#5e compatible

[smiteworks]

🐸 Leap into Adventure!

Select Frog God Games titles are on sale now on Fantasy Grounds VTT! Don’t let these legendary savings hop away!⏳

[miraclemaya]

id rather kill myself if i had to make a splatbook that was 5e compatible

[jeffs-gamebox]

Check out an adventure based on the 5th of November. Anyone remember the famous line quoted in V for Vendetta? This is a D&D 5E compatible adventure based on the British Bonfire night. Long live the Mayor of Black Tallon!

[galemasters]

Wonder what Joseph Manno's response was to the OGL debacle

[prokopetz]

With DND 5e being set up to cause DM burnout, can you give examples of tabletop systems that facilitate easy DMing? I love running a tabletop game but don't have the time to deal with 5e or homebrew anymore.

(With reference to this post here.)

This is an area where you're going to get a lot of bad advice, because there's no such thing as a tabletop RPG that's "easy to GM" in the abstract. Some systems make greater or lesser demands of the GM's time and skill, but the reason that Dungeons & Dragons has a massive GM burnout problem is a bit more subtle than that – indeed, D&D's GM burnout problem is considerably worse than that of many games whose procedures of play place much greater demands on the GM!

It boils down to the fact that games are opinionated. Even a very simple set of rules contains a vast number of baked-in assumptions about how the game ought to be played; in the case of tabletop RPGs, those baked-in assumptions include assumptions about what kinds of stories the game ought to be used to tell. The players of any given group, of course, also have assumptions – some explicit, many unexamined – about how the game's story ought to go. It's rare that these two sets of assumptions will perfectly agree.

Fortunately, perfect agreement isn't necessary, because tabletop RPGs aren't computer games, and it's always possible to tweak the outputs of the rules on the fly to better suit the desired narrative experience. In conventional one-GM-many-players games like D&D, this responsibility for monitoring and adjusting the outputs of the rules so that they're compatible with the narrative space the group wishes to explore falls principally on the GM.

Now, here's where the trouble starts: the larger the disconnect between the story the rules want to produce and the narrative space the group wants to explore, the more work the GM in a conventional one-GM-many-players context needs to do in order to close that gap. If the disconnect is large enough, the GM ends up spending practically all of their time babysitting the outputs of the rules, at the expense of literally every other facet of their responsibilities.

(Conversely, if that gap is large and isn't successfully closed, you can end up with a situation where engaging with the rules and engaging with the narrative become mutually exclusive activities. This is where we get daft ideas like "combat" and "roleplaying" being opposites – which is nonsense, of course, but it's persuasive nonsense if you've never experienced a game where the rules agree with you about what kind of story you should be telling.)

And here's where the problem with Dungeons & Dragons in particular arises. The rules of D&D aren't especially more opinionated than those of your average tabletop RPG; however, the game has developed a culture of play that's allergic to actually acknowledging this. There are several legs to this, including:

a text which makes claims about the game's supported modes of play that are far broader than what the rules in fact support;

a body of received wisdom about GMing best practices which consists mostly of advice on how to close the gap between the rules' assumptions and the players' expectations (but refuses to admit that this is what it's doing);

a player culture which has become increasingly hostile to players learning or knowing the rules, and positions any expectation that players should learn the rules as a form of "gatekeeping"; and

a propensity to treat a very high level of GMing skill as an entry-level expectation.

Taken together, all this produces a situation where, when the rules and the group disagree about how the game's story ought to go, the players don't experience it as a problem with the rules: they experience it as a problem with the GM. A lot of GMs even buy into this perception themselves, which is how you end up with GM advice forums overflowing with people telling novice GMs that they're morally bad people for being unprepared to tackle very advanced GMing challenges right from the jump.

(At this point, one may wonder: why on Earth would a game develop this sort of culture of play in the first place? Who benefits? Well, what we're looking at in practice is a culture of play which treats novice and casual GMs as a disposal resource whose purpose is to maximise the number of people playing Dungeons & Dragons. Follow the money!)

So, after all of that, the short answer is that there isn't a specific magic-bullet solution to avoiding D&D's GM burnout problem – or, at least, not one that operates at the level of the rules, because there's no particular thing that D&D as a system is doing "wrong" that produces this outcome; the problem operates almost entirely at the play culture level.

In practice, two things need to happen:

Placing a greater expectation on the players to learn and understand the game's rules; and

Selecting a system where the gap between the story the rules want to produce and the narrative space the group wants to explore is small.

It's that second one that's the real trick. In order to minimise that gap, we need to know what kind of narrative space your group wants to explore, and that might not be something you have a good answer to if you don't have good lines of communication with your players.

(As an aside, there's a good chance that we're going to see dipsticks cropping up in the notes insisting that their favourite system short-circuits this problem by being perfectly universal and having no baked-in narrative assumptions. These people are lying to you, and lending credence to the idea that there's any such thing as a universal RPG is a big part of how we got into this mess in the first place!)

[hifi-walkman]

huh, must have misread the price-listing and thought print on demand was the digital price. Yeah definitely just get the B/X rules.

And I would guess the 5e person based it on Marcille's available spells and spell power and its equivalent in 5e. But aside from just the base Idea of race as class from B/X as justification for it being more like those rules in terms of the structure of its world: Chillichuk uses a bow, and specifies that being a half-foot makes him naturally better at it, Senshi is a vaguely competent fighter who's most useful trait is navigation, trap detection, and general comfort underground and in the dungeon, and even through Marcille is all in on using magic, they explicityl call out falin as the group's "Magic User" (literally namedropping the class name), with marcille just being "an elf". Though, it's got a bit of OD&D nonsense going on with some NPCs clearly being of race/class combos, but none of the main cast (including like, Kabru's party) who would represent "player characters" have anything like that. lots of "There are Dwarf Clerics, but only NPCs" happening.

"it's a DM issue" is a very silly defence of the limitations of D&D when it comes to genre, not only because it puts a lot of extra pressure on the DM to bend the game into a format that the players will find more acceptable (with little consideration made as to whether the experience provided by the game as written might actually have merit), but also because "choosing to run a conventional heroic fantasy narrative in the dungeon crawler engine" is also very much a DM issue

[magicratfingers]

you know how zodiacs have compatibility pairs like libra and air signs or whatever well what about 5e classes?

who is a rogue comparable with or a bard or a tank I wanna know for science

[leidensygdom]

holy shit lmao

WOTC's Sigil, that VTT they had been working on (and probably the reason on why they wanted the new OGL to really restrict what others VTTs were allowed to do with 5e content) just got... cancelled.

They immediately laid off 90% of the team and left the remaining 10% left to try to salvage the project for DnDBeyond-related compatibility.

This... This is kinda rough in many levels (specially for the laid off workers), but considering how much noise Wizards of the Coast had made about it's own VTT, it's incredible it got cancelled shortly after it had it's public release. The initial reception had been quite rough, considering it didn't perform well in older computers (and accessibility is crucial to VTTs) or the fact it was really unpolished. But. Whoa.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

I think your RPG takes are really good :) I enjoy D&D 5e to some extent (like, it's fine), but I feel D&D's market dominance isn't great. But what gets me the most is how incurious many people who play D&D 5e to the exclusion of other games are. No interest in seeing anything that deviates from how D&D does things.

Yeah! This is a point I've tried to make clear too, like... ultimately if someone WANTS to stick to 5e that's not my problem. If they want to use heavily homebrewed 5e for a Doctor Who or Cyberpunk or Homestuck campaign or whatever and their table has fun with it like. Okay, I personally wouldn't do that but I also have no right to tell anyone to NOT do that.

But the moment they get so entrenched in that idea of "You can use 5e to do ANYTHING" that they start acting like someone else wanting to use anything other than heavily homebrewed 5e for anything is some ridiculous or preposterous idea that's when I have a problem with them. Especially when the people who think like that are a statistically significant enough portion of the tabletop public to affect business decisions in the hobby.

Like. One of the saddest cases I've seen in recent memory, the upcoming Adventure Time ttrpg from Cryptozoic was initially pitched as having its own system, only to later end up being switched to 5e. And considering that the initial Dicebreaker article that came out months before this announcement featured quotes from one of the developers about why they decided to use their own system and why they thought D&D wouldn't work well with the narrative flow they wanted for the game, and also that the reason given for the switch to 5e was "feedback from fans", it's clear that this is not a decision they made because they WANTED to make a 5e hack, but because they NEEDED to make it a 5e hack in order for it to be profitable because there's just such a huge portion of the tabletop public that got pulled into the hobby with 5e and is so fundamentally incurious that they won't touch a book with a 10-foot pole unless it some form of "5e compatible" logo on the cover.

[theoutcastrogue]

"For the past nine months, I’ve heard from a fair number of people, including people close to me and people I’ve worked with, say they don’t want anything to do with Hasbro, WOTC, or D&D. Unfortunately, they’re piling all of 5e in there too. 5e isn’t D&D. Since its release into the Creative Commons by two different companies, 5e is now an open system supported by hundreds of publishers and, in some cases, with whole games built around it. 5e is now and forever an independent tabletop roleplaying platform not tied to any single company. If someone doesn’t like 5e as a system, that’s totally fine. Not every system is for everyone. I know many who love the tactical crunchiness and character customization of Pathfinder 2. I know many others who love the fast and furious grim dark fantasy of old-school games like Shadowdark, EZD6, and Old School Essentials. That’s cool. Likewise, if you’re happy with D&D and don’t want or need anything else, that’s cool too. Most D&D players probably never consider products outside of what WOTC produces for D&D. I definitely recommend looking at the many awesome D&D / 5e compatible products many other publishers have created. Here are ten notable products for 2022 and my YouTube video segment on favorite products of 2023, all from other publishers than WOTC. Check them out. If you enjoy 5e but you’re done with Hasbro or WOTC or the D&D brand, this message is for you. 5e isn’t D&D. You can enjoy the hell out of 5e without having to use any products or pay any money to Hasbro. There are several excellent alternative core books for 5e – my current favorite being EN Publishing’s Level Up Advanced 5e and more on the way like Kobold Press’s Tales of the Valiant. These companies pay no license fees to Hasbro. Their work is completely independent from D&D. In A5e’s case, they have their own system reference document they wrote and released under a Creative Commons license that’s significantly bigger than the 5.1 SRD. These systems and products are completely independent from Hasbro or WOTC or D&D. 5e's rules were built by designers, many of whom aren't at Hasbro anymore, based on principles that go back 50 years and two full company acquisitions ago. Yes, 5e came from the development of the 2014 version of D&D. 5e stands for “5th edition” and that’s the 5th edition of D&D, but that doesn’t matter now. Now, all of the mechanics are released under a Creative Commons license and, as mentioned, there’s a whole separate one you can use instead if you don’t want to use the one published by WOTC. If you love 5e, as I do, don’t throw it out just because you’re mad at one company publishing material for it. 5e is ours and I personally think it’s awesome. You’re not hurting anyone or supporting the wrong group by buing products for it, running it, and playing it. Game on."

(by SlyFlourish)

[adventure-time-news]

Overview of all upcoming Adventure Time media

It can be hard to keep track so here's a concise guide.

ANIMATED STUFF

Fionna and Cake Season 2, which will continue where Season 1 left off and be ten episodes long.

An untitled Adventure Time movie, with involvement from Adam Muto, Rebecca Sugar, and Pat McHale.

Side Quests, a new episodic-focused series set around the time of season 1 of the original show, with Nate Cash probably serving as showrunner, making this the first Adventure Time media since season five to not be produced by Adam Muto.

Heyo BMO, a preschool show with involvement from Adam Muto and Obsidian storyboard artist and children's writer Ashlyn Anstee.

None of these have a release date yet, but I expect none of them to come out until 2025 at the earliest, and they may be further delayed if there is a TAG strike later this year.

COMICS STUFF

Adventure Time Compendium Vol. 1, an Oni Press publication that will collect issues #1-#35 of the 2012 Adventure Time series; those written by Ryan North. It will be released on the 15th of October 2024.

The Fionna and Cake Compendium, which will collect various Fionna and Cake stories, including the 2013 comic miniseries and Fionna & Cake: Card Wars. It will be released on the 12th of November 2024.

Adventure Time Compendium Vol. 2, which will collect issues #36-#61 of the 2012 Adventure Time series, which is all the issues written by Christopher Hastings. It will be released on the 25th of March 2025.

Oni Press have promised some new original comics coming in 2025, but these are yet to be announced.

OTHER STUFF

Journey to Ooo, a young readers' Screen Comix adaptation of the episodes Dungeon and Fionna and Cake, published by Penguin Random House and releasing on the 3rd of September 2024.

Adventure Time: The Roleplaying Game, a 5e-compatible TTRPG developed by Cryptozoic Entertainment, currently aiming for a March 2025 release.

The Smash-like fighting game Multiversus is already out, but future updates are set to introduce new Adventure Time characters, including Marceline, and new story cutscenes featuring those characters.

[smiteworks]

🔥 Unleash the power of the horde!

Select Nord Games titles on sale on Fantasy Grounds VTT! Claim your victory! 🏹

[thecreaturecodex]

If I Ran the Zoo: Energy Types

"Experimental Overload" © Wizards of the Coast, by Lie Setiawan. Accessed at Art of MtG here

Pathfinder 1e is built off of the chassis of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition. And early in the game’s life especially, backwards compatibility was a priority. Which means that some bad decisions that D&D 3e made were grandfathered into Pathfinder 1e, and then were revised in PF2e. Energy types are one of them.

The canonical five energy types in PF1e are acid, cold, electricity, fire and sonic. Sonic damage is very rare, as is sonic resistance. There are other effects that deal damage in ways that are similar to energy types, like positive and negative energy and force damage, but are not defended against in the same way.

And then there’s poison. In previous editions of D&D, poison did hit point damage for the most part, unless it just instantly killed your character. There’s a lot of instant-kill poisons in AD&D. So it might have seemed like a good idea to change that, and to showcase the new concept of ability score damage, by making most poisons deal ability score damage. In actual practice, this means that characters have to recalculate a lot of their statistics every time they take damage from poison, slowing down play. And for low level characters without access to lots of lesser restoration spells, a fight with venomous monsters may result in days of downtime to recover. Not so great for the story driven heroic fantasy model that most D&D and PF games default to.

Both Pathfinder 2e and D&D 4e course corrected from this model, and made poison a type of energy damage. In PF2e, flat penalties to particular rolls are inflicted with status conditions like weakened and stupefied. In D&D 5e, penalties to abilities are very rare.

So, in the same spirit as PF2e and D&D 5e, I am going to make some revisions to the energy types. The Codex is going to use these energy types going forward, and I intend to go back over some older monsters in order to apply them retroactively. Mostly in terms of using the terms “mental” and “radiant” on previous monsters, but also changing some monsters that deal acid damage to poison (because that was already a change made in adaptation, so I’m changing it back) or changing the poisons of some monsters, particularly low CR monsters, from dealing ability damage to hit point damage.

Homebrew Rules: Expanded Energy Types There are eleven energy types, split into two categories. The five energy types that are the most common in nature are referred to as the primal energies—acid, cold, electricity, fire, poison. The six energy types that are more common in the Great Beyond and are controlled with magic are the esoteric energy types—force, mental, positive, negative, radiant and sonic. Positive energy typically heals the living and negative energy typically heals the undead.

Spells in PF1e that grant energy resistance, such as resist energy and protection from energy, give their full protection against the primal energy types only. Against most esoteric energy types, they give half of their normal protection. For example, a resist energy spell cast by a 3rd level caster can grant resistance 10 to acid or fire, but only resistance 5 to mental or radiant damage. These spells grant no resistance to force damage. Spells that only protect against specific energy types, such as draconic reservoir, are unchanged.

Dwarves and other playable species that gain a bonus on saving throws vs. poison gain resist 5 to that energy type as well. The breath weapon of green dragons deals poison damage, not acid damage.

[psychhound]

hey yall!!! new bundle :D

this is my 14 for 14 ttrpg bundle to pay off some of the debt from my top surgery!! you get 14 games and homebrew for 14 bucks, which is gonna run until june 14th (my birthday!!)

my top surgery was absolutely life changing and has made me so much more comfortable, confident, and happy. i dont regret it in the least. i also got hit with some surprise bills afterward that have me pretty heftily in debt because of it

some very kind souls have donated their games to help me pay some of this off, which was just so incredibly generous. which means its not just my games in here!! lots and lots of cool stuff, please check it out!!

in the bundle:

ttrpgs:

[BXLLET> : a game about systems of violence and power in the weird west apocalypse

disparateum: a dream-like reality-bending game where you hop worlds and tell strange stories

little celestial fieldwork guide: a city exploration photography game where you divine hidden spirits and take photos of them

beach day!: a system agnostic party bonding minigame where characters swap gifts and secrets

what they once feared: a solo journaling game where you play a folkloric monster forced to choose your path

the narrator paradox: a one page solo game where you play a storybook narrator whos protagonist has gained agency and is trying to change the story

the fool who got married (extended): a duet epistolary game of female hardship and connection in 1848

explorers of the forever city: a rules-light, fantasy role-playing game about ordinary people making extraordinary discoveries

homebrew:

riders: a pact for moth-light by justin ford, a fitd game. tame, bond with, and ride the terrifying predator moths

witch: a class for d&d 5e. be a con-based half-caster with curses, familiars, and a whole new way of doing spell slots

harmony with the wind: a ghibli-inspired d&d 5e pack with 5 feats, 4 backgrounds, 4 races, 6 monsters, and 3 subclasses

fairytale/feywild: a pack for d&d 5e with 1 background, 2 races, 1 subclass, and unique timekeeping mechanics for the feywild

burger wizard: a d&d 5e compatible narrative rpg about working as magical kitchen staff in a fantasy restaurant

argyth's arcane companion: 4 wizard subclasses, 3 feats, and 17 new spells for d&d 5e

you can get all of this for 14 bucks until june 14th!! it would really mean a lot to me for yall to check it out and also spread the word :D

check it out on itch!!

[bugmeyer]

Angelic resin miniatures for tabletop gaming that come complete with 5E compatible rules for epic-level boss encounters.

It's been a long time coming! I hope you enjoy these :)

[jhamkul]

Monk Subclass: Way of the Earthen Fist

✨Collaboration with @aripockily ✨

Become one with the earth! This new subclass for monks, compatible with the new D&D 2024 rules, lets you transform your fists into hardened weapons, drawing strength from the very ground beneath you, and offers you incredible battlefield control. A unique twist on the classic earth bending monk! What kind of character would you create for your next campaign using this new monk subclass?

—————————

➡️ Follow Jhamkul’s Forge on Instagram for more D&D 5e content