The Best of the Best

My gonzo game:

• Dungeon Crawl Classics.

My classic old-school games:

• Old School Essentials
• Shadowdark
• Swords & Wizardry

My superheavyweight games:

• Adventures Dark & Deep
• Castles & Crusades
• ACKS II

Honorable mentions:

• Stars Without Number
• Worlds Without Number
• Cities Without Number
• Ashes Without Number

My all-time favorite:

• GURPS

C&C is still in a closet as my shelves get reorganized and I put together my showcase shelves. I got these very nice "display shelves" from Amazon, and I redid my GURPS and DCC libraries on them, and mixed game books, dice, art, inspirational comic collections, and gaming swag on a shelf. My three DCC shelves are eye-popping and amazing, resembling something out of a high-end gaming store with a variety of fun items on display alongside the games.

I have Wally Wood comic collections, game books, large clear plastic containers filled with dice, fantasy art books from SQPartbooks.com, my DCC games and modules, face-out display stands for hardcovers, framed art on stands, various foil hardcovers for DCC, a plastic skull mask, those clear MCC/DCC light up signs, and all sorts of fun and inspirational "come play with me" stuff on those shelves.

My DCC shelves are one of my best game projects in a long time. I have a GURPS shelf like this, too, as my "shrine" to that game. GURPS is on that list, but it isn't in the genre of d20-old school games. While it is a fantasy game, it is so much more than that. GURPS is my primary game, my number one, and the one I will never part with. Today, we're focusing on d20-style games.

GURPS is my all-time favorite game, and nothing changes that.

I give the shelves room to "breathe" and don't pack them completely full, since I found a full shelf rarely gets used and serves more as a storage crate than a "working shelf." Ideally, each shelf should be half-filled with books, and use organizers or bookends to corral them, leaving room for books on display stands or clear plastic containers filled with various dice. Like the picture, a loosely packed shelf beats a full one, every time.

I may migrate GURPS to a two-shelf display and make it glorious.

But C&C is a game that could easily take time away from OSE, S&W, and ADAD. It would simplify my collection, but I love those three games equally. There is also a point at which having too much is excessive, and C&C and DCC would be the last ones standing.

Another reason I still have C&C in the closet is that I am giving Tales of the Valiant time to shine as a standalone option. Every time I get C&C out, any version of 5E dies in my interest levels. C&C is a 5E killer. I am giving ToV time for Monster Vault 2 and Player's Guide 2 to be released, allowing me to make a final decision on the system.

C&C also has Amazing Adventures and an OGL-free version of C&C. This is a fantastic game and system, easily a 5E killer for many. The only reason I don't play Amazing Adventures is that I have GURPS.

We are witnessing the final days of 5E and D&D. The game is dying. Other games will pick up the torch. The entire "Wizards-verse" is becoming tiresome, and people are growing bored with the product identity villains and settings, which have become institutionalized and stale. When I see what the Forgotten Realms has become, I see a grotesquely excessive and self-important ultra-high fantasy setting that feels as hard to approach as many fandoms that require years of lore and canon research. The art and science fantasy cities are laughably overdone. Everything looks modern.

Shadowdark will be what people play after D&D. This is my other 5E killer game. Shadowdark is the OSE of 5E. If C&C does not kill Tales of the Valiant on my shelves, Shadowdark will. It does not require a half-page of text to describe a single ability. If anything kills D&D or Open 5E for me, it is how horribly fluff-packed and overwritten the whole game is. Even the clones suffer from this, taking the longest way around to describe subclass abilities, spells, and action types that should be listed in a single bullet point on a page.

With Deathbringer and Roll for Combat joining the Shadowdark brigade of publishers, convention events selling out in every con they are listed in, the future looks bright for Shadowdark.

There is also an argument that Shadowdark, OSE, and S&W are essentially the same game, but played slightly differently. All of them could be considered 'regional dialects' of classic d20 fantasy gaming if they were languages, and are mostly compatible with each other. Some groups play a mix of Shadowdark and OSE just fine.

ADAD and ACKS II are the heavyweight standouts. C&C is also over here in the heavyweight class, just due to the size of the game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics is in a genre of its own. This is a replacement for both D&D 3.5E and Pathfinder 1e/2E for me, and it just does its own crazy, random things. I enjoy this for how insane and unpredictable the game can be. The game is full of some of the best old-school art ever put to paper, and the adventures are packed with new and imaginative ideas.

DCC brings imagination and unpredictability back to the hobby. In an era of railroaded adventures with perfect pet PC characters that are more self-inserts than any characters we played back in the day, DCC is an excellent, mind-opening, and refreshing experience.

DCC also replaces Pathfinder 1e for me, which feels right. This is a rules-light game that accomplishes 90% of what the original game did, minus the need for character-builder software, which I consider a game-killer at this point. Pathfinder 1s had this savage lands and Conan-style feeling, and DCC has that same feeling for me. Pathfinder 2E lost that and became overly focused on cosplay, steampunk, and pseudo-modern elements, which made me sad. To me, DCC recreates the feeling of the early days of Pathfinder 1e, and keeps that savage 3.5E feeling alive.

The ...Without Number games are always on my shelves, since they are going public-domain for the core rules, and the books are flat-out terrific. Any one of these games is easily a fantastic campaign, rules-light, and table-rich for generating any type of world you can imagine.

I have three more of the display shelves coming, and a mix of these games will be the best of the best in my collection. Most of the others are being sold, boxed up in the garage, or put on storage shelves. But I am entering a new phase, where I have all the games I love on my shelves, and I do not feel obliged to play ones I do not like.