NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psikosis" data-source="post: 9716342" data-attributes="member: 6704960">My reaction was very similar; I see his perspective, but I don't necessarily agree with all his assertions. First, while D&D is important (because it's often the most 'seen' RPG by non-RPG players and because it's usually the most played RPG among RPGers), it's not necessarily a harbinger, even a barometer, of RPGs in general. I started playing with the purple box set (fighter/female wizard/ dragon cover). Even back then, circa 1980, there was considerable heterogeneity among RPG designs. Compare ICE's Rolemaster with AD&D, as an example that comes to mind. Or compare Aftermath to Top Secret. That's a lot of variability. Though I agree that VTM was a path-breaking RPG for the reason you mentioned (and the artwork in 1e of VtM was simply amazing, far beyond the sketches in D&D and AD&D books)His 'Fifth Gen" RPGs have been brewing since at least the beginning of the 4th gen, even if they didn't get a lot of traction until use of the internet (for publicizing and playing) because more important. Again, I think trying to use D&D as the marker of generational change is overstating its importance (though 3/3.5e was potent for a time). I'm not sure what to think about Critical Role and the rise of gaming as a spectator activity. I've watched games and enjoyed them, though I think it does emphasize characters and interactions over mechanics and settings.Finally, the OGL debacle didn't change RPGs all that much, they DID I think cause some changes in RPG creators and publishers. It also created angst among the players (me among them) as D&D is still the flag-bearer for RPGs. Hasbro's decision very much felt like a betrayal because the community of gamers and creators is a big, overlapping Venn diagram (and anyone who runs a game is a creator of sorts, even if they are running something 'canned'). I still play D&D 5e and bought the core books for 5e revised, but that's as far as I go. I don't use D&D Beyond nor do I run anything used 5e revised. I bought them to continue to play in a group that moved to 5e revised, but that's pretty much it. I run a regular 5e game, because that's what the players want, though they have expressed an interest in PF2 lately. Everything I run for Guild Days at my local store is not D&D, it's Free League, Chaosium, or Star Wars RPG or some other publisher. The OGL foolishness sent me looking for other games/publishers to explore and play and I found lots of cool stuff. Do I still like D&D? Of course. But regardless of 'generation', a good game is a good game and if I learned anything from the OGL mess (other than Hasbro sux), it was to be open-minded and try new things.</blockquote>

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