plot is to return the Orb of Honorable Mention to the Tower Over the Precipice.

@Andrew.Downing

6 ай бұрын

@@gxantor can you give some recommendations and how they enhance the 5e experience. Right now I'm looking at swapping my group to Genesys RPG but it takes alot of homebrew to get it to feel like "D&D".

@sumdude4281

6 ай бұрын

Take an OSR game and add cool class powers yourself. Easy breezy. OSR is so basic you can literally build and bolt on whatever you like. Like legendary actions for monsters? Cool bolt it on. Like players having super powers related to class? Cool bolt it on. Get rid of what you don't like, add what you do and you have the game right for you and your group.

I think "after the roll but before they know the result" is one of the worst mechanics in the game. Half the time they kind of know the DC already, and the other half it makes them take longer in their turn debating things. I usually just tell them the DC and let them decide.

Rest in power Jennell.

In my opinion. D&D is a category of product. In the way that Kleenex is commonly used in reference to all tissues. Hasbro couldn't kill D&D if they actively tried, because it is grown beyond the scope of a trademarked name. And that is all they really own.

Corporations are going to "corporate" regardless. They are run by people, some cool, some not-so-cool, but they everyone has a boss. A sole proprietor is squeezed by their life needs and their customer expectations. Corporations have the same, but it is the people running them that get squeezed by "the owners" as represented by Board and their own personal livelihood. All while gamers just want to game. Am I right?

I honestly think believing Hasbro "won't commoditize art because it's so important to them" is, at best, naive. We could have said "Hasbro won't lay off people on Magic and D&D because they are the departments making money for the company" three months ago and we would have been tragically wrong. Short-term profit promises trump principles, or even common sense, every day of the week. All AI companies siphoning venture capital are promising exactly that: unlimited, immediate profit via unlimited art for pennies with no compensation, no rights management, no fiddly artists to deal with. In the heads of the people actually making the decisions (and that's executives, not art directors) artists are not "the people doing the work" but "the people they have to deal with to access the work". Getting rid of artists is very much a boon to them. Just see last year's writers and actors strike for a clear example of the corporations vs. artists conflict. I believe stepping away from Hasbro is a moral necessity. Stepping away from all 5E derivatives... not so much, though it is certainly great for broadening one's roleplaying experience. Kinda like playing more than one genre of videogame or watching one type of movie.

I play 3e and Pathfinder 1st edition. I have a huge AD&D library in addition to those. I can take a fluff book with absolutely no crunch whatsoever and run a game off of it. I picked up that skill from playing Shadowrun for decades. The rule system doesn’t really matter at all once you learn how to adapt fluff into crunch. I created a Rogue Trader (40K) campaign using the Shadowrun rules system that ran for nearly five years. It gets easier the more you do it. 5e trashed the PvE game from D&D. That’s my biggest complaint about it. They video game dissolved the journey, making the Ranger and Druid fairly useless. Using 3e and Pathfinder, I can preserve that. To each their own, isn’t it?

How about I never touch it because of WotC and Hasbro, how about that?

My D&D is a homebrew EZD6 hack. Play what you think is fun! Thank you for the great content Mike.

Of course A5E and Tales from the Valiant are “D&D.” Even Pathfinder and all the OSR games are “D&D.” There may be no explicit financial business connection but there is a cultural and historical connection. I get what you are saying about not having to support Hasbro and not throwing away you game because of its actions. But I prefer to think of it this way, “You don’t need Hasbro to enjoy D&D. They own the rights to the name. We own the essence of the game in all its forms.” P. S. Never say never about Hasbro not having a way to mess with other smaller 5e publishers on the future. You never know.

I am glad that there will be non-Hasbro 5e options, though some may still push people to buy Hasbro core and online products. Supporting Hasbro with your $$ _is_ supporting all the bad decisions that the leadership has made over the past 18 months. The _only_ reason that changes is hasbro’s bottom line is effected.

I just want to reclaim the name D&D at this point. There are so many 5e games, so many OSR games based on older D&D to one degree or another, so many options out there. You like to say "5e is not D&D" but I feel like it's ALL D&D. "Dungeons & Dragons" is like the Kleenex of TTRPGs at this point. It's a name that can (and should) be more that what any one company controls. I'm not swearing off ever playing WOTC D&D again, although I am exploring other avenues for the time being. But even if I never play WOTC D&D again, I still think of myself as playing "Dungeons & Dragons" while I'm playing Shadowdark, or Level Up 5e, or whatever. Everything in this wheelhouse is D&D. It's not a brand anymore, it's a generic term in my mind.

If you bought WoTC books you own them, they are your property. What Mike is talking about is akin to a person driving their car off a bridge because they are mad at the manufacturer.

D&D has been a part of my life for the past 28 years. Thats not something i throw away over the petty antics of corporations. Besides, hasbro/WotC actions lately are tame compared to nike, adidas, tyson and the entire beef industry. This is selective outrage at best. They boycott dnd over this petty stuff but they probably still wear nikes or adidas when they have been found to use child labor or they prob eat chicken even though the inhumane treatment of the livestock on their farms. So again, selective outrage. Thats just rediculous. Be consistent or stop playing the victim and whining.

@dadbodusa7352

6 ай бұрын

Amen!! The level of naïveté in these posts is pretty outrageous. The only reason other companies don’t engage in corporate shenanigans is because none of them are big enough. Would Paggio love to be worth what D&D is worth? Absolutely! Would they engage in some chicanery if they thought it would get them there? Absolutely! Their whole company is based on legally stealing and ripping off a product because they got left out in the cold. People applaud them for this like they’re heroes… but they’re not. D&D is the cornerstone of all RPGs. To abandon it because of a misplaced ideas about corporate greed shows a lack of character for the hobby and the brand that created it. All 3rd party content producers are basically leading people by the nose, wailing and gnashing their teeth, because it hurts THEIR business… what’s the difference??

@laughingpanda4395

6 ай бұрын

@@dadbodusa7352 glad to see theres at least one other critical thinker out there. The world has gone mad.

0:20:31 That's what he said! 😂

A defence of those dropping 5e: they don't want to be part of an ecosystem which even contributed partially to D&D's continued dominance. And also there's something to be said for people just having negative associations due to Hasbro's actions, whether or not it's core D&D content or not. It might not be a reasonable association, but it's there and for those players it's real enough to leave a bad taste in their mouths, and if that's how they feel then I don't see much reason to push them on it.

@dadbodusa7352

6 ай бұрын

Continued dominance? There is no hobby without D&D. It IS THE TTRPG! Everything thing else is, in some respect, a ripoff. D&D is the most robust, best supported, largest community. Boycotting D&D is the community cutting off its nose to spite its face.

After a 2 year campaign, I just don't care for 5e anymore, so I already had one foot out the door. Then OGL, mismanagement of Magic, substandard 5e books...I already have one abusive game company relationship with Games Workshop, so Wizards/Hasbro has to go

The group I play with seems completely adhering to Adventures League(AL) rules, Yet WOTC hardly recognizes AL even exists! Who does govern AL? Do even amazing creators like you support AL?

I don't trust any company and I made the choice of still playing 5e despite hasbro

You are talking to me... and yes, I stop to buy 5e book of Hasbro in 2019, and stop buy 5e supplements of 3rd party in 2023.

Throwing away 5e is the perfect answer to Hasboro

I DM 5e and play pathfinder, I really like both and love pathfinder adventure paths , I have a shelf of 5e books and they are 50/50 hasbro, there is room for everyone and people need to realise the WOTC are part of an industrial monolith and that isnt their fault.

I want to stand up to Hasbro's greed and arrogance, but I'm not that disgusted with the WtoC creators. I will probably buy the core of the next edition of D&D. But I will also explore other alternative 5e games "so that I can keep playing even if Hasbro does the worst possible thing: stop developing and selling the D&D IP", like A5E or ToV. I can understand the reasoning behind the WtoC boycott, but I think it's a little too radical, with a little too much radical language, and a little too many people who just want to stir the pot, and I'm a little tired of seeing thumbnails of radical rhetoric on KZread.

Dropping 5E was not just because of Hasbro but it was the last straw, There was a simmering dislike of the 5E with my group with the lazily written rules that WotC sells as "rules lite system", the shite CR encounter building, PC power bloat, lousy DM support, save or suck system, the "adventuring day" and long rest mess, the subscription based nickel and dime us to death business model of DND Beyond.

Back in my day I remember people complaining about the overly-litigious bastards running “T$R.” Now D&D is owned by the wonderful folks at Hasbro/WotC. I don’t really care if people throw away D&D 5e. But I’d hope everyone would reconsider throwing more money at companies that are bad actors in the industry.

thats not accurate about photoshop. I have been using it for 25 years, and even with some of the "newer" things they have added in photoshop - there is no "autofill" tool that just adds random art to your backgrounds.

@silentverdict

6 ай бұрын

The new generative fill in the latest version of Photoshop is exactly that. You select a region and either enter a text prompt or just leave it blank and it'll try and fill in via context. I think it's still pretty clear that it's AI, but it's definitely built into Photoshop now.

@natesroomrule

6 ай бұрын

​@@silentverdict Ok i looked into this just used the the "Generative Fill" in my 2024 photoshop and its explanation is that it uses Adobes Stock images to create some model to "match the lighting and style" The AI issues in the art of question for MTG isnt what photoshop will do with generative fill. You have to choose a selection of your image to modify, you can generate and entire background as the Image in the MTG

I didn't drop 5e because of Hasbro. I did it because of WotC.

Don't throw away 5e because of Hasbro, throw away 5e because even with the Lazy DM's guide, 5e is a huge pain in the ass to DM compared to Ascending AC DC-less systems like OSE and Basic Fantasy.

@joshjames582

6 ай бұрын

Amen to that!

@Dyundu

6 ай бұрын

It’s not the worst I’ve seen. It’s still not the best, but I’ve not had too much of a tough time running it.

@slaapliedje

6 ай бұрын

Ha, being a GURPS player for so many years, and then giving PF2e a try, I have to say... I miss GURPS. It makes more way more sense from a design perspective to be able to have a number showing how good your character is at a task and then having a difficulty modifier adjusting the roll that needs to be made for success, over the opposite, where the die roll itself is modified to see if it can beat a particular number. The math is flipped. (I have tried explaining that a few ways, but I think that was probably the best attempt so far.

@Ike_of_pyke

6 ай бұрын

If you're lazy yes , if you don't mind the crunch and have that level of stuff ready , no

I feel like a lot of the “I’m leaving 5e” is insincere. I’ve brought a lot of players into the game over the past few years, and I never would have been able to without 5e and the tools available. Yes, there are other RPG options, but you have to have the perfect storm of circumstances to get any of them off the ground. Groups with deep histories may be able to shift, but the groups of people who just want to play and have fun have no inclination to learn a new system. Most of the noise is just DM’s buying other products- none of which will ever be played. So, it’s just a form of communal (and pointless) seppuku.

@bigbiggoblin2873

6 ай бұрын

Leaving 5e is sincere. People want to try new things, many of whom are DMs. 5e brought people into the hobby, but it doesn’t have to be a cage. It’s not that hard to leave DND, it doesn’t require a perfect storm of events to organize and run a different game. Most people are willing to try if you explain the difference. And if they aren’t, they don’t have to show up- and maybe the peer pressure of missing out with friends will convince them otherwise.

WOTC is to gaming and the legacy they now own in name what Disney is to all the once great IPs they've acquired.

I definitely dropped 5e because of Hasbro & WotC, but the OGL was just the last straw in a string of unpleasantness. I'm not going back because that forced me to discover all the amazing other games out there. 5e is... a great introduction to RPGs but man you gotta move on. Watching people stick with 5e is like watching people too stuck in their ways to be happy.

@dadbodusa7352

6 ай бұрын

No it’s not. It’s like saying you’re never gonna play baseball again because they went on strike. Instead, you’re going to learn cricket. YOU might go off and do that, but no one is following you.

@danrimo826

6 ай бұрын

@@dadbodusa7352 hahahaha no but thank you for illustrating my point. A hell of a lot more people play cricket in the world than baseball. But you would not know that if you just stick with what you know. Actually a better analogy would be swearing off cricket because of the actions of the body running it and finding baseball. Baseball is way more fun

@dadbodusa7352

6 ай бұрын

⁠@@danrimo826it’s not about “sticking to what you know.” It’s about spending time, money, and energy to learn something else because of a false and flawed sense of moral superiority and attempts to look more forward thinking than one actually is. If someone wants to play another RPG, more power to them. I play other RPGs. But it’s this turning our nose up to a company trying to make money off their investment … The goal of any company no matter how big or small. To your point about cricket and baseball. More people in the world may play cricket… But not more people around you, I’m assuming. So go start a cricket league and see how that goes. Same with starting up a campaign with another RPG. Good luck.

@danrimo826

6 ай бұрын

@@dadbodusa7352 false and flawed sense of moral superiority? Oh boy. You are one of those hey? Carry on.

I left 5e because it was cumbersome and annoying. Hail Knave and Shadowdark!

I don't care one iota for Wizards and Hasbro. I rarely play their games or give them my money, and I could play RPGs forever without ever touching a Wizard's product and be perfectly happy. This was true before 2023 and it will be true forever... However, I think there is a cognitive dissonance in Sly and the whole D&D community's thought process. Everyone has pushed Wizards/Hasbro into supporting the community by open-sourcing the 5e rules. This was the right thing to do since a diversity of products really does help the D&D brand. The thinking and the rhetoric around this move was 'this only helps wizards'. Then we have a show here saying that you can (and should) play 5e without touching a Wizards book. I know this is unlikely to make players swear off of hasbro products, but can you imagine if you were a wizards employee and you saw this behavior in the community? It's no wonder Wizards didn't want to share at the beginning of the year. I don't think Wizards has a claim to a set of game mechanics in the first place, so the point is probably moot, but if I owned wizards & open sourced 5e for the community, and then had the community say they should take that rule set and explicitly try to cut its creator out of the equation? Well, I wouldn't think too highly of that community.

Why aren't we just leaving Hasbro out of the picture? They own the IP, not the game. We should be creating a platform for community authored 5e system builds. I can't write a good elevator pitch, so that sounds like word-salad. But I know what I mean (I've been trying to write a brief and coherent proposal that doesn't sound deranged), and I am having a devil of a time figuring out where to share the idea. If anyone can recommend a good subreddit or something, please let me know. D&D Wiki is, well, obsolete. We can author what our players want, fiddle with game balance ourselves, and even try extreme variant games. There are so many ways this could work out well if moderated, done carefully and promoted instead of left to flounder. Leaving this stuff in people's KZread and Discord comments is probably rude.

@raymosmookle9373

6 ай бұрын

That reductionist explanation makes little sense.

5e is dnd. they created it. it is part of their brand. the third party 5e publishers make money off and get customers from the dnd 5e brand. in exchange dnd get their brand promoted. that's the whole argument for why the ogl was good for everyone. even if youre not giving money directly to wizard, if youre buying 5e, youre promoting the brand. the fact wizards put 5e in the creative commons is proof of it. that is a license. im not gonna judge anyone for their level of support of hasbro. just always remember companies are not your friends, whether it is hasbro, paizo, kobold press, etc.

Screw hasbro, they own the brand not the game. They’re ruining the brand, not the game.

While i'm really sad to learn about Jennel's demise, and she will be really missed, I don't get why people still live in the US with that hideous "health" system.

@CJWproductions

6 ай бұрын

Where would you have us go? Is your home country prepared to accept every US citizen? Weird take tbh

not totally done with 5E but I am done with WotC/Hasbro and will not be supporting them financially anymore. And this OneD&D stuff.... no thanks.

5e is D&D - I don’t care what post hoc gymnastics are deployed to act otherwise “The game system” that is 5e is not owned by Hasbro and you can continue to play it, supplement, or even develop to your hearts content. If you are leaving this aspect of the hobby because of Hasbro business practice ls then it’s time to stop using KZread because Google just announced 10,000 layoffs and you should through out that Apple, because, child slavery. Pick your battles

I didn't drop 5e because of Hasbro. I dropped it long before the OGL scandal broke, because for the first time since I started playing, I felt it was fully explored. Felt constrained, tired, unfun. I run a few 3.5e/PF1e games, a PF2e game and solo an OSR game. And none of them feel as bland as 5e.