With Hasbro forcing D&D 5E to commit seppuku, I thought it would be a good time to look into other tabletop games, and was looking for suggestions.

 

Pathfinder seems the obvious choice, but there's also the Apocalypse system and all the games that stream out of that, the GI Joe and Transformers RPGs from Renegade are not technically d&d, and the independent system Commandroids is based off of might be worth looking into as well.

The Cyberpunk system is getting more attention because of the game and anime, but I've always been more partial to Shadowrun.

Spoiler

Dehumanize yourself and face to RIFTS

 

One D&D is supposed to be backward compatible with 5E so I'm not sure why you think they're killing it? Unless you're talking about them screwing with the OGL which is pretty bullshit, but my understanding is that the updated OGL only applies to One D&D content and not any content of the previous versions.

 

Except it doesn't.
Let’s Take A Minute To Talk About D&D’s Open Gaming License (OGL)

The OGL 1.1 expressly revokes the OGL 1.0a, and if the 3rd parties don't sign, they cannot make content without being sued.

 

That's interesting because I've read articles saying differently, but maybe those were working on the original leak from a couple of weeks back. In any case, I'm not particularly worried about it myself. I homebrew the hell out of everything so the base books are more guidelines than anything. I'm not going to stop playing 5e just because Hasbro is being shitheads. Plus, I feel like this is going to seriously backfire on them and there will be a reversal eventually.

 

The moral outrage coming out of the gaming community feels a little overwrought. WotC opened the license to help expand their product back during 3e. Hasbro and WotC obviously feel like they're satisfied with the content now and are pedaling back while monetizing what they can - and they're in their right to do so. Note that the monetization will only occur if you meet a certain income threshold off sales of the product, so folks selling cheap $2 one-off adventures won't be impacted.

More than anything, I see this as a swing against virtual systems like RollD20, who replicates the sourcebooks to provide virtual 5e gaming. Obviously, since Hasbro wants to expand DnD Beyond to do a lot of what these virtual systems do, they see them as competition. And, I hate to say it, but I think Hasbro is making the right call on that one. It's just going to be painful because it'll force a bunch of players to repurchase materials or potentially watch as the services they use just shut down altogether while Hasbro tries to force them to their official product. Will they lose some players this way? Yes. But I think they see it as a decent risk/reward maneuver while it helps tighten their grip on their IP. The original OGL will make it harder for them to litigate their IP in court...so, yeah, like it or not, OGL 1.1 helps Hasbro more than it hurts Hasbro.

And, if you're like me who does everything about 90% in person with pen and paper, it really doesn't matter much either way. It'll be much more painful for the online gaming community.

 

I actually agree with everything you've said here. The outrage seems to be overwrought given that no regular person is doing the kind of money Critical Roll, Kobold Press, and other 3rd party publishers are. Myself, I homebrew the hell out of everything so like you I do everything with pen and paper. This really won't affect me at all. The only reason I think it might backfire is that the online gaming community is a really big part of D&D players at this point. I guess it's going to depend on how serious they are about "quitting", but I agree with you that Hasbro obviously thinks that more people will stay rather than go and it's a calculated risk for them at this point.

 

I'm thinking WotC is about to say "Hold my beer" with OneDnD.

I've played Lost Mines, Dragon of Icespire, Hoard of The Dragon Queen and am 2/3's through Rise of Tiamat. I think 5e does a good balance of combat and roleplay. Note that I've tossed out a fair amount of the Rules As Written and work mostly in the framework of advantage/disadvantage when it comes to encounters and skill difficulty. The main thing is for my players to have fun and they tend to have that in spades. if I wanted complicated, I'd play Rolemaster.

 

The last time DnD had a fall out was the transition from 3.5 to 4, when Pathfinder suddenly found themselves with a bunch of 3.5 holdouts. But DnD survived then and they'll survive again.

Kobold Press is taking their toys and going home. Mmm, ok. let's see if there will be ever a Kobold Press feature length movie to generate new interest in their product...

 

In mid 90's I was for a while into roleplaying, The Call of Cthulhu, AD&D and others, interesting times. Still have my dices.

 

The DnD Beyond page is crashing. Heavy traffic from people looking to cancel their subscriptions.

Speaking of, Beyond canceled their stream addressing this.

 

DnD shrunk during 4E because they tried to do the same thing as now. 5th rolled it back because of the issue.

 

4e shrank because they oversimplfied the system into a "boardgame" with Warcraft in mind. Players saw it as a downgrade and the player base shrank. 5e brought back more roleplay elements and people wandered back in. The OGL didn't change during that time - it's been the same since 3.5e.

I'm not certain what will happen when OneDnD comes out. We could end up with the scenario where a bunch of 5e holdouts move to Kobold's new open source system they just announced (like Pathfinder did during 4e). But DnD has a MUCH larger audience than it did 20 years ago. And OneDnD is probably going to look more like 5.5e than a wholesale 6e, where 5e modules will retain compatibility.

Personally, I think Kobold is overplaying their hand. But they're in their right to try. Competition is always good, anyway.

 

Cyberpunk is a great system to learn on because it’s simple. Compared to 2E DnD which I think is overly complicated to the point of being fucking insufferable.

 

That's what I learned growing up. Nothing is difficult to catch on to afterwards.

 

Second Edition? Yeah, if you can get your head around that prick, everything else is gravy.

 

Looks like Pathfinder is going to make their own OGL, and the response seems very good so far. Probably going with them.

Yep, inherited it from my brother. THAC0 and all of the rest.

 

Warhammer Fantasy 6th Edition and 40K 3rd Edition.