The 5e Substitutes--Tales of the Valiant vs. Advanced 5e

A couple of years ago, I reviewed Level Up: Advanced 5e from ENWorld Publishing.  At the time, I said that it offers itself as an alternative not so much currently existing 5e, but whatever new version of 5e was coming down the pike from WotC.  In the interim, we had the great OGL crisis of January 2023, leading to a slew of games from former 5e publishers that were explicitly set up as WotC alternatives.  Many of these games--Daggerheart by Darrington Press, MCDM's currently untitled ttrpg, to take the two most prominent examples--went far afield from 5e, at least in terms of mechanics.  But there was also Kobold Press's Tales of the Valiant, which was released to Kickstarter backers last week and like A5e is pitched as being compatible with 5e material.  As a result, ToV and A5e are the two clearest choices for people who just want to be free of WotC without reorienting toward a different rules structure.  

In addition, as Mike Shea of Sly Flourish has been pushing for some time now, because they are compatible with 5e, you can mine both of these sources for material for your (WotC-based) 5e game. I think it is worth pointing out that both of these products are fully stand alone, and I would argue they are both designed to be used as complete substitutes for at least the three 5e core rulebooks.  In both cases, I think the intended use case is to adopt either ToV or A5e in total and then add back in WotC or other 5e material (especially adventures).  But Shea is certainly right that you can pick and choose pieces to work into your existing games.

Which brings me to the purpose of this post--to try to compare the two games, in order to give a roadmap to 5e DMs who are open to adding in this material in whole or part into their games.  Both games are, at least in their full forms, substantial investments.  Both also provide a large amount of material to try to wade through.  Finally, while both games are similar in the sense that they are based on 5e, they provide a fairly distinct philosophy and approach, so a 5e DM may easily find that one or the other is not in line with what they are looking for.

One last introductory comment.  Because these games both have 5e under the hood, there are some "5e-isms" that cannot be changed without breaking compatibility.  So, if you don't like the underlying math of 5e in terms of how die roll bonuses increase as you level up ("bounded accuracy") or the triple digit HP for medium to high level monsters or the basic class progression paradigm, neither of these games are going to be the solution you are looking for.  Those elements (whether they are "problems" is in the eye of the beholder--I think they are, but obviously lots of people disagree) are baked into the core of what 5e is, and they can't be changed without the game becoming something else.

Complexity Level:  As the name implies, Advanced 5e is self-consciously a more mechanically complex version of 5e.  In the broadest terms, it takes what is present in 5e and adds additional mechanical systems on top--for travel, for social encounters, for more nuanced skill use, for combat maneuvers.  There are some elements that replace existing 5e components, but it is mostly an additive process.  If you were to run all of A5e, you would end up with a meaningfully more complex game than 5e.  

By contrast, ToV is if anything an attempt to slightly simplify 5e.  Mostly, this comes in terms of standardization and cleaning up some terminology issues.  Many of the systems in 5e that are not explained well (Stealth and Hiding is a good example) are explained far better in ToV, but ultimately it is the same system.  This is not to say the ToV is a "rules light" game, and it ends up being more or less in line with baseline 5e.  But if you are looking for a 5e substitute, ToV is going to be less complex than A5e, while A5e is more mechanically robust.

New Dice Mechanics:  ToV replaces Inspiration with a Luck point mechanic.  When PCs fail attack rolls or saves, they gain a Luck point; in addition, the GM can award Luck points for "good role playing" and clever play.  A Luck point can be spent on a one-for-one basis to bump a check, or three points can be spent to re-roll a check.  To prevent players from hoarding Luck points, if the a PC accumulates more than 5 Luck Points, a random number of them will be deducted (which is sort of clunky, but I get why they do it).  

A5e adds the Expertise Dice, which works sort of like Bardic Inspiration but is added to checks via class abilities, and scales up as class levels go up.  Because of the way the Expertise Die is tied into the rebuilt A5e classes and/or some of the combat changes, it is far less modular than ToV's Luck point mechanic.

Three Pillars of Play:  Probably the biggest selling point for A5e is the increased support for the non-combat elements of play.  I particularly like the exploration challenge rules, which set up mechanical systems for overcoming terrain or situational obstacles, complete with XP rewards.  Daggerheart has a similar system, and it is one of the best parts of that game, so having this sort of thing in 5e really fills out the game play.  While these exploration challenges are deeply tied into the class design, they are still something you can lift out into other 5e games.  Similarly, there are stronghold and follower rules that can easily be lifted into other 5e games.

ToV has reworked the downtime activities, and they are much better and more flavorful than the base 5e versions in the DMG (as does A5e to some extent, but not as much as ToV).  Otherwise, ToV doesn't do much more with exploration or social than 5e.  It is worth mentioning that a ToV gamemaster guide is due in September, and based on some previews it seems like there is going to be this sort of material in that book.  But, for now, if you are looking for more material to fill out the other pillars of play A5e is clearly the place to go.

Class Design:  Both games rebuild all of the classes that are listed in the 5e PHB.  ToV standardizes the progression of "subclasses" (now a standard term--A5e calls them archetypes) across all classes, which are selected at level 3.  A5e adds travel and social-oriented class abilities for every class, which often interact directly with other mechanical systems found in A5e.  In both cases, mostly because of OGL-related rights issues, the books provide a new suite of subclasses/archetypes for each class.  ToV's subclasses are in general pretty similar to the ones found in the 5e PHB, while A5e's are more divergent and, to me, a bit more interesting.  ToV adds a "Mechanist" class, which is another take on the Artificer, while A5e adds a "Marshal" class which is clearly inspired by the 4e Warlord (and A5e also has an Artificer, but not in the core books).  As a heads-up, A5e renames some of the core classes (Monk is now "Adept," Paladin is now "Herald," Barbarian is now "Berserker") which I still think is more confusing than helpful.  In addition, the A5e Ranger is no longer a spellcaster (though there is an archetype that adds it back in).

Both games state that you can mix and match the classes from 5e with the classes present in their games.  But ToV states up front in their conversion guide that their classes are more powerful on the whole in combat than 5e classes.  Similarly, the fact that A5e classes provide access to combat maneuvers (see below) makes the martial classes more powerful than there 5e versions.  In addition, the 5e classes will be significantly less competent in travel and social situations than the A5e versions, as they lack the specific class abilities that work in those domains.  From my perspective, the class piece in both games is both the most interesting part and the least able to be incorporated into 5e, which is why I am of the view that both games are designed to be used as a whole.

"Origins": A5e calls the elements of character creation that don't involve the class piece "origins," and that's a handy umbrella term.  Both games divide what 5e calls "race" into what you might think of as the "genetic" component (what sort of being the PC is) and the "cultural" component.  ToV calls the "genetic" component "Lineage" and the cultural component "Heritage," while A5e calls the genetic component "Heritage" and the cultural component, well, "Culture."  In both cases, Ability scores bonuses are decoupled from either of the two categories--ToV simply lets the player assign the bonuses however they wish or bakes the normal +2/+1 bonuses into the standard array, while A5e attaches the bonuses to Background.  For what it is worth both work fine, but if we have agreed that we don't want to tie numerical bonuses to some particular genetic element, I think you might as well do what ToV does just make them floating modifiers.  A5e provides for Heritage abilities that come on line at higher levels.  As mentioned, A5e Backgrounds tack on the Ability Score bonuses, while ToV Backgrounds provide every character with a Talent, the ToV equivalent of a Feat (one of the reasons ToV characters are more powerful--everyone gets one at 1st level).

In addition, A5e adds the concept of an "Destiny," which is both a global motivation for adventuring as well as mechanism by which the character gains Inspiration.  ToV Backgrounds also add an "adventuring motivation," which replaces the Traits/Flaws/Bonds concept from 5e.

ToV's "Origin" components are fairly easy to port over to 5e games--just remember to add your floating bonuses at the end and you are good to go.  Keep in mind that ToV Backgrounds give everyone a Feat-equivalent, making them much more powerful and relevant than 5e Backgrounds.  A5e requires a little bit more work, because different pieces of what 5e includes under "race" are scattered among the components.  Maybe you don't care, but if you have players who want to make sure they are getting everything they got in 5e, you may need to fill in some holes if you mix and match components.

Combat:  In general, the combat rules in both games are the same as 5e.  A5e adds new tactical elements, including core flanking rules and new core combat actions.  The big change A5e adds is a very extensive set of combat maneuver rules.  There are a set of maneuvers that everyone can do, but martial characters have access to one or more Combat Traditions, which in turn give access to a suite of bespoke maneuvers powered by a pool of "exertion points."  Weapons also have a bunch of new weapon properties.

ToV ties combat maneuvers into weapons, with each weapon providing a particular sort of maneuver that it can do.  You can choose to do the maneuver instead of inflicting damage, and some martial classes have a feature which allows them to spend a bonus action to do the maneuver in addition to the normal attack.  To be honest, I like ToV's version of combat maneuvers more than A5e's, mostly because of its simplicity, and the way it makes weapon choices meaningful.  I have not really found any combat maneuver systems where the "juice" of more options is worth the "squeeze" of more complexity and the slow down of balancing the options.  That is definitely a YMMV situation, but that's where I come down.  In addition, I would point out that the ToV system is far more modular that A5e's combat maneuver system, which is deeply integrated into the class design.

Spellcasting:  ToV makes four relatively minor but smart changes to the 5e spellcasting rules.  First, "spell level" is remained "spell circle," which is a tremendous change because the distinction between "character level" and "spell level" has confused literally every person I have introduced D&D to.  Second, they ditch the idea of class-specific spell lists in favor of four unified lists--Arcane, Divine, Primordial, and Wyrd.  Third, long casting time, out of combat spells are designated as rituals and are learned separately from the the other spells (similar to 4e's handling of those types of spells).  Finally, the ToV Warlock ditches its bespoke spell slot system (i.e. fewer slots that refresh on a short rest) in favor of making them half casters a la the Paladin and Ranger.   All smart.

A5e also changes up the Warlock, using the optional spell point system from the 5e DMG for the Warlock alone, which is a bit of a strange choice.  But the real meat of A5e is found in the spells themselves, many of which are reworked.  More specifically, A5e nerfs many of the more notoriously problem spells in 5e.  For example, A5e Fireball does 6d6 as opposed to 8d6 damage using the base 3rd level slot, while Counterspell cannot dispel a spell of a level higher than the slot used, and even if Counterspell works the caster can still get off a lower level spell as a consolation prize.  On the flip side, a number of spells that don't have higher level casting options in 5e do in A5e, making the spells more flexible.  Finally, A5e introduces the concept of rare, "named" versions of spells, that are upgrades that can be given as treasure (a great idea, and one that can easily be ported in to other 5e-based games).

A couple of commentators have lamented that ToV didn't do what A5e did to the spells, and I agree that this was a bit of a missed opportunity.  But I don't see any reason why you couldn't use A5e's spells in either 5e or ToV.

Monsters:  Both ToV and A5e provide a full monster book that rebuilds all of the common D&D monsters--humanoids, dragons, giants, undead, etc.  I have not done a comprehensive survey of each monster in both books as compared to the 5e versions, but there are some pretty clear trends.

ToV, and the designers are very explicit about this, buffs up all of the monsters from their 5e versions.  Kobold Press's previous monster books are well known for having monsters that were somewhere between meaningfully and significantly tougher than 5e monsters with equivalent CR, and the ToV monsters are designed to be at the same level as the other Kobold Press books.  To take an example, the ToV troll has 10 more HP than the 5e troll, buffs bite damage from 1d6+4 to 2d8+4, and adds a bonus action that lets wounded trolls make a free bite attack and heal the damage it inflicts.  Likewise, the Wight goes from 45 to 69 HP, and all of its attacks do double the damage of the 5e version.  There are some interesting mechanics added to some of the monsters (I particularly like the ToV giants), but most of what ToV does to its monsters involves making the numbers bigger.

A5e approaches its monsters in a different way.  There are some numeric buffs (sticking with the troll, there is a slight damage buff on the bite attack), but the primary changes revolve around adding more interesting special attacks and abilities.  For example, the A5e troll has a "severed limbs" ability, such that when the troll is attacked with slashing weapons creates a series of limbs that make additional attacks, while the Wight has a cold aura and a grapple attack that triggers the life drain attack.  In doing so, A5e monsters are similar to the "action-oriented" monsters that MCDM put forward in their Flee Mortals! book, which in turn is clearly and transparently inspired by 4e's monster design ethos.  It is also worth noting that the A5e monsters also include built-in results for PC knowledge rolls, random behavior from the monster, and pre-created encounters using the monster--all very useful, and could be used even if you don't use the stat block.

Putting it together, if you are a DM that thinks that 5e monsters are weak, then ToV is the place to go to fix that; if you think 5e monsters are boring when running them, then A5e is going to be the place to go (or, also Flee Mortals!).  Truthfully, the monster piece is by far the most modular part of either of the game, so this might be the easiest and best way to dip your toe into these product lines.

Just as an aside, both ToV and A5e have monsters with spell lists, which is no longer the design paradigm with 5e.  YMMV.

Daggerheart, 2d20, and the "GM's Game"

A couple of weeks ago, Critical Role's imprint Darrington Press released the beta playtest packet for their new fantasy ttrpg Daggerheart.  I have run it for a group, some of whom had no ttrpg experience, and it went incredibly well.  We are going to keep playing, and some new people are going to be recruited into the group.  So, you might say I am incredibly excited about this game.  It is still very much in beta, and there are some rough edges to smooth out, but the tabletop experience it produces is excellent. 

On Page 11 of the current (v. 1.3, released yesterday as of this writing) of the Playtest Manuscript, there is an extensive list of games that inspired Daggerheart.  Notably absent from the list is Modiphius's 2d20 system.  In part because I am familiar with the 2d20 games in a way I am not with other listed touchstones, I was surprised by this exclusion, as Daggerheart feels very similar to the 2d20 games.  After running it, and particularly after digesting the 1.3 version, I think this is less an example of inspiration and more one of parallel evolution.  Daggerheart and 2d20 games arrive at a similar place, especially from the point of view of the GM experience, but they do so via different starting premises.  In this post, I want to break down these differing lines of development, and then talk about why I am coming around to the view that these styles of ttrpg are my personal sweet spot, as a player but especially as a GM.

Both Daggerheart and 2d20 games have at their heart a game mechanical "economy" that utilizes what are usually called "meta-currencies."  Players (not the characters, the players) and the GM have resources that they can spend to change the way the story proceeds.  As the excellent deep-dive video that Derik from Knights of the Last Call astutely points out (beginning at 51:00), this is related to but conceptually distinct from so-called "fiction first" games and game mechanics, which try to avoid interjecting mechanics into the narrative space.  Here, these currencies are tools to allow players and GMs to intervene in the story flow and introduce new elements or change the dynamic.  But, they are "economic" in the sense that they are a limited resource, and the game is predicated on players and GMs making decisions about how they will spend them--do I intervene here in this way, or do I save it for some future opportunity?  This is an aside from this post, but there is a line of criticism from advocates of fiction first games (especially the Powered by the Apocalypse/Forged in the Dark line) that these sorts of mechanics impose unnecessary and counterproductive limitations on the players and the GM "following the fiction."  For my own tastes, I am firmly in the camp of these limitations are features not bugs, for reasons I somewhat explored here and here, and will say more about at the end of this post. 

In any event, let's talk about 2d20 [as a brief aside, Modiphius's new 2d20 game Dreams and Machines adds another economic "loop" to the basic 2d20 system, but here we will skip that and focus on the other games in the family].  The fundamental economic unit of the 2d20 system is the success.  Every time a players has to make a "check," they get 2 twenty-sided dice to roll, and those dice can each generate between 0 and 2 successes, depending on the rolls and the related character abilities.  Likewise, when NPCs make a check, they usually get 2d20 to roll and generate successes.  As the name implies, successes are used to succeed on whatever task generated the check--difficulties are rated on a scale of 0 to 5 total successes needed, with most checks requiring either 1 or 2.  But the reason successes are economic is that any additional successes generated beyond the ones needed to pass the check are converted into a currency, called "Momentum" when the players generate the successes and in most 2d20 games "Threat" when the GM rolls. 

Momentum/Threat can be used in basically three categories of ways.  First, they can be spent immediately to add riders or status effects onto the outcome of the check itself.  So, for example, an attack that rolls well and generates Momentum/Threat can have that new resource be spent to cause additional damage or perform a combat maneuver like disarming the foe or knocking them down, or even take another action.  Or, they can be banked for future use.  The most common future use case is to buy additional dice to roll on a subsequent check.  Not only does this increase the chance of success on that roll, but it makes it more likely that there will be additional Momentum/Threat generated from the roll, creating a feedback loop.  But there are also other, more narrative spends for Momentum/Threat, especially on the GM side and especially with the more abstract and narrative focused versions of 2d20 (like Star Trek Adventures and Dune).  

The wrinkle here is that Momentum and Threat are convertible with each other.  A player can spend 1 Momentum to buy 1 additional dice to roll on a check, or she can give the GM 1 Threat to obtain the same bonus d20.  Another wrinkle is that checks can generate complications, which can either be immediately imposed on the scene, or converted into Threat (+2 Threat if it is a complication generated by the players, -2 Threat for an NPC complication).  Likewise, a spend of 2 Threat at any time by the GM, and in most cases 2 Momentum by the players, introduces a complication into a scene for the other side.  And, thus, Momentum and Threat function as commodities with clear pricing and the ability to be traded back and forth between the players and the GM and spent in various ways.  It's worth noting that each player has a Momentum pool cap of 6 and a mechanic where Momentum bleeds away over time, while the GM's Threat pool is uncapped and remains until spent.

Finally, 2d20 games generally use a fairly traditional action economy and turn structure.  In a combat sequence, for most games the turn order is PC/NPC/PC/NPC, and in a turn you have a standard action (which involves a check) and a suite of minor and free actions.  Other than the lack of cyclic initiative, it is basically the same concept as d20 games like D&D. 

Now let's look at Daggerheart.  Like 2d20 games, the players and the GM have respective meta-currencies, Hope and Fear.  And these meta-currencies are generated primarily from checks.  But, unlike 2d20, the generation of Hope and Fear is separate and apart from succeeding or failing the check.  Success and failure involves adding up the 2d12 plus modifiers to beat a target number, just like d20 games.  However, depending on which of the d12s is higher, the roll will also be "with Hope" or "with Fear," and this outcome is independent of the success/failure dichotomy.  So, you can Succeed with Fear and Fail with Hope, as well as Succeeding with Hope and Failing with Fear (you can also critically succeed, which has distinct effects but from an "economic" perspective is a Success with Hope).  If PCs roll "with Hope," then they get a Hope point.  If they roll with Fear, then (as of the v. 1.3 revision) the GM either "makes a move" (which is broader than but functionally similar to 2d20's imposing a complication) or takes a Fear point.  Critically, this mechanic only applies to player rolls--when the GM rolls for NPCs, he or she uses a completely different die mechanic that does not generate either Hope or Fear.  So, as compared to 2d20 games, the total volume of Hope and Fear being generated is significantly less.  On the flip side, Hope doesn't degrade on the player side, and the GM is capped at 6 Fear (reduced down from 10 in the v. 1.3 revision).

A critical difference in Daggerheart is that Hope is not directly convertible into Fear in the way Momentum and Threat are in 2d20, at least not in the current draft.  I have seen complaints online that players are Hope starved at times, and one of the obvious solutions coming from a 2d20 background is to let players buy Hope in return for Fear.  I'm probably going to experiment with this at some point, but given the relatively small Fear pool for the GM I am not sure this will work.  Another very important difference is that v 1.3 removed any Fear spends that allow the GM to boost NPC dice rolls.  At first, this was a bit of a head-scratcher for me, but I think the idea is to cut any links between success/failure and the Fear point mechanic.  Now, they are wholly separate, and instead Fear points are now used to activate NPC and/or environmental special abilities.  This concept was there in the v. 1.2 draft, but has been strongly enhanced by a more robust explanation of environmental spends, including lots of environmental spends for out of combat situations.  This parallels the game flow of 2d20 games, where Threat is used to activate terrain features and other environmental elements.

But the other primary use of Fear points relates to the action economy.  Much to the consternation of many online commentators, Daggerheart has no initiative system (even the so-called "turn based initiative" optional rule in the v. 1.3 packet is not really an initiative system in the d20 model, but a way to regulate intra-party actions).  Whenever a player wants their PC to do something, they do it.  But, when they do something that counts as an "Action" (which usually, but now not always, involves a dice roll), they hand the GM an Action Token for the Action tracker.  When players fail a check, "initiative" passed back to the GM, who then spends Action Tokens to activate NPCs to take actions. Critically, Action Tokens can be converted into Fear Tokens and visa versa at a 2 Action Token to 1 Fear Token exchange rate.  In other words, every time a player takes an Action, they hand the GM the equivalent of half of a Fear Token as the "cost" for taking that Action.  In addition, the GM can spend 1 Fear to seize the initiative from the players after any check (down from 2 Fear in v. 1.2).  So, on a roll with Fear, even if successful, the GM always has the option of seizing the initiative from the players by taking a Fear point and then immediately spending it.

As a result, while the fundamental economic unit of 2d20 games is the success, the fundamental economic unit of Daggerheart is the action.  Every action the PCs take generates a counter resource for the GM.  Rolling a Fear result gives the GM a Fear token, which converts to an additional two actions down the line.  One of the definite changes in emphasis in the v. 1.3 draft is that the designers are making clear that "Action Token" does not mean exclusively "Combat Action Token," as the implication is that this Action Token structure can and should be used for set-piece non-combat scenarios like big negotiations or social gatherings.  In such a situation, PCs will take non-combat actions that generate Action Tokens, allowing the GM to then spend them on counter-actions (especially as the v. 1.3 draft now makes the "Stress" tracker feel much more like "mental HP" than "stun damage").  

I predict the PbtA, fiction-first crowd is going to hate the v. 1.3 draft, as it moves Daggerheart in a more "gamified" direction.  I, however, love this direction, because I think these sorts of narrativist game mechanics are much more enjoyable from the GM side of the screen.  The problem with fiction-first games IME is that the GM is almost forced to take on the "story concierge" stance that I mentioned in the previous post.  Fiction-first games are designed around the players leading the narrative and the GM "yes, and-ing" in response.  It's a very passive set-up, at least during play (and even out of play, as those games tend to push the idea of the players as co-creators of the world, for sound reasons but nevertheless resulting in even further reduction in opportunities for GM creativity and freedom of action).

But, more to the point, there is no game there for the GM in the fiction-first games.  And games are fun.  2d20 games and Daggerheart, while there are differences in their implementation discussed above, both give the GM a set of fun toys to play with.  I as the GM can look at my pile of Threat/Fear tokens and figure out how to most effectively use them on behalf of the NPCs, knowing that because they are a limited resource I have a much reduced danger of unfairly steamrolling the PCs in an un-fun way.  I as the GM can play a fair and fun game, matching wits with my players without being antagonistic toward them.  I know people love the PbtA games, and you should play what you want, but I think the more mechanically-forward games like 2d20 and Daggerheart are just more fun from the GM side.  I like being the "Master of Ceremonies" (as Apocalypse World calls its GMs), but I like actually playing a game, too.

As far as between the two, I like that Daggerheart appears to me moving toward at once a more focused and also more widely-applicable set of options for the players and GM with its currencies and mechanics.  2d20 games tend toward menus of options for Momentum/Threat spends, which can result in choice paralysis. Daggerheart is directing Hope/Fear spends toward a more discrete set of options, which while limiting options makes it easier to pick up.  On the same line, while much of the GM flexibility for manipulating scenes seems to be cabined in the environmental Fear spends, improv-oriented GMs can just improv the environmental effects, while more prep-oriented GMs have the structure as a back-stop.  That's a nice compromise between styles. 

My one question is whether it makes sense for Daggerheart to simply collapse the Action Tokens and Fear Tokens into a single pool. I think the conversion rate of 2 NPC actions to 1 special ability use feels right, so if you collapsed the two pools you would need to award 2 Action Tokens for a roll "with Fear."  That's a bit awkward, and breaks the symmetry between the with Hope and with Fear result, which is why I think the designers have not made this move.  But having a single pool would make the economy behind the game fully transparent.

In any event, while I understand why this game is not going to be to everyone's taste, I think Daggerheart is shaping up to be excellent.  And, perhaps more to the point, precisely in my personal wheelhouse, such that I think it has a strong chance to become my go-to fantasy ttrpg.    

The MCDM RPG--Playtest #1 Notes

One of the weirder, and by "weird" I really mean "wrong," talking points out in the ttprg space is the notion that 13th Age is the successor to D&D 4e.  To be clear, I am a long-time fan of 13th Age (see here), and I am someone who got back into D&D and the ttprg hobby in general with 4e back in the day.  So, this is not a case of "how dare you associate [game I like] with [game I hate]!"  No, the issue is that I don't think the two games are actually that much alike in terms of the core of what brings people to the respective games.  If you liked 4e enough to be interested in a successor, you surely liked at least to some degree the robust, heavily tactical combat system that had movement and forced movement as a key lynch-pin.  13th Age has none of that, and in fact has a more abstract movement and positioning system than, for example, 5e.  So, while it is true that Rob Heinsoo was a key designer on both games, and its is true that there are a handful of mechanics (healing surges/recoveries come to mind) from 4e in 13th Age, if you liked 4e specifically I don't think there is any particular reason to think you would like 13th Age any more than any other fantasy game.

No, the real successor to 4e is MCDM Productions' forthcoming RPG, currently known simply as "The MCDM RPG."  In December, the MCDM RPG broke records by raising $4.6 million via Backerkit.  The final version of the game is promised for Q2 of next year, but you can get access to the Alpha playtests via participating in MCDM Productions' Patreon program.  I backed both the crowdfunding and the Patreon, and last Sunday I finished up running the first Alpha playtest packet.  And having done so, it is very clear to me that MCDM RPG is trying to capture the feel of 4e, and especially the feel of the core combat loop of 4e, while improving on some of the problems that pushed people away from 4e.  The game is still very much in its nascent stage, but I can report that it feels like they are well on their way toward hitting that target.

Let's talk first about the combat loop.  Like 4e, MCDM RPG is predicated on the idea of using a grid and counting squares for movement.  But the similarities go deeper than that, as many of the abilities that characters and monsters use in combat have "riders" that either force the opponent to move in a particular way, allow the character to move, or both.  This in turn makes the battle space and using the battle space a key part of game play--in our playtest folks were thrown off roofs, against walls, down pits, etc.  It's worth pointing out that the focus on forced movement and controlling movement distinguishes MCDM RPG and 4e from another popular tactical fantasy RPG, Pathfinder 2e, which is designed around the idea that all participants in the battle space will generally have free movement (by, for example, cutting way back on the prevalence of opportunity attacks). 

Likewise, a key part of the game is that the abilities synergize with each other, including abilities of different PCs and different monsters.  Here, I think MCDM improves on the 4e in a significant way by ditching the post-3e cyclic initiative model (where you roll initiative in the beginning and get locked into a fixed order within a turn) in favor of a system where the players and the Directors (the MCDM RPG term for the GM) can set the order of action each turn within a basic "you go, I go" format.  This allows PCs and monsters to set up combos and stage actions in a way that really causes both sides to think about what they are doing.  I've used similar systems in other games (Torg: Eternity and Modiphius's 2d20 games come to mind) and I simply like it better than the cyclic model--it's more fun and more engaging, for both players and GMs.  And as we got more familiar with the options in the game as the playtest went on, we found fun combinations and uses for the various abilities.

There is no question that MCDM RPG is still a work in progress in many respects, but I think the core combat loop, building on what was fun about 4e, is there.  So much so that I think the real question is the degree to which MCDM RPG fixes the problems with 4e, such that it can become a true successor as opposed to a copy-cat.  Here, I think we can identify the four most common complaints about 4e (putting aside truly technical problems, like 4e's early wonky monster scaling and math) and see the degree to which MCDM RPG addresses them--(1) "4e didn't feel like D&D;" (2) "all the classes felt the same;" (3) "combat was too slow and too much of a slog;" and (4) "4e was too combat focused and lacked other play dimensions."

"4e Didn't Feel Like D&D."  Of all the complaints, this is the most amorphous one, and for me the least salient.  D&D has existed in some many discrete forms, with so many different assumed styles of play, that I think "feels like D&D" is going to necessarily mean different things to different people.  Nevertheless, it was a big part of the negative discourse around 4e, and so it should be mentioned.

Here, I think MCDM RPG fixes the problem simply by not having the word "D&D" in the title.  Whether fair or not (and I think not), people picked up the new 4e Players Handbook with the expectation that play will feel like all of the other times they sat down to play D&D.  Because this is a new game, albeit one certainly influenced by D&D, I think players and GMs will come to MCDM RPG without that baggage, and will be better positioned to accept the game as it is. 

In fact, not having "D&D" in the title allows MCDM RPG to go further to address problems with the D&D paradigm that would not be well received if the game was attempting to be in continuity with previous editions of D&D.  In a recent development stream, Matt Colville mentioned that he thinks one of the sources of the "linear Fighter, quadratic Wizard" problem is that the jack-of-all-magic Wizard is too all-encompassing a concept to properly balance.  The first playtest packet does not contain an arcane spellcaster, but it looks like the direction they are going to go is toward more specialized concepts (they have floated a "Summoner" and an "Elementalist" as future classes) and no generalist wizard/magic-user.  Colville is probably right about the inherent and unfixable problem with the Wizard as a concept, but I think an edition of D&D that says "no wizards" is going to cause enormous wailing and gnashing of teeth among the D&D fanbase.  The MCDM RPG avoids this problem by simply not being in the direct lineage of D&D, and thus does not have to cater to those concerns.  [For what it's worth, this is how I interpret the line in the MCDM RPG marketing materials about being "unburdened by sacred cows from the 1970s" which got the usual suspects in the OSR community so fired up online].

"All the Classes Feel the Same."  4e placed all PC abilities into a fixed structure, where at a particular level a PC got a certain number of "At Will" abilities, a certain number of "per Encounter" abilities, and a certain number of "Daily" abilities.  Because the focus was on balancing abilities across classes, the criticism was that all of the abilities were mechanically the same with different flavoring, and thus the play experience of each class is the same.

MCDM's takes this three tiered structure and replaces it with two--"Signature Abilities" that fill the same place as 4e At Will abilities, and "Heroic Abilities."  Heroic Abilities are fueled by a "Heroic Resource" pool, and each class has different mechanics for gaining and spending points from the Heroic Resource pool.  Critically, each class's Heroic Resource mechanics are wildly different.  The Fury (the barbarian-type class) gains Rage points at the beginning of every turn, gets a lot of them, and gets passive bonuses based on the number of Rage points in the bank, incentivizing the player to "walk the line" and keep the Rage points in the bank high.  The Shadow gains "Insight" through using Signature Abilities, incentivizing the player to have MMO-style rotations in combat.  The Talent (the psychic/psionic class) has a negative resource that they accumulate which debuffs (and can eventually kill) the PC for using Heroic Abilities.

Thus, while each class is structured similarly, the play experience of each class is wildly different.  While it definitely took a bit to get a handle on each class's mechanics, my players were very happy with their class choices, and the Talent that I was playing for a bit nearly blew her brain up with Strain, which was exactly what you want out of that class.  We will have to see each of the classes and how they work, but what is there right now is really strong.

The other piece that works with this structure is the Victories system.  Basically, every encounter the PCs successfully overcome (whether a combat encounter, a trap-based encounter, or a social encounter) grants 1 Victory, and these Victories persist until the PCs take a full rest (in which case the Victories are converted into XP).  While in general Heroic Resources reset at the end of a combat, each Victory in the can usually results in starting with that many points in the Heroic Resource pool at the beginning of the combat.  As a result, the more encounters that have been successfully overcome in a particular session, the bigger pool the PCs will have to use their more powerful Heroic Abilities.  This allows for a natural power progression during a session, while simultaneously disincentivizing PCs from resting after every encounter to maximize resources.

All of this, I think, is a home run, and I predict classes and class design will be MCDM RPG's "killer app."

"Combat is Too Slow and Too Much of a Slog."  The big move that MCDM makes in this space is to get rid of the attack roll.  Each attack simply does a certain amount of damage.  The advantage here is basically two-fold.  One, and I think most importantly, on each turn each player does something meaningful--there are no "whiffs" where the attack roll fails and the PC essentially does nothing.  Second, there is simply one less die roll in a round, which speeds things up.

Does this fix the problem?  I think my answer here is "maybe?"  The "no whiff" part is nice, especially since one of my players has truly terrible dice rolling luck.  But a couple of things give me some pause.  First, because everyone hits on every attack, HP are quite high even at lower levels.  For example, the boss encounter at the end of the adventure had 140 HP.  Damage was in the teens to low 20s on most attacks, but I am a bit concerned about HP bloat, which was a problem with 4e (and 5e).  But, this is ultimately a tuning issue and an easy fix, to the extent it is an issue.

Another slow down we ran into was the boon and bane system.  Along the lines of advantage and disadvantage, a boon adds 1d4 to a roll and a bane subtracts 1d4.  Unlike 5e, there can be multiple boons or banes on a roll, alongside floating fixed-number modifiers.  So, at times, it took a bit of time to calculate what the proper dice pool to roll on a particular attack actually was, even though the base amount was on the character sheet.  This is definitely in part a system mastery issue, and also that we were not using a streamlined VTT experience.  But my concern is that the gains realized from getting rid of the attack role will be lost in increasingly the complexity of the damage roll.

So, this one is a "TBD" for me.  The combat loop is so much fun that my tolerance for taking on complexity is going to be pretty high, but this is definitely not going to be a rules-light game.  Finding that balance is going to be key.

"The Game Is Lacking Non-Combat Dimensions."  The MCDM crew has made clear that the game is going to very focused on heroic, cinematic stories with pitched battles with monsters.  It will not be a proceduralist dungeon crawl, nor a hexcrawl.  It also is clearly not a narrativist or "story game."  So, I think this question of what this game brings to the table other than combat is an important one to both the long-term success of the game and my level of long-term interest.

This is also a TBD question, for very understandable reasons.  In its current form, the MCDM RPG takes the form of a "vertical slice."  It is not a full game, and it will not be a full game for some time.  The ultimate answer to this question will not be clear for a year or so.

The sneak peak to MCDM's answer to this challenge is the Negotiation system.  The NPC to which you were negotiating with has a numerical rating expressing their attitude toward the PCs (Interest), and a numerical rating for how long the NPC is willing to sit around and continue the negotiation (Patience).  The NPC has a few things that the PCs can say that will automatically bump up the Interest level, and a few things that will automatically bump down the Patience level.  For everything else, there is a skill check--succeed and you bump up Interest, fail and you bump down Patience.  When the PCs get what they want, or Patience goes to zero, the Negotiation is over and the level of Interest determines the outcome.

This is somewhat similar to the, umm, controversial skill challenge mechanics from 4e.  Part of the criticism of the 4e skill challenge system was that it was anti-roleplaying, in that what you might say narratively to the King was completely divorced from what game mechanical results you get via the skill check.  I think this system fixes that problem, since if the players are clever at figuring out the right things to say to the NPC they basically auto-succeed, while still allowing PCs to flail around a bit and try things with the hope of moving things forward (while avoiding the "mother may I" problem of requiring the players to say whatever magic words the GM has come up with ahead of time).  It needs some tweaks--as with the early versions of 4e skill challenges, I thought the DCs of the "in between" skill checks were too high--but I think the idea is very solid.

Moreover, I think this formula is replicable to other sorts of non-combat events.  The playtest adventure had some really fun traps, and one of them in particular had a similar model of "this will disarm it, or you can make a skill check and see what happens."  For all sorts of challenges, I like the model of "A, B, and C will automatically work, X, Y, and Z will never work and will make things worse, and everything else is a die roll."  It rewards player creativity and role-playing, while also allowing PCs to "brute force" the problem through good dice rolling, avoiding plot cul-de-sacs where the players just can't figure out the puzzle.

So, my advice to the MCDM folks is to really lean into this formula and structure, and make the negotiation mechanic more generalized and more expansive.

****

The bottom line here is that I went into this playtest very excited about the MCDM RPG, and left even more excited.  If you haven't gotten on-board the MCDM train, I would highly encourage giving it serious consideration.

More on the OGL, and What We Might See Going Forward

OGL-gate continues to power its way through the ttrpg Internet, basically undimmed for a month or so.  Trying to cover the story (or, really, stories) is a bit like being a deadline writer at a newspaper--I've put together drafts of posts that were 3/4 of the way done, only to have the next development invalidate them.  

I am once again at the risk of having this happen again with this post.  But, let's give it a shot, because I would like to talk about the recent draft of what is now called "OGL 1.2."  You can find the text here.  Much of the commentary, not surprisingly, has been focused on what this means for creators that would make, or would consider making, content for One D&D.  That is, at the end of the day, the target audience for OGL 1.2--at least unless you believe that OGL 1.2 is entirely pretextual on the part of Wizards, in the sense that they know no one will agree to this and want to use that to shut down 3rd Party creators in toto.  For what it is worth, I don't think it is pretextual.  While it is clear Wizards wants 3rd Party creators to have a relationship to Wizards that is more tilted in favor of Wizards that the previous framework, Wizards has made moves (particularly getting rid of the royalty provisions) that only make sense if you actually want people to use the license to make stuff.

But, at the end of the day, I'm not really interested in the One D&D ecosystem.  I've been out on 5e for a few years now, and I cannot see myself engaging with One D&D except out of mere curiosity over what they have done.  What I am interested in is how OGL 1.2 affects the folks that make competitor games in what is known as the "d20" space.  I have said on numerous occasions that I am a big fan of 13th Age, which currently in playtest for a revised edition.  I'm in the playtest program, and Rob Heinsoo has asked that playtesters not comment about the specific changes, but I can say in general terms that I am extremely pleased with what I have seen, in that it makes small but meaningful changes to the mechanics in ways that improve the game flow without invalidating any of the previous support material.  I would really, really like to see that game come over the finish line.  Likewise, I have reviewed and been very impressed with both Pathfinder 2e and Level Up, and I would like those games to continue to grow and develop.  And, finally, Kobold Press has announced that they are going to do their own game system.  In my judgment, Kobold Press's 5e material is the best around, better by a significant margin than Wizards' material.  I stopped buying Wizards' 5e stuff, but I still buy Kobold Press's stuff, so their project is something that I am very much looking forward to.

All four of the publishers of the games mentioned above have signed on to the "ORC" initiative, spearheaded by Paizo, which aims to create a new OGL-like framework outside of the control of Wizards.  Thus, they are not going to be using the OGL 1.2 structure for their games.  So, my interest here is to what degree does the OGL 1.2 framework impact or hinder the publication of these games.  

Right off the bat, the first element of OGL 1.2 is that it states that OGL 1.0(a) is "deauthorized," which means (according to Wizards) "you may not use that version of the OGL, or any prior version, to publish SRD content after [a date to be determined]."  However, that same paragraph states "[i]t does not mean that any content previously published under that version needs to update to this license.  Any previously published content remains licensed under whichever version of the OGL was in effect when you published that content."

The ORC initiative, or at least Paizo, has taken the firm position that Wizards does not have the power to deauthorize OGL 1.0(a), and that question will have to be resolved (to the extent it gets resolved), via litigation.  But let's put that to the side for a moment and assume Wizards can deauthorize 1.0(a).  The second part of that paragraph is pretty clear that, for example, Paizo would not have to pulp all of its existing copies of the Pathfinder 2e core rulebook, as they were printed under the then-valid OGL 1.0(a).  And I think the language strongly suggests that Paizo could print more copies of the Pathfinder 2e core rulebook, since the core rulebook was "published" prior to the deauthorization of OGL 1.0(a).  The question, though, is whether Paizo or any of the other OGL 1.0(a) publishers can make new works that are based on previous OGL 1.0(a) material.  Pathfinder 2e has its own SRD, but that SRD is by its own terms derivative of the OGL 1.0(a) (at least right now).  OGL 1.0(a) is the base of the tree that all of these games rely on, and so if you get rid of that, then it seems likely to me that all of the branches are cut as well.

This is in large measure what ORC is for.  Presumably, Pathfinder 2e and Level Up and 13th Age will be re-published under ORC, and ORC will form the base of a new tree from which those games and any supplemental and derivative materials can grow, recreating at least in general principle the framework of the now-"deauthorized" OGL 1.0(a).  In doing so, the argument will be that these games are now completely separate from Wizards' ecosystem, not subject to OGL 1.2, and free to go their own way.

But that in turn raises another set of issues.  Each of these games utilized at least some version of the SRD, and derived their game concepts from that document, which is Wizards' IP, at least to some degree.  When all these games get republished under ORC, Wizards could sue on the theory that they infringe Wizards' copyrighted material which is only accessible under OGL 1.2, which these parties are not using.  Presumably, all of the ORC participants would like to avoid that if they could.

While it affects all of the d20 publishers, the most interesting case to me is Kobold Press's "Project Black Flag."  In their most recent post, they stated that they intend to make Black Flag "forward compatible" with at least some of KP's 5e offerings (Deep Magic 2 was mentioned).  So, it seems like KP is going to try to make a game that is as compatible with 5e as they can.  But, this is a double-edged sword, as the closer they get to 5e, the greater the chance that they will get sued by Wizards under this copyright infringement theory.  So, how close can they go?

This leads to the second interesting element of the OGL 1.2 draft, which is that it creates a third tier of D&D-related materials.  Under OGL 1.0(a), there is the material in the SRD which is Open Game Content that participants in the OGL can use, and there is Product Identity which you can't use (at least not via the OGL).  Under OGL 1.2, there is a third tier of material, so called "core D&D mechanics," that will be licensed under a separate Creative Commons License.  Thus, anyone can use those materials without having to agree to any of the other OGL 1.2 terms, so long as they abide by the attribution requirements of the CC license.  This CC-designated material consists of specified excerpts of SRD 5.1.

This material is significant.  It includes, for example, the 5e XP advancement table (pg 56 of SRD 5.1), the idea of (and one example) of Feats (pg. 75),  the six ability scores and how they work (including conversion of ability scores into bonuses--pg. 76), the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic (pg. 76), saving throws (pg. 83),  all of the combat rules including HP, hit dice, and the death and dying mechanics (pgs. 90-99), all the rules for spellcasting (pgs. 100-104), and all the rules for how monsters work (pg. 254-260).  Because it will be in CC, Kobold Press can use all of this material in their game, if they want, with no potential problems.  This will make it easy to make at least some of their previous content compatible and usable in Black Flag.  So, for example, because the basic rules for how monsters work is accessible, all of KP's (extremely good) monster books could work in the new game.  It also means that you can use these concepts generally, even in wildly transformed ways, because the CC license in question allows for transformative works.  So, I would say that any use of the six core D&D attributes is unambiguously permitted, to take an example.

On the other hand, some critical elements of the SRD will not be CC--notably all the classes, all the spells, and all the monsters.  Presumably, KP is going to want to have a Fighter in their game, and Magic Missile, and goblins.  The degree to which they can depends on how much Wizards can actually copyright the material in the SRD.

Take the spell Magic Missile, as presented in the SRD 5.1 (for reference, it is on page 161 of SRD 5.1).  It is helpful, I think, to think of that text as having three components.  First, there is the name "Magic Missile."  Second, there is the game mechanical elements of the spell--1 Action, range of 120 feet, does 1d4+1 points of damage per missile, can be cast at a higher level to generate an additional missile per level of slot.  Finally, there is the text in the box that describes how the spell works.  The general consensus is that Wizards does not have a valid copyright as to the second component, as the United States Supreme Court has held that you cannot copyright a process, and rules for a game are basically a process.  So, even though Magic Missile is in the SRD, I think there is a very strong argument that you could have a spell in your game that takes 1 Action to cast, has a range of 120 feet, and auto-hits for 1d4+1 damage without falling under the ambit of OGL 1.2 or Wizards' IP.

On the flip side, it is also pretty clear that if you copy the SRD 5.1 entry in its entirety, including the descriptive text, then you are utilizing the SRD and are subject to OGL 1.2.  The question comes in between these two poles.  For example, what if you use the title "Magic Missile," keep all of rules elements, but re-write the descriptive text?  That's basically what Level Up does, in addition to adding some additional rules associated with its "rare spells" concept. In isolation, I don't think that Wizards has any control over the title "Magic Missile"--it's not trademarked, and it is too generic to be something that really is within its intellectual property.  So, if Wizards doesn't have any real IP rights to the mechanics, and it doesn't have any rights to the name Magic Missile, then the argument would be that the two of them together must also not be something that Wizards can control  [FWIW, this seems to be the argument that the Electronic Frontier Foundation advances in this piece].  On the flip side, the name plus the mechanics is much closer to what is in Wizards' copyrighted SRD than either of the two separately, so I could see a judge saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

What about the fact that Pathfinder 2e's version of Magic Missile alters the mechanics slightly--instead of one action, Magic Missile is now 1 to 3 actions, with the number of missiles determined by the number of action spent?  Does that make it outside the scope of the SRD?  Paizo certainly seems to think so, as they assert that Pathfinder 2e is not a product of OGL-dependent material.  And, if that is true, then KP could just tweak the mechanical parts of the classes, spells, and monsters (which they likely want to do anyway) and they are in the clear no matter what they call them.  

Of course, Wizards may not look at things that way, and try to sue on some of these corner cases.  I think in the end that KP and the rest of the ORC contingent have the better of the argument, if for no other reason that they also have all of the OGL 1.0(a) revocation arguments in addition to these IP arguments (because if OGL 1.0(a) is irrevocable, then it doesn't matter how close anyone's games are to SRD 5.1, as they could just use that).  And it is possible that Wizards might choose not to push the copyright infringement claims out of a fear of a court giving them a ruling they don't want on the revocation issue.  But, if Wizards chooses to sue, it will be expensive and protracted, and thus very difficult for small companies, of which all of them except arguably Paizo are.

Paizo is clearly going to stand on its arguments that its material is different enough to fend off any IP challenge. 13th Age is, if anything, more different from 5e than Pathfinder 2e, so I suspect they will ride it out as well.  Does Level Up do the same, or do they revise their material?  Since the core mechanics are now not at issue, I would be inclined to ride it out if I were Level Up, but then I don't have to pay to defend an IP suit from a Fortune 500 company.  And then there is Kobold Press.  We are supposed to see playtest documents next month, and I will be really curious if it has "Magic Missile" in the first packet, or whether it says something like "Force Missile."

The bottom line, as I see it, is that this new OGL 1.2 makes it far, far less likely that we are going to see full-on "lawfare" between Wizards and the members of the ORC initiative.  Wizards has, on its own initiative, dramatically reduced the places in which their IP might clash with that of these other games.  This signals to me that Wizards is not itching for a fight--a fight that has big risks for Wizards.  Taking the OGL 1.2 release as a whole, it seems to me that my initial instincts were correct--all of this is not about shutting down Paizo and Pelgrane or EN Publishing, or even preventing Kobold Press from "Pathfinder-ing" 5e, but about preemptively protecting its soon-to-be released VTT from other competitors in the VTT space who would otherwise run One D&D.  Rightly or wrongly (and I think wrongly, but we will see), I think Wizards does not view Paizo or Pelgrane or Kobold Press as real competitors, at least not real enough to risk a lawsuit that might declare that Wizards has almost no rights to the D&D IP.  Whatever the wisdom of Wizards' position, it means that I suspect that fans of Pathfinder, 13th Age, and other d20 games will have uninterrupted access to their preferred games in a form that is basically the same as it is now.  And I think Project Black Flag will be fairly close to 5e, or at least as close as the KP team wants it to be, with perhaps some names changed.

At the risk of being very controversial here, I think this is what really matters with this whole OGL kerfuffle.  I get all of the technical, legal arguments about whether the OGL is irrevocable.  But at the end of the day Dungeons & Dragons, the trademarked brand of a ttrpg, belongs to Wizards of the Coast.  I don't believe that they have some positive obligation to allow people to play in their sandbox, let alone do so under any particular terms.  Nor do I think they have some obligation to allow VTT makers to be able to provide a platform for playing D&D.  But to the extent Wizards was going to use these OGL shenanigans to try to shut down or hamstrung their once and/or future competitors, that to me is fundamentally unfair, and is a problem for the ttrpg industry as a whole.  If you don't like the terms under which Wizards allows you to make One D&D content--and I don't blame you for not liking those terms, to be clear--the proper response is to play a different game.  The good news about OGL 1.2 is that I think the draft text suggests that Wizards is far less likely to be positioned to prevent people from pursuing alternatives.  That's a reason to be celebrate.

Review of the Cyberpapacy and Tharkold for Torg: Eternity

A few years back I did a review of the first three rounds of supplements for Torg: Eternity--The Living Land, The Nile Empire, and Aysle.  Overall these products were strong, and I got the sense that the designers were getting their "sea legs" as they went along and the overall quality improved.  In the last few years. notwithstanding COVID and all of that, Ulisses Spiele knocked out crowdfunding campaigns for all four of the remaining cosms--Cyberpapacy, Tharkold, Orrorsh, and recently Pan Pacifica.  All of the campaigns had the same format as the previous cosm campaigns, so check the previous post for a discussion of what's involved.  This post will handle the Cyberpapacy and Tharkold, and I will follow up with the other two.

Cyberpapacy:  If there was ever a concept that was designed to appeal to me and my interests personally, it would be the Cyberpapacy.  As one can glean from the name, the Cyberpapacy is basically cyberpunk fiction, but with the Evil Corporations replaced with the worst sort of "burn the witch" inquisitorial expy-Catholicism as the primary antagonist.  I like cyberpunk fiction, and I am really interested in all-things related to Christianity in general and high-church versions of Christianity in particular, both the good and the bad.  So, again, right in my wheel-house.   

I loved the original Cyberpapacy Sourcebook at the time it came out, but having re-read it in preparation for this review, I get the sense that the designers were not entirely sure what they wanted to do with their concept.  It has plenty of cyberware, which is good, and it had some stuff about burning witches, which is also good, but it didn't really deliver a cohesive picture of the reality of the Cyberpapacy.  Part of the problem was that the continuity of the original game had the "cyber" dimension of the Cyberpapacy be a newly imposed innovation into the reality of Magna Verita (the home cosm of the Cyberpapacy).  As a result, all of this cyber stuff was actually layered onto otherwise standard oppressive psuedo-medieval Catholicism.  It didn't fit together, and that was kind of the point.

This new take on the Cyberpapacy abandons that altogether, in favor of a much more interesting vision of the linkage between the "cyber" and the "papacy."  Now, technological innovations come from direct divine revelation (or: in a slight spoiler, from other sources. . . .)  And, critically, from no other source--science is not supported by the reality of the Cyberpapacy, and is in any event completely heretical.  Cybernetics are seen as holy because they channel the Holy Spirit of the Machine, allowing the believer to shed the weak and sinful flesh for the pure, divine mechanical replacement.  Because science is not a thing, the feel remains very culturally medieval--monasteries are basically centers of manufacturing, with monks serving as floor supervisors and the assembly line workers basically taking the role of serfs.

All of this is clearly at least an homage to the Tech Priests of Warhammer 40k, but I think this was a strong design choice.  It makes the whole thing feel like a fully formed idea as opposed to jamming together two ideas.  A small, but I think very clever and flavorful idea is the notion of a "Piety Score"--each person has a numerical rating based on saying prayers and doing Cyberchurch-approved activities (ranging from "spending your Sunday volunteering to make cyberware" to "denoucing a heretic").  Those scores are displayed when you jump into the Cyberpapacy's version of the Matrix, the Godnet, as well as anyone who has a connection to the Godnet (which is basically everyone in the Cyberpapacy).  Reaching certain tiers in your Piety Score brings you access to certain perks, both inside the Godnet and in the "real world."  For example, the "Annointed" (Piety Score 1000+) have the right to use a personal car, as well as grow wings when the they are in the Godnet.  The idea of the "gamification" of faith as expressed with Piety Scores is both brilliant and perfectly on point for the setting.

Speaking of the Godnet.  As in the previous version, the Godnet is basically the Matrix, but with a religious theme--Heaven, Hell and Purgatory are places you can go in the virtual world.  In this version, Heaven takes the form of a seven level mountain, and one's access to the levels is determined by, you guessed it, one's Piety Score.  Conceptually, this works, just like it did in the original.  But, if I may say, the devil is in the details.  Netrunning/decking rules are a notorious pain point in almost all cyberpunk games, and the rules in the original Cyberpapacy sourcebook (and the associated Godnet sourcebook) were no execption, requiring GMs to map out a dungeon-style route to go through to get to the data the PCs are seeking.  The rules in this book are much more streamlined, checking in at only eight pages, and are pitched at a much higher level of abstraction.  

Beyond the rules, I really liked two other design decisions for the Godnet.  The first is the idea of "hard light holograms."  Basically, holograms in the Cyberpapacy take on tangible form, which allows personas that are in the Godnet to project into the real world.  This solves maybe the biggest conceptual problem in netrunning/decking systems, which is that they often become divorced from what the rest of the PCs are doing.  Now, "Nodders" (Cyberpapacy's version of deckers/hackers) can hack a holoprojector and fight in the real space beside all of the PCs.  It's a brilliant solution to a difficult design problem.  The other is to put all of the "paydata" that the PCs are going to want to go get in isolated monasteries or convents, isolated from the broader Godnet.  That way, PCs as a group are going to have to physically travel to locations to get what they want, bringing the non-computer focused PCs into the action.  Also very smart, even if the explanation for why all the good stuff is in isolated locations might be a little hand-wavy for some tastes.

Unhallowed Data is the adventure path, and it is different from the previous cosm's adventure paths. It is both a mystery-focused adventure and designed for the PCs to take the quiet approach as opposed to going in guns blazing.  Stealth-oriented adventures, depending on the personalities of the players at the table, may require the GM to "gently remind" the PCs of the consequences of breaking cover, and the adventure is clearly aware of this and provides plenty of hand-holds.  It also has a very well done Act set in a convent, where the PCs have to infiltrate the convent and the nuns to get access to the key data to move the story forward.  It also features the Godnet in a later portions of the adventure path, which makes perfect sense for the Cyberpapacy adventure path.

All told, the Cyberpapacy package takes a set of sneakily difficult ideas and fuses them together in a clever, accessible, gameable set of products.    

Original Torg
Tharkold Sourcebook,
with High Lord Jezrael
a/k/a Cyber Benetar

Tharkold:  I also went back and read the original Tharkold sourcebook, and I am reminded what a fun bit of early 90s RPG cheese it was and why it was one of my (and I think many people's) favorite original Torg products.  It is just chock full of big guns and cool powers and recycling trucks that will recycle people and a major bad guy named "Sterrett of the Blades" and some half-assed social commentary on early 90s Los Angeles and a High Lord, Jezrael, that kinda looks like a cyber version of singer Pat Benetar on the cover art.  Is it all well balanced?  No.  Does all of it make sense and fit together?  Not entirely.  But it is fun.  

With the exception of the Living Land (and arguably Pan Pacifica), Tharkold got the biggest make-over for Torg: Eternity.  Much of that change has to do with relocating Tharkold back to its original location of Russia (in the original Torg continuity, Tharkold attempted to invade Russia, was defeated, and then arrived in Los Angeles and later Berlin later the war).  Some of the change was a straight-up nerf--Tharkold is now inferior technologically to the Cyberpapacy, and no longer has access to religion and miracles, getting instead psychic powers.  But reading the Tharkold sourcebook, it is also clear that the tone and mood of Tharkold has been radically changed. 

One of the more subtle but far-reaching changes has to do with the nature of the headliner antagonists in Tharkold--the techno-demons, or Tharkoldu.  In the original version, the Tharkoldu are monsters, in the sense that they are normal, albeit magical, creatures native to the Tharkold home-cosm.  In this version, they are demons in the classical, theological, and ontological sense--pure evil incarnated into a physical form via the power of magic.  Rather than the eternal predators of the humans of Tharkold ("the Race"), it is stated that these Tharkoldu were originally summoned into the cosm from Tharkold's version of hell by the wickedness and sins of the Race.  As we learn in the opening fiction, the creed of the Tharkoldu is "the evil we do lives after us"--they exist to make the world worse, to spread pain and abuse.

In fact, let's talk about the opening fiction for a moment.  I will admit that I often skip the opening fiction of ttrpg books, as it is often not that great.  The opening fiction in the Tharkold sourcebook is some of the best I have ever read.  It's so well done, in fact, that I think it probably should come with some sort of content warning.  In a few pages, the authors depict an abusive relationship between Kranod, the Tharkoldu High Lord, and Jezrael, Kranod's (at the time) human woman thrall, and the psychology that underlies such a relationship.  There is a small detail where Kranod licks Jezrael's face, and we are told that he has done that so often that hair doesn't grow on the side of her head in that region.  That detail made my skin crawl.  The resolution of the story (which I suppose it's OK to talk about as the designers have talked about it publicly) is that Jezrael kills Kranod, and Kranod accepts this because he knows that he has so traumatized her that she will never be free of the effects of the abuse she suffered at his hands.  

The new Tharkold, expressed most clearly in this story, is in a very real way an exploration of generational trauma, and how evil gets passed down and transmitted across time.  That's pretty heavy material for a game like Torg.  But it also acts as a glue to the genre elements embodied by the cosm--basically Hellraiser meets Mad Max.  Both of the component genres are pretty grim, and the synergy of them is definitely grim.  To take a single example out of many--Tharkold's version of the Matrix/the Godnet is Kur, which is literally hell, populated by lost souls and horrors who must be bargained with to find the information you are looking for.   

Upping the grimness factor is the fact that Tharkold is in the midst of a three-sided struggle for power in the cosm in the wake of Jezrael's assassination of Kranod.  One side is the completely sociopathic Jezrael; side two is fan-favorite from the original Torg Thrachen, a Tharkoldu with big ambitions and an alliance with the Gaunt Man (the High Lord of Orrorsh and the leader of the overall invasion).  And the third side is the President of Russia, a former intelligence officer who wormed in way into power pre-invasion and has used the crisis as an opportunity to not only solidify power in Russia, but also invade and annex Russia's neighbors.

I mean, it's Putin.  I know it says in the book "President Volkov," but it is clearly Putin, so much so that I would just call him "Putin" in my games.  Keep in mind that this was written prior to the invasion of the Ukraine, which I actually think is really fortunate, given the apparent unwillingness of the Torg: Eternity team to engage with current events (see my next post on Pan Pacifica).  The idea that a "native" would use an invasion as an opportunity for power is a dimension that was not really present in the original game, but it makes sense and is a fertile field for game stories.  And reading the material in the context of real-world events adds an additional edge--as over-the-top as Tharkold is, it feels more real somehow.

As far as the game mechanical content, it is what you might expect--lots of cyberware (known in Tharkold as "occultech") and psychic powers and magic spells with a suitably demonic theme.  In a nod to the original game, there are rules for playing a demon who rebels against their demonic nature; unlike the original version, these rules are relatively well balanced, which is nice.  There are also mutant powers that come with random negative side-effects, which do a nice job of being meaningfully negative without being unworkably punitive.  Nothing is world-shaking here, but everything is well done and flavorful.

The adventure path for Tharkold is Blood on the Blasted Lands.  I have discussed previously that Torg adventurers tend to have a "theme park" quality, designed to show off all of the varied elements that a particular slice of the Torg universe has to offer. Blood on the Blasted Lands is absolutely an example of this, but it is a really, really well done version of the Torg theme park.  The PCs will be traveling across the Tharkold realm, hitting both the irradiated wilderness areas as well as the major cities.  One of my favorite elements in its structure is that it starts out as a fairly conventional quest structure to travel around and find clues about The Thing while fighting off baddies and dealing with horrors, and then organically immerses the PCs in the political elements of setting.  That's tricky from a writing perspective, and it is easy to make awkward and clunky, but here it is done very well.  Getting players to care about politics in a setting and getting buy-in for difficult moral choices is often a struggle, but I think this is going to work, even for groups that already drinking deep from the Torg lore.  It's more conventional in its structure than Unhallowed Data, but it works and is very evocative of the brutal complexities of Tharkold.  

I can't decide whether Cyberpapacy or Tharkold are my favorite cosms in Torg: Eternity.  Design-wise, I think Cyberpapacy had a higher degree of difficulty, if for no other reason than coming up with good and workable netrunning rules has been such a white whale for some many games.  And I think Unhallowed Data is one of the best of the adventure paths (rivaled only by the Orrorsh one, about which more in the next post).  But there is something about Tharkold's grimness and splatter-violence mixed with a more sophisticated-than-you-would-expect political intrigue that really works.  Tharkold is still every bit as fun as the old version, but now much better balanced.  Either way, I think these two really show off the best of the genre mash-up fun that Torg has to offer.

Update, i.e. More on the Ghost of Ryan Dancey

 

Looking at the current rumor mill reminds me of my favorite bits of the OGL.

"In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual, worldwide, royaltyfree, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use Open Game Content."

— Jason Bulmahn, Game Designer (@JasonBulmahn) December 17, 2022

almost like it was desgned to be irrevocable!

— Ryan S. Dancey (@rsdancey) December 17, 2022

Jason Buhlmahn, for those who don't know, is the head designer at Paizo. I saw Tweet #1 the other day, but I missed Tweet #2, which as it turns out given today's events was actually the more relevant prescient  one.

So, what are today's events?  Well, Wizards released a statement regarding the issues I mentioned in the previous post.  The key bit of information is that Wizards will be rolling out a new version of the OGL, called in a rather transparent bit of marketing "version 1.1."  They also, hilariously, raised the spectre of "third-parties [ ] mint[ing] D&D NFTs" and possible unlicensed D&D content from "large businesses" (Amazon?  Elon Musk's "empire"?  Who's bigger than Hasbro?) as a justification for this move, which is transparently lazy pandering to the fanbase's (not unjustified, to be clear) bugaboos.  

We won't know the full extent of the changes this version 1.1 will bring, but at a minimum according to the post the new license will be limited to print and print-like publications (i.e. pdfs) of material, and not any other format and draw a clear delineation between free content and content for sale.  For content for sale, at a minimum (1) the creator must tell Wizards what they are making, and must affirmatively opt-in to the new license; (2) report how much money you are making from selling OGL 1.1-based content; and (3) above a certain threshold of revenue, OGL products must pay royalties to Wizards.  Speculation has abounded that this new 1.1 will have other provisions like the poison-pills I mentioned in the previous post in connection with the failed GSL in the 4e days, and while I would put money on this being true, this is unconfirmed.

And this is where Buhlmahn and Dancey's comments come into play.  As Buhlmahn quotes (which is found in Paragraph 9 of the 1.0 OGL), "[y]ou may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License."  What this provision does, in effect, is fork the OGL into two entirely separate trees.  Whatever provisions will govern material derived from OGL v. 1.1, you can always publish derived from the previous iteration of the OGL (i.e. "Open Gaming Content originally distributed under [the previous] version of this License."), and rely on Paragraph 9 of the old OGL for your legal authority.  Equally, you can publish material based on anything that itself was derived from the 1.0 OGL--Pathfinder, 13th Age, retroclones, etc.--as you would be "modify[ing] . . . Open Game Content originally distributed under [a previous] version of this License."

Dancey's comment suggests that, in fact, Paragraph 9 was intentionally designed to prevent Wizards (or their successors) from restricting the OGL and force people to abide by the new terms.  Companies roll out new, anti-consumer terms in the customer agreements via so-called "bill stuffers" all the time.  Wizards would surely like to force everyone to abide by the new terms, but Paragraph 9 of the old OGL prevents them from doing this.  *shakes fist at the sky* Dancey!

One last thought.  I am going to make a prediction--Critical Role will not switch to One D&D, and will stick with 5e.  It's not just that they will have to pay royalties on their Exandria supplements if they use One D&D, though there is that.  Critical Role has a video broadcast using D&D rules, and it has an animated series that is derivative of that play and those rules.  Wizards is taking the position that this is not subject to the OGL, but is instead covered under the "Fan Content Policy."  Now, Wizards is also taking the position that any non-book uses of the D&D rules were always excluded from the OGL, but it has apparently not enforced that position visa ve streamed game content and/or derivative works.  Given that, if I were advising the Critical Role folks, I would tell them they are much stronger ground sticking with a license that Wizards has a track record of not interpreting to prevent their use than switching to a new license and running the risk of Wizards being nipping at their heels. 

 

#OpenD&D and The Ghost of Ryan Dancey

If you go on Twitter (yes, yes, I know--I can't help it), one of the trending hashtags is #OpenD&D.  This hashtag is reacting to the news that Wizards of the Coast has sent out NDAs (non disclosure agreements) to some of the major 3rd Party creators for 5e as a prelude to a discussion about what it might look like to be a 3rd Party creator for One D&D a/k/a D&D 6e.  The (not unreasonable, but nevertheless unconfirmed) speculation is that Wizards is going to lay out a program that is far, far more restrictive for One D&D than the current program for 5e, and the #OpenD&D hashtag is a push-back and a protest against that possibility.

Given that, I thought it might be worthwhile to put on my day-job hat as a lawyer and talk a little bit about the OGL and what Wizards can and cannot do going forward.  At the risk of being pedantic, you see a lot of people online saying that Wizards is going to "get rid of the OGL," which as I will get into in a bit is not within Wizards' power to do.  

To begin this conversation, let's go back to the early to mid 1990s.  D&D was owned by TSR, originally founded by among others Gary Gygax.  By the 1990s though, Gygax was long gone, and he was working with GDW (Games Design Workshop) on a fantasy game called Dangerous Journeys.  When it was published, TSR, as it was want to do, sued Gygax and GDW, claiming (among other things) that it infringed D&D's IP.  Now, a couple of things to note here.  First, the general consensus among IP lawyers is that the rules of a game are not subject to copyright, at least under US law.  So, at least on the level of rules material, suing someone who makes a ttrpg that has rules that are kinda similar to your game is probably a losing proposition in the end.  For example, I stumbled across some discovery responses in the case, found by the Grognardia guy, that suggest that TSR was arguing among other things that the idea of characters losing stats by getting older, as well as the concept of the character class, was part of its IP, which seems, um, very dubious to me.  Second, GDW was at the time one of the major players in the ttrpg space--they published Traveller and Twilight 2000, which were very successful games.  

But, third, neither of the previous two facts really mattered in the end, as the lawsuit (combined with the ttrpg crash of the mid 90s) drove Dangerous Journeys off the market and GDW out of business.  TSR was just bigger, and thus had the resources to sustain protracted IP litigation in a way that Gygax and GDW were not.  The lesson here is that, when dealing with IP disputes, the question is often not "what position will ultimately be vindicated in the end?" but "what position is not going to get me sued?"  The fact that TSR probably would not ultimately prevail on the argument that game rules are part of its IP is irrelevant if it knows that no one is going to be able to get to the end of the road in a challenge to that position.  Or, said, another way, the rules for what you can and cannot do in the ttrpg space as of 1995 is whatever TSR thinks you can and cannot do, because no one wanted to get sued by TSR.

Then, in 1996, TSR is bought out by Wizards of the Coast.  The usual story told, which I think is well substantiated in Ben Riggs's book, is that TSR was close to bankruptcy at the time, and that as part of its poor financial condition it had put up the D&D IP as collateral.  But TSR was in debt to multiple banks, and so the D&D IP was sliced and diced into various pieces and assigned to various entities.  Insiders, notably Ryan Dancey, suggest that had TSR gone bankrupt, the D&D IP would have been scattered to the four winds and perhaps never reassembled into a cohesive whole.

It is in this context, alongside the fact that this is the late 1990s and Wizards of the Coast is in Internet Boom Seattle, the OGL was born.  There is a really interesting interview with Dancey that Morrus at ENWorld did a number of years ago, and while one might say that Dancey is a bit self-congratulating in the interview, it provides some interesting insight into the thought process behind the OGL.  Dancey makes clear that he believed that the OGL was good for Wizards from a business perspective, because it freed them from making unprofitable secondary and tertiary D&D material, the sort of material that buried TSR toward the end.  But Dancey also says that he saw the OGL as a vehicle to make sure what almost happened to D&D with TSR--being locked behind layers of legal infighting and thus not accessible to players--would no longer be possible.

To see how the OGL does that, let's look at the text of the OGL itself.  The OGL is very short as legal contracts go--two pages on my screen.  At the heart of the OGL is the distinction between "Open Gaming Content" and "Product Identity."  "Open Gaming Content" is defined in Paragraph 1(d) as "the game mechanic and includes methods, procedures, processes and routines to the extent such content does not embody the Product Identity. . . ."  "Product Identity," in essence, is defined as things that you can clearly copyright or trademark--"product line names, logos, identifying marks. . . creatures, characters, stories, plots, thematic elements, dialogue. . . ." 

Now, you might say, "if you just said you can't actually copyright rules, doesn't the OGL give you the 'right' to use things you already have the right to use and prevent you from using stuff you clearly can't use?"  Well, yes.  But, in return for Wizards being able to determine the boundaries of what is and is not Product Identity, Wizards grants you a "perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive License."  (Paragraph 4).  In other words, once Wizards decides that something is Open Gaming Content, it can't take it back, and you the creator can be safe in the knowledge that you are not going to suffer the same fate as Gygax and GDW.  The OGL creates space for creators to be confident that they can make something that is not going to cause them to eat a ruinous lawsuit.

So, Wizards cannot repeal or withdraw the OGL.  And Wizards cannot take content that it once said was Open Gaming Content and redesignate it as Product Identity.  More specifically, both the 3.0/3.5e and 5e System Reference Documents, which embody the content that Wizards agrees is Open Gaming Content, are fair game to be used by anyone, forever.  This is Dancey's ace-in-the-hole--no matter what Wizards or its successors do with D&D going forward, that material will always be available for folks to make their own versions of D&D, as demonstrated by Pathfinder, and 13th Age, and Shadow of the Demon Lord, and all of the other d20 based games out there.  It also allows you to build a "retro-clone" of an old version of D&D, which was likely not contemplated by Dancey but nevertheless a viable use of the OGL license.

If Wizards can't repeal the OGL, what could it do in the context of One D&D?  The first thing it could do is shut down the DM's Guild.  The DM's Guild is a separate license that allows a creator to use not just Open Gaming Content, but Wizards's Product Identity material, in return for Wizards taking a cut.  This is why you see products on the DM's Guild that remix or expand Wizards's published adventure paths--while the OGL would not let you discuss or reference the plot of Storm King's Thunder, the DM's Guild license let's you do that.  I have not looked closely at the DM's Guild license, so I am not sure if Wizards could retroactively pull things that have already been published, but it definitely could sunset the permission to use the D&D IP so that no new material could be made.

It could also leverage the DM's Guild to try to choke off the OGL.  Perhaps if you want to make content for One D&D under the DM's Guild umbrella, you have to agree that you won't make content under the OGL for previous editions.  Wizards tried something like this in the 4e with the "Game System License" or GSL, which (among its many licensee-unfriendly provisions) purported to stop you from making OGL stuff.  The GSL was a complete failure (basically, no one made anything under the GSL and stuck with the OGL), but if Wizards is creating a walled garden for One D&D, access to that garden might be attractive enough to make people forgo OGL material.  But, again, all the OGL stuff will still be out there, and no one would be forced to go along with whatever DM's Guild 2.0 rules are put in place.

The other move is to simply not release an SRD for One D&D and assert than none of it is within the ambit of Open Gaming Content.  Now, given that Wizards has told us that One D&D is going to be backwards compatible with 5e, much of One D&D should be treated as Open Gaming Content via pass-through, and all the rest of it is arguably Open Gaming Content either by virtue of the definition in the OGL or by operation of IP law.  But, as I said, wise people are keen to avoid litigation with a publicly traded company.  For example, the 5e SRD only includes one subclass per class, and I think the argument that the rules for the Battlemaster is Product Identity is borderline absurd (especially if you changed the name to "Master of Battle" or something).  But one notices that people scrupulously avoid using those subclasses in OGL material, because the whole idea of the OGL is you defer to Wizards's determination of the boundaries between Open Gaming Content and Product Identity in return for not getting sued, even if Wizards's line drawing is kinda crazy.

What Wizards can't do is say "we own all D&D, and thus you can't use any of the D&D predecessors or derivatives unless you come through us."  They can close the door to the current version of D&D, but not to D&D in total.  And we know this because, if they could, Wizards would have sued the shit out of Paizo in 2008 when Pathfinder was booming and 4e was in the toilet.  If Wizards does close the door to One D&D, then absolutely nothing stops anyone from "Paizo-fying" 5e and publishing as much 5e stuff as they want.  

Do I think that, if they could, Wizards would close off One D&D and make everyone play in their walled garden a la Apple and the iTunes store?  100% yes.  I bet you that Wizards executives shake their fist at the OGL and curse Ryan Dancey's name on the regular.  But, whatever you want to say about Dancey, he designed the OGL at least on some level to be a poison pill explicitly to prevent Wizards (or anyone else) from fully conroling how people play D&D.  Everyone who wants to monetize D&D, from now until the end of time, will be haunted by the ghost of Ryan Dancey.

All of which leads me to a question for the #OpenD&D folks, which is "what specifically do you think is essential in the current ecosystem?"  Being able to make D&D content (even if perhaps you can't call it "D&D")?  Being able to use D&D IP?  Being able to plug-into Wizards's marketing apparatus via the DM's Guild?  Because if it is #1, you basically have nothing to worry about, because we are all protected by the ghost of Ryan Dancey and the OGL.  Wizards can't take that away, even if they want to (and they probably do).  As for the others, I completely understand how a retraction of the DM's Guild would be bad for creators in that ecosystem, especially from a visibility standpoint.  But this ecosystem is a relatively recent phenomenon.  And, at the end of the day, I can't say I think people have some sort of moral right to use Wizards's IP and draft off of their marketing expenditures.  Whether it makes sense from a business or public relations standpoint is one thing, but as a legal matter and as a matter of fundamental fairness, I don't think Wizards would be in the wrong to walk back the DM's Guild in the context of One D&D.        

Particularly because, again, if you don't like what Wizards is doing with D&D, you can offer your thanks to the ghost of Ryan Dancey and go off and do your own thing.  I would be lying if I didn't say that the energy over #OpenD&D feels a bit like the objections from the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.  Many of the influencers and creators who poo-poo'ed Pathfinder and the OSR retroclone spaces a couple of years ago are now mad that the gravy-train is over as Wizards is trying to recapture some of the space that Wizards itself voluntarily ceded to those influencers.  "Why is this big company, owned by a bigger publicly traded company, who has spent the last six to eight years focusing on making D&D into a lifestyle brand in addition to being a game, making decisions that are completely in keeping with that trajectory but happen to be bad for me personally?"  At the end of the day, Wizards owns the brand, but it doesn't own the rules.  If the brand matters to you more than the rules, then you are by definition playing on their turf, with everything that brings with it.    Otherwise, you have everything you need.  Welcome to the Resistance.