The Long Term Plan: Parse out the Desirable Content Over Many Books?

 In an interview with Jeremy Crawford it was revealed that evil drow in the classic Forgotten Realms style will be statted out and represented in the upcoming Forgotten Realms books this year. I realize now that one should never attribute to malice, politics, or corporatism what can be best attributed to simple greed: and parsing out desirable content over many books is a tried and true method for WotC to motivate players to buy more books, especially someone like me who might not have been that inclined to buy in to Forgotten Realms, a setting I generally have nothing to do with. In fairness, I sometimes buy these books for fun reading and to mine for ideas, but I always run my own settings. At least one of my worlds has classic evil drow in a conventional AD&D sense, so a book with thematic content like that later this year would be a nice grab, potentially. 

Either way, its making me reconsider what they are up to with the new edition and its selective absences. Will the upcoming starter set adapting from Keep on the Borderlands include orc stat blocks as foes? I bet it will now. Will the next Eberron book lean hard into Zendrik drow? It must! So maybe WotC hasn't overlooked just how integral some of these themes are to their own IP. 

I don't know that it will derail me from enjoying some alternatives to D&D right now, and I still think they made a serious mistake not including any rules on customizing humanoid NPC statblocks by species (something that the 2014 rules absolutely provided for). For me as an older D&D fan its rough when you have played a game which made the nature of beings such as drow and orcs important enough that I have worked to add depth and meaning to each version of them in my multiple game worlds, such that its noteworthy if I choose to exclude their inclusion (such as how Realms of Chirak has no drow at all). To then have a core ruleset which provides essentially no real support for such iconic monsters/species is just...weird. But if they plan on making them a focus in the upcoming FR books, then it does suggest that the real goal here for WotC is to make as much money on book sales as they can by parsing out the content across titles, counting on the hardcore to buy it all. Alas, they know me too well. 

The Good News: Tales of the Valiant Is A Good Choice

 Having ranted a bit about my descent into grognardism, manifested through the appearance of a carefully distilled Monster Manual 2025, I gotta say: I am all for, like 200% for what Kobold Press did with Tales of the Valiant now. So much so that I think I'm going to let my regulars on Saturday know that it will definitely be The Next Game (after my son concludes his Alien RPG campaign, which could well be in 1 or 2 sessions given how difficult it is for him to resist sending us into the lair of the xenomorphs). 

I am honestly very glad that Kobold Press published Tales of the Valiant. and that it seems to have enough general support for them to keep up with it. There seems to be a bit more headway on 3PP providing specific support for the Black Flag/TotV format as well, which is much appreciated. Tales of the Valiant is not perfect (it has some issues with how to resolve a half elf or half orc character, for example, trying to cheat on how that would work in the racial/cultural options it provides for; and if you are a fan of smallfolk then good luck getting a more nuanced take on halfings vs. gnomes) but at least they leave it up to the game group as to how you choose to approach drow, orcs, duergar, deep gnomes and so forth.

This will allow me to continue to enjoy a game which I feel at least leans into the story tradition the game supports and has established for decades; and D&D 5.75 can be the edition for a new, younger group of gamers who might also be shocked to read the Lord of the Rings and discover just how cruel and vicious this Tolkien guy is in his racist portrayal of orcs. ;-)

I am aware this sounds like an old grognard ranting at a bygone age and a uppity youth. I just turned 54 this week, so I guess I'm part of that crowd now. Gah!

The Monster Manual 2025 - The Book That Finally Broke Me

 So if you hang out on forums such as ENWorld you are probably reading the lengthy forum discussions, which almost entirely revolve around the absence of drow, orcs, duergar and the many, many other curious changes in the new Monster Manual. I have the book, and at this point my son who also has the new book has even used it in his middle school game. I have been somewhat reserved in my comments about it because I don't want to steal his thunder in enjoying the book, and he can draw his own conclusions. For me, the book is a curiously divisive exercise in what it looks like when this generation's version of Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD) happens to no longer be filled with good Christian moms worried the game is teaching demon worship to their kids, and is now instead filled with a different crowd that is worried it is teaching racism by allegory and the notion that portrayal of a thing (such an innately evil race) is tantamount to acceptance and belief in such a concept in the real world. It is, from my perception, precisely the same scenario that TSR faced in 1989 with the release of their sanitized version of AD&D 2nd Edition, designed to remove "problematic elements" that were perceived as causing issues for the potential buyers and players. 

So in 2025 history is now repeating itself. For me, I am disappointed as there are actually some neat things in the new 2025 MM, and some really good artwork. I'd like to use this book.....but the absence of so many old friends (foes) that are a staple of many campaigns, and the interesting and often nuanced complexity that can come with orcs, drow, and other species that lead to good storytelling as well as the exploration of the human condition through decided nonhuman beings drawn from myth is now deliberately limited, under the pretense that someone, somewhere, may be offended.

So for me, this has made deciding what to play going forward suddenly much easier. I am now looking to Mythras, which I am running Wednesdays as my go to game. Tales of the Valiant, which has a few issues but one of them is not the lack of drow, orcs and duergar, is suddenly looking like my best bet for a modern 5E experience if I want it. Pathfinder 2E managed to be both nuanced and respectful and STILL include orcs, even if they decided to retire conventional drow is still better than what WotC has done. Dragonbane, Forbidden Lands, regular old BRP, the OSR movement, and more exotic fare like Mork Borg are all out there, and all worth my time. D&D 2025? Maybe not so much anymore. The game feels like it is now aimed at the contentious, self-censorious young adult writing crowd, and I guess that's fine, I'm the old guy who would like a more interesting and mature engagement in my elf games, so I have no problem looking onward to other things. D&D, it has been fun, I'll miss you. Maybe I'll go back and play some classic 3rd Edition again, and remember the good old days when the point of the game was to have fun fantasy adventures and not try to find hidden allegories for the evils of the modern world embedded within.  

Mythras Arrives! Plus Alien and The Electric State

 We did it! We started Mythras on Wednesday. The campaign setting is one I have used in the past for D&D 3.5 (some games I ran during the pandemic period), as well as D&D 5E and Pathfinder 2E. None of those were ever a perfect fit for what I wanted to do with the campaign, which was a fantasy allegory for the post-Roman collapse period around 450-550 AD. As it turns out, Mythras is a perfect fit.

I'm leaning in to story elements and beats that will showcase for the group the unique features common only to Mythras, Runequest and some other BRP titles. Stuff such as spirit combat and animism, the ubiquity of folk magic for those who wish to learn it, and a predilection toward humans as the norm with optional other species being exceedingly rare or exotic. The first combats will be design to teach the players in the group who are new to the potentially lethal vagaries of the Mythras combat system. 

Overall I am quite pleased, and this shift has distinctly energized my GM interest in a way that has been flagging for a while. 

On Saturday, my son will run another Alien RPG campaign as well! This one will use material from Building Better Worlds and will be a (presumably) slower paced colonization campaign, with less of the cinematic pacing. I am also excited for this, its really fun to play in my son's games, he has the GM's gift, and it is good to see that torch can be handed down to him. 

Further down the road I plan to run The Electric State RPG in the near future. This is a really intriguing low-key post apocalyptic alternate timeline setting, something Free League Games excels at. The ambience the game exudes is very tantalizing, and I am intrigued to see what I can do with it. After my son finishes his Alien RPG campaign, though. 

Interestingly, while googling for a link to the game I discovered there is a planned Netflix movie for The Electric State (here). Interesting....although from the trailer I see nothing about the virtual devices which are fairly important to the fall of humanity in the RPG, so I wonder how much the show will deviate from the source material. 

Evil Genius Games Loses the Plot and Joins the En****ification of the Internet with Crass Legal Threats

 Although I think it's a good 5E-based game design and I like the movie tie-in structure, this article on ENWorld has convinced me to bail on any interest in their products. If Evil genius Games is going to play this sort of game, then I think its safe to say they are already too far down the rabbit hole, and even if they were otherwise purely innocent, this effort to contribute to the modern day zeitgeist of attacking the press is pure garbage, and I will not support it. 

Reality Incursion

 Ah what a January! Grim flu ripping through the family (I was out for a whole week), lots of work catch-up, and no shortage of micro emergencies mixed in. The usual fun times.

I got a reprieve from my Wednesday group for a bit. My son ran two sessions of the Alien RPG using the Chariot of the Gods module, and it was pretty dang fun. He is 13, but already appears to be a chip off the old GM block, having acquired his dad's talent for improvisation and storytelling. It was a glorious adventure and everyone died by the end of session two, which is ironic as that mirrors the way many of my early scenarios went when I was the same age. TPKs were just a thing that happened back in the day, and while its arguable that Alien RPG's approach can make those more readily obvious, I would also argue that not having a TPK in The Caves of Chaos was fairly unusual....TPK was the usual default, especially the first round in.

I haven't been away from GMing exactly; I have now run two sessions of a Savage Worlds Supers campaign, using a blend of classic Supers rules with the Horror Companion for a more "Dark Horse/JLA Dark" style campaign, although in truth I found myself feeling less interested in restricting myself thematically in actual play and the scenario ended up feeling more heavily influenced by the likes of The Titans, Suicide Squad, Nemesis and other thematic elements. I'm not really trying to plot too hard on this one, I decided. Better to just let it all go where it will.

For returning to Wednesday I rapidly ploughed through all my dreams and visions of breaking away from D&D and have accepted that Dragonbane and Mythras are both game systems I would like to tackle, but I still don't reside in the right timeline or frame of mind to accomplish this at the moment. To do justice to either I need to find personal time to invest my energy in the systems,* teasing out what is needed to make them comprehensive campaigns catering to each system's strengths, and be ready to act as tutor to the players, and to do battle with the rules lawyer. I just ain't got that sort of energy anymore. Maybe at some point, or with the right sort of group (the nostalgic one I remember having 25 years ago would be a fine set of test subjects for such a game) but today? Today I need the thing that I already know too well. And even that thing, D&D, requires I spend a bit more time with it to learn the new incongruities and alterations to its recent botox treatment. 

Monster Manual 2025 will be out in like 2 weeks, anyway. Going to be interesting to see how or if it is a game changer for the play experience. 

*The problem is, I have some X amount of free time, but I have 25 things vying for control of it. When I sit down these days to use that precious 2-3 hours a night I have to enjoy something, the time ends up going to a mix of book reading, comic reading, maybe a video or two, and more recently some sessions in World of Warcraft Classic or Path of Exile 2 with my wife. The interest I once had in obsessively sitting down and crafting NPCs and materials for a game system like mythras while building out a campaign that leans in to the unique developmental ethos of the game world of the system just no longer grabs me like it once did. I don't believe this is even a case of "other things are easier," anymore, because I can easily spend hours crafting a campaign setting and scenario set for D&D; it's because I no longer crave that sort of synergetic interaction with rules systems anymore, I find it tedious and uninteresting. It is okay for me, I have accepted, to admit that maybe I have done this hobby too much for too long, and some of it now feels a bit old hat to me, a bit less interesting. That could change with time, or not. But my strength of interest lies in the world building and the storytelling, and the game system which lets me do that with the least amount of fuss is what I must roll with for now, even if I do find the "old me" occasionally surfacing and eyeing Mythras of Dragonbane hungrily, even for but a moment.

Death Bat's 2025 Predictions

 I honestly don't have too many for this year. I have a lot in my personal and professional life to worry about, and so paying attention to gaming trends is pretty low on my list of things right now, but this is a tradition, and I have a few minutes, so here goes!

The RPG Tabletop Predictions

1. D&D 2025 will do just fine

I expect that the game is now too big to suffer any real setback. The worst that could happen is old players churn out, and diehards move to alternative systems, but the game has enough popular attraction to simply replace any churn with fresh blood for Hasbro. That said, I do not expect them to get the virtual tabletop thing together this year, and if/when we see it, I predict a lot of AI will be in use.

2. Nothing else in the RPG sphere will come close to D&D's marketshare

Another low-hanging fruit prediction! I just don't see anything out there on the market or predicted that isn't more traditionally cottage industry/niche corner stuff. Everything will have its rabid fanbase, and the gaming community will continue to be crowded with lots of little tents for lots of little crowds.

3. The looming Tariff Wars will hurt game publishing

It seems like the rise of tariffs on countries where publishers go to save some money on printing will impact the hobby more than a little bit. Get ready for the possibility of $80-$100 hard covers, we could easily see that happen by the end of 2025. Some publishers will skew toward finding local printers, but that will still prove more costly. It is possible (likely) this will lead to game publishers aiming for smaller page count books to offset costs a bit by reducing content. 

4. 13th Age Still won't come out this year

I have no reason to suspect one way or the other, so I am just gonna call it: 13th Age in March 2026!

The Computer Gaming Predictions

1. The Industry will continue to implode as more Games-as-a-Service models fail

I think 2024 was a rough year for the video game industry if you work in it, and 2025 will be similar. The large AAA publishers are more risk averse than ever, and games-as-a-service models are becoming too high risk now, following flops like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Concord. I suspect that we will see AAA companies continue to flounder, and a lot of the energy will get picked up by the B rank and indie publishers for the many genres and styles of games people want but which AAA devs and publishers are ignoring because they can't figure out how to maximize their earnings on them. Either way, more layoffs, more studio shutdowns, and more chaos will fill 2025. 

2. Consoles and PC hardware will get more expensive

The aforementioned likelihood of tariffs imposed on China and abroad will lead to more expensive consoles and PCs. Local manufacturing will not be ready or able to fill the gaps. I predict 2025 is the year we all get real comfortable hoarding the hardware we already have. With luck Nintendo will get Switch 2 out the gate before tariffs impact their import costs, but don't count on it. 

3. 2025 Will be the worst year for new games

I think we're due for a really bad year of uninspired, boring, over-monetized and poorly conceived games. I don't think 2025 will be a kind year to the video game hobbyist and we will see a dearth of meaningful content. Any genuinely good games to come out will be impressive exceptions, and most likely from the B list and indie tier developers.

4. Bungie hits rock bottom in 2025

It's already hitting rock bottom, and I predict it is possible Bungie could find itself in dire staights and goes the way the Concord devs went if they can't pull Destiny out of its death spiral before their hypothetical GaaS Marathon product appears....and if it does appear in 2025 (I don't think it will) I predict it will tank.

Okay, that's my gloom and doom list for 2025! I look forward to hopefully being proven wrong on all counts, but time will tell.