The latest D&D Studio update on the 2024 core rule books should have excited me, but it just made me apprehensive. Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons started as a game with a strong foundation, strong enough that when I imagined the changes that would best improve the game, I just wished for replacements for the […]
Content warning for discussion of murder, suicide, and mentions of child abuse. Through the 1980s, Satan made regular headlines. Folks kept blaming the devil for luring kids to murder, suicide, and ritual sacrifice. Police dutifully investigated. The falsely accused sometimes went to prison only to be cleared years later. And the media trumpeted every lurid […]
In 1994, when file sharing on the internet typically meant logging into a FTP server hosted by a university for uploads and downloads, gamers used the new technology to exchange their own D&D creations like monsters, classes, and spells. TSR management felt that even fan creations for D&D belonged to the owners of the game, […]
In 1981, D&D publisher TSR printed B3 The Palace of the Silver Princess, but when the new copies reached key TSR management, they ordered the entire print run sent to a landfill rather than to distributors. The debacle started when, after a year working mostly administrative tasks, the module’s author, Jean Wells, had finally landed […]
At a convention, Teos “Alphastream” Abadia and I played an adventure that featured fights seemingly contrived to fill the hours between the opening scene and climactic battle. Monsters just sprang and attacked, depriving us of any choices to avoid the battles. Later, Teos described the match ups as the DM saying, “Shut up and fight […]
The Shadowdark game by Kelsey Dionne of The Arcane Library bills itself as delivering old school gaming with modernized mechanics. Shadowdark hardly rates as the first game with this approach. Into the Unknown (2019) boasts 5E compatibility combined with old-school mechanisms such as “morale, reaction rolls, random encounters, gold for XP, and henchmen.” Still, with […]
Six months before then D&D head Ray Winninger announced an new set of Dungeons & Dragons core books for 2024, I predicted the update. I based my prediction on a declaration from the D&D team, which made their top priority “making D&D as welcoming and inclusive as possible.” To reach that goal, Tasha’s Cauldron of […]
The Dungeons & Dragons team released the second One D&D playtest document, which focuses on the Bard, Ranger, and Rogue classes. Like the first packet, the changes in this release convince me that the update remains in good hands. Nonetheless, many changes deserve attention. This post avoids repeating things lead designer Jeremy Crawford mentioned during […]
Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons started as a game with a strong foundation, strong enough that when I imagined changes that would best improve the game, I just wished for replacements for the annoying spells, overpowered feats, and toothless monsters—the game’s features atop the foundation. The D&D team agrees. “We did a smart thing with […]
The best 1st-level adventures make a great first impression. To start a campaign, we want 1st-level adventures that excite players and leave them eager for the adventures to come. More importantly, new players typically get introduced to Dungeons & Dragons with 1st-level adventures. That’s good because starting at 1st level makes a better impression than […]