@Jazzy_Butts i can't imagine the new shit is going to sell well, and they probably know that too which is why they are switching to a membership model where you can still access all of the old 5E content too more or less.

@beardalaxy @Jazzy_Butts mfw u can even say "old" and "5e" in the same sentence...

i playtested for 5e after running official 4e weekly encounters campaigns and that was after some epic od&d stuff including the actual Tomb of Annihilation (the 4e remake was fucking soft)

pathfinder is superior to d&d, they improved upon the 3e system and then created multiple fleshed out settings and campaigns and pure content that shamed wotc.

..while not bwing shitheads about pricing and ruining it all by trying to make it a subscription service. wotc's mentality on trying to force profit has dragged d&d through the mud almost as badly as sonic

@beardalaxy @Jazzy_Butts anyways, 5e waa a sgitty cashgrab that tried to dumb things down to od&d levels in reaction to negativity about 4e being too tactical/combat focused, they kinda failed at it, and tyem they just went and made it more complicated again upon release without making the different options like class and race even matter.

im pretty sure they didnt actually understand any of the feedback they got from the playtesting phases

@bitterblossom @Jazzy_Butts the fact that every single pathfinder rule is completely free to use not just in-game but also your own books/rulesets is absolutely incredible and shows that they know their product is competitively viable. 2e is pretty awesome. it is really rule verbose, though, for instance i think the rules and systems for social play is just a little bit weird. i prefer things to be a bit more freeform and simple which 5e does a really good job at, although it can be horribly balanced in almost every area which leaves a lot on the DM's plate.

i've been loosely making my own ttrpg system called "melee, magic & mischief" but it's more of a personal project. it has more simple rules, a lot of stuff is generalized and the character creation is super fast and freeform. it relies on the same system as two other ones i'm making just based on different settings, zombie apocalypse and cyberpunk. i made the zombie one for a friend and he's not gonna' use it probably so i repurposed it into cyberpunk because that's what i actually want to run at some point, but then pivoted a little bit toward fantasy because that's what all my friends are into.

i'm interested in checking out kobold press's "black flag" system at some point too. also, shadow of the weird wizard. shadow of the demon lord seems REALLY sweet and honestly right up my alley in terms of rules and systems, and ESPECIALLY character creation, but i couldn't get any of my friends into it because they don't like how brutally punishing it can be. SotWW should be a bit closer to D&D so i think they'd appreciate it a lot more.

@beardalaxy @bitterblossom I've also been trying to come up with my own rules. I'm a dumb guy with math so I also want to keep it simple. I don't understand much of the rules of DnD even though I read the 5e starter set manuals. Almost everything would be randomly generated. I don't even want to make maps, just random seeds. Ok so like you spawn, you look around, what do you see? First we roll to see what environment you're in (based on seed numbers), and when it comes to events, enemies, battles, etc (even dialogue) we look at the situation, come up with some ideas for possibilities, then roll to see which possibility reality generates. I tried a game with my mom and it worked pretty well, she woke up in a forest, searched for water, spotted wolf tracks, found water, made camp, and got lucky and heard other campers in the distance. First we rolled for environment, then rolled for travel and some rolls to see if anything would interrupt that travel, then some rolls to check stuff out, and before we knew it an adventure had been had. She's completely averse to dnd and thinks it sucks so that she had fun is really saying something.

@Jazzy_Butts @beardalaxy there's a fan-made ttrpg for fire emblem that is pretty pure to the game's stats and combat mechanics, conveniently simple with grid-based combat; that would be good for randomly generated encounters, and there's just enough fluff to it to branch out into other aspects of playing a ttrpg

@beardalaxy @Jazzy_Butts i highly recommend Anima Beyond Fantasy as a system.

it requires a bit more math initially (there are some combat charts you can copy to assist with that, it's simpler than it seems once you get a feel for the flow), but instead of classes you have archetypes, and all your skills/combat abilities/modules/etc are acquired via a point-buy system. your archetype only determines which skills are more or less expensive, so you end up with a highly customized character.

it works on a percentile system, you roll 1d100 for just about everything, and you are considered to have mastered a skill when you have a score of 200+ in it.

the magic system is far superior to d&d, none of that daily/encounter/at-will bullshit. you have a mana pool (called zeon) and a Magic Accumulation stat; you can draw from your mana pool each turn an amount equal to your MA, and then use it to cast a spell once youve gathered enough. the spell lists themselves are by element, not class; your intelligence determines how many spells you can learn, so you can focus on a particular element and get like 40 levels of spells from the path, or pick and choose from anywhere at slightly higher costs for a more versatile list...

there's also a system for psychic powers, and one for ki, so you can literally run a dragonball z style game if you want.

the core rulebook has all of everything you need, including a system for creating npc's and monsters, and some generic examples; the expansions include bestiaries, or ways to customize and expand on the different magic/psychic/ki systems, and rules for mass combats... but you really only need the one core book to get everything.

iirc the core book is a flat 60 dollars, and is originally in spanish; the english translation is kinda wonky in some places.

each combat round is dealt with more realistically than in most ttrpgs; everybody rolls initiative, highest goes first, but if you were attacked for instance, if you defend you spend your action that round, or you can ignore it, take the hit and penalties, and do something else. you can get overwhelmed by someone faster than you, but it balances out by the fact that if you roll a good defense and they roll a bad attack, there's a chance to make a counterattack with a bonus.... and then the damage dealt by an attack is a percentage based on the weapon damage and player strength compared to how well it hit; barely hitting someone is just going to ping them a bit, or bounce off armor, but a good hit will deal extra damage.

levels are also far more important than in d&d. at lv1 you're a "starting adventurer" so you'll have stats slightly better than the average mook, but at level 3 you're a veteran, and it goes up exponentially; at level 10 you can solo against entire armies, and at 15 you are equivalent to the sorts of apocalyptic monsters that can casually annihilate entire continents.