The Dungeons & Dragons Allegiance Confrontation

The townsfolk were visibly frightened when they asked you and your friends for help. The constable was a big man at the start of middle age. He clearly a combat veteran as evidenced by the various scars that stood out on his heavily muscled arms. His left cheek had been torn away by some sort of claws and healed imperfectly leaving the constable with a perpetual sneer. This was no meek villager. Yet he stood in front of you explaining the disturbing events of the last fortnight. 

Villagers vanish. Days later their dismembered corpses would appear in the town square stacked in disturbing and unnatural piles of pieces and parts. Burned into every spare inch of naked flesh were profane sigils writ with some seemingly impossible method. The local priest refused to perform rites over or even store the victims remains fearing infernal machinations. You all examined the gathered assortment of parts which equaled to nineteen villagers.

With a flash of insight granted by his deity, Roderick understood that the victims were all missing their eyes. With gentle questioning it was determined that all of the slain villagers shared a common trait; pale blue eyes common among the intermarried clans of this now cursed valley. Kalina, using some of her elvish charm and a liberal application of Tragnakian liquor, was told a tale of a crazed old hermit with a lust for young women, particularly those with blue eyes. The hermit was burned alive as vengeance from a grieving father some years ago. 

Now you stand in the moonlit grove where the hermits remains were disposed of without ceremony. The night is still and quiet. A foul stench hangs heavy in the air around you strong enough to turn a strong stomach. To one side of the clearing are the crumbling remains of the hermit's cabin. The front door was torn away years ago and the moonlight shines on grey aged floor boards. 

What would you like to do?

***

I enjoy table top role playing games quite a bit. If I am honest with you, dear reader, that is not how I would have spoken that sentence. For other initiated folks, the throwers of dice and trackers of hit points, I would have said," I love D&D." By that very branded statement two truths can be conveyed. First, in my mind Dungeons & Dragons is synonymous with TTRPGs. I will describe gaming with any system as," playing D&D," in much the same way as I will ask for a Band-aid rather than an adhesive bandage. Secondly, D&D is near and dear to my heart. It has a place of importance in my social and cultural narrative. 

This is not shocking news if you have known me longer than a day or two. I own a serious amount of dice though less than I had once upon a time. I have great pride in the fact I have collected all of the official Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons books. I had to have the Player's Handbook I purchased in 2014 spiral bound at Office Depot because it was falling apart from use. It is still my favorite copy of the Player's Handbook. 

Over the past few weeks Wizards of the Coast, which is a subsidiary of (I hope that is the right term) Hasbro and owner of the Dungeons and Dragons brand, has been in the news over a leaked document. Said file was an update to the Open Gaming License. To explain that it completely inexpert terms, OGL is a usage license which allows other publishers to use the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons to put out their own content. 

I could give a bit of a history lesson about the birth of the OGL from an old school TTRPG player's perspective. I don't think that brings a freaking thing to the conversation. I am going to skip that part other than to say there is a ton of amazing content available due to the existing version of the OGL. 

At the end of last year, I fell in love with content for 5E made by Kobold Press. I had been shy about buying 3rd party product simply because committing to all of the official product isn't super cheap. I was encouraged on my path of OGL content for 5E when Whitneigh bought me several  of the Original Adventures Reincarnated books from Goodman Games. I jumped on a Kickstarter a bit later from Privateer Press putting out a version of Iron Kingdoms for 5E. Running into my buddy Travis at the zoo further excited me about the Kobold Press material for 5E and my shelves have begun to be blessed. 

The Djinni was out of the bottle. I have a big content appetite. Now my shelves have product from Monte Cook Games, Sandy Peterson's Cthulhu Mythos, among a few other names like Edge Studios. I had slowly started adding more Kobold Press books. Then WotC shat the bed and caused this ruckus. From articles I have read Kobold Press is now going to disentangle themselves from any content that relies on the OGL and will put out their own system. 

SHIT!

Here is the thing I will share from being an old guy. The 1980s and 1990s saw way too many RPG systems. Most of them were interesting. Even if the system was not wonderful there was campaign content you wanted. There were a LOT of books for sale. Not many of them were cheap. I was the voice that kept our group from changing systems about as frequently as an incontinent octogenarian changes their drawers. The OGL coming out kept quite a few of those ideas accessible by keeping the system fundamentally D&D. 

Then there was the dark era that birthed Pathfinder. Not that Pathfinder is bad in any way. It was the shining hero of an era of RPG history that is best not revisited. When I came back to TTRPGs after a long hiatus it was to the familiar arms of Pathfinder which might (insultingly) be called D&D 3.75. 

Paizo, the publisher behind Pathfinder, puts out great content. I am a huge fan for a number of reasons. I really enjoy their Pocket Edition rules books. I love the world of Golarion. I find their adventure path release format extremely accessible. I am even really fond of Pathfinder second edition which really is a new mark of distinction from the D&D system from which it was born.

Yes, I have the two major fantasy RPG systems growing on the shelves of my home. I bought into P2E because it was the first jumping on point that Paizo has had since I returned to TTRPGs. I had a mishmash of OE Pathfinder books and eventually abandoned them in favor of 5E which I favored for its simplicity and accessibility. 

I have kept up with the product lines from Pathfinder 2E without really putting any consideration into when I would use the system. I like reading through Bestiaries, browsing through adventure paths, and learning the lore of the Lost Omens. I think of it as studying a master class on world building and content development. Watching a world expand and grow for a second time is a really satisfying experience even without playing through the milestones. 

I had a few emotional reactions to this OGL business. My initial reaction was that WotC would change course when met with the absolute venom this move was producing in their fanbase. I had concerns there though. WotC is the company that brought us Magic the Gathering. They have never been shy to hold up a big middle finger to the fans. Could hurting their competition mean more to them than the loyalty of their customers? Sure!

Thing is, I have seen what happens to creative products that care more about giving their audience what they want rather than being profitable. What happens is a bad business plan that results in going out of business. There are tons of RPGs, board games, card games, and comic books out there that suffered this fate. I don't mind contributing to the financial success of the things I enjoy. This is why I don't pirate RPG books or video games. 

The question at hand though is at what point corporate greed becomes so distasteful that their products should no longer be supported? Given the record profits made by Walmart, Amazon (who is laying off people by the thousands after posting fantastic profits), Samsung, Apple, Starbucks, Google and quite a few other major corporations out there are making who am I to judge WotC? Who indeed. 

I had to appreciate Paizo for making big moves in response to the leak. They made a statement. They partnered with other publishers to create a protected version of the OGL that is sustainable which I believe they are calling the ORC. Define that acronym with Google. I suspect they will gain new followers from this little snafu. Bless them for it. 

Going in to 2023, I had planned to not place anymore orders for Paizo product. I stopped my subscription to their Adventure Path. I stopped placing my preorders for the upcoming books. All of which came undone in the past week. I have new plans for what I am going to do with my rpg time this year. 

I am going to maintain both D&D 5E and Pathfinder 2E for all of 2023. This is a bit of a commitment on my part, but it is one I have enjoyed making in the past. Let's look at the calendar and compare the two just as soon as I explain a few things. 

For the past several years WotC puts out an average of four 5E Dungeons & Dragons books per year. They typically cost me between $30 and $50 per book. 2023, from the research I have been able to do with a quick Google search, is going to be very typical. My plan is to continue to purchase official D&D material until the rules system changes at which time I may bail out to Pathfinder 2E... or something else entirely. The rumor of the next edition being totally compatible with 5E may put a wrinkle in that plan. 

Meanwhile, Paizo puts out quite a bit more content each year. I have three product lines that I am faithful to. Naturally, I want the Core Rulebooks. I find these a fantastic value in their pocket editions. Most years see four rulebook releases. 

I am a devotee of great world building narrative so it should be no surprise that I adore the Lost Omen books which are essentially expansions to the Campaign Setting of Golarion. The number of Lost Omen releases varies year to year running between 3 and 5 books. I was saddened that these have not been offered in the Pocket Edition. Then again, do you really need a stack of them at your table the way you might the Core Rulebooks? 

Of course, the thing that really caught my eye about Pathfinder was the Adventure Path series. These are done in series of three to six books that make up a campaign. I love that they are released monthly. I have collected all of them for P2E though I have yet to play any of them. 

I buy a ton of RPG material. I would say don't you judge me. Then again, I don't care what you think of me. 

I map out my RPG purchases. I shop around to find the best deal as much as possible. As promised let's look at what is currently on my radar and maybe I will throw in the orders I already have set up just for fun.

Dungeons & Dragons 5E

February 2023 Keys from the Golden Vault *ordered

Q2 2023 Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants

Q3 2023 Phandelver Campaign

Q4 2023 The Book of Many Things

 (?) Q4 2023 Planescape

The title of Keys from the Golden Vault didn't excite me. In researching, I found these are a series of heist based adventures. Sold. To be fair, I was going to buy it because it is official 5E content, but my excitement is increased by heist content. 

I love the idea of a sourcebook for Giants. We have had two Dragon based campaigns and one about giants. Both dragons and giants have interesting lore in D&D. I also dig that WotC is giving us books from Tasha, Fizban, Xanathar,  Mordenkainen, Volo, and now Bigby. I do feel that Elminster's book is overdue, but that may not come in 5E. Drizzt's guide to name pronunciation wouldn't hurt either. 

I always thought Lost Mines of Phandelver could be spun out into an entire campaign. Apparently so did WotC. 

If you don't know about the Deck or Book of Many Things you need more D&D in your life. I have played entire campaigns around these marvelous items. 

I have been waiting a really long time for a return to Planescape. Mechanically, there are a few things I would like to see how official content will handle planar travel. Do I have a shelf full of AD&D Planescape books, yes. Have I been cautious about homebrewing their connection to 5E? That is a big yes. Now, that (?) is purposeful because I saw the release date for Planescape as Q4 2024. I am hoping that is a typo. The sources I have looked at say the 2024 books are going to be the kick off of whatever they will actually call One D&D. I am comfortable with that being 5.5E or even 6E. If it is backward compatible I am going to have to think things through a bit. 

Pathfinder 2E

25 January 2023 Gatewalkers Adventure Path; The Seventh Arch (1 of 3) *ordered

25 January 2023 Adventure Path Hardcover Fists of the Ruby Phoenix *ordered

22 February 2023 Treasure Vault Pocket Edition *ordered

22 February 2023 Gatewalkers Adventure Path: They Watched the Stars (2 of 3) *ordered

29 March 2023 Gatewalkers Adventure Path: Dreamers of the Nameless Spire (3 of 3)

23 March 2023 Lost Omens Firebrands

June 2023 Adventure Path Hardcover Abomination Vaults *ordered

June 2023 Lost Omens Highhelm

July 2023 Rage of Elements 

Pathfinder for 5E

June 2023 Adventure Path Hardcover Abomination Vaults 5E

There are certainly things that the makers of D&D or Pathfinder could do that would move me away from their content. This OGL thing did push me to get back into Pathfinder 2E, but it did not convince me to abandon D&D quite yet. For that, I plan to let my table decide after we have played a couple of campaigns using each system. 

Here is a peek into the why behind that. I am heavily invested in both games. I have even more content coming in the form of Kickstarters and Pre-orders that I have made over the past two years. 

My 5E Shelf

Pathfinder 2E Shelves

I have quite a bit more 5E third party books that weren't on the shelves when I took these photos. The shelves over the TV along with a couple of video game wall mounts were their own project before I started having this debate about which RPG system I will ultimately stick with. 

Here is a big part of why I am not ready to abandon 5E and hope that companies like Kobold Press do not either:

Pre-orders & Kickstarters

Everyday Heroes: The Roleplaying Game

DIE: The Roleplaying Game *not 5E or P2E

Iron Kingdoms: The Nightmare Empire, Tales from the Blackwater Cantina, and Scoundrel's Guide to the Scharde Isles

Torrents of the Spellhoarder

Original Adventures Reincarnated : The Dark Tower

Inferno RPG: Dante's Guide to Hell and Virgillo's Untold Tales

Crypt of the Devil Lich 5E

That is a lot of awesome to move away from a system. Even one that is nine years old and headed into an new edition. Then again if Tyrants of the Coast alienates all of the smaller companies that have trusted their OGL... maybe the time will come to vote with my dollars.