Dungeonesque: Is 5E's 'Pathfinder' Already Here?

As you probably noticed, a new System Reference Document for D&D 5E was released under the Open Gaming License yesterday. Already fans and publishers alike are planning their third-party releases to support the game. There's another interesting development, though -- it seems that clones of the game are appearing already! Stan Shinn, who runs a D&D community over on Google+, has launched an Indiegogo fundraising campaign for a two-booklet red-box project called Dungeonesque: Red Box RPG. Described as "a 5E Compatible RPG Done in Red Box Style", it is very reminiscent of Frank Mentzer's 1983 version of D&D.

​

This product consists of two booklets - a Player's Guide and a Gamester's Guide. It includes the four basic classes of Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Thief, all up to 15th level. As mentioned, it's on Indiegogo with a $1,500 funding goal (though Indiegogo pays out even if the goal isn't met). You get the PDFs for $5, and print-on-demand copies will be available through DTRPG. Interestingly, despite the name it's not actually a box, but that leads us to the next item....

​

Now this one is definitely a box! By the same creator, this will be called Dungeonesque: White Box RPG which contains an entire line of books. Characters & Combat, Eldritch Wizardry, Worlds & Adventure, Concise Bestiary, and so on. "A BOX SET of 5.5 x 8.5" booklets. The first three booklets will make you think of a certain White Box set of old, and will be a complete 5e compatible fantasy game supporting Wizard, Thief, Fighter, and Cleric Classes! Great for basic play with cheap booklets to give to new or old-school veteran players. Plus a series of fantastic gaming aids for sandbox adventuring on the fly! We've already prototyped the content. Booklets will be around 48 pages each."

The White Box isn't up for funding yet. That will happen later in the year.

Interesting times, indeed!

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I imagine that when 5e Pathfinder comes it will be a third party meshing Pathfinder OGL/SRD content with the D&D 5E baseline of using set subclasses and chunky feats and the results will be a glorious mess.

I also imagine that there are dozens of people right now pouring through OGLed 3E and Pathfinder content doing this piecemeal anyway. It should be fun. Especially on the feats side since WotC seems to want to keep that part of the game pretty minimal beyond the core books and an occasional racial feat for new races.

 

[Queer Venger]

forgive me, but does this mean that a PF 5e update is a possibility?

 

[spectacle]

I don't get the point at all. Why would I play this instead of straight 5E?

 

[darjr]

There is a ton of stuff that Paizo out into the OGL that others might be able to repurposed for a 5e OGL release.

 

[Morrus]

forgive me, but does this mean that a PF 5e update is a possibility?

How is Pathfinder 5E not just 5E with "Pathfinder" on the cover? 5E already is Pathfinder 5E.

i imagine some fans will convert (and sell) individual classes, etc.

 

[Kramodlog]

forgive me, but does this mean that a PF 5e update is a possibility?

5.75? I guess so.

They could use the old OGL to fill the gaps of the new one. I'm not sure why they would do this, but they could. I could see a 3PP doing it for some reason. After all someone did make a My Little Pony RPG.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't get the point at all. Why would I play this instead of straight 5E?

For the most part, most people wouldn't. But there definitely is that small subset of gamers who enjoy the idea of playing in the style of the games of old, and I suspect it is definitely easier to do so when there's a product that has already stripped out all of the 5E-isms from the books that they don't want, so that they have their "complete game experience" all printed up together. Why have to waste time flipping past all those pages on tieflings, and Oath of the Ancients paladins, when you have a single booklet that only has in it what you want that's styled after the old Red Box?

WotC has always said that they wanted 5E to be a game that would allow you to play in the style of the previous editions. And if you take just selected elements from the PH and DMG and jerry-rig them together, in many ways you CAN do that to a certain extent. This product is going to be a test-case for just how successful it can be to only print those parts that you want to get that particular edition style in a single book or place.

The next step I would imagine is for someone who enjoyed BOTH 4E and 5E to create a 4E version of 5E, using all the alternate rules that are available, making specific select uses of features from the books, to create a 5E'd 4E. And then writing this book up so that all the rules are in one place and you no longer have to ask players to create their own version of 4E'd 5E. Then once we get that... we'll see someone create and publish a 1E'd 5E, a 2E'd 5E, 3E'd 5E, Pathfinder 5E (as mentioned previously), so on and so forth.

Why were the Conversion Notes WotC put out kind of lackluster? Probably cause they knew this was happening and that there would be a whole host of enterprising players out there who would jump at the chance to create conversions of all these prior editions themselves. Saved WotC a lot of time and trouble.

 

[Koren n'Rhys]

I don't get the point at all. Why would I play this instead of straight 5E?

There are those of us who do like a lot of what 5E has brought to the table, but prefer a simpler game, harkening back to B/X (for example). With this new SRD, we can strip away all the stuff we don't want (extra classes, races, sub-classes and races, etc) and have a concise rulebook to play with vs. just ignoring all the extra we won't use. Sounds like Dungeonesque will be an attempt at that.

As to a PF 5E? I don't see it happening from Paizo, but others could certainly create such a beast using all the SRDs now available.

 

[qu0zl]

I don't get the point at all. Why would I play this instead of straight 5E?

I moved to 5e from Pathfinder largely because it was closer to the original D&D approach to gaming. This will go even further that way while still working with all the 5e content that is currently coming out.

While I could have hacked 5e down to this myself, the reality is that I'd never have done it. I have enough trouble getting gaming time, let alone game hacking time. If the author does a good job of this then it sounds fantastic to me.

 

[delericho]

As to a PF 5E? I don't see it happening from Paizo...

Bear in mind also that there's a PF 2nd Edition coming at some point. The opening of the 5e SRD means that Paizo now can, and should*, incorporate any innovations from that SRD that they consider to be especially big improvements to the game. So maybe they'll choose to add Dragonborn, or dis/advantage, or backgrounds to PF 2nd where previously they'd have stayed clear.

* 'Should' because one of the principles of open development is that everyone benefits from everyone's advances. So if someone comes up with something good, it makes sense to adopt it. Equally, WotC also have always had the option to do this - they've chosen only ever to take a few things (a couple of monsters in 3e's MM2, a couple of rules in 3e's UA), but that was their choice.