That is true. I do feel like whenever there’s a general RPG group, it usually breaks down quickly into every post either being related to 5E, or complaining about 5E.
I stopped visiting RPG on Reddit because it felt like half the posts were just complaining about 5E, and while I don’t disagree with those posts, I would rather talk about the things I DO enjoy.
I generally agree with you in that 1) I absolutely feel they have a lot of value as tags and 2) they shouldn’t be used to put people in camps.
But otoh, it’s human nature to group people together based on arbitrary tags. So I don’t see how you can avoid the in-group/out-group behaviour while still keeping the terms around as tags.
It’s less sandboxey than my fantasy games, but I typically generate the missions using the tools in the book. If you use the tools to have your city, your districts and your factions in place, all you need is a quickly generated hook and I can easily proceed with a randomly generated mission.
Oh yeah, CWN is absolutely playable already. I’ve been GMing a campaign since version 0.9 of the beta - well, we already agreed to start playing with 0.7 but didn’t play our first session until the day after 0.9 came out. And it’s been going very well. Much better than any other beta game I’ve ever played before. I do run it in a very Shadowrun style way too. Never was a fan of CyberpunkRed (too crunchy) or Shadowrun (just an absolute mess).
A few years ago some kind of manager or director of tabletop gaming projects at Kickstarter lost his job because he greenlit a project that Koebel was working on, so yeah, anyone trying to print something the guy’s name is on is playing Russian Roulette.
(that guy losing his job is also what resulted in Zine Quest being canceled the year after btw, because that guy was running it as a pet project)
NSR/Rules Light
Mausritter: I’ve run this one in various one shots for probably around 50 different players already, and so far every single one has enjoyed it. The inventory system is great, the setting is great, the hackability is great. Like most rules lights I don’t like running campaigns in it, but for pickup games in my FLGS it’s my nr 1 favourite.
Black Sword Hack: If you want to get the feel and vibe of old school pulp action sword & sorcery fantasy in a rules light way, this is THE system. After Mausritter this is my other go-to for pickup games and other one-shots.
Pirate Borg: Pirates are awesome. The Mork Borg ruleset is decent. This game combines them into a really sweet blend. Also, for my tastes, Pirate Borg adds just enough meat to the bare-bones rules-light games that this is actually the only NSR game I enjoy running actual campaigns rather than just one shots in.
OSR
OSE Advanced Fantasy: As far as OSR goes this is the holy grail for me personally. B/X is right where the sweet spot between complexity and rules-light fits in my personal experience, and OSE is the best possible reference material to use in the modern day for B/X. B/X also has 40 years of homebrewing history, and so anything you don’t like about the system should be trivial to change.
Hyperborea: Where Black Sword Hack is THE system for rules-light old school pulp action sword & sorcery fantasy, this is THE system for slightly deeper old school pulp action sword & sorcery fantasy. For me personally it has some unneeded complexity as it leans more to AD&D than B/X, but I still enjoy it for all the flavour it has.
ACKS: Way too simulationist for me when you go all the way to the nitty gritty, and there’s some weird choices made in how saving throws and attack rolls are handled, but the classes are just chef’s kiss and they are 100% compatible with B/X or OSE. If you want to run a race-as-class kind of game you owe it to yourself and your players to have a look at how ACKS handles these classes.
Stars/Worlds/Cities Without Number: Beside B/X this is my most played OSR system. I don’t put them higher on this list because I personally don’t like skill lists and feats, which are both very important to SWN/WWN/CWN, but my players love these systems, and if you’re one of those GMs who has players that come from 3rd/4th/5th edition D&D and you wanna convince them to play OSR games, this is in my experience the best way to go. It has all the customisation options that modern players (and min-maxers) love, but still with sufficient OSR sensibilities. Also, even if you don’t run this game as is, I recommend checking out the Game Master chapters on how to run a sandbox campaign, how to manage factions, etcetera. That material is absolute gold.
Other Old-School Inspired
Forbidden Lands: It’s got some flaws like every other system, but I like the dice pools, I like the way defenses work in this game, it’s got some amazing random tables and survival mechanisms. I’ve recently finished a 2 year long campaign in this system and I don’t regret it at all. If you wanna lean really heavily into the hexcrawling part of Old Shool Gaming this one definitely is a great choice.
Adam Koebel who became infamous when
he decided to enact a robot sa scene during a live stream with one of his players as a victim
. Any new project he works on in the TTRPG sphere ends up quickly canceled so a reprint of Mellified Mage might not be worth the fuss to Free League.
I’ve only played the Dutch translations, so it could be a problem with localisation; but 5th edition felt really horribly made in my opinion. I’ve played both 3rd and 5th Edition of DSA (5th edition is what’s in this bundle), and I would never touch 5th edition again if given the choice.
That said, if you do want to try 5th edition, this collection looks very decent, has all the books I played with in Dutch, and more.
I wouldn’t count too hard on a reprint of Mellified Mage since it has a canceled person’s adventure in it. Free League have never officially commented that they care about cancellations, but it’s been sold out for so long now, and whenever it’s asked in the chat on their monthly livestreams all they’ll admit to is that there’s “no current plans” to do either a VTT module of it, or a reprint.
Honestly, mostly personal preference.
Black Sword Hack is a pretty narrative rules-light system, and while those are great to bring to the table when I’m just running a game at my FLGS or RPG Club, for a long term campaign I’d rather have a few more campaign tools and deeper systems. So for my long campaigns I use systems like Forbidden Lands, ACKS, WWN, or at minimum OSE with something like Into the Wild bolted on.
Ran it twice already and really enjoying it. Not my favourite game for a long campaign, but it’s a good option for my biweekly one shots.
Cities is still in beta (version 0.24 currently) as the Kickstarter was so recent, but I believe it’s planned to be finished by end of the month. I’ve been GMing it since version 0.07 though, and found it very playable already from day 1 :)
When I finish my homebrew I’ll post some more about it. :)
I’ve been running Worlds Without Number and Cities WIthout Number campaigns. I’m also putting the final touches to my homebrew game based on blending ACKS, WWN and classic B/X.
It depends on several things.
First, how do you treat your game nights? Do you treat them as a casual social gathering where it’s ok to show up fashionably late; or to not show up without warning; or to drop out last minute because of whatever non-emergency reason? If so, don’t be surprised players also treat it as something casual and social, and reading rules isn’t casual or social. Maybe D&D just is too complex and not the right game for your table if you just want to run a casual social event.
Personally I treat my D&D style campaign game nights similar to how I’d treat coaching a sports club. If you want to be a striker on a soccer team, and you don’t understand the off-side rules and don’t want to learn them, no coach in their right mind wil put you on the field either. Sure I give my players time to learn, and don’t expect them to know everything from day 1, but the absolute minimum I expect is a willingness to improve.
Practically, what I do for each player in my campaign is to compile a document which I expect them to focus on. They roll up a fighter, I will include the fighter class entry plus common special maneuver. They roll up a wizard, I will include the wizard class entry plus their spell book. They roll up a merchant (which I consider the most complicated class in my game and will discourage inexperienced players from taking it), I will give them the class entry plus a 101 intro to the economics of my campaign world. They have 3 months (approximate 10-15 weekly sessions) to understand the material I’ve given them, before I start reconsidering their presence in my campaign. Obviously there’s some flexibility, it’s not a life or death matter; but again I do expect at least some sign of willingness.
Next, please do understand I did specify campaign game nights above. Obviously things are different with one-shots like convention games or open table games at the local game store. I don’t expect the players to know any rules there and will happily guide them by the hand from start to finish.