So I Kinda Hate Dungeons and Dragons (Confessions of a 10 Year Long Player) VIDEO ESSAY 

One of the takes in this video that I strongly agree with is that despite it being proclaimed by everyone as a game that is supposed to encourage roleplaying, 5e actually does next to nothing to actually encourage that. And I'm glad that that is brought up in this video essay. But I feel like it also goes completely unelaborated upon, and is something that people who have only ever played D&D will bounce off of. "It's Rules-Light," or "That's what Inspiration is for" they'll say. I think anyone who has played a game that does encourage RP knows what you're talking about, but I can see someone who hasn't tuning out because of the lack of explanation.

Pathfinder's attempts to improve their game show so much more promise than WotCs it really highlights just how empty and performative Wizards are.

When videos mention "I don't want to learn another game" as a common argument, they almost never point out the biggest flaw in that argument: DnD is one of the more complicated games out there. Most games are much, much simpler than DnD. I can teach someone a PBTA game in 5 minutes, I could teach someone a pretty crunchy game like Panic At The Dojo in like an hour. They're all cheaper and easier to learn. For the 120 dollar buy-in of the three core DnD books (before maps and minis, even if i just use one-inch graph paper and steal pawns from other board games, thars extra cost), I could get 6-12 amazingly good indie RPGs, and read them all back to front in less time than it would take to read just the players handbook.

In my experience, getting your friends to play other games isn't nearly as hard as people say online. Like, talking to anonymous users on a DND forum is gonna get pushback. But saying, "hey friends, I want to run a new game for a couple sessions. it's called 7th sea and it's about romance and dueling and sailing, like pirates of the Caribbean! You're gonna get most of your friends saying sure let's give it a shot!

As someone who actually makes tiny independent TTRPG's, thank you so much for promoting what we do! It can be exhausting sometimes to make some elaborate system about post-human robots fighting each other in the post-apocalypse or witchy cowboys having supernatural showdowns and then have someone ask me, "Why don't you just use D&D?"

Thanks for the recommendations, and in return I'd like to give you one. Fabula Ultima. If you dig 80s and 90s era rpgs like final fantasy and chrono trigger, I can't recommend this game enough. I love it so much. From the Job system, to the way it abstracts magic and combat in such a way that it becomes at least as much a conversation between everyone at the table as it is about rolling dice, the flavor is first and foremost. Mechanically light, it gives everyone at the table the tools to help create a narratively engaging world.

I remember trying DnD for the first time and I had a lot of the same grievances. Stuff like waiting 30 minutes just to miss my attack and having no incentive to roleplay. Whenever I brought this up to DnD vets the response was just "Love it or fuck off", just very defensive. At least this video confirms that I wasn't crazy.

After playing mostly crpgs, I got into a pretty consistent dnd group (with the odd group that didn't pan out here and there). I played maybe 6 or 7 campaigns over the course of 5 or so years, and I can safely say it is not a game for roleplaying or creative emergent stories. The only times we were able to accomplish that was when either a player or the DM ignored or hacked large portions of the game's design to facilitate an interesting idea or goal. The vast majority of the time played was struggling against the mechanics, rather than having the mechanics reinforce what they're meant to represent. But by far my biggest problem with the game is the way in which it instills certain mindsets and approaches to thinking via mechanical incentives.

The fact DND has such a low hit probability is crazy. It's been a long time since I played DnD, 5e or otherwise, but I've recently gotten back into ttrpgs with Lancer. In Lancer, the base hit probability is closer to 60-80 iirc, with significant modifications based on player level and things like accuracy. And even then, mechanics like reliable damage on a miss, attacks with no roll to hit, and powerful support and area control options make it so even when you have terrible luck, you're still contributing and could even be the mvp.

While I understand external problems, DnD main problem remains its own design. DnD comes from a wargame that evolved into dungeon crawling, and its design never went away from that, even if WOTC pretends they did just that. DnD design is stale, but it's not even entirely the designers faults, 4e failure is an example of how people are resistant to change. And all of this wouldn't be a problem if WOTC didn't have such a strong hold on the hobby as a whole. DnD 5e could perfectly work in its (large) niche, but somehow it gets pushed into other games niches as well. It has become even harder to fine games that aren't 5e based. The only positive element is that the popularity of the game brought even more players around, so in a sense there is a slightly larger trickle down of players from DnD to other games. But honestly, it's not enough for me to just "accept" this situation. Hell, at the height of ita popularity 3e wasn't such a problem. Games like World of Darkbess were still dominant as well

Honestly one of my least favourite thing about Dnd homebrew is when it tries to make Dnd into a different setting. Every time someone talks to me about this i say to try a different system. There is always a system that will provide the setting and “feel” that you’re going for better than Dnd will.

Haven't watched the whole video (since its been out for an half hour whilst writing this lol), but I think that D&D needs to be reigned in, because there's so many good games out there that people just won't play due to D&D being so dominant. So I'm glad WOTC is helping do that with all their outright malicious behaviors and fumbles. I also love indie ttrpgs because it is so much more diverse, in terms of mechanics, themes, and representation. For anyone reading this, give your local indie ttrpg developers some love and support, okay?

i used to think that 5e was good because other rpg systems seemed complex, but then my dm my group into lancer and I realized how unbalanced and restrictive 5e was. no joke i had not played a single game with less than 3 bards or warlocks in our 5~person group.

Haven't yet finished the video, but I think it's worth pointing out that magic classes also suffer from their imbalance, since martial classes are usually so weak, spells tend to have a lot of limits, especially when it comes to more creative and fun uses. Plenty of spells that can affect the environment, for example, are basically useless outside of very specific cases and lack any real permanence, most spells seem like they're intended for combat use only, and even then only in the specific ways the designers want. EDIT: My groups tend to skew towards older systems than the ones you point out, and I think people should at least look into systems like 7th Sea and the classic WoD ones, especially Mage. They all have issues both in mechanics and themes, but they also have some really interesting things that few games tried after. Mage in particular stands out as having one of the best magic systems because instead of spells you're given constraints on what you can modify based on your skills, and you're free to come up with anything that fits in it.

My issue with 5e "races" and how people use them is that elves, dwarves and orcs aren't races. Race is socially constructed idea made only a few hundred years ago, as just another way to seperate other humans. Elves are another type of being entirely. Their way of thinking will be vastly different, they will have different physical traits to humans, but most people often just treat them as funny humans with weird ears.

i think it's fine to play 5e if it's fun for you. It's not a good idea to refuse to play any other ttrpg because you're an exclusive 5e player. Trying other games is awesome actually

I'm uh... I'm not sure having partially A.I. generated art in one of their books is, and i quote "just as bad" as hiring people to physically threaten someone and their family because you sent them some cards by accident. I mean it's lazy, and bad for the artistic merit of the work, but if someone had a gun to my head and I had to either use an A.I. generated image in a work of art, or send the pinkertons to someone's house, I'd go with the A.I. lol

The best D&D campaign I ever played was one in which we had no spellcasters. It opened everything up. Combat turns went faster, everyone's contribution mattered, and it freed the DM up to create interesting challenges that had to be solved in creative ways instead of ruining it with Instant Miracle spellcasting. I've always wanted to do another campaign like that, but proposing that earns you hateful looks from some people. If they can't play a Sorcerer who dominates combat with max damage metamagic, dominates travel by not having to specifically prepare utility spells, and dominates npc interactions by having max charisma, then they're not playing.

I'll be honest as hell, OneDnD goes the WORST direction it can go. All of the races are just "here, have a human with spells slapped on it, it's now a new race". Everything is moved to long rests and not short rests. It's just worse in every aspect.

I just started this video, and I get what you're saying. Not really trying to be critical of it. But it just reminds me of how wild it was for me getting back into the hobby in 2019 and finding 5e (and to a degree Pathfinder) to be such a crushing weight on the whole hobby. When I got out of gaming in the early 2000s D&D was a mostly dead & archaic game that few people were really talking about, 3rd Ed. had made a splash (particularly with the D20 open license) when it came out, but was quickly fading. Through the entire 90s, D&D was barely a blip on my radar. Heck, TSR essentially died and nobody cared. I worked in a tabletop game store, and while we had a couple loyal players (what you'd now call a Grognard), almost nobody was playing D&D. World of Darkness was huge. Call of Cthulhu & All Flesh Must Be Eaten were favorites at the store. Legend of the Five Rings (1st Ed, not the 5e version that's out there now), Deadlands, Cyberpunk 2020, and a ton of other games sold and were played way more than D&D. I think at one point the store had 2 different ongoing games of West End's Star Wars. We'd occasionally have someone who'd run a game of D&D (or AD&D or whatever) as a lark, to try to capture that "old time" feeling. But those were rare and usually only lasted a session or two before folks remembered why they'd stopped playing D&D. Even though I think there's more creativity and more wonderful games out there today than ever before, I still sort of think of the 90s as the golden age of interesting games, because a vast number of them existed in an environment where D&D wasn't sucking all the oxygen out of the room like it does today. Heck, I've been trying to get a group together for several years now, and have had little luck, in large part because I have no interest in D&D. (Sidebar: it cracks me up when folks talk about "rules lite" games as being a new thing, when they were all the rage in the 90s. I've definitely seen people refer to 90s games as all super complex, and that generally isn't the case...except for Rifts).

Ok but a kamen rider ttrpg is literally everything I’ve been looking for for so long. Now how do I convince my players to let me run a game of it…

This is so cathartic for someone like me who was in a pretty toxic ttrpg spaces and tried making 5E work because no one else around me wanted to play other TTRPGs outside of DnD. I was obsessed with 5E until I got out of high school when I realized it's just ass for everyone involved.

As someone who has ran some form of D&D or another for 22+ years (mostly because other players refuse to play anything else), I have to say that this is a great essay which discloses most (if not all) of its issues. Nowadays I happily get to run other games (mostly PbtA) and I'm about to finish my last D&D campaigns and I can't agree more with you: D&D is no doorway to the hobby, but what's kept-and what keeps on-holding RPGs back. Hopefully we can finally move past it soon. Great indie recommendations, btw! And thanks a lot for this incredible piece 😁🖤

love the call out for not drinking water halfway thru this video right as i could feel my inside mummifying. thank you -Drizzle

I came into this with the mind that this was gonna be either a great video with a lot of nuance or a vain rant, and after hearing that amazing segue from that intro, I'm strapping in cause it's definitely going to be the former. (Update: I'm happy I was right)

There really are so many good systems out there. My group and I play Star Wars: Saga Edition, but their are countless others. Vampire, Cyberpunk, or Call of Cthulu, just to name a few. Thank you for this insightful look into an ancient system unwilling to make drastic changes.

3 minutes in and im hyped as hell to experience a new rising star in video essays! This is a topic ive talked about with freinds before and im excited to see such a thorough piece of art exploring it.

As someone who has never played any ttrpg, the idea of casters being op is kinda.... life. Longbowmen were some of the best forces for a decent chunk of time, modern warfare is rarely hand to hand anymore. It makes sense in a world with magic that magic becomes the new gun.

I know you can't say, but I would love to interview some of these people for my blog. But confidentiality is what it is. Some of these criticisms have been around probably been around since the mid 1970s. Once upon an edition, Rangers basically ruled the game. We've all seen some of the same flaws across all editions and retroclones. It happens. Every TTRPG has some messed up abstractions and idiosyncrasies. Parts 2 and 3 were spot on. Yes, I actually watched all the way through. Great video.

4th Edition fixed the Martial Caster Divide. It had tanking mechanics. Monster stat blocks were awesome. It also had quite a few horrible flaws too, and failed so badly Wizards decided to play it safe and produce the tamest game possible, 5e.

Yeesh yeah. I felt the section on the success and failure of dice rolls so hard. I genuinely just roll low on average and eventually only played abjuration wiz with lucky just to do anything unless the dm was being kind or I truly got lucky. The 50/50 on the dice rolls turned me away from dnd entirely. There are just too many better ttrpg engines out there. Edit: and I just got through the section on the bigotry from wizards and dnd……yup. I wasn’t stopped from playing it while I was younger but I was warned about it. My mom is one of the greatest, and she did explain why I shouldn’t just accept the baseline given from the books. Sadly my dad didn’t do the same and it took a long time to shed the internal racism I built up because of his views.

As somebody who got into DnD during the pandemic, it didn't take long for me and my group to develop the same grievances and start digging around for new systems. I'm looking forward to looking into your recommendations! I'm right with you on ICON, though. That game slaps hardest of everything I've played so far.

I'm a very min-maxy guy, but I recomend pathfinder 2e because the min-maxing is more about your versitality and thinking about fighting tactically as a party with everyone being a piece of the machine that destroys enemies. That way even a filthy optimizer like me can have fun while not stealing the spotlight in combat.

You convinced me. I mean I was mostly into the collaborative storytelling and the other ttrpgs your recommended sounded so cool. Ima play this with my sister tomorrow and see how it goes. Thanks for the video

The thing about the marital/caster divide is that there was an edition that solved this. 4th edition had very clear combat delineation and parity between marital and casters with unique roles and mechanics that worked well together and rewarded parties that coordinated between them and people *fucking hated it* to the extent that breaking martial/caster parity was an explicit design goal of DnD Next.

D&D players today are well aware of the "deep caverns" of the hobby, of the corners where the "Dungeon Racists" dwell. People who attach themselves to a very flawed game that existed in the past and spill bile over anything that changes public perception of it - but I feel like "5e only" people are well on their way to that very place, just forming a new layer of it. It won't be an overwhelming amount of people, but I feel that 5e nostalgia can very easily become the catalyst for "us vs. them" mentality that will make the "Dungeon Racists" pale in comparison. And you know how to NOT be that person? Actually try out games by all kinds of people! D&D is still in very large parts shaped by "white nerdy kid" culture, and you balance that with seeing games by different kinds of people, or from different countries. And no, alas, Pathfinder 2 or what else are not big enough divergence, it will take many-many right steps to become more encompassing, as much as I love them. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is not my kind of game, personally, but reading it actually made me understand all sorts of WLW people better, to point of realising I am in that group. Gubat Banwa is not complete and keeping up with changes has been dizzying, but seeing a fantasy world from entirely Filipino perspective introduced me to a whole new kind of place I didn't even know existed, as well as actually people from Philippines - and now I think that if there was an earnest Eastern European fantasy world, it absolutely could queues in how it rejects the fantasy paradigms. A lot of prominent Lancer fans are not as anti-imperialist as they think they are, to be fair, but the game was a learning experience both in game design and worldbuilding. And, hell, I very much do not like the angle of most OSR games, but the particular sort of gaming philosophy it encourages can be another, very interesting tool.

I've actually been wanting to MAKE a video like this for years now. TYSM for doing it for me and surpasing overtly every point I would've ever wanted to make. Tysm for rising your voice!

You had me in the first half not gonna lie then you just spiralled into an Extra Credits circus but thanks for the recommendations, so that's something I guess.

I do have one objection against the Warlock and Fighter comparison, I dont know where you got those numbers, however 2 reasonably optimized fighers and warlocks look like this (also, a warlock is the caster with the most resourceless damage, so calling it the weakest for a resourceless damage comparison is kind of unfair) (also, comparison is against AC 16 at level 5) Warlock: 0.55*(2d10+8) = 10.45 damage per round Fighter (archer): 2*0.35*(1d10+10+3) = 12.95 The problem still stands, however if the fighter takes a damage feat for optimization, and the warlock picks their best damage invocation, base fighter is slightly above base warlock. Not even talking about optimization, where, if you pick certaint subclasses and multiclasses, martials become the king of single target sustained damage. The real issue is that martials can only do single target sustained damage. And that battle field control, single target shutdown, utility and area of effect damage are all practically caster exclusive. Also, subclasses are (if optimized) in favor of the figher, since echo knight would allow for a third attack every round, adding 50% more damage. Also, I have no idea why the figher's damage does not double when they are using resources, after all, they get action surge, which basically allows them to attack 2ce as much for one turn. About reach: This is assuming a fighter using a bow, they have the same range as the warlock, however more hp and probably more ac, and are therefore safer. I fully agree that martials have a lot of problems, worse defenses, worse utility, etc. About saving throws, wisdom is probably the best, however charisma saves are so rare they basically never come up. Intelligence is somewhere in between. I personally think that Dex saving throws are probably the second most important, as yes, taking damage is often not that bad. However the sheer regularity at which Dex saves are required, that really adds up. TLDR: Martials can do only one thing better than casters and that is consistent resourceless single target damage, in nearly any other aspect, be it defense, utility, control or social, martials are worse. For most of those rogue points, fair, however picking locks is still effective, You have nock and passwall as spells, nock is easily accesable, however it makes a sound so loud that doing it stealthily is not an option unless you combine it with scilence, at which point it takes up a lot of resources. And then passwall, It is such a high level spell that it is not really repeatable. About switching games, you know what, my current group is running into the foretold scheduling issues, if I get 4 responses that can agree on a system, Ill join, the real trouble is that I can say I want to try pathfinder all I want, finding a 5e game is hard enough already, nothing to even say about playing rarer systems.

I’m really glad you mentioned Icon in your combat section, I play a lot of Lancer, made by the same team, and it’s combat felt so fucking amazing after being burnt out of 5e a few years ago.

Its really cool that you did put your sources in the description!! And amazing video! you really know how to keep the audience engaged. And I appreciate your writting and time invested in it! I am excited to watch whatever you do next! Keep on being awesome!

I hope I can alleviate some of your worries that people wouldn't listen to the end, because hearing you talk about all these new games I'd never heard of, many which I'm now itching to try out, definitely made my day. I really appreciate this video existing, thank you ^v^

What a great video, thank you. As someone who has had similar concerns with D&D is it refreshing to see such a long and well thought out video putting focus on the many issues at hand. Change starts with one conversation at a time, so I will do what I can to help spread this video and ideas. Good luck, friend.

You just described real life Nintendo. Except in real life Nintendo has competition.

I’m super glad that this is a nuanced view (and I’m really hoping there are some ttrpg recommendations) because I’ve been wanting to play a ttrpg for a while but a few things have made me move away from wanting to play DnD. I didn’t want to watch something from a full-blown hater nitpicking the game and would much rather listen to a critique from someone who played and had fun playing I haven’t watched the whole video yet but thus far it’s been super enjoyable

I'm so dang stoked for Icon! The art in it is so incredible. I haven't had the chance to put Lancer down at the table yet, but I've read the book cover to cover and am in love with it. I imagine Icon is AT LEAST as good. After my current Troika! campaign ends (which I run for my homies at the library that I work for) I'm going to tell them it's Lancer or bust. Great video, specifically- great list of indie TTRPGs.

A very well-done video that I think sums up a lot of people's journeys within the TRPG space, whether at the start or towards the end of that journey of discovery that more lies beyond corporate nostalgia and old sacred cows. I do believe we are just about to enter a new tabletop renaissance.

I've been playing in a 2nd Edition Dark Sun game and it really highlights 5e's shortcomings. My preference is 3.5 using only the core books + Manual of the Planes and any setting books if playing in a specific setting. 3.5 Ravenloft is my favorite game setting ever.

Thank you so so much for the game recommendations, I started watching your vid here yesterday on my birthday and the amount of times i yelled YES at your critiques was a lot. I'm burned out on d&d but still want a fun game with my friends. Icon looks like a ton of fun. Wishing you all the best

I would love to hear you talk more about other systems, especially their battle systems and the incentives they give roleplay. I also think that'd be the best takeaway from this, more than just listing them

Sorry this is really off topic but ma’am- your music taste is SO BASED I’m literally vibing so hard rn.

I originally started playing tabletop games with some friends from school, and what you said about dice rolls and their invariability really resonated with me. The first system I played was Genesys, which has its own cool custom dice with no numbers, using units of Success/Failure and Advantage/Threat to determine the outcome that the DM has some control over. You might fail in one way but something else happens that is good for you, or you might succeed at what you're trying to do but something else went wrong. It made the game feel so much more dynamic when the outcomes of your actions wasnt crystal clear (and therefore boring). Many years later with those friends gone and only playing DnD online, I really despise the dice system and how it discourages any creativity in the outcome of roles. This is compounded by the fact that as a martial class (rogue) I have to make often several more rolls just to get my damage off compared to casters.

You made a wonderful video that was super sincere and incredibly eye-opening. I hate that I'd gone without knowing this games horrid history. Thank you so much for this. I can't wait to give animon story and emptycycle a try.

This was a wonderful watch. It hit a lot of my feelings (I keep trying to entice people into the rando ttrpgs all the time) and was handled with compassion and enthusiasm. Loved your recommendations, thanks for making this!

3 minutes in and I already know this is going to be great. Good job on the intro, will give my full thoughts when I'm finished. 🍿

halfway through the video, but wanted to say that I think that most of the problems with DnD currently is that it's just bogged down by it's legacy and they don't want to move away from how things were done back in the olden days, cause they feel that is what makes DnD, DnD. Because a lot of the problems have already been fixed by other games. (and also the problem is unmitigated hell capitalism that put profits over everything, but that's a whole other topic)

1:06:29 I was surprise when I learned that the OGL was never a good faith document in the first place, it was a business strategy. The idea was that by getting a bunch of third party content books on shelves they pushed out other tabletop role playing games from being seen in game shops. Thereby capitalizing on the market. Fill the shelves with content no one's really going to buy but is related to your game and then your game only.

I know a lot of people have issues with D&D, mainly towards the 5th Edition. But here's a big question I have...can't players just come up with their own kind of campaign/game? Who says what we play has to be STRICTLY Pathfinder or 5E oriented? Dimension20's content all feels so different from anything D&D has come up with, despite the fact they supposedly use some minor bits of the main source material

Just started the vid, but just wanted to say I love that remix of Twister in the beginning! I havent heard it before, who made it? Or if its from one of the OSTs, what version is it? Apologies if its in the credits or something, again I just started it and will probably finish it later.

I'm in definite agreement on the mechanical aspects! As it stands I'm in groups that mostly play Pathfinder 1e graduating from 5e. Pathfinder 1e probably has its own share of weirdness (given it's 3.5e but with the numbers filed off) and there's tons of weird homebrrew things, but it's got a weird Guilty Gear-ish sort of balance where everyone is REALLY POWERFUL but the enemies have everything we do so in a very odd way it winds up being fun. We're also trying out Cthulhutech, Shadow of the Demon Lord and other things. In short, we've learned to avoid the pitfalls of the issues of D&D... even if it takes a whole lotta understanding to get into it. Excellent use of music too.

Really enjoyed this one and thanks for introducing me to Empty Cycle that instantly grabbed my attention. Sadly, even though my friends are open to new systems I think I'm the only one that's emo enough for it lol

Me, clicking on the video and heading straight into the comments without listening: "omg I know right, anyway here's my top ten favorite indie RPGs..."

I'm sold on trying Headware from the Whirling-In-Rags music playing when you talked about it

Thank you for posting direct links to the games you discussed, because I tried searching for them on several search engines and couldn’t find them

I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so SO SO SO SO SO infinitely glad that you brought up ICON. It's such an incredible god damned system. I am so excited for the official release.

On the subject of success rates: I've found that success rate skyrockets around level 6, after which my party had a something like 80% success rate at the things they were good at.

I think one catch is that martials can be a best of single target damage but that is largely confined to either specific builds (the xbow master sharpshooter or the polearm master heavy weapon master) or are reliant upon magic items.

In the middle of you reading out antimagic field's rules, I was like "ohhh this is going to be about ki strikes isn't it?" xD

I haven't finished watching yet, but I have some insight into potential good uses for resistance/immunity to non-magical weapons. I was running an all-martials game, and put my party up against a mix of skeletons and shadows. Only the paladin(when smiting) and the Barbarian(whose show of honor earned him the loyalty of a choosy magic weapon) could easily hurt the shadows. This created tactical complexity and gave the barbarian and paladin time to shine, while the rest of the party were still contributing members. That said, this relied on a muxed enemy encounter, and a lack of casters who can just casually do magic damage. Immunity to non-magic weapons can also function as gatekeepers. If the party know it can only be hurt by magic weapons, or flee when they fail to hurt it, they have extra reason to seek out those magic weapons and come back stronger. This is also thwarted by casters though, because they don't have an equivalent to seek out.

What being a scaling down in terms of unit size from Napoleonic Tabletop Wargames does to a TTRPG System. What being the Imperalist, Colonist Fantasy of Exploring And Taming New Lands does to a TTRPG System. What having Gary Gaygax have as an original author does to a TTRPG System. D&D is TRULY the Most American Game Ever for many reasons, all of which you wonderfully highlight and point to in this video, and hell yes for the list of different TTRPGs to try! "Nobody likes Shaman King" I like Shaman King. And all the TTRPGs you suggest sound really fascinating! Empty Cycles especially, that is hitting me right in my "country girl but it's basically a suburb for a small town nearby" soul. I was slightly surprised there wasn't outright recommendations of like, Masks or Monsterhearts, you've covered ICON and LANCER while criticising D&D so I'm not shocked LANCER wasn't involved there. And you know, something that's kind of tragic in TTRPG spaces is all the International (in contrast to American or British) TTRPGs that don't get localized and as such don't get released. Us Czechs have a whole mini franchise of Dračí Doupě, "Dragon's Den", consisting of three versions: The out of print 1.6 version, and the in-print Plus and 2 versions. And I have all of the DrD+ books, having inherited them from my older brother as effectively a hand-me down. Some of its choices do follow DnD rules, and part of the Ranger class is heavily appropriative of Native American culture, but it can be somewhat excused as the consequences of a game from 2004, before we even joined the European Union, made in a former Eastern Bloc country. It's whole "We're providing on average 90 page playbooks for each of the six classes, paired together three archetypes printed in reversible books" ethos and some of its mechanics are fascinating. I have half a mind and even started the process of making an abridged English translation of the books with slight homebrewing to remove a stupid character creation rule of "women shift racial modifiers with -1 in strength and +1 in agility" Oh and if you like Mecha anime, I found Steel Hearts Zero an interesting concept, even if I haven't had a chance to play it because I just don't have a group to play TTRPGs with. Not if I want to be a player instead of a DM. Steel Hearts definitely takes inspiration from a combination of Gundam with its mech designs and Pacific Rym with its Wyrms as main enemies, and what's neat is how all the playable mechs are depicted in the book in the "SD" style of GunPla kits. Anyway, thank you for making this wonderful video, thank you for pointing me in the direction of some cool TTRPGs I'd love to play, and I hope you have fun at your table.

Icon, monster care squad, and skel-it-ons look fantastic to play!! Great video, it really was well crafted

what's that awesome twister remix used in the intro?

Love the video and agree with most of your opinions of course, but I would love to see more factuality, because some of the examples are not even true... Your style is very cool, I enjoyed the transitions, the music choices and the soothing voice a lot~ - Gradual successes actually exist in some of the modules, but you are right that it would be better for the main game too (explained in the DMG) - Comparison between level 6 fighter and level 6 warlock was kinda backwards tho. If we are just comparing a level 6 fighter with GWF fighting style and a greataxe and a baseline (eldritch blast + hex) warlock without any feats (because they will make fighter A LOT BETTER) we have vs AC 15, 65% for warlock to hit with a 1d10+4+1d6(hex) (5.5+4+3.5), with a crit chance of 5% and a damage of (5.5+3.5) = 8.9 damage per attack * 2 blasts = 17.8 damage per round. Fighter has 70% (because ASI at 6th), hits for 1d12(rerolls)+5 (7.33+5), with a crit chance of 5% and a damage of (7.33) = 8.9975 damage per attack * 2 attack = 17.995 damage per round. (with SS for a feat and an archery it would be even worse math-wise for warlock) - Hard agree that the monsters and the resistances are one of the worse things in the dnd and they need a lot of reworking (and that would help a system A LOT) - Also some race-based issues you pointed out in the beggining (with Agressive for orcs) are reworked in the newer books. It was super fucked up and a lot of old dnd nerds are super problematic (and a lot of those practices we have in dnd from that), but the dnd team kinda tries to better the game in that regard imho. - Also for some reason wotc decided to change from ONE DND to just DND(phb) 2024. I do agree that casters got even more stuff, but when pointing out the sorcerer wish fuck-up, we must understand, that we are rating playtest material and the last UA was very good in that way. Also martials are eating even good, if we compare them to the phb2024, and we haven't seen all the spell changes yet! plus, the most important thing, i believe, is the rules changes. And a lot of them, just as we all (and you pointed out) wished - are kinda "Keywords" for conditions and stuff (BECAUSE THE OLD STEALTH WAS SO FUCKED UPPP OHMYGOD) So most of my nitpicks come from some factual inconsistencies and your favoritism of other systems (which is super okay, thats not bad at all). I, myself, mainly play and love dnd for the popularity and the amount of 3rd party stuff, but I tried a lot of different (more and less mechanical) systems in my time and took some good ideas for my dnd games. A lot of problems pointed out with the company itself comes to the company (wotc) and their fucked up practices. I don't think that DnD as a system is inherently bad, because its popular and people want to keep playing it (if we are talking about people from dnd community refusing to play other systems). It's kinda weird to critique people for doing something that they are comfortable with, if they are not harmful about it. With the last part - I do agree that most of the community (not just dnd) and the dnd setting are super problematic for out time and need A LOT OF WORK TO BE OK FOR OUR TABLES. But we must also agree, that the designers for dnd(not the big company itself) are trying to be more normal about race, sexuality, gender and disability issues. And as we are seeing with all the lore changes - that makes a lof of old (racist ass) dnd nerds SUPER ANGRY.

Have you tried Mörk Borg? It's fantastic.

This must have taken an incredible amount of time. Thank you so much for doing this. I wasn’t aware of all these issues. Well done. Are there any recommendations that are closer to D&D? While I am very happy to see lots of recommendations of all the colors the ttrpg genre has to offer, I would assume the average D&D player has a hard time looking into them. It’s already hard for them to take a look at _anything_ else. A few recommendations that surpass D&D specifically (in both ethics and design) would be great. That way people could still feel home in the fantasy genre while trying a better designed game. Thanks again. Keep up the good work and spread the love

does anyone know the song that kicks in around 2:03:10 ???? itsso familiar but i cant place it and its killing me

Yo What's the Twister remix used in the beginning intro? It's possible I'm blind and just don't see it in the Description, but I need that in my life immediately.

Excellent video ^^ I've been running a D&D campaign for a long, long time but I'm definitly gonna try a different system to DM once it's done. Probably Jay Barret/Stabbyness's Sentiment system, cause I respect his ttrpg content so much. With a lot of creators trying to make their own systems to get away from DnD, like Dungeon Coach's DC20, or Matt Colville's MCDM, or Critical Role's Daggerheart, I would really be interested in a follow up from you to see if these D&D-replacement systems fix the problems you had or if they carry on the legacy a bit too much.

What is the music you use at 2:02:06 to talk about ICON?

Fascinating video and interesting points to consider, I think I will rotate in my mind some more. Funny thing just a couple ago I was arguing this exact topic. If I may leave some TTRPG suggestions in my unfortunately way too limited experience. (I am desperate for a friend group, underlining group, that can meet regularly) "The flexorcists" by kumada1, a fun one rpg about beating otherwordly entities with the flashiest moves. Mostly for one shots, still fun. "Ten million HP planet" by sandy pug games, a TTRPG about beating your home planet after it's become evil, and doing more and more ridiculous stave to get bigger and bigger numbers. "Thirsty Sword Lesbians" doesn't need an introduction, I would say. Also, not really but I can't get it out of my mind, I can't help but mention "We are but worms" by riverhouse games. Some technical notes: I think having the chapters in the description would help navigation by a lot, especially considered the length. Not too fond of the flashing lights of the storm when addressing the elephant. In any case, best of luck, I hope to see more from you in the future. :)

There is so much in this. I feel compelled, seriously compelled, to do a response video but I am certain that any of my criticisms or corrections would just be dismissed as bigoted or problematic, rather than fairly considered.

Watched the whole thing, what a fun watch. Thank u for this. Everytime u find someone else who loves FLCL i just get super excited. Might have to check out a few of these reccomendations when i have the money and im less broke lmao. Thanks for voicing my frustrations with this mess of a game!

Some of the game links are missing, including Icon. and the Lumen Ryder link is broken.

I had a lot of experience trying to "fix" d&d by house ruling it. Besides being a great way to scratch the ttrpg itch when I didn't have a group, the effort also taught me A LOT about game design. I also learned that the effort was LITERALLY impossible without tearing out (at least) half of the system and throwing it into a woodchipper. Which I did do - *multiple times* - and it was even more educational. But... yeah, no real point. That wasn't the same game anymore, so why bother saving any of it? I make my own stuff now.

so when are you going to do the TTRPG direct? ( nintendo direct)

I'm very glad youtube recomended me this and you have great taste for indie systems.

Anytime I introduce someone interested in D&D, they quickly find they liked the idea of rp and exploration more than combat. This is especially the case now with a lot of my coworkers trying Baulder’s Gate. They don’t care about the gameplay, they care about the characters and story.

Given that several Martial classes in BG3 are the best in that game (esp. something like the monk that is seen as weak in DnD proper) it does shows that it's pretty easy to flip the script. Larian did provide really good items, and did disable some spells (like dispel) - but rogues, monks, fighters etc are ace in that game without large changes to it (esp. on tactician). Helps that it improves the rest mechanic as well, and add costs to long rest so spell casters have a harder time spamming their magic. (80 supplies in tactician). and they also catered a lot of the gear towards martials.

I’m developing my own rpgs and one of my biggest fears is that nobody’s gonna seriously try it because “why not just make this in DND it sucks”

I have some quibbling disagreements with your critiques of 5e, but overall I have to agree with your take, though my distaste for the game is less severe. I'm one of those "started playing D&D, got fed up with it and made a hack, then went on to make my own games" people. (I haven't published anything - yet) But holy cow do I LOOOOOVE the last section. So many bookmarks, so many new games to check out!!

What song was playing during the intro credits?

Yes thx this video is so vindicating to me as someone who can almost never get a group that will play anything other than D&D with me (and whenever I can I am inevitably the GM so I never get to be a player in the games I love)

Down with Hasbro, long live tabletop RPGs!

Shiori Lady uploaded pogchamp. also I feel the stupid ass ruling section really hard as someone who plays yugioh

I've been getting exhausted with D&D and d20 games in general, so recently I've been making an effort to try a bunch of non-d20 based ttrpgs. I'll have too give your recommendations a look. Armour Astir is already on my list. I recommend giving Sandy Pug's Americana a look. It takes place in a fantasy 1950s worth goblins, dwarves and wolf people, and the core conceit revolves around investigating the death of a mutual friend while dealing with unhelpful adults. It's a very interesting game, if not perfect. Gormengeist's Bubblegum Wizards is also a very interesting vibes-based game about playing card game wizard in an urban sprawl at the end of the universe.

What was the song that plays in the end?

that elephant STRESSES ME OUT.

The sonic adventure music was an absolute mental flashbang.

Zayda, you are a wonderful person :)

woah that twister remix in the title sequnce is crazy, who is that by?