this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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You should check out Blades in dark and similar (Scum & Villany, Bands of blades). While it's not the same definition of 5th gen as the author (VTT integration isn't the point) it's modern RPG design, with a lot of thing to ease the GM life. And IMO the right balance between rule light and crunchy (it's definitely too crunchy/complex to be called rule light, but run quick and smooth) main features would be.
Everything has hit point aka clock, no matter whether we talk about opening a door, seducing a Noble or killing the dragon, the GM gives a target number and it's up to player to stack enough succesr to do-it. Of course fail roll would have narrative consequences
A downtime phase which is more than spend XP and heal, with a whole mechanic to manage faction to faction game.
A stress meta currency, which helps you a lot, until you don't have it anymore and start to struggle
Flashback and define equipment on the fly are things letting player jumping to action quickly without a long planning phase
IMO we're full into modern RPG design and used existing concepts to build a fast paced great game easy to play and GM while still having a lot of rules/options
It probably means something like mothership as well, where the character sheet is designed such that it guides you on how to fill it without the need for a separate book.
But really I'm not sure I agree much with the article. I could be wrong but it seems to me that the audience is growing and therefore what the audience want is becoming more diverse.
My own very biased experience is I that I started playing dungeons and dragons, literally having no clue about this gigantic iceberg of other stuff with a 50+ year history behind it. Did that for a few years, through the pandemic etc.
Fast forward a bit, the idea of playing Combat rpgs now (so pathfinder, 5.5, whatever) interests me almost not at all. I want to tell stories and try out new personalities. I've now played a ton of Call of Cthulhu (which I'd argue is extremely rules light if you want it to be), Delta Green, Mork Borg, Vaesen and would have played dozens more if I had a more local group to play with.
Would love to play some Blades though... Weirdly a bit like Delta Green, you'd think it would be great for easier to organise one shots but actually you need a short campaign to get the most of it, I would say
I might be on the minority on all that, I don't know!
I would tend to agree with you, feel like the article ignore 50 years of RPG evolution and still focus on D&D which despite a large market share, is a tiny drop of what the market has to offer and a very specific playstyle which again isn't really a good example of what RPG look like, at the point many player do not play DnD as intended and end up tweaking it to do political/horror/investigations game