Breaking Star Games
Explorer
Very selfishly, I will say Magpie Games but many PbtA focused publishers would be fine as long as they are market leader not based on one system. Emphasis on narrative games that fit my style so these tables are easy to find locally and there are more copies. PbtA especially is a design philosophy that basically forces the designer to completely build a game from the ground up (if done well) rather than just copy rules like the d20 days. And most importantly is that they have a philosophy of making several systems to support several different forms of gameplay/genre.
The biggest disservice WotC does for the hobby is to advertise 5e as a do-anything system when its definitely nowhere near as generic as things like Savage Worlds, GURPS, Fate. But even the terminology of generic just feels wrong for the hobby - I think most people can agree, you shouldn't use those three systems in all use cases. I am a big proponent of system matters and learned it by literally using 5e for all kinds of gameplay and its night and day from using a good system for it.
WotC releasing horror, heists, wilderness survival adventures/supplements for 5e is mostly just ridiculous when the PCs are superheroes with powers that trivialize that content and a skill and magic system not balanced around that. Its basically a lie to consumers when I want a market leader who will upfront tell you:
"MASKS is first and foremost about a team of young superheroes. They’re
friends, rivals, love interests, allies...and always teammates, joint stars of their
comic, and superheroes. They’re young; they’ve got abilities that make them
special; they wear costumes; they use codenames; they save people; and they
do it together. They’re growing up in Halcyon City, a place with plenty of older
supers who provide an endless clamor of voices telling them who to be, and
these young heroes are all trying to figure out their own way.
All of those pieces are key. You might have awesome story ideas about the
premiere team of superheroes, or a crazy group of misfits on a spaceship, or
genetic superhumans fighting to protect a world that hates or fears them—but
MASKS, as it’s presented in this book, isn’t written for those stories. You’ll find
pieces of those tales, but the core of this game is different."
Now the issue that being the market leader might just corrupt them and they may abuse that and become like WotC. So I am fine with things as is even if I have to force friends to play with me or go to online to play PbtA rather than how easy it is to find a group running 5e with an open seat. But I would prefer if 5e is the funnel for new players, it should be better streamlined and letting players go to find their own perfect TTRPG rather than trying to keep them in their ecosystem. But no corporation wants that.
The biggest disservice WotC does for the hobby is to advertise 5e as a do-anything system when its definitely nowhere near as generic as things like Savage Worlds, GURPS, Fate. But even the terminology of generic just feels wrong for the hobby - I think most people can agree, you shouldn't use those three systems in all use cases. I am a big proponent of system matters and learned it by literally using 5e for all kinds of gameplay and its night and day from using a good system for it.
WotC releasing horror, heists, wilderness survival adventures/supplements for 5e is mostly just ridiculous when the PCs are superheroes with powers that trivialize that content and a skill and magic system not balanced around that. Its basically a lie to consumers when I want a market leader who will upfront tell you:
"MASKS is first and foremost about a team of young superheroes. They’re
friends, rivals, love interests, allies...and always teammates, joint stars of their
comic, and superheroes. They’re young; they’ve got abilities that make them
special; they wear costumes; they use codenames; they save people; and they
do it together. They’re growing up in Halcyon City, a place with plenty of older
supers who provide an endless clamor of voices telling them who to be, and
these young heroes are all trying to figure out their own way.
All of those pieces are key. You might have awesome story ideas about the
premiere team of superheroes, or a crazy group of misfits on a spaceship, or
genetic superhumans fighting to protect a world that hates or fears them—but
MASKS, as it’s presented in this book, isn’t written for those stories. You’ll find
pieces of those tales, but the core of this game is different."
Now the issue that being the market leader might just corrupt them and they may abuse that and become like WotC. So I am fine with things as is even if I have to force friends to play with me or go to online to play PbtA rather than how easy it is to find a group running 5e with an open seat. But I would prefer if 5e is the funnel for new players, it should be better streamlined and letting players go to find their own perfect TTRPG rather than trying to keep them in their ecosystem. But no corporation wants that.
