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I have monsters prioritize attacking downed, but not-yet-dead PCs. I also prioritize including them in AOEs when possible. This is a great job for lower level Lackey type monsters or anything with Multiattack. Any rolled death save should have at least a 50% chance of PC death, if they even...

Pathfinder isn't any less complex than 3.0, its just a little bit less "janky". If you're used to and happy with 3.0, there's no need to switch over.

SFG's dark souls TTRPG does not inspire confidence that this will be a good product...

The addition of Hit Dice/Short Rests, removal of buyable Magic Items, and weakening of Healing spells all work together to make a great system for attrition based dungeon exploration. The 3.5/pf metagame relied entirely upon purchasing and spamming Wands of Cure Light Wounds - adventures would...

But like -that option does exist: Playing a spellcaster. Spellcasters are the complex classes for people who want lots of choices, and martials are the simple classes for people who don't. And there's some middle ground like Eldritch Trickster.

Feats and Multiclassing both make the 5e play experience worse in all cases.

I wouldn't count on any of the promises made at the end of the OGL crisis that haven't already happened actually being done.

Which ones? I dont have any to reference the OGL statement in the back, but if they used any Open Game Content from core DCC they would have needed to cite them, correct? Do they actually use rules/text content from DCC or just claim compatibility (adventures, for example)

Agree, but hasn't changed my mind. I'm fine with lower level characters feeling somewhat incompetent and weak. PCs shouldn't be super exceptional at level 1, imo...

As two OSR examples: All of OSE except the Basic Rules Tome is defined as Product Identity - all the carcass crawler and Advanced Fantasy rules and classes, for example. See this excerpt from the 'Advanced Fantasy: Characters' book: "DESIGNATION OF OPEN GAME CONTENT The table of Secondary...

Agree with the skills assessment, I very quickly realized that the default skills were not calibrated to the newbie character, but rather to the skills of an Experienced Professional. A proficient, level 5 character with a +4 in an ability score or a level 1 character with a +3 ability score...

it means the degree of difference between the strongest and weakest options.

I agree with this, thought my opinion is only based on reading since I haven't gotten Valda's to the table yet. My only complaint with the book is that I wish the "joke" subclasses were separated out or at least tagged so it is easier to allow players to use it while keeping a campaign on-tone.

I'm not going to call out the whole game as bad, there's a lot of good stuff in it. But my single most disliked mechanic in a TTRPG is the Zealot Class's healing ability in Errant. When the Zealot heals someone, they roll 2d6. If they roll a 3 or lower, they instantly kill their target...

5e is linked to Wotc and Hasbro until such a time that they're no longer selling physical and digital products for it. Even if you play a 5e-compatible clone or 5e-compatible expansions, by playing it and talking about it, you are keeping Wotc's current product line relevant. As much as people...

I like OSE for its Advanced and CC zine expansions, as well as for at its core being Exactly B/X without a bunch of Author House Rules or changes. I can choose exactly how much extra stuff to add to the Core experience, rather than the changes and tweaks being baked in. Its extremely usable at...

Do you intend to include Procedures for play to use in these settings? A modern game won't be doing a lot of dungeon exploration or wilderness hexcrawling. What are you replacing those with? Similarly - what will be replacing treasure/magic items and gold to XP? I can't imagine a modern spy...

OneDnD is, from the latest playtest direction, basically paid patch notes for 5e. It will supplant it as the lingua franca of TTRPGs, inevitably. Tales of the Valiant and any other 3pp 5e-based games are only ever going to be that - 3rd party products. TotV will never replace D&D.

Shout outs to some great games which were fully released under open license over the past year - Basic Roleplaying: UGE (ORC) Ironsworn Starforged (CC) Pathfinder Remastered (ORC) Mythras Imperative (ORC) Cypher System Shadowdark And I am sure others that I've forgotten or missed!

I grabbed my quote off the Advanced Fantasy Genre small book. Everything you have quoted is "Basic Game" stuff - which is Open and even has an SRD. That's all the stuff from the original B/X which Gavin ported. All his original stuff that he created for the "Advanced Game" are defined as...