Or.. just play ShadowDark :) Or Castles & Crusades!

Goblins and sticks thats a shout out to me Thanks for the free press

I play it wrong. I don't care. How? Easy. I play Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age, OSE, Basic Fantasy, Castles & Crusades, Swords & Wizardry, Lamentations of The Flame Princess, Cairn, basically anything BUT 5E. Any 5E Supplements I have get converted to Castles & Crusades and it's little if any homework.

1. Powercreep: Yeah like no other TTRPG has that issue...and generally plenty of later released classes cant even scratch on smth like the moon druid. So this point is bs. 2. Player focused game. If it was a bad system that didnt offer good games it wouldnt be the literally most successful edition of the game. People wouldnt buy it. And your rambling makes almost no sense for the topic. The mechanics of 5e dont support in any way that the system equalizes the importance of PCs. Else please point out those rules. MinMaxing and players being unhappy with limited choices has always been a problem. What stops you from limiting stuff in 5e? players could cry just as well in 3.5. There is literally nothing stopping you. Just as little as it did in 5e. I assume your actual problem is that players are not the same as 30 years ago. They like dofferent things. Thats fine. But no issue of the edition. 13:00 instant death or saves both have positives and negatives. Its pure taste on what you like more. Its pure arrogance to claim one is better. 10min in and not a single issue mentioned is edition specific. I want to continue listening but this is clearly just a rant buy someone who doesnt like the edition and makes up reasons to support that opinion.

26:45 that would be Mythmere Games.

Good ideas. Subbed.

Hmmm...this guy sounds familiar. :) Interesting thoughts, sir. Looking forward to hearing more. Gotta get that Z running, though.

So, I completely understand that many things in 5e and even 6e need to be fixed or changed. However, there's one big issue I have with all thw suggested changes. None of them make your game sound like it would be any fun. Ttrpgs are all about, first and foremost, having fun at a table with your friends/players. If you want to make the game more difficult just for the sake of making it difficult, then you're playing for the wrong reasons.

😊 I'm already loving it by the 3:20 to 3:36 mark.

5th edition is OK, if you want to play that style of game. Superheroic is a good description for it. Otherwise, for that more grounded feel I play / DM OSR type games. I agree with a lot of your ideas on fixing 5E, but it's easier to start out with an OSR framework. Less to change / fix. There is always something to tiker with :D I need to look at Shadowdark. it sounds closer to the style I prefer. I'm waiting for them to re-print it (February I gather). You can get the PDF right now but while I find PDFs useful, I need a physical book to get into a system.

"it's not the way i want it to be, therefor it's garbage." ok.

Are you familiar with any of the Vatican Cardinals? Who would you like to become the next and proper Pope?

Messaged you on discord. I'm down to run a playtest

I am curious about the game system. Enjoyed your talk the other day. Also, growing up in northwest Georgia, those roads looked very familiar.

Cool. ...... My first question got passed over again.

I'll have to watch the playback of Pundit's stream, I was able to pop in for a few minutes but had to run.

I've always told players their characters story will largely be written in game. I have a series of tables form which characters can either roll or choose elements of their backstory. Nationality, social class (based on their class choice), age, family (parents / siblings birth order), relation with parents / siblings. Other odds and ends at the players choice, but no chosen ones, heirloom weapons, vast experience etc. It gives the broad outline of a backstory for players to build on and, for those who don't want to bother, a baseline minimum. It has worked pretty well over the years, but then I tend to play with an older crew (I'm 66).

On the whole, this is good advice, and has made for a good series of videos. That said, I would advise against directly lifting ideas, piecemeal, from historical sources. Each culture, historical or contemporary, is an integrated collection of subsystems, which must be considered holistically, because effects in one subsystem are not easily assigned to particular inter-systemic or intra-systemic causalities, plus almost nothing is reducible to monocausal explanations. It is much better to take the main idea that one wants to implement, and create an abstraction based on the same or similar occurrences in other historical or contemporary cultures, plus consider the potential for warping other analogous causes/effects from the source side, before applying them to the subject side (i.e., in this case, the shared imagined setting of the game). For example, if you wanted to put a system of land grants for service to the kingdom into your game's main "civilized" area, then you might consider not only how the Roman Empire administrated land grants to soldiers, but also had the newly formed United States administrated land grants to soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Beyond that you might also compare those two land grants programs for individual soldiers, to the various railroad land grant programs in under the Public Land Survey System in the U.S. What does is say about the kingdom, its needs, it priorities, etc. when soldiers who served in the kingdom's wars might be granted 80-160 acres of land, compared to a railroad company who might be granted 6400 acres (in, for example, alternating one mile by one mile sections) per one mile of track completed? In the Autropa setting that I've been developing as my example setting, for my own series of world-building videos it's all set in a physical terrain that is explicitly taken from western Europe, and the historical cultures of the region are being exploited as source material. For example one empire, set along what we would recognize as the Mediterranean Sea is based on the question what if the Etruscans had never given way to the Latins; however, the internal politics actually draws more on the factional conflicts of the Guelphs and Ghibellines during the 12th and 13th centuries. For those who aren't sure where to start with teasing out specific traits, and analyzing them cross-culturally there is a great org site called D-PLACE, which provide data under a Creative Commons license. It is very similar to the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) that have long been an ethnological resource for academic and professional anthropologists. It's pretty much limited to contemporary cultures though, so one would have to do more digging to get at archaeological cultures (forgive the pun). Cheers!

People love to world build and players love to learn about the world but limited scope is a great tool to have around. Like you said before, unless the lore affects the players it doesn't need to be seen or heard about.

I hate pallet swapping the most. It also goes against the core concept of fantasy. The whole reason why fantasy is popular is because everyone knows what elves and demons are. Then if you change the core concept of what a demon is then why have them be demons at all other then to be contrarian?

I would love to see a follow-up video to this one where you give some examples of how to turn these fails into wins. For example, I love pallet swapping, but I usually only do it at the small scale. Case in point, I needed a humanoid mechanical automaton stat block to convert 5th edition D&D into a steampunk Europe D&D mashup one-shot for a birthday party. I didn't want to spend the time making a new creature, so I just took the skeleton, swapped out the undead type for the construct type, and boom, done. It works because they are logically, mechanically similar within the rules. I wouldn't try to apply that change across a whole world during a regular campaign though because it has too many implications at that scale. It's funny that you used the pallet swapped orc as an example. I've actually pallet swapped half-orcs in a homebrew campaign before. I removed half-orcs from the setting and replaced them with Ibixians (goat folk), think large human sized minotaurs, from one of the 3.5 monster manuals. When changing from 3.5 to 5th, I needed new stats, so I just used the default half-orc. I did swap out the bonus crit damage for a horn charge stolen from the charger feat bonuses to make things more thematic, but otherwise I used the stats as is because my new race was filling the same roles as half-orcs already had so those stats still made sense. Still, it surprised me how excited people were to play a noble mineotaur, pronounced mine-o-taur, compared to a crude half-orc. The fluff was different, but the crunchy bits were basically identical.

“ if you’re a 200 year old vampire and you’re still broke, just step into the sun at that point” This is a wonderful quote from somewhere on the web about this exact topic

#2 was really good, I especially appreciate how you used the civil war as an example

There would still be fortified walls like castles because that would defend against most attacks still. A fence isn't stopping a blackhawk, or a raptor, or an icbm, but it'll keep most thugs & thieves out which are the more likely issues today. Medicine would still be needed because the spell cure disease is not a basic spell, 3rd level. There would still be need for some level of basic medicines. A 3rd level cleric, depending on setting, isn't easy to find by commoners. Another reason for conflict, though oversimplified, is most people are petty and never grew up/out of high school. Simple slights, greed, envy, and murderous wrath are solid reasoning.

First 😊

Personally, I play both older and newer games and rebrand, no rebrand, assholes, no assholes, my table runs the way it does. I don't bother with conventions or gatherings, any of that. I don't care to share with "modern audiences" or any of that shit. I'm gaming these days and I have a zero-prep dungeon I played in Four Against Darkness that I wrote about complete with photos. As for Ginny or the BrOSR, I don't care. Despite their opinions, my table still runs. They can whine and piss and moan and I'll probably still break out We Deal In Lead, Cairn or some other game and play it and they won't even be considered.

"clannish" was the word you were looking for but the thought of "the vampire Lord's racist werewolves" a la "my neighbor's racist dogs," did give me a chuckle.

You make some good points here. The discussion about vampires was especially interesting. I can imagine a vampire would become very wealthy and influential and might even donate a portion of their wealth in an effort to become a pillar of the community. This could lead to an interesting situation where a community rallies together to protect the vampire, and the vampire hunter has to work as an outlaw. An interesting inversion of a normal hero's story. Good video!

DO NOT TYPE IN GOOGLE CARS AND DRAGONS

He spoke about safety tools on another video about low fantasy at about 2:20. There he said it was the "industry standard". I couldn't believe what I was reading. Triggers included Gore, Spiders, Claustrophobia etc. How not fit for purpose to you have to be to be triggered by these sort of things in an RPG? This is just a blatant attempt to passive aggressively control the GM using their professed "sensitivities" by some clipboard wielding numpty. Any person who claims to be triggered in this way is not fit to play RPGs.

Curiously, I tried to watch that but I just backed out after the mention of safety tools, disliked the video, and Not Interested it on my feed. I have no time to deal to people who propose using safety tools with a straight face.

Hey! Another of my lines 😁

I’m gonna recommend this a changing line. It’s going to piss off your players when they hunt the nearby dragon quite literally everything that could even pose a threat against a cow and yet they never think to slaughter the cattle

Roleplaying games are absolutely not for everyone. That's like saying sports are for everyone or going to musicals is for everyone.

This is the first video of yours I've ever seen, and the take away is that you want to play with "wee-wee chopping ladyboys." Have fun with that.

If your players need safety tools then your players aren't mature enough to be playing TTRPGs. And that stoplight method is crazy. Image going to see a horror movie at a cinema with a group of friends and every 5 minutes the movie pauses as an usher comes out with his flashlight and is checking if every attendee is happy to continue the movie. Do not play with these people.

Non-ranty comment about safety tools. Safety tools, as Desks and Dorks described them, are an excuse to avoid adult behavior. Instead of being mature enough to excuse yourself from the table either temporarily or permanently, you stop the game for everyone. Instead of being mature enough to address an issue with the DM, you avoid it entirely. Instead of being skilled enough to read the room and know when you're going too far as a DM, you pass that responsibility off onto the players entirely. These are all childish behaviors to avoid or pass the buck of the responsibility to address an issue when it arises. I can see where you're coming from with the liability at a venue, but even then, the players should be mature enough to be careful what they sign up for, the DM should read the room, and the players and DM should be mature enough to handle something that arises unexpectedly without derailing the game for everyone. You might need to take a moment to present an exit ramp, but that's just life in public in general rather than something special that needs its own warning labels like Desks and Dorks describes. All you really need is that five minute talk about PG-13 boundaries or whatever is appropriate for the situation like you mentioned. I've run games for people new to TTRPGs a few times for friends and family and even once for a local game store. In all instances as appropriate, I simply took a couple minutes to establish a couple ground rules for gore, sexuality, and adult behaviors of players and characters. No one has ever had any issue with the boundaries when presented with them. Even during gameplay with said new people there's only been a couple related moments worth mentioning. Once I asked a player to tone down their language because they were starting to swear excessively. Once I had to explain that no, we weren't going to roleplay sleeping with the barmaid. We were fading to black like a movie instead. That's it. That's all that's ever happened despite never using the oh so precious and valuable safety tools. The guy who was starting to swear excessively was the closest anything ever came to actually being an issue. One of the store owners reminded the player that it was a family friendly store after I pointed out there were kids around, and that ended the discussion at the table. I called the midgame break at the end of the encounter and talked to the guy in private. I made it clear I didn't have anything out for him personally, was glad for the positives he'd brought to the game, and appreciated his toning it down. He apologized for getting huffy about it at the table and explained why he'd initially reacted negatively to my request. In short, I addressed the issue like an adult. He responded like a child until the store owner gave him a reality check. The issue was then addressed between adults away from the table during a break from the game that was happening anyway, and the issue was resolved with no hard feelings, respect all around, and maturity gained. The moral of the story is that when everyone acted like an adult there were no real issues that required stopping the whole game for more than a moment even when something did need to be addressed, and none of it required safety tools.

You'd mentioned this in a previous video, and I meant to comment then, but if horror isn't transgressive in some way, it's not horror. As you WISELY noted a few times, picking the appropriate level of transgression is where the rubber meets the road. You can't rob control and induce stress and horror in games where the players have high mechanical agency and a bunch of "meta currencies" to rewrite the narrative. The issue with safety tools is they're the meta currency equivalent of an unguided nuke compared to the scalpel of something like a "hero point." Safety tools have plenty of other issues, but even if you ignore all of those, they just decimate horror games.

Safety Tools ? running a :clears throat: HORROR GAME!? Please Mr. Kruger don't use my WORST nightmare against me.... can you please use number 3 or 4 on the list 😂😂

One way you could include a mega dungeon or at least one I have is a living dungeon basically a creature who is large enough to house a dungeon inside of them or act as a dungeon themselves think Lord jabu-jabu from Ocarina of Time or Shadow of the Colossus just a thought

Great video. I think your points are well thought out and very reasonable. I feel like SD has done everything right and people are in such disbelief they have to find fault with it somehow. Honestly SD is my favorite TTRPG ever. It’s everything I’ve wanted in a version of DnD for a very very long time.

Caverns of Thracia was first, she published in 1979. The Temple of Elemental Evil. The module was published by TSR, Inc. in 1985. Like the new into. When did you plan this video since its the topic du jur on twitter the last two weeks? Also size is not what defines a mega-dungeon

Greetings! Good program, sir! Indeed, way back, I used to think Ginny Di was just a happy, kind, somewhat silly D&D gamer girl that as she mentioned in an early video, "Brought the chirpy pre-school teacher energy" or something like that. I watched some of her videos, which mostly gave basic, as you say, "Generic" advice and commentary about D&D, but with a happy, chirpy presentation. I thought she was cute, but essentially harmless and sweet. Then, I saw the video by my friend, Diversity & Dragons, where he brought the receipts on Ginny Di being a raging Leftist, full of her own hatred, bigotry, and venom. My eyes were certainly opened! *Laughing* Perhaps I am at something of a disadvantage, because I take people based on their presentation, and their own individual videos. I don't hang out on "X", or Facebook, or Instagram. Still, learning her true attitudes and positions was disheartening. Not that I'm some pathetic simp, I had just held out hope that she was a normal, happy gamer girl that was actually nice and sweet. Instead, she is a sad, terrible person. Oh well, right? It is disappointing, though. I like what I hear about Harmony Ginger. Honestly, though, I don't really become a "Fan" or some kind of obsessed fanatic about anyone, especially online. My life is too busy to be that concerned about someone online. Good program, again, and funny, too! I like your sense of humour, presentation, and straight forward commentary! Keep up the good work! Semper Fidelis, SHARK

You can run a 5e game with that same magic item mindset. nothing is stopping people from that. I think you are generalizing 5e players by a lot. I've never been in a group that is as you described, with the exception of lots of magic items.

The opposite of courage is cowardice. The opposite of fear is safe. The opposite of anxious is relief. The opposite of horror is normal or mundane. That's why it's nearly impossible to play ongoing horror where you stop mid session. You spend so much time living the mundane in between sessions that it becomes nearly impossible to switch back into the horror mindset. It's too far for the pendulum to swing at once. The subversion of the mundane is one of the defining characteristics of horror. The normal everyday things that are just a little bit off. The weird things that have spiraled out of control into the insane. That's why good horror movies take the beginning of the movie to establish what normal looks like before they start to introduce the horror. Don't believe me? Think about some classic horror examples. The Nostromo is an everyday work ship, until suddenly that familiar place shifts into a place of dark corners harboring the unknown until eventually it becomes the hunting grounds of a monster. Zombies are just normal people except they lack the humanity to not eat a person when they get hungry. Vampires are the every day greed we all experience taken to an extreme where they don't take wealth but your very life essence. Jaws starts with two young people out for an every day evening swim until a shark that's just a bit bigger than normal with an aggressive appetite for human flesh shows up. Most monsters are just an insect or animal with the script flipped. Instead of us being large and holding power over them, they're large and able to get power over us. Giant spiders are scary not because they're supernatural but because we subconsciously know that the only thing keeping regular spiders from eating us right now is simply the size difference. Tweak the mundane by changing the power balance and suddenly the previously mundane has become a horrifying monster. I think that's why people switch rules systems for horror games. It's the subversion of the mundane from the ground up in addition to potentially removing safety. It builds fear by disempowerment and horror by altering the status quo, especially if you've just taken the known, the typical session rules they confidently know, and made it the unknown, a new system they have little if any experience with. I think a good horror RPG session works the same. You just have to consider what normal is for your party and then tweak it. Remembering that you're trying to horrify the party and not their players can help you keep from upsetting the players while you're at it. They're here to have fun, even if that fun involves some fear.

I gave my five players “sidekick” stats from Tasha’s and placed them in a Resident Evil like mansion with plenty of puzzles and a large looming stalker golem that would reappear throughout the mansion. Was a great Halloween one shot last year!

You are making entirely too much sense. :D Enjoyed the video and got some good laughs out of it. Subscribed and "liked" as well.

more videos like this one!!!!