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Take A Look Inside The New Dungeons & Dragons Books!
August 7, 2014 by brennon
Wizards of the Coast have been previewing the innards of their Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition books for the past few weeks over on their Facebook page and as well as some Players Handbook sneak peeks the next crop of previews is going to be from the Monster Manual!
Above is the first sneak peek at it, and that's the inside cover for the book. It shows a rather nicely painted dragon about to no doubt devour a town full of villagers and burn it to the ground. I have to say the artwork, alongside the revamped and well developed game rules, is a big draw for this game. It's utterly astounding.
Above are some of the preview pages that appeared via the Facebook page which showed off the Paladin class, the Tiefling race and one of the backgrounds, the Hermit. Backgrounds are a great addition to the game and they really help flesh out a character beyond the simple 'I am a Fighter, I smash things' archetype that we've been used to seeing. It's a nice carry over from the later additions to 4th Edition.
Gone over all is the feel of it being a 'game' and we're returning to a Dungeons & Dragons that 'feels' right. I have been reading the Starter Set adventure for a campaign beginning this weekend and I am very, very excited.
Have you got a hold of the Starter Set yourself?
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Last time I got a D&D book was 3.5ed, may have to pick up the players manual for 5th
No, but I will be. For me, Dungeons and Dragons has been my very own Games Workshop, that entity you love to hate. For years.. a decade even.. it was the game that I would detest bringing up when I told somebody I liked role-playing because when I mentioned any of the RPGs I was *actually* playing, I just got a blank stare. So I would reluctantly say “It’s like Dungeons and Dragons” and then I would hastily try to pre-empt that particular look, the one that starts off like “Oooooohh” and then quickly turns into a sneer where they add “You’re one of those saddos?”. You would be surprised at how many pop culture references you can fit in to that gap. Vampires are cool, right? Everyone has seen Buffy, plenty of people are watching True Whatsitsname, the game I’m playing is like that! There are no wizards in it *at all* etc. It didn’t help of course.
But like it or not, Wizards of the Coast was still the figurehead and whatever direction they went in had a big impact on the hobby as a whole, even if the smaller indie publishers had already been doing the same thing for years.. yet people only seemed to take notice when WotC did it and I used to hate them for that, too. But then my circumstances changed and I did no gaming at all for about seven years and when I finally got to join a gaming group again, gosh darn it if the only game with a space in it was D&D.
I got over my irrational WotC hate pretty quick, had a few months to say goodbye to 3.5, and then holy cow, 4e came out and it was just awesome. Not perfect, but the tools were there to let you have a ton of fun and I felt bad for other people in the gaming group when they turned their noses up at it. That kind of snobbery doesn’t help anyone, I guess. So I lapped up 4e and Pathfinder and a bunch of other things that were spawned from the final days of 3rd ed and I really can’t wait to get hold of the books for this new edition. The rules PDF they put out was very promising and I can’t wait to see how they try to expand the game beyond the inevitable splat book sequels 🙂
Looks good… Heck, looks better than good. But I have other games. It’s sad, but WotC have alienated me quite a bit (with MtG and D&D both). I will see the complete work, whenever that happens (it’s becoming rather like waiting for Godot, or a bad kickstarter… no edition of D&D has such a long-winded debut, counting the playtesting).
I will not be teased endlessly : I have lots to do, and to play, already. Life is short, and it already sounds like this edition will be in testing and in promotion for longer than D&D4 existed on its own. I know it’s not technically the case, but it certainly feels like it… as D&D4 has lasted what roses may last, compared to any other edition of the game. And withered it was, to begin with.
I have Pathfinder for my Fantasy fix, and it is great. I have played D&D4, and It’s nice, but I have other boardgames. And I have other RPGs as well. I currently am GMing a campaign for Star Wars : Edge of the Empire, another for Vampire : the Requiem, and a third for Warhammer : Fantasy Roleplaying Game, 2nd edition, among one-shot scenarios. I also play, once in a blue moon.
I will definitely play D&D5 with friends, IF anyone else picks it up… but I won’t pay for it all again, and I won’t delve into it on my own. D&D always has been quite “involved” and complex a system, and I’ve lost my taste for that… So, no, I won’t pick it up. That is, unless I’m utterly convinced after having played it that this is the second coming of Gygax and the ultimate best D&D ever.
It’s quite possible, but I’m not expecting anything from this game, no matter how pretty the leaflets are, no matter how lovely the few snippets of pages look (and that’s a sign that WotC has really put me off, as I was one of those who, until D&D4, genuinely thought they could do no wrong with that game… I even forgave them for buying TSR back in the day).
Way back when, all these years ago when I started gaming, we played the latest edition of D&D because it was the latest edition of D&D… “of course” it was “better”, it was what was there… there was no question about it, if you played D&D you played shiny new edition, not old clunky one.
No longer. Not now that there are SO many games. And not after Pathfinder, and D&D4.
IF I play D&D5, I will play it because it’s good, IF it is indeed good, not because it’s D&D. I don’t want to be the guy who needs the “official” thing.
I think you’ll find 5th a good deal less “involved” and complex than PF. It seems to have been greatly streamlined and largely in favor of the narrative and speeding up things like combat scenes. I invite you to read some of he reviews. Personally, I find myself leaning towards systems like FATE, Savage, Dungeon World and 13th Age, but 5th seems to have learned a good deal from the trends in the industry too.
Again, I will not be teased. I refuse to take anything into account that doesn’t review the final product, and I only trust my own judgement when it comes to this very personal experience.
I have heard this before ! 3rd edition was very much streamlined and more fluid compared to AD&D, for example.
Yes, you may be right, but that doesn’t mean we mean the same thing, or like the same thing. And a review is not a game… Inviting me to read one more review, what will it accomplish ? Nothing.
I still won’t have the game in hand, only more inane buzz.
Well said, Pathfinder suits me fine and is ludicrously popular and well supported.
I find this the strangest part of the Role-Playing community. Why do you need a new edition of a game? Most Role-players, and especially GM’s/DM’s create and run an entire world in all of it’s complexity, so why do you need new rules? I played D&D back in the “old Clunky” days, with the red, blue, green(or aqua), black and gold boxes, the tried Advanced D&D + 2nd edition advanced D&D. Collected nearly all of the forgotten realms, just missing a few adventures. Then was introduced to Role-Master/MERP. From then on I just used the bits from the games I liked and continued to DM, the game became more about the fun the party was having than the rules we used. Rule systems became secondary to the role-playing, if it didn’t work we made our own from the available ideas. Haven’t bought an RPG in 20 years and not likely to. All of my friends are the same. You can download most of the old modules from the inter-web and adapt to your own style. I have even combined parts of MechWarrior, Space Master and Shadowrun for my sci-fi RPG’s. WOTC killed the D&D franchise along time ago when they sanitised the D&D streams with their religious fever. What you have now is Hasbro (who own WOTC if you didn’t realize) trying to maintain a corporate marketing strategy, not create a truly immersive RPG. The moment I realized it was illiterate corporate Neanderthals who had made the hostile takeover of D&D was when they demanded all companies, such as Citadel/GW and Ralpatha destroy all of the moulds of the licenced miniatures they had. To me it felt like burning the La Joconde ( Mona Lisa ) for corporate profit.
Yep, I will pass on all things WOTC and stick to teaching my 5 children and 1 grandchild old school D&D and to use their own imagination, free and unfettered by corporate greed and influence.
D&D 5th is I believe the best incarnation of D&D. very streamlined rules will ensure super ease of play. Think this will bring me back to D&D…
I’ve been reading through the new edition Starter Set and I believe you’re right @foxxy – the rules seem neat and streamlined but with plenty of customisation mixed in for developing over time.
Can’t wait to run the adventure this weekend!
BoW Ben
“Haven’t bought a game in twenty years and not likely to.”
Of course, any individual can play with/cannibalise/make up rules as they see fit. You are under no obligation to buy anything. However, if everyone did that the industry part of the roleplaying industry would grind to a sudden halt. We need new people to take up the hobby, so I am personally happy to see new editions of game – and entirely new RP games. The kids in the roleplaying club I run at the school where I teach are excited about a new edition – which I’m glad about. They’ll keep the industry running when I’m pushing up daisies.
The writing of quality environments and adventures will keep the industry running, all the add-on stuff, as it did in the old days, plus people will blog/post and publish on line, so with or without major publishers the hobby will survive. Many magazines would publish adventures and ideas that were generic, such as the fabled White Dwarf of old. The sick fascination with constantly new rules being rushed through companies such as WOTC to keep turnover and shareholders happy has little to do with RPG’s, you will find that is Tabletop Wargamming. People don’t play RPG’s because the rules are streamlined, they play because the plot is good, or the adventure setting captures the imagination. I play at RPG conventions, we have lots of different people attend, I have DM’ed my sons group, but I rarely see anyone say they want to play a new system just because it’s new….in fact I rarely see new editions of any system, just creative re-written old systems for the game at hand. I am glad you run a group at your school, we need to encourage this type of creative thinking, but I think you will find it is your involvement that keeps the group going, not the idea of a new gaming system.
I am not a fan of re-hashing anything just for the sake of it – or to keep shareholders/bean counters happy. But neither am I anti anything new. As you say yourself, good is good – old or new. I’d argue that there has been plenty of good stuff produced in the last twenty years.
Plenty of gamers I know employ house rules to modify existing systems, but that is not ideal for new players. They should be able use something straight out of the box – at least until they have a solid grasp of the rules and setting. If the new edition of a game builds on previous knowledge and offers something better – and, obviously not everyone will agree on what constitutes better – I see that as a good thing.
Any industry needs innovation. Game designers have learned plenty since the early days, and have invented some cracking systems. Some of the games I played back in the eighties (I realise RPing goes further back than that, but not for me personally) are pretty clunky and unwieldy compared with the best systems available now. I am not quite sure if the development of these equates to the ‘sick fascination with new rules being rushed through’.
5th edition D&D may or may not be a great system. Time will tell. It certainly was not rushed through! I think it is worth keeping an open mind about it, though.