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Now, this needs a preface.

I am not a 5e-fan here to be like "hyuk, tried to swing at the king, huh?"

Nor is this a "is 5e dead yet" post.

Like, here is what I already know: 5e is still the biggest game in town, but primarily 2014 and not 2024 edition. The other games came out and have fanbases, but they are smaller and mostly congregate on discord. So, the games SEEM deader than they are because the communities are mostly posting in places where you have to be fans to see. Like, for example, I am a fan of Fabula Ultima (which is not a 5e-killer, I know, it's to make a point) but you wouldn't know how popular it is if you weren't on their official discord already and see all the activity there.

What this thread is about is what games came out, what didn't, and how are they doing?

Here is what I know exists:

1 -Tales of the Valiant: Made by Kobold Games, who did a bunch of 5e adventures. Probably the closest to a Pathfinder 1e for 5e since it appears to almost be a 1-for-1 copy.

2 - Daggerheart: Made by Critical Role, this game is actually nothing really like 5e and borrows a lot from Blades In the Dark, PBtA, and other indie games.

3 - Draw Steel: Made by Matt Coleville, it's more 4e than 5e. Since 4e was originally a reaction to issues in the combat system in 3.5 and 5e is based heavily on 3.5, it basically is history repeating itself from what I've heard with a game incorporating those elements to address the same issues that 5e imported when it used 3.5e as a base.

That's all I know about as a directly post-OGL crisis 5e killer. Not sure if there were more announced than never came out. Not sure how the general audiences are feeling. Not sure if more current/former 5e 3pp are deciding to go out and make their own games, even now, to escape the WotC bubble. Of course, if we use that definition, you get into weird grounds and have to ask yourself if Vagabond or Journeymon counts or not, since they're both developed by former 5e 3pp devs.

I have lived through some pretty bad shit.

I am a survivor of CSA. The trauma of that was worsened by Section 28 (the UK's anti-LGBT+ laws in the 90s) that created a culture of silence that made talking about what happned much harder through most of my life. Add to that a whole range of struggles to long to list.

RPG play, reading and design were a tool I used to survive in the face of these things. No matter how bad things got, the prospect of the next game helped. Writing notes for a Call of Cthulhu scenario helped, reading a WoD splat book helped.

It has never been something I have used to pretend these problems do not exist; it was not escapism. It was merely rest bite. A few moments

In the current moment...it isn't helping any more. This feels pointless, and "unreal" in a way it never has before. Like an indulgence.

How do I get this back, so I can recharge, and keep going, doing practical things to try to make the moment we are living in suck less?

My daughter is 6 months old and I recognise that she's too young to play, she should at least be able to point at things :D

But I'm curious so I'm asking you, at which age did you introduced your child to Rpg? With which game? How did it went?

I sometimes hear about this approach, particularly in OSR-adjacent circles where that seems to be a much more standard modus operandi, the idea of taking some parts of one game (or several, even) with the intent of hooking them up to another, possibly wildly unrelated game.

(The most common example I'm aware of broadly is the generators in Kevin Crawford's Without Number series and other games of his. GURPS and its meticulous detail on any given topic is another.)

It sounds fascinating to me, but the games I play tend to be a bit too tightly integrated with their own parts to really allow that kind of Lego-like modularity, so I kinda wanna know what this experience is like for you Frankensteins of the TTRPG world, particularly in terms of how much 'smoothing over' it requires to make things not feel like they've obviously been stitched together from disparate sources, as that's been a personal hangup of mine in that regard.

I’ve seen a lot of people reviewing Draw Steel commenting that they love the combat but once combat is over, they don’t feel the system is engaging. But almost no one seems to expound on exactly why they feel that way.

While I understand that some systems truly are just Tabletop Combat games, this take has me extremely confused because I don’t feel the Draw Steel system is any less oriented toward roleplay than D&D is. At the end of the day, roleplay at my tables is generally entirely nonreliant on rules absent occasional skill checks (which Draw Steel has). If anything, the negotiation system and skill challenge rules add a lot to non-combat encounters that I’ve felt D&D has struggled with quite a bit in my TTRPG experience. The only compelling argument I can imagine is that Draw Steel lacks a ‘Dungeon Master’s Guide’ book, which isn’t as much a game design flaw as a development problem.

Can someone who has this gripe provide some more context on why they feel this way?

(Context: I’ve been playing D&D for almost a decade and watching Matt Colville almost as long as that. So, huge fan of both systems but with a bias toward wanting to replace my campaign with Draw Steel in the future.)

Hi everyone

I'm new to the tabletop roleplaying scene, so my knowledge is very limited. Just had my first experience with a DND 5e one shot and it was not at all what I was expecting. I found it to be too unrealistic for my taste:

Magic is mundane and too powerful, the world doesn't make much sense when it comes to politics, geography or just society in general.

A few characters can just take down a dragon down the line like it's nothing. Also everyone at the table roleplayed their supposedly adult and grown characters like 14 year olds and made modern jokes and references all the time and it really got me out of the experience. Didn't enjoy being limited by a class either.

I was looking for something more grounded, like a Westeros setting, where I could play a hedge knight, a treasure hunter, a squire, a pirate or just a wandering peasant looking for adventure. characters would be Skill based instead of classes. Combat encounters would be realistic, where even a full armoured knight could die facing 3 ambushing bandits and killing a dragon would require a massive army and many casualties. Magic would be misterious and very rare but supernatural monsters like undead, ghosts, sea monsters, dragons, giants, goblins, etc would still exist in the wilds. I know this might be too specific but is there any system that emulates this?

Thank you!

ps: I don't mean any offence to folk who enjoy DnD, it really just wasn't my cup of tea.

Just want to shout out about their really amazing customer support. I own almost all of their products, and whenever I needed something or asked for help, they were more than helpful. That's another reason I'm always supporting them. I appreciate a lot how they treat you - especially in this day and age when it's getting out of fashion.

I saw quite a few references to Paper Buttons in a draw steel thread and i saw it very much as a 'people want to be able to hit a button and skip challenges' thing, but I feel there might be more to this topic?

I'd like to ask what thoughts or definitions you have surrounding Paper Buttons or experiences (good or bad) you might have!

I feel I've been out of the design loop since like, 2021 trpg twitter so I'd like to get some insights!

As the title says, my gaming group is looking to move away from 2014 5e after WoTC has decided to push 2024 5e on everyone. Our all time favorite rpg is the Hero System, however, the math required to play that game, and the lackluster software accompanying it, leave much to be desired. We attend at least two of the CONs each year and have tried many games but nothing has much caught our eye other than the Cypher system (although much of its tooling is coming later this year - see below).

What we're looking for:

- Genre agnostic

- Tons of character creation flexibility

- Crunchy combat (subjective I know but most are min-maxxers and they appreciate this)

- Online tooling (this is the hard one as not much compares to D&D Beyond and it's integration with VTTs)

Appreciate any insight anyone might have. We're definitely willing to test systems and hoping several of you have suggestions.

Hi folks, I’m looking for a pre-written module in which you explore the world through play. I’m not looking for Hexcrawl or dungeon crawl generators (those are great fun and we already do those on occasion) but something with intentional design. I’d be interested in adventures where the GM can be surprised along with the players.

I have no preference on the underlying system. Thanks for any recommendations!