A lot of the stuff that Wizards has done recently has been ludicrous- banning "Crusade" from Magic: The Gathering, etc, worthless and hyperbolic virtue signalling....
But one of their latest canards, the removal of baseline or fundamentally evil races, such as orcs, and recasting them as just humans with different skin colors, is actually a complete rework of the game into a truly shitty form. Future D&D stories and places will forever be tainted by this idiocy; it will never get better, because they don't even understand why the game needed that sort of thing to begin with.
While obviously there are old school systems that don't suffer from this, or reprints of older editions of D&D and the 80s and 90s systems that were contemporary at the time, I want to know... is anyone making tabletop games currently without all the social justice horseshit? Is there anywhere I can go on this?
Another skull on the skullpile.
Look, maybe I'm unnecessarily raining on your parade. Maybe. I still have my books for Alternity, the primarch of d20, which I bought the week they hit the shelves. In 22 years since, I've seen seen so much low effort trash call itself d20 not out of appreciation for the system but out of a lack of enthusiasm to actually design a game.
You say "I'm not here to reinvent the wheel". At least in this regard you're honest that you only care about the worldbuilding.
Frankly, my advice to virtually everyone who's done what you're doing is they probably should just write fiction novels and try to get published that way.
''Removal of Vancian spellcasting in favour of an mp pool.''
Spell levels per day pool?
"Addition of a meta currency that players can use to influence dice rolls."
You mean like resolve points?
"Spell levels per day pool?"
Spells have levels with varying mp cost. But say you have a mp pool of 15 you can cast 15 level 1 spells that cost 1 point or 5 level 3 spells that cost 3 points or any combination of the two as long as you have the required mp to spend. You aren't stuck with a flat 3 level 3 and 6 level one spells. It's similar to most jrpgs in that respect.
"You mean like resolve points?"
Yes or hero points from Mutants & Masterminds, bennies from savage worlds, etc, etc.
As to whether this plays out well or not only time can tell. Truth be told when I had the original idea I had planned to use an already existing system. The only issue is that as we all know the industry is filled with Marxist lunatics who would do their best to cancel me and take away my access to their rules the moment they found out I wouldn't worship at the altar of Stalin. So I used the tools that were available to everyone without having to A- be beholden to the 'powers that be' and B possess the mechanical aptitude of Richard Garfield or Gary Gygax.
Reception from the players who have given it a shot so far has been good. These are all people I know, however, so the real test begins when it gets let into the wild. At this point in time though, it has become something of a matter of pride. Even if it fails I'm going to be satisfied that I did my best to get something out there. The SJWs told me to piss off and make my own thing so I did.
One last point that I think is worth mentioning. From OPs post I think it is pretty clear that most people's issues with gaming these days aren't the systems that games are running on. Orcs not being proper villains and elements such as crusades being removed from games are a narrative thing. One of the things I am trying to achieve is the creation of a setting that is fun, deep and actually celebrates Western culture instead of shitting on it at every possible turn. If other companies tell their old customer base that they aren't welcome anymore because of their 'whiteness', wrong thing or refusal to be lectured on gender studies in their entertainment time then I welcome these people with open arms since I'm one of them.
I'm also currently working on a book. It has nothing to do with this particular project though as it's simply a collection of short stories that each feature their own setting.
So mechanically the same as Alternity psi points.
Iron Kingdom had a thing where casters (except warcasters) had their powers linked to fatigue, which mechanically functions like an extra damage type applying to casters. Once you get into fatigue debt you can't cast without recovering,
I really should give Alternity a read. I hadn't actually heard of it before today. From a cursory glance, it seems to do a lot of things I like.
Alternity was the last game designed by TSR. After WotC bought TSR, they discontinued it and adapted it into d20 system.
So what did it look like?
Alternity was skills centric. Feats don't exist, and perks & flaws are weak modifiers that ultimately cost or net skill points. The jarring difference is that armor operation, unarmed attack, melee attack, heavy weapons, and ranged weapons are skills, with power martial arts and defensive martial arts as specialty skills to do the fancy stuff.
The basic rules had no magic, but did have psionics. Psionics were treated as skills as well, grouped into four families linked to four ability scores (con, int, per, wil) with overall amount of psionic power being linked to will. Exceeding your psionic power limit incurs fatigue damage.
There were also rules for cybernetics and mutations. Cybertech tolerance is linked to constitution, and mutations had to be balanced between advantages and drawbacks (example: night vision, but sensitive to light; or enhanced strength but inefficient metabolism).
The GM guide provided rough rules for "FX" powers, essentially magic, although it was clearly an afterthought and not part of the main body of rules.