2014 marks the 40th anniversary of the iconic roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, and thus far it’s been far more than a note on the calendar. Often, a major milestone for an entertainment product will be marked simply by a commemorative badge on covers or new editions in stores. But with the 40th...
It seems to be a truism of modern D&D: all players really need to buy a copy of the rules, learn them, and have them at hand during the game. Why should all players need to do this to play well? Only one person needs to buy a boardgame for a group to...
In the latest edition of Legends & Lore, Mike Mearls talks about what WOTC learned from the public playtest of D&D Next. Here’s what Mearls said: So, what did we learn from the public playtest? In some cases you confirmed things, in others you dispelled some notions that had become lodged in R&D’s...
I had a chance to look at a copy of Monsters & Magic this weekend. It’s a new “OSR” game by Sarah Newton published by Mindjammer Press. It’s basically a set of new school rules that you can overlay on a version of old school TSR D&D so you can use TSR-era monsters,...
There was a huge thread on supposed problems with “the Math” in D&D Next ([5E] The Maths is Wrong!) on RPG.net recently. One of the arguments that the math was wrong struck me as actually showing a completely different set of problem with WOTC editions of D&D in general: the way WOTC editions...
One the major complaints I hear about D&D Next from many 4e fans (at least on the Internet) over and over again is that D&D Next has completely abandoned 4e’s stress on tight design and balanced math — what people making this complaint call “good design”. I’ll admit that 4e was the best...
My post, WOTC Discovers Typical D&D Players Like Short Combats, a few days ago generated a lot of discussion both here and on Google+. I thought it might be interesting to see how long readers think the average combat in a D&D session should last. Note that I’m talking an average combat encounter...
Amazing Stories has an interview with Mike Mearls talking about D&D Next. From one of Mike’s comments it seems that WOTC has finally learned what many players have know for years: Most players like fast combats. In the interview, Mike says: What we found through the playtest process, though, was that people like...
It’s been about a year since WOTC announced that they were working on 5e (aka D&D Next). D&D Next Originally promised as some type of modular system when everyone could play the edition/types of D&D they wanted. I was skeptic then (see D&D 5th Edition Announced, What Will It Take to Get Old...
There’s a new Legends and Lore column out. I don’t normally read this, but someone posted about this one on theRPGsite. So i went out and read it. I wish I had not as it makes it yet more clear that the longer the 5e play test goes on, the less 5e is...
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