D&D General What's The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons?

It wasn't in any previous announcements about 2023-2024's D&D release schedule, but now The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons has appeared on the slate!

​

It's a 128-page hardcover, coming out on August 15th for $39.95, and it details dragon anatomy, society, language, hoards, magic, lairs, and more. This is a full-on 'lore' book, with no game rules in it.

The Practical Guide to Dragons came out in 2006, and was followed by A Practical Guide to Dragon Riding and A Practical Guide to Dragon Magic. This book is a compilation of the best parts of those three books. The originals were illustrated guides designed for younger readers, and featured a wizard called Sindri Suncatcher, the fictional 'author' of the works.

 

[Mercador]

I wonder if there will be reused content from Fizban?

 

[JEB]

History repeating itself, in a way: late 3.5 had The Grand History of the Realms, a rules-free lore book which revised and expanded upon an existing work (a fan chronology).

 

[Mercador]

History repeating itself, in a way: late 3.5 had The Grand History of the Realms, a rules-free lore book which revised and expanded upon an existing work (a fan chronology).

Is there a followup for this book as well? Or just comparison with The pratical guide?

 

[Weiley31]

I still think nothing really compares to this book when it comes to dragon stuff in DND.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

So, I don't know how something like the Practically Complete Guide to Dragons would compare to the former.

 

[JEB]

Is there a followup for this book as well? Or just comparison with The pratical guide?

No update for the Grand History, though late 4E also had a rules-free lore book for the Realms (Elminster's Forgotten Realms).

 

[Erdric Dragin]

I remember the good ol' days when they churned out lorebooks for D&D monthly, sometimes more than one, and then also monthly in the Dragon Magazines.

Now it's the barren days of D&D. Has been since 3e ended. Sad state this game is in, barren, dusty, and dry while WotC continues damming the rivers and squeezing more money out the people with their snake oil of what they've been calling "Dungeons and Dragons" now.

Someone bring back the D&D of TSR and early WotC, anyone at this point.

 

[pukunui]

I still think nothing really compares to this book when it comes to dragon stuff in DND.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

So, I don't know how something like the Practically Complete Guide to Dragons would compare to the former.

I'm actually wondering how much of this new book is just going to be content recycled from that 3.5e masterpiece.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm actually wondering how much of this new book is just going to be content recycled from that 3.5e masterpiece.

It's a complete recycling of 3 4E era kids books, so I suppose anyone who read them could say?

 

[doctorhook]

This is gonna be a kids book not a game book. Not much to see or speculate here, folks.