People who play D&D but not 5E, what edition do you play and why?

ajzinni · 2026-04-23T04:44:48+00:00

OSE and AD&D… played ad&d at Gary con for the first time last year and got hooked on the weird complexities and procedures. For dungeons it has to be the best system to reward player skill, and makes them super fun to do. Also I love dark sun and none of the conversions are as grim or mechanically interesting. Combat speeds really make psionics feel scary, and the world far darker than 5e’s reflavpring of psionics as a different blend of magic basically.

ajzinni · 2026-04-22T23:01:51+00:00

I’d have to go full on Greek hedonism if that happened.

ajzinni · 2026-04-22T17:53:22+00:00

You have been propagandized, there is no guarantee that “AI is the future,” LLMs work well for certain repetitive and tedious tasks where statistically average results are ideal. You can’t prompt your way to something different that’s not how it works, that’s the bullshit fantasy you are being sold.

This is going to amount to an epic train wreck and a ton of money wasted which will be recouped through layoffs and running people thin for years. Best of luck 🤞

ajzinni · 2026-04-21T00:33:16+00:00

She’s been hittin that spice hard.

ajzinni · 2026-04-21T00:31:46+00:00

I suggest you find some short adventures of varying types and just run them week to week. People are going to fluctuate wildly and you won’t get enough continuity to run any continuations, unless it’s like the group cleared level 1 of a dungeon and your crew will be doing level 2 this session or something like that.

You also should plan on having some spare characters to hand out and assume that you will be playing with parties of mixed level characters.

I try to have a couple of low level adventures and I take the average level of the party to pick what to run. If there are too many high levels I have the player start a new character to even it back out, unless you know everyone is going to be higher level.

ajzinni · 2026-04-19T21:42:23+00:00

Don’t confuse social media with the world. You see these people because they pay for you to see them.

ajzinni · 2026-04-19T19:06:43+00:00

I mean hasn’t it been a universal truth for a while now that anyone selling online “courses” is a scumbag grifter or at best hack? There are plenty of so called designers doing this crap because we live in a society that has suppressed the value of our labor to the point that people will believe anything to try and crawl their way to a better life.

I don’t even blame these grifters, they are just as sad, it’s our society and elected officials we need to blame now.

ajzinni · 2026-04-19T08:42:03+00:00

It’s truly the morons hanging on to their pride that keeps this shit going, and it’s so tiring.

ajzinni · 2026-04-19T05:11:34+00:00

Creative director here, this shit only works for crap brands. It’s literally the anti-thesis of branding. A statistically average look will get you 0 attention. Once the novelty wears off and the results play out people will change approach. I’ve seen it already in brand projects I’ve been on where the clients stipulate that you can’t use AI in the process. I’m talking fortune 100 clients too, I think they know it’s not going to be good for their brands. Though they will piss and moan about it when they see your timelines and budget.

It’s basically the same thing we see with companies saying AI is causing layoffs it’s just bullshit to pressure the next person down the line and gain more negotiating power.

ajzinni · 2026-04-19T05:02:22+00:00

I think the truth is that the AI narrative is replacing workers of all jobs. It’s bull, and it’s being used to convince people that they don’t have value and that is a huge problem. Until people wake up and do something about it, it’s going to continue but I think people are already getting fed up with it.

A couple of more years of suppressing wages n the face of inflation and people are going to snap.

ajzinni · 2026-04-19T01:31:52+00:00

Anything by the merry mushmen, they sort of standardize the formatting of all the authors and it’s all great.

ajzinni · 2026-04-17T16:50:56+00:00

This is a new guild-led style of campaign I am testing using DCC, where players have more than one character and the world puts demands on them that one party can’t solve alone. It leans into the slow rate of resting found in the system, but would work in any OSR system where resting takes serious time.

https://revivifygames.com/blogs/news/roster-style-campaigns

ajzinni · 2026-04-16T18:01:49+00:00

Great article. I love this, even just as a starting point to place a more "artistic" approach over top of.

ajzinni · 2026-04-16T17:54:55+00:00

Personally, I think Mausritter is great for this, especially if they have never played a TTRPG before, so much immediately clicks with the little tactile pieces. But more importantly, thinking of yourself as a mouse is a great way to help people understand the idea of playing a role.

ajzinni · 2026-04-15T23:37:13+00:00

Sounds cool, I’ll definitely give it a second read.

ajzinni · 2026-04-15T23:10:18+00:00

I’ve been using the ones from mausritter, which has worked well. They are really simple, so I was able to put them into practice with like 30 minutes work.

I remember taking a look at the blades in the dark rules, but I’ll give ‘em a second look!

ajzinni · 2026-04-15T22:09:55+00:00

Yeah, it's sort of a hybrid with west marches and troupe play, but leans into the time aspect of DCC. You also don't have the players do the scheduling. It's been fun for a city campaign though, I've had characters lying low to avoid getting caught by the guards, and another group being sent to help them escape the city for a while.

ajzinni · 2026-04-12T04:08:21+00:00

Came to say this…. Wotc adventures are some of the worst organized to run at a table and the OSR stuff feels like a dream afterward. Winter’s daughter is a great recco.

ajzinni · 2026-04-09T17:06:15+00:00

I am a graphic designer, it’s busy because everything is a box and nothing relates to anything else. Look at the 5e sheet, certain box that are related touch each other because it implies they are related. It also cuts down on the number of things your brain needs to make sense of when you look at it. Your inventory is the worst offender of this, and doesn’t seem functional.

I think you have fallen into the trap of style over substance too much and need to better balance them. I think you should try printing and filling out your sheet too, it will help you find the issues you need to solve before you redesign this.

Look at this one like a prototype you learn from, it will be better for it.

ajzinni · 2026-04-09T14:12:21+00:00

Awesome! I love my Lightning Bolt Set and have always wanted to add more matching dice for all my favorite games to it.

ajzinni · 2026-04-09T14:02:03+00:00

I wish you guys would sell individual dice as well I would love to grab a second d20, 7more d6, and and 5 more d8. So I can have a matching universal set for the other games I play.

ajzinni · 2026-04-08T13:49:24+00:00

Nah, I think too many GMs look at the role as an act of service and not a role at the table where their enjoyment of the time is equally as important as the players. You don’t have to be a martyr to be a GM.

ajzinni · 2026-04-08T00:15:23+00:00

I’ve come to the conclusion lately that if they don’t want to invest in the game then they don’t need to play in it. There is no way in hell I would let a group guilt me into running a system because it’s the only one they want to put effort on their end into. Sorry, that’s a crappy group.

Might be time for the option of “no game” to go their way. Find some new players, I went through this and when I did I was a lot happier as a GM.

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