Potpourri: Updates and 5e Musings

Long time, no blog! It blows me away how time flies. I didn’t really mean to neglect my blog for so long but a lot of things kind of came together at the same time to sap my motivation and take me out of the mindset. The main thing has been my father’s failing health. For a while, I didn’t have any idea what would happen or how immediate things could be, so I didn’t take on any really large projects (like the zine) and kind of just felt unmotivated. 

When I blog, I like to have something substantial to say or offer. I’m not really a prolific designer or writer. From time to time I have shared gaming news, but honestly, between Tenkar’s Tavern, OSRToday, and OSRNews, you will always stay informed of what is going on without any help from me. I used to do a lot of 4e hacking, but I've really said everything I want to say about it and already came up with all of the alternate rules that I wanted. I use G+ as my main means of posting these days because it allows you to share little bits of info without having to do full-blown blogs. I am +JeremyfrothsofSmith on there btw, if you want to link up. 

At any rate, I am going to attempt to be more productive this year. I will probably do more reviews, as that is something I think can be helpful. I tend to shy away from a lot of DMing advice, as the best advice I can give anyone is to just run a ton of games and learn from your own mistakes. I probably won’t do a lot of 5e hacking, as I like it quite a bit the way it is, especially given the alternative rules in the DMG.

I haven’t said a lot about 5e but I do think it is interesting that almost every single bone I had to pick with 4e has been addressed with it. I'm not suggesting WOTC reads my blog or anything, its just that a lot of my issues with 4e must have been nearly universal. Lets take a quick look at 4e issues I have addressed here and what 5e did about them.

-Sunrods-no longer exist in 5e

-Skill Challenges-wiped clean by the wrath of God

-Bloated skill numbers-gone

-Magic Item treadmill-gone

-Monsters-simplified, strengthened, recall my updated stat block in all the right ways

-Immediate Actions-severely curtailed

-Slow combat/Options bloat-bitch slapped

I can go on and on, but every single thing I have ever had an issue with with 4e was revisited and tweaked. What is left is a modern feeling D&D with obvious old-school influence and spirit. They did a great job.

So whats up with 4e Forever #2? Well I have a ton of good articles and now that 5e has sort of blown over and gotten fully released, you can expect it finished sometime…”soon”. It will be the final issue as I move onto a different zine project that I hope will support multiple editions (including 4e and 5e).