WOTC’s choices for their licensing has certainly shook things up more than I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been there to see every edition war since the start of 3E, so… that’s a thing. (Before 3E a lot of the grumblings had to be heard at the shop without the benefit of the internet, so I can’t say I got enough idea of those.)
For the creators, I recommend seriously considering how to make sure your income stream isn’t dependent on a singular other entity whose financial interests are in competition with you. I still don’t think there’s enough money for creators of game material to make a living in tabletop.
For gamers playing games, here’s some options I’ve enjoyed if you want some D&D alternatives:
Dungeon Crawl, Tracking Resources
My number 1 go to game for this would be Errant. I’ve been running a campaign since last year and it’s been live as fuck. The linked preview gives you the full rules without art. It’s pretty easy to convert pre -3E stuff, and only a touch more to re-build the monster for more modern types.
Although you track resources, you don’t have to “tight” track everything; many of the resources are abstracted. You don’t count how many turns the torches last, but every turn the GM rolls an event die, and one of the entries is “burn up resources” in which case all the light sources use up 1 point.
Not Dungeon Crawl, Tracking Resources
The Japanese RPG Ryuutama, I’ve heard some people call “the camping simulator”, is about the classic fantasy party going on a trip/quest, and has some fun mechanics about how well you set up to rest, improving or hurting your stats the next day. It’s not too crunchy and it’s well designed for a short or medium campaign easily. I think a lot of D&D groups actually would love this game.
Light Rules, Adventure
I ran a game of Perilous last year. I found the rules a touch lighter than what I wanted, but if you want something built to do your typical adventure fantasy with little complexity and easy to hack options, it’s a viable choice.
Legends of Middle Earth is a free game designed to do Tolkien, but you can also hack it fairly easily towards other things. It has a fun mechanic where characters who are less powerful get Story Tokens as the balancing factor which is a nice addition to the simplicity of the core rules.
Light Rules, Some Tactics
If you wanted a bit more to your rules, and a longer advancement path, Savage Worlds would probably fit the bill for many groups. The system is designed around generally faster resolution, has some use of map tactics, and works pretty well when you have larger skirmish battles.
I’ve only played the first edition, but Agon, while aimed at being for Greek fantasy, can be easily modded to other fantasy. This is less “a party goes on an adventure” as much as “rivals all trying to one up each other in taking on epic tasks”.
Fantasy, High Drama
Fellowship is the classic “go on a quest, fight the big bad” game. It’s designed for a medium length campaign, has a great grasp of character tropes, and looks like a solid option.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a game highly influenced by shows like the new She Ra or Steven Universe. I’m also guessing there’s quite a few D&D groups who actually are running their campaigns in this mode as is.
Primetime Adventures isn’t “fantasy” per se, as it’s any genre you want to put high drama into, but if you don’t care about stats or trying to measure logistics or range, and only want to focus on amazing pacing and high character drama, PTA does things few other games can. I’ve run it for Star Wars, for mecha anime, for kung fu stories, it’s great and consistently one of the games I keep telling people to go play.
The Green Knight is obviously built around the movie adaptation from a couple of years back, but it has a lot of room to modify for other fantasy, as long as you have the idea of honor at the core of the game. I think this game probably is the best game I’ve ever seen for teaching someone to GM who has never really played an RPG.
Fighting focal games!
Given that D&D’s origins are wargames, it’s not surprising that you can find war games that you can throw a little bit of roleplaying on top of, but mostly enjoy the war game.
Song of Blades & Heroes is a simple, and extensive game that allows for easy hacking.
Five Leagues from the Borderlands adds some resource tracking and team management to the mix.
Other games!
Obviously, there’s a ton of other “D&D-adjacent” games you can go play. I know a few friends who LOVE Pathfinder, which forked from the 3E D&D, which is definitely a game if you’re into character builds. There’s a fairly wide group of retroclone and OSR type games though most are based on pre-3rd edition rules which often are a “love it or hate it” for most groups.
Anyway, thislist got way bigger than I expected! Have a great time gaming.
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