Does anyone know of a system where you play as animals? Like, I'm thinking Homeward Bound/Incredible Journey sort of energy, with the classes being different types of animals or what have you. Maybe even going towards a like, Pet Avengers or Legion of Super Pets sorts of things?
HSD 2.0 is a furry trash game where you can play centaurs, birds and feral bodied but sentient animals and has a decent amount of rules weight behind the physicality of that stuff.
My Warlock just cast Summon Greater Demon through the keyhole of a locked door, so next session will open with one of the campaign bosses trapped in his quarters with an eight foot demon gorilla thing
The GM now has one week to come up with a way to de-trivialise the encounter, but at the very least the boss should be forced to use up a few spells before getting to us
I did wonder out loud whether the things that a demon picks up disappear with the demon when the spell ends, so we might have to track a mcguffin through the Abyss
My Warlock just cast Summon Greater Demon through the keyhole of a locked door, so next session will open with one of the campaign bosses trapped in his quarters with an eight foot demon gorilla thing
The GM now has one week to come up with a way to de-trivialise the encounter, but at the very least the boss should be forced to use up a few spells before getting to us
I did wonder out loud whether the things that a demon picks up disappear with the demon when the spell ends, so we might have to track a mcguffin through the Abyss
From the spell:
"At the end of each of the demon's turns, it makes a Charisma saving throw. The demon has disadvantage on this saving throw if you say its true name. On a failed save, the demon continues to obey you. On a successful save, your control of the demon ends for the rest of the duration, and the demon spends its turns pursuing and attacking the nearest non-demons to the best of its ability. If you stop concentrating on the spell before it reaches its full duration, an uncontrolled demon doesn't disappear for 1d6 rounds if it still has hit points."
The GM makes those saving throw checks and you don't get to know if they succeed or not. Until the demon bursts through the wall coming for you, and it's going to have 1d6 turns to send you to hell.
If I was that DM I'd be thinking about whether or not the demon was intelligent enough to figure out, once it passed that save, that the Boss would probably be better served as an ally to eat the faces of the puny mortals that dared to summon it.
I mean, I assume the only people in that room are ones we want dead, but that would be an interesting wrinkle...
Much like every character I've played so far, having a certain moral flexibility would help in this situation
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I remember one time back when I was just starting to game with my current group, we were playing pathfinder and were still low level. We were dealing with undead problems in a small village and we were going through a big farmers field that had multiple scare crows in it. We had found one scarecrow to actually be a ghoul, and dispatched it. So the next scarecrow we saw in the distance, I wanted to shoot with my bow and proceeded to do so to great success. As we get closer and see the scarecrow motionless, under the scarecrow clothes was the farmers boy, who had been kidnapped by the ghouls and strung up, and I had shot him dead.
After dealing with the rest of the undead I had to explain to the farmer how his son died, and my character who was absolutely torn up inside, lied through his teeth. He just couldn't come out and admit that he had been the one to kill the kid. It was an amazing bit of role play and I think a few levels later we went through the town again and I ended up fessing up to the farmer, and making things right the best I could. It really fucked my character up though, like damn.
Coming up with creepies for my eventual mega Dungeon.
Empties.
Look like perfectly normal humanoids till you get about 2-3rds up their head. The top of the head has been cut off with razor sharp precision, right through sides of the eye sockets - so that the lower eyelid is still there, but anything above that point is just gone. There's no brain inside, and you can see inside the empty, dry cranium.
Other than that they're intelligent, have some sort of sense still, no longer speak any kind of recognizable language, and are nastily aggressive.
if i get to turn a player into one, i will be pleased.
---
Also i adjusted my Grand Beast Generator further, so that Chimeras are the assumed default, which i think goes a long way to creating nice evocative critters.
So in the latest session of my Mage game, the too-crazy-for-the-Etherites Etherite spent two hours, literally, arguing with the Euthanatos about going to give a group of human traffickers The Good Death, because hey, why are you just killing people etc.
The Euthanatos.
Their name means Good Death. Props for trying to talk them out of it but...
After actually going there with them the Etherite floated the idea of filling the entire apartment complex with sleeping gas as so to assist the Euthanatos, among other horribly obvious, vulgar, and violent ideas.
At the end of that session, they had enough experience for Arete 4, and announced their intention to go on a Seeking.
HMMMMM... what's a Storyteller to do?
Later that evening (read, five minutes after the session wrapped), another powerful (NPC Contact) friend showed up at the Etherite's workshop asking for some sweet ammo to shoot some dudes with to really teach them and theirs a lesson. They very nearly just made the ammo for their friend because powerful friend, but they eventually twigged something was OFF and realized that no they shouldn't just help in murdering people just 'cause.
Their friend started prying a bit more, acting a little unusually for their presented self, and generally just challenged WHY they were helping the Euthanatos and willing to use their Craft to help another buddy murder some other people painfully basically sight unseen.
Finally, under duress at this interrogation, the Etherite admitted that when given proper justification they realized that killing the traffickers, while not IDEAL, was probably better for the world than just leaving them alive, and they had been kinda selfish for a long time with their Craft.
That NPC friend revealed themselves to be their Avatar, and they had successfuly completed their Seeking.
I kinda figured that if someone is willing to ICly debate an Euthanatos for hours 'bout killing people, then that's absolutely their Avatar having some thoughts on the matter.
Edit: Oh. I forgot to mention, after the REVEAL, the player who is new to Mage was all "Wow I thought Seekings would be weird crazy do-awesome-magic-things, not get challenged on the morality of my actions. That was cool."
Captain Ultralow resolution pictures of birdsRegistered Userregular
so, I guess a couple of years ago, I went to GenCon, and afterwards, I had dinner at my parents' house. To be polite, my mom started asking me what the hell GenCon is, and I ended up basically having to explain what a RPG is.
My dad, in college, was invited to join a D&D game but he never went, and apparently they didn't really tell him what it was about. As I was explaining what D&D is, he looked up and said "Wait, its like Tolkein, it has elves and dwarves and stuff?"
And I said "Well, its tolkein, its also conan the barbarian."
and I didn't know this at the time, but my dad was huge conan the barbarian fan as a kid. So he started to get intrigued. I play Pathfinder more than anything else, so when he asked me if he could try playing, I asked him to wait until 2e came out. Eventually, he came with me to a Pathfinder society game, and I was surprised that he actually really liked it.
So, in the midst of the pandemic, two of my regular players in a home game had to drop out. Fine, because we couldn't really play. But the urge got too strong, and the stars kind of aligned, so for the past two months, my home group has absorbed my dad and we've been having outside gaming sessions in my dad's spacious backyard, and he's really taken to it. He's playing a surly bald dwarven druid named Thrain (he came up with the name himself. Actually, I helped him with filling out a character sheet, but he came up with the character concept himself. He wanted to play an "animal trainer who could also shapeshift" and I said "okay, that's a druid") We're playing the circus-themed adventurer path that Paizo published.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I have a Session 0 for a new D&D game tomorrow night. I really want to play a Wizard. I have avoided playing full casters so far in 5e, but I really have the best grasp of the rules of anyone, and I think I can be really good.
This is a semi-homebrew campaign. The DM is using Tales from the Yawning Portal for the dungeons and encounters. But the framing device is that this world has a sort of Dungeon League. Different teams compete to delve dungeons. There's a leaderboard, sponsorships, the whole bit.
Concept 1 is sort of the wizard version of a white hat hacker. If I can, I'd pick the Mark of Warding Dwarf from Eberron. They get an INT boost, and free casts of Mage Armor and Alarm, and a mini-Bless to investigation and thieves' tools checks. Basically he's someone who has studied magical trapmaking and warding, and is getting into the League because he's a good counter-trapper. It's a fun way to fill the 'rogue' spot but be a Wizard. If no one else wants to fill that niche, I'll probably go with this. Abjurer for sure.
Concept 2 is some kind of War Wizard? I'm thinking a graduate of a school that prepares wizards specifically for combat/dungeons/the real world, rather than a more theoretical/research focused arcane university. Wizard vocational school? Someone who sees other wizards as effete and not capable of using their magic in the real world. High Elf because I like how all their abilities go. This one isn't as fleshed out in my head yet, but I think it can evolve during a session 0.
Concept 3, that I just came up with because I want a Diviner, is someone who has made and subsequently lost a lot of money betting on the League. Maybe he has to go in and play to pay his debts, or because he thinks he can do better than the people he's seen so far. This gives the background a lot of juice, the DM might like that. Creditors, gambling buddies, a debt hanging over my head. Could even go full Pete Rose and keep betting while playing. I think fixing is a no-go, that wouldn't be fun for everyone else. Plus, you're putting your life on the line to begin with, it's hard to fix a match when fixing it means dying.
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Concept 3 is some great high fantasy bullshit.
I'm all about taking goofy forms of fantasy to their logical extremes though - of course if there's fantasy sports, there's going to be fantasy betting, and of course if there's betting there are going to be people trying to cheat, and of course it would be wizards who do so, because they don't have morals.
I'd probably pull in a bit of Concept 1 for it as well - less because they're a true expert in magical trapmaking, and more because they feel like they are from having watched a lot of it. Especially if like, they've scryed themselves an insider view of the dungeons, they've got seemingly more knowledge of how these dungeon crawls really go than the viewing public. And picking up some rogue style skills would make sense for a degenerate gambler type - we all learn things from our friends.
Yeah I can work something like that in to all three. I also like the idea of someone who's been sort of an armchair quarterback being thrust into the sport. It looked so easy on TV (if that exists), that they're sure they can do it themselves.
Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Thanks to this thread, I caught myself up on the Bag 'o Flour Keyboard Warrior. Good lord. That asshole has a writing credit on 5e and, like, literally any of the brilliant writers or designers out there don't?
In fairness, I think he just had a thanks credit along with the rest of the chuds that Mearls courted to get in with that crowd, and they've removed it in newer printings. The whole thing was basically a pr stunt to get back the grognards that left for D&D variants after 4e had a major backlash. Turns out that most of those guys were total wastes (surprise?) and it's tainted 5th edition to a lot of folks.
Yeah. This is not really "better", but he didn't have anything to do with the writing or system design. He was a consultant who they asked, basically, "do you like this y/n".
But also, absolutely, Wizards could have tapped any of a huge number of great writers and designers who aren't horrible people. Even assuming they were specifically looking for OSR people in that slot, there's still plenty of choices. They have eight people listed as consultants, two of them specifically OSR people, and those two choices were among the worst people in all of RPGs. (Which we told them, and they knew, with plenty of time left to get rid of them before publication.)
wizards is a company that actively defends rapists and racists and it is a moral good to steal their products and encourage others to do the same
moral good is not using them at all. Stealing them and then hitting websites/discussing them/etc supports Wizards just as much as the $3 of margin they got from your book sale.
wizards is a company that actively defends rapists and racists and it is a moral good to steal their products and encourage others to do the same
moral good is not using them at all. Stealing them and then hitting websites/discussing them/etc supports Wizards just as much as the $3 of margin they got from your book sale.
just fucking stop playing D&D
There's a whole spectrum of alternatives for any possible level of crunch you desire these days after all.
Seriously. No matter what kind of game you're looking for, these days, you can find one that isn't D&D that will do what you want.
Even if what you want is "I want to play some D&D. I want a game that plays like D&D." You can get one that plays like any edition of D&D already, but is not actually D&D.
Off the top of my head, I'm definitely missing some:
B/X: Old-School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord
AD&D 1E: OSRIC, Hackmaster 4E
AD&D 2E: For Gold and Glory
D&D 3E/3.5: Pathfinder 1E
D&D 4E: 13th Age, Pathfinder 2E
D&D 5E: I'm actually not sure offhand of any total rewrites of 5E that are designed to still play like 5E. Someone should do that. There's probably at least one that I just can't think of right now.
If you want to play a game that still generally feels like D&D, but doesn't clone any specific edition, I recommend looking at any of the following:
Worlds Without Number
Dragon Warriors
O.L.D (part of What's Old Is New)
Hackmaster 5E/Hackmaster Basic
Battle Axe RPG
Fantasy AGE
Dungeon World
The Dark Eye
RuneQuest
Zweihander
And this is literally JUST the ones that are "it will feel basically like D&D" with fantasy settings and adventurers and dungeons and taverns and faux-medievalism and fighters and wizards. Even if the only thing you want out of an RPG is "the D&D experience", there's still dozens of options out there, and frankly, most of them are better than 5E, because they don't try to be everything to everyone; they just try to be what they are. And that means they won't appeal to everyone, but there's so many of them, you can always just find the one that appeals to you.
tzeentchlingDoctor of RocksOaklandRegistered Userregular
There's a kickstarter for an RPG ruleset of Stargate that looks interesting, that's using a 5e Open License (or something to that effect). Looked interesting even if 5e/D&D rules aren't really what I think of when it comes to Stargate (would probably run it in Genesys or something instead tbh).
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
Strahd Update
Major spoilers for the flooded village
In the last session, we found Baba's goat pen and got the skull fence howling, which summoned Baba in their flying, hollow dragon head. This session begins with the party trying to stealthily scatter. I (cleric) succeed, but the rest of the party either fails to stealth or breaks stealth to attack Baba as they get into range. Baba responds by fucking the party up with Pristmatic Spray. That is, everyone except me hiding behind a tree. I walk out and break the enchantment keeping the skull in the air causing Baba to plunge to the ground.
The party proceeds to CC the shit out of Baba using Grease to put her on the ground and then Silence to defang her. Baba eventually gets out and Misty Steps, but not before several good hits land. Before disappearing, Baba calls forth their giant walking house, only for our Dwarf Kenku hunter to mimic her voice and deceive the house into sitting back down for a turn. Eventually, the house gets going and walks towards us. I throw a mass cure wounds at the party, put Sanctuary on myself, and stroll towards the walking house with my trusty golem Stand sidekick.
[Jojoohyouareapproachingme.jpg]
Baba is standing in the doorway and takes some hits as a result and responds with ineffective return fire, although they do manage to counterspell my attempt at banishing the house. The house, because it is unable to target my Sanctuary-protected backside, proceeds to start throwing giant vines at my golem and the hunter's pet boar. They both go down several turns later (better them than us), but not before I order the golem to throw me at the house's door. Our warlock casts Featherfall as a reaction allowing me to proceed safely, if more slowly, on target. On the way, Baba stuns me with Powerword: Stun and I crash into the back of the home completely rigid. I make the saving throw and stare down Baba. By this point, another Silence spell has been cast over the house and Baba cannot cast spells nor give orders to the house (rip our golem and boar). Baba is pissed, polymorphs into insects, and flees out the back of the house leaving behind a room with a mysteriously high quality crib and baby. Baba returns to human form on the ground ready to rumble.
Trying to follow me in, the party wizard chef goes invisible and, eventually, manages to climb to the front porch with the goal of releasing ravens in two cages hanging outside the door. Unfortunately (?), our hunter makes two shots that release the cages and frees the ravens. For their efforts, the chef fails a dexterity save and flies off the house having accomplished nothing in the house. Fortunately, being invisible, our party sees none of this.
Our fighter climbs a nearby tree and makes a running jump off a branch to the house. They lock eyes with me as I, being unable to speak due to Silence, point them out of the back of the house. Throwing caution to the winds, they leap out the back window and, seeing Baba on the way down, use a magical artifact to throw scorching rays to great effect. Their heroism is rewards with a hard landing followed by the house knocking them unconscious with its giant vine whips as our golem and boar meatshields are no longer around to absorb blows.
Simultaneously, our warlock also takes a huge hit from the house and is on their last legs. They see Baba, singed and withered, approaching. Seeking to put an end to the fight, they activate their own magical artifact and necrotic Baba into unexistence.
This does not calm the house. I am the only one inside of the house. I nearly get bucked off of the house, but a maximum roll Bardic Inspiration bonus given to me early in the fight allows me pass a dexterity save and grab onto a railing by the skin of my teeth. Having previously discovered the crib and baby to be illusions, I tear open the floorboards to find a glowing green gem. An initial attempt at extracting the gem meets with magical wooden teeth, so I use my hammer to keep the teeth at bay as I try again and succeed resulting in the house settling to the ground.
The reward for our fighter? The Sunsword.
The reward for the rest of us? Probably a Vistani vampire-hunter if we figure out how to turn those goats back (presumably) into people.
Fun fact: Despite being by far the tankiest party member, I took the least damage. Would have been none if not for the magic trap.
So a small setting splash book I backed on Kickstarter came out recently and is rad: A Visitors Guide to the Rainy City is something I'd definitely pick up. Either as the backdrop for a D&D style fantasy romp or to be an alternative, weird bottle city for Blades in the Dark.
Highlights include all four seasons being weird as heck and predominantly based off of how much rain/moisture there is (it's always raining though). All of which have an accompanying bit of art that highlights the season and it's festivals/events.
There's a full spread on food, drinks, pets and other universal culture tidbits before going into big write ups of every district of the city (including some more wilderness bits).
Each district includes highlighted areas to visit, people to interact with as quest givers/NPCs and also a very helpful just "Things to do" section. It basically boils over with ideas to use.
Oh also it features a wizard named Iambic Pentacular.
Posts
One of my former kitties is in that game too, so ppl should obvs play that.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
HSD 2.0 is a furry trash game where you can play centaurs, birds and feral bodied but sentient animals and has a decent amount of rules weight behind the physicality of that stuff.
"Yeah, its a cursed item. You know how it is. Aztechnocracy spells of blood and all that."
My Warlock just cast Summon Greater Demon through the keyhole of a locked door, so next session will open with one of the campaign bosses trapped in his quarters with an eight foot demon gorilla thing
The GM now has one week to come up with a way to de-trivialise the encounter, but at the very least the boss should be forced to use up a few spells before getting to us
I did wonder out loud whether the things that a demon picks up disappear with the demon when the spell ends, so we might have to track a mcguffin through the Abyss
From the spell:
"At the end of each of the demon's turns, it makes a Charisma saving throw. The demon has disadvantage on this saving throw if you say its true name. On a failed save, the demon continues to obey you. On a successful save, your control of the demon ends for the rest of the duration, and the demon spends its turns pursuing and attacking the nearest non-demons to the best of its ability. If you stop concentrating on the spell before it reaches its full duration, an uncontrolled demon doesn't disappear for 1d6 rounds if it still has hit points."
The GM makes those saving throw checks and you don't get to know if they succeed or not. Until the demon bursts through the wall coming for you, and it's going to have 1d6 turns to send you to hell.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
My plan also very much depends on the strength of the door
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Much like every character I've played so far, having a certain moral flexibility would help in this situation
After dealing with the rest of the undead I had to explain to the farmer how his son died, and my character who was absolutely torn up inside, lied through his teeth. He just couldn't come out and admit that he had been the one to kill the kid. It was an amazing bit of role play and I think a few levels later we went through the town again and I ended up fessing up to the farmer, and making things right the best I could. It really fucked my character up though, like damn.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
So many ghouls in that second book.
Empties.
Look like perfectly normal humanoids till you get about 2-3rds up their head. The top of the head has been cut off with razor sharp precision, right through sides of the eye sockets - so that the lower eyelid is still there, but anything above that point is just gone. There's no brain inside, and you can see inside the empty, dry cranium.
Other than that they're intelligent, have some sort of sense still, no longer speak any kind of recognizable language, and are nastily aggressive.
if i get to turn a player into one, i will be pleased.
---
Also i adjusted my Grand Beast Generator further, so that Chimeras are the assumed default, which i think goes a long way to creating nice evocative critters.
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The Euthanatos.
Their name means Good Death. Props for trying to talk them out of it but...
After actually going there with them the Etherite floated the idea of filling the entire apartment complex with sleeping gas as so to assist the Euthanatos, among other horribly obvious, vulgar, and violent ideas.
At the end of that session, they had enough experience for Arete 4, and announced their intention to go on a Seeking.
HMMMMM... what's a Storyteller to do?
Later that evening (read, five minutes after the session wrapped), another powerful (NPC Contact) friend showed up at the Etherite's workshop asking for some sweet ammo to shoot some dudes with to really teach them and theirs a lesson. They very nearly just made the ammo for their friend because powerful friend, but they eventually twigged something was OFF and realized that no they shouldn't just help in murdering people just 'cause.
Their friend started prying a bit more, acting a little unusually for their presented self, and generally just challenged WHY they were helping the Euthanatos and willing to use their Craft to help another buddy murder some other people painfully basically sight unseen.
Finally, under duress at this interrogation, the Etherite admitted that when given proper justification they realized that killing the traffickers, while not IDEAL, was probably better for the world than just leaving them alive, and they had been kinda selfish for a long time with their Craft.
That NPC friend revealed themselves to be their Avatar, and they had successfuly completed their Seeking.
I kinda figured that if someone is willing to ICly debate an Euthanatos for hours 'bout killing people, then that's absolutely their Avatar having some thoughts on the matter.
Edit: Oh. I forgot to mention, after the REVEAL, the player who is new to Mage was all "Wow I thought Seekings would be weird crazy do-awesome-magic-things, not get challenged on the morality of my actions. That was cool."
WELCOME TO MAGE: THE ASCENSION
Hey. Hey. Hey you. Psst. Wanna play in a mega dungeon?
I'm recruiting for one!
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My dad, in college, was invited to join a D&D game but he never went, and apparently they didn't really tell him what it was about. As I was explaining what D&D is, he looked up and said "Wait, its like Tolkein, it has elves and dwarves and stuff?"
And I said "Well, its tolkein, its also conan the barbarian."
and I didn't know this at the time, but my dad was huge conan the barbarian fan as a kid. So he started to get intrigued. I play Pathfinder more than anything else, so when he asked me if he could try playing, I asked him to wait until 2e came out. Eventually, he came with me to a Pathfinder society game, and I was surprised that he actually really liked it.
So, in the midst of the pandemic, two of my regular players in a home game had to drop out. Fine, because we couldn't really play. But the urge got too strong, and the stars kind of aligned, so for the past two months, my home group has absorbed my dad and we've been having outside gaming sessions in my dad's spacious backyard, and he's really taken to it. He's playing a surly bald dwarven druid named Thrain (he came up with the name himself. Actually, I helped him with filling out a character sheet, but he came up with the character concept himself. He wanted to play an "animal trainer who could also shapeshift" and I said "okay, that's a druid") We're playing the circus-themed adventurer path that Paizo published.
This is a semi-homebrew campaign. The DM is using Tales from the Yawning Portal for the dungeons and encounters. But the framing device is that this world has a sort of Dungeon League. Different teams compete to delve dungeons. There's a leaderboard, sponsorships, the whole bit.
Concept 1 is sort of the wizard version of a white hat hacker. If I can, I'd pick the Mark of Warding Dwarf from Eberron. They get an INT boost, and free casts of Mage Armor and Alarm, and a mini-Bless to investigation and thieves' tools checks. Basically he's someone who has studied magical trapmaking and warding, and is getting into the League because he's a good counter-trapper. It's a fun way to fill the 'rogue' spot but be a Wizard. If no one else wants to fill that niche, I'll probably go with this. Abjurer for sure.
Concept 2 is some kind of War Wizard? I'm thinking a graduate of a school that prepares wizards specifically for combat/dungeons/the real world, rather than a more theoretical/research focused arcane university. Wizard vocational school? Someone who sees other wizards as effete and not capable of using their magic in the real world. High Elf because I like how all their abilities go. This one isn't as fleshed out in my head yet, but I think it can evolve during a session 0.
Concept 3, that I just came up with because I want a Diviner, is someone who has made and subsequently lost a lot of money betting on the League. Maybe he has to go in and play to pay his debts, or because he thinks he can do better than the people he's seen so far. This gives the background a lot of juice, the DM might like that. Creditors, gambling buddies, a debt hanging over my head. Could even go full Pete Rose and keep betting while playing. I think fixing is a no-go, that wouldn't be fun for everyone else. Plus, you're putting your life on the line to begin with, it's hard to fix a match when fixing it means dying.
I'm all about taking goofy forms of fantasy to their logical extremes though - of course if there's fantasy sports, there's going to be fantasy betting, and of course if there's betting there are going to be people trying to cheat, and of course it would be wizards who do so, because they don't have morals.
I'd probably pull in a bit of Concept 1 for it as well - less because they're a true expert in magical trapmaking, and more because they feel like they are from having watched a lot of it. Especially if like, they've scryed themselves an insider view of the dungeons, they've got seemingly more knowledge of how these dungeon crawls really go than the viewing public. And picking up some rogue style skills would make sense for a degenerate gambler type - we all learn things from our friends.
But also, absolutely, Wizards could have tapped any of a huge number of great writers and designers who aren't horrible people. Even assuming they were specifically looking for OSR people in that slot, there's still plenty of choices. They have eight people listed as consultants, two of them specifically OSR people, and those two choices were among the worst people in all of RPGs. (Which we told them, and they knew, with plenty of time left to get rid of them before publication.)
DIESEL
Against the Fall of Night Playtest
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
moral good is not using them at all. Stealing them and then hitting websites/discussing them/etc supports Wizards just as much as the $3 of margin they got from your book sale.
just fucking stop playing D&D
There's a whole spectrum of alternatives for any possible level of crunch you desire these days after all.
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PSN: AbEntropy
Even if what you want is "I want to play some D&D. I want a game that plays like D&D." You can get one that plays like any edition of D&D already, but is not actually D&D.
Off the top of my head, I'm definitely missing some:
B/X: Old-School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord
AD&D 1E: OSRIC, Hackmaster 4E
AD&D 2E: For Gold and Glory
D&D 3E/3.5: Pathfinder 1E
D&D 4E: 13th Age, Pathfinder 2E
D&D 5E: I'm actually not sure offhand of any total rewrites of 5E that are designed to still play like 5E. Someone should do that. There's probably at least one that I just can't think of right now.
If you want to play a game that still generally feels like D&D, but doesn't clone any specific edition, I recommend looking at any of the following:
Worlds Without Number
Dragon Warriors
O.L.D (part of What's Old Is New)
Hackmaster 5E/Hackmaster Basic
Battle Axe RPG
Fantasy AGE
Dungeon World
The Dark Eye
RuneQuest
Zweihander
And this is literally JUST the ones that are "it will feel basically like D&D" with fantasy settings and adventurers and dungeons and taverns and faux-medievalism and fighters and wizards. Even if the only thing you want out of an RPG is "the D&D experience", there's still dozens of options out there, and frankly, most of them are better than 5E, because they don't try to be everything to everyone; they just try to be what they are. And that means they won't appeal to everyone, but there's so many of them, you can always just find the one that appeals to you.
DIESEL
Against the Fall of Night Playtest
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
The guys who made it are great, and I had a blast playing it during playtesting
Major spoilers for the flooded village
The party proceeds to CC the shit out of Baba using Grease to put her on the ground and then Silence to defang her. Baba eventually gets out and Misty Steps, but not before several good hits land. Before disappearing, Baba calls forth their giant walking house, only for our Dwarf Kenku hunter to mimic her voice and deceive the house into sitting back down for a turn. Eventually, the house gets going and walks towards us. I throw a mass cure wounds at the party, put Sanctuary on myself, and stroll towards the walking house with my trusty golem Stand sidekick.
[Jojoohyouareapproachingme.jpg]
Baba is standing in the doorway and takes some hits as a result and responds with ineffective return fire, although they do manage to counterspell my attempt at banishing the house. The house, because it is unable to target my Sanctuary-protected backside, proceeds to start throwing giant vines at my golem and the hunter's pet boar. They both go down several turns later (better them than us), but not before I order the golem to throw me at the house's door. Our warlock casts Featherfall as a reaction allowing me to proceed safely, if more slowly, on target. On the way, Baba stuns me with Powerword: Stun and I crash into the back of the home completely rigid. I make the saving throw and stare down Baba. By this point, another Silence spell has been cast over the house and Baba cannot cast spells nor give orders to the house (rip our golem and boar). Baba is pissed, polymorphs into insects, and flees out the back of the house leaving behind a room with a mysteriously high quality crib and baby. Baba returns to human form on the ground ready to rumble.
Trying to follow me in, the party wizard chef goes invisible and, eventually, manages to climb to the front porch with the goal of releasing ravens in two cages hanging outside the door. Unfortunately (?), our hunter makes two shots that release the cages and frees the ravens. For their efforts, the chef fails a dexterity save and flies off the house having accomplished nothing in the house. Fortunately, being invisible, our party sees none of this.
Our fighter climbs a nearby tree and makes a running jump off a branch to the house. They lock eyes with me as I, being unable to speak due to Silence, point them out of the back of the house. Throwing caution to the winds, they leap out the back window and, seeing Baba on the way down, use a magical artifact to throw scorching rays to great effect. Their heroism is rewards with a hard landing followed by the house knocking them unconscious with its giant vine whips as our golem and boar meatshields are no longer around to absorb blows.
Simultaneously, our warlock also takes a huge hit from the house and is on their last legs. They see Baba, singed and withered, approaching. Seeking to put an end to the fight, they activate their own magical artifact and necrotic Baba into unexistence.
This does not calm the house. I am the only one inside of the house. I nearly get bucked off of the house, but a maximum roll Bardic Inspiration bonus given to me early in the fight allows me pass a dexterity save and grab onto a railing by the skin of my teeth. Having previously discovered the crib and baby to be illusions, I tear open the floorboards to find a glowing green gem. An initial attempt at extracting the gem meets with magical wooden teeth, so I use my hammer to keep the teeth at bay as I try again and succeed resulting in the house settling to the ground.
The reward for our fighter? The Sunsword.
The reward for the rest of us? Probably a Vistani vampire-hunter if we figure out how to turn those goats back (presumably) into people.
Fun fact: Despite being by far the tankiest party member, I took the least damage. Would have been none if not for the magic trap.
Highlights include all four seasons being weird as heck and predominantly based off of how much rain/moisture there is (it's always raining though). All of which have an accompanying bit of art that highlights the season and it's festivals/events.
There's a full spread on food, drinks, pets and other universal culture tidbits before going into big write ups of every district of the city (including some more wilderness bits).
Each district includes highlighted areas to visit, people to interact with as quest givers/NPCs and also a very helpful just "Things to do" section. It basically boils over with ideas to use.
Oh also it features a wizard named Iambic Pentacular.
Which is the best wizard name I've ever heard.
Etc etc