Opal

The hope was obviously that 3pps would sign onto the toxic GSL to grasp the coattails of the runaway success that 4e theoretically could have been had the success of D&D ever had anything to do with how good a TTRPG it was. "Make a better product" often fails - marketing and legal shenanigans are at least as successful. And luck. 5e's success was 100% accidental market timing.

WotC tried that. It failed. (OK, technically it simultaneously made a better product /and/ tried to kill the OGL)

Its not $30, it's 19.99 for the first year!

Paizo continues to position itself and it's Pathfinder D&D clone as the plucky Rebelion to Hasbro's Evil Empire: https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si7y?The-ORC-Alliance-Grows

I thought IED

Oh, Stun Lotto, which is so controversial and we tried so hard to fix for so long? Critical hits and exploding dice are like Stun Lotto on Purpose. (Which just further illustrates the Duke's point, I think)

I don't remember exactly when I noticed that and went to confirming criticals - roll 20, it's an auto-hit, roll again, if it's a hit, it's a crit - '85 maybe? It became official in 3e... ... only when I did it, a 20 on the confirmation was a "double crit," if you confirmed - aaand, exploding dice. lollol (Also, I've seen "20 is an auto hit, but a crit only if you would have hit anyway") And, no I don't use crits in Champions (nor Hero System, well there was that Robot Warriors.... nevermind)

Conan the Fremen It's Sword and Sorcery and Planet

Something on the order of the original Champions, Hero 5th Sidekick, or the current basic book... ...or, y'know, Fuzion? (Oh, and you know what would really help? Ditch all those 3pt skills and open-ended skills and just use characteristic rolls. Science Stuff? INT roll. Want to be a great scientist? Levels with science INT rolls plus Reputation: Great Scientist)

That's a very equivocal statement. I think we'd be hard pressed to peg a consensus on how highly balance is rated in the hobby, at all . So when you repeat it, you're really saying nothing. If you want to make a point about balance, please, just state it clearly. At best, that's incomplete. If you read EGG's extensive advice and commentary in the 1e DMG and various Sorcerer's Scroll articles, it's clear that D&D was meant to be balanced in a baroque way with many factors, including magic being both powerful *and* heavily limited, mechanically, and also carefully restrained by the DM. (Speculative tangent) Of course, those attempts at balance failed. Can't disagree with that. In his notorious Ivory Tower Game Design, Monty Cooke (I hope I got his name right - the 3e D&D guy) let slip that they had used an M:tG strategy of including trap choices ("Timmeh Cards") to drive engagement through sysyem mastery. It worked: 3.x was all about RaW rules and power builds. (And, that was not the last edition)

This was nagging at me: In other words, not trying to place manipulation of the fabric of reality through arcane or divine means on the same mechanical level as swinging a sword Actually, D&D has always done *exactly* that. Magic-user and Fighter both being class choices with easy stat qualifications, their respective mechanics are on the same level, so long as the characters being compared have similar exp totals. Thus, "power imbalances" is correct. Contrast that with Hero, where "swinging a sword" - say, being a fencer - would have a minimum cost of 11 pts, while "manipulate reality" - sounds like a Cosmic VPP - starts at 60. (IIRC, I mix up every thing from 1st through 5th edition of Champions, but I hope the point stands) At the same time, if you play a martial artist with 120 points in manuevers, DCs, levels, skills. and additional STR/DEX/SPD in the same team as a 40apt Cosmic VPP (also 120 points), you're going to be more of a badass in hth, and they're going to be wildly flexible, but you're basically balanced and can belong to the same team without a lot of issues.

The OG Thief's %s were so low, you might do better describing instead of rolling. Even more extreme is social interactions scenes: after that one reaction check, your character vanishes and you're just trying to fast-talk your DM.

D&D does require rather a lot of rolls to get through a combat. Individual turns vary - 1 attack, 1d20, damage if you hit; 1 fireball 5+ d6s, multiple saves. Not so much out of combat. Maybe that's why D&D is still "a combat game"?

It's tempting for a serious RPGer to want to look to the content of games for explanations of success. But, D&D had a unique arc, it made a splash among wargamers initially, because it was quite different, but it became a fad when people started hearing about it in the mainstream. Not because fledgling TSR had an advertising budget, but because of suicide, steam tunnels, and Satanism. Yes, any free publicity is good publicity. And, to this day, D&D remains the only TTRPG with mainstream name recognition.

I do like yaoi and don't see any of it in D&D. Pretty heteronormative, really with the hot girl demons/devils/fey/etc typically having the charm powers and boobs on half the art means we're not sexist. 5e has been getting a bit furry, tho

I don't think I ever played it, nor "B/X" which OSR types seem to remember could walk on water and cure cancer. But I played 1e AD&D plenty until I found a group for Champions. And, yeah, the first few levels, it had a life is cheap vibe, like multiple backup characters would be good. 5e D&D, which I have played a little and run a little more, is also unpredictably, pointlessly deadly at 1st level. Especially the more the party leans toward sword-swingers over spell-slingers. But it drops off quickly as the party's hp and spell slots accumulate. The big difference between D&D then & now, as I see it, is casting. (Rant warning)

Not a chance. How would they even know it exists? Pathfinder has gotten mentioned, in the ORC post, for instance. So that might get a few hits.

A hundredfold, you say? D&D: yipe, from 8d to 800d, we're all dead. Hero: so +35 Apts is x128, call it 33pts, +6.5d? It a KA. 2d, then? Explosion. Ok, roll your fireball +1.5d

Of course you can convert even the mechanics... +7 DCV OIF:PlatemaiI EGO Drain (slowed rec, improved by psychoanalysis), AE, triggered: first sight f/ w/in the area. Special effect: "mythos sanity loss"

For Hero Fifth there was a slim volume called ...Sidekick. I got one for everyone in my group at one point. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/19009

D&D's biggest issue isn't that it's hard - it is, especially to run - it's that it's utterly broken to the point fighter and magic-user are playing entirely different games, and the game falls back constantly on the DM to fix it on the fly. ...and one could fill volumes. Its the worst significant TTRPG of all time. Hero is complex and hard to learn, too, but once you learn it, it's a functional system. (I want to say, "except for skills," but that's not the point) It's just that the vast majority of potential new TTRPG fans have /only/ heard of D&D. So if they try D&D and, reasonably, find it to be a bad experience, they figure they don't like TTRPGs, and never try Hero or anything else.

The OGL has been around since, IIRC, 1999. D&D was a fad in the 80s, 5e D&D exploded because the 80s (finally) came back.

I still drop by D&D spaces, and a very common topic of discussion/hand-wringing is how to "fix" published adventures, customize them to the "OP level" of your party, etc. You can find major re-writes by fans and influencers on line. Difference is Hero has (is) tools that let you do that. I guess this is relevant to the discussion due to D&D's persistent market dominance, and it's tempting to think there was something other than name recognition and timing to explain it. They are more than adequate explanations, imho.

No one else has mentioned it, so: D&D was reasonably balanced for about 2 years, between the release of 4e in 2008 and the release of Essentials in 2010. Even then, it didn't return to the profound, perennial imbalance you alude to until the official release of 5e in 2014.

Just how Open Source is Fuzion?