I won’t rehash the licensing struggle/drama unfolding with Hasbro/WotC related to Dungeons & Dragons. I will advise anyone who is not pleased with the corporate over-reach of a company that seems to have lost touch with its customer base to please please please learn to play something else!
I grew up with the game during the TSR days before the Internet. I have fond memories of playing AD&D, Gamma World, and Gang Busters. I have always been interested in other game systems. I got into Traveller in 1980s and made the jump from D&D to World of Darkness with Vampire and then Werewolf. The GURPS editions of the WoD material pulled me into GURPS for a number of years. Since that time I’ve played Chaosium BRP games, Fate, Alien, Savage Worlds, Starfinder, and 7th Sea 2nd edition.
New systems may seem dense, unapproachable, scary. They are not! Different mechanics just present different ways to randomly determine success. Yes we get used to reaching for a d20 and hearing the DC then rolling. Fast talking the merchant is a DC12, 13/20=65% Savage worlds you roll a d10 since your skill dice in fast talking is a d10 with a set target number of 4 for a very close 70% chance of success. Call of Cthulhu you have straight percentage skills so Fast Talking is 65% you need to roll a 65 or under on a d100. Some mechanical systems are closer to simulation trying to account for all sorts of details before letting players role and others are free flowing and toss realism to the four winds in an attempt to give players a pure cinematic experience. D&D has lots of picky rules that I feel get in the way of a fast playing game. I’m in combat, is that thing I want to do an action, a reaction, a bonus action, or a free action? I know all the definitions but what I really want to do is toss a poisoned dagger at the smug merchant the moment he turns his price gouging face away from me.
New lore is a joy. I know of very few people who pick one and only one story, movie, show, book and stick with that forever. You can love Lord of the Rings and Princess bride. I know because I have seen it. Games of Thrones and Star Wars. Red Dwarf and Harry Potter. Sticking with one setting, one lore, one story line isn’t natural for most people. Even WoTC doesn’t do this. There’s a plethora of stories and settings and even divergent timelines in the D&D source materials. I read a lot of system core rule books and most of them present a setting, lore, and cosmology that is new and exciting.
I’ll be posting recommendations here and on Gamemeisters in the coming weeks for D&D refugees trying to match your play style with a replacement for post OGL 2.X D&D.
