D&D (2024) D&D 2024 Player's Handbook Reviews

On Thursday August 1st, the review embargo is lifted for those who were sent an early copy of the new Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. In this post I intend to compile a handy list of those reviews as they arrive. If you know of a review, please let me know in the comments so that I can add it! I'll be updating this list as new reviews arrive, so do check back later to see what's been added!

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Review List

• The official EN World review -- "Make no mistake, this is a new edition."
• ComicBook.com -- "Dungeons & Dragons has improved upon its current ruleset, but the ruleset still feels very familiar to 5E veterans."
• Comic Book Resources -- "From magic upgrades to easier character building, D&D's 2024 Player's Handbook is the upgrade players and DMs didn't know they needed."
• Wargamer.com -- "The 2024 Player’s Handbook is bigger and more beginner-friendly than ever before. It still feels and plays like D&D fifth edition, but numerous quality-of-life tweaks have made the game more approachable and its player options more powerful. Its execution disappoints in a handful of places, and it’s too early to tell how the new rules will impact encounter balance, but this is an optimistic start to the new Dungeons and Dragons era."
• RPGBOT -- "A lot has changed in the 2024 DnD 5e rules. In this horrendously long article, we’ve dug into everything that has changed in excruciating detail. There’s a lot here."

Video Reviews
Note, a couple of these videos have been redacted or taken down following copyright claims by WotC.

• 2024 PHB Rules Changes D&D 5.24 (Treantmonk's Temple)
• Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook 2024 Preview & Review | Key Takeaways and Comparisons with 2014 (Awesome Black)
• 10 Unexpected Changes in the D&D 5E 2024 Player's Handbook (This Effin' GM Games)
• Every Class and Subclass Change for 2024 (d4: Deep Dive)
• D&D Player's Handbook 2024 Winners & Losers! (The Character Sheet on ComicBook.com)
• 2024 Player's Handbook First Look Review (Dungeon Dudes)
• The 2024 Player's Handbook: Full Spoilers Review (DnD Shorts)
• Full Early Review! D&D 2024 Player's Handbook (JoeFudge)
• First Look at the 2024 Player's Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons (GameMasters)
• 2024 PHB Flip through (Jorphdan) [taken down]
• D&D New Player's Handbook, DM's Guide, Monster Manual, and Project Sigil Info (maturemindedgamers)
• 2024 Player's Handbook: Questions Answered! (Alphastream)
• D&D 2024 Player's Handbook Walkthrough (Sly Flourish) [redacted]

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Release timeline (i.e. when you can get it!)

• August 1st: Reviewers. Some reviewers have copies already, with their embargo lifting August 1st.
• August 1st-4th: Gen Con. There will be 3,000 copies for sale at Gen Con.
• September 3rd: US/Canada Hobby Stores. US/Canada hobby stores get it September 3rd.
• September 3rd: DDB 'Master' Pre-orders. Also on this date, D&D Beyond 'Master Subscribers' get the digital version.
• September 10th: DDB 'Hero' Pre-orders. On this date, D&D Beyond 'Hero Subscribers' get the digital version.
• September 17th: General Release. For the rest of us, the street date is September 17th.

 

[Emerikol]

If the DM doesn't allow it, and six players do it anyways, does it matter that the DM didn't allow it?

The players can't do it in THAT DM's world. They can go off and find another DM or one of them become a DM themselves and do whatever they want. They will not be doing it in the DM's campaign though.

And here is the thing. I could DM 7 days a week, night and day if I wanted to do that. I have a good reputation and I run an immersive game. I don't shortchange my players in that regard but I absolutely live by rule 0.

And I am once more struck by the sheer number of people who don't play the current game coming in with discussions about it. To remind you, the entire starting point of this conversation was the idea of non-traditional Warlock patrons allowed by the new rules. You don't play the new rules, and you are solely speaking from your perspective of what you would expect to happen at your table. That in no way says anything about whether or not the changes are things that will open up different avenues of play. In fact, it seems to support that something different might occur, from the sheer fact that it ISN'T what everyone is used to, and is in fact a little bit different.

Again perhaps we are debating absolutes. While I live by rule 0 absolutely, that doesn't mean I am not willing to work with players especially when it fits. The player can suggest all sorts of ideas and I may very well take those ideas. The point is would I allow the player to actually roleplay the conversation in game between them and their Patron? No. I would not. If they said they wanted a patron like X, then I might very well say yes to that and roleplay the X that way but in game the players remain in actor stance. And this is why to some degree I don't play D&D because they do their best to force me to treat the PC like a pawn instead.

 

[Emerikol]

There are many other examples that could be given, of how the rules place obligations on the GM (and the players too) as to what is said about what is happening in the shared fiction.

Your examples seem a bit strained to me. And from a PC perspective, the DM very well could say they are blind. Whose to say some enemy caster didn't cast blindness? Now a DM that just went around making things up all the time is going to be a poor DM but he could do that. It is within his rights as DM.

As for wandering monsters, the DM if a good one will be consistent but I don't see ever an obligation for a DM to roll for a wandering monster. He could roll. He could just drop some monsters. He could just not do anything. The NPCs are controlled by the DM. I hope as DM he has reasons for why any one of those things happening.

The notion that the GM can make up whatever they like at any time - dictate results without regard to action resolution rules, without reference to their map and key, without reference to any procedures of play - is not foundation to D&D. I'm not sure when or where it first emerged. It was known of, but was far from universally accepted, in the late 1970s. It only seems to me to have become ubiquitous in the second half of the 1980s.

Well we lived in different worlds then. Now I agree a DM that just went crazy and made up crap left and right wouldn't stay DM for long if I were a PC. But at any given moment can the DM do something? Absolutely. He is not bound.

There are many things I'd say are expectations. All of those things you mentioned are likely as a whole expectations. Consistency, depth, fairness. As PC's I think those are reasonable expectations. I don't ever see a rule containing a DM. I just see the PCs deciding they don't want what that DM is offering.

 

[SteveC]

What do you mean by saying D&D is designed that way?

This is one of those things that I'm not sure how to reply to, especially with someone who's experienced with many game systems. D&D has a pretty clear split between the player and the DM's duties. If you go and look at the first few pages of the PHB (I just pulled my 5E PHB out of storage) it talks about the duties of the players, the group, and contrasts them with the DM. It doesn't talk about shared narrative creation or players portraying characters other than the one they are about to write up.

That is really different from other games. Dungeon World (or PbtA games in general), Fate, Amber, Fabula Ultima ... they all discuss the roles of the players in terms of being able to shape stories. And there are many other games that do so as well.

D&D doesn't do this. In the rules. That's what I'm talking about when I say what it's designed to do.

But with that said: I give players authority to create things. I ran a game recently where the PCs stepped into a bar that one of the players described as being a place they went to all the time. I said, okay: set the scene and tell me about the place. And they had fun with that. I took some notes and added this place to the game world.

So you can definitely say I'm on the side of giving more authority to players. But I also admit that's not how D&D is designed. I was just looking through the new PHB last night and once again, the designers haven't taken the opportunity to explain to players all the things you're talking about in terms of creating material for the game. Compare that to a game like Fate, which goes into a lot of detail about that and has mechanics to back it up.

There's nothing wrong with playing D&D with giving players authorial control over parts of the game. That is literally how I do it. At the same time, there isn't design to back me up for this. I don't care about that, but if we're discussing the game as it is designed... it isn't made that way. Maybe 6E?

 

[Imaro]

This is one of those things that I'm not sure how to reply to, especially with someone who's experienced with many game systems. D&D has a pretty clear split between the player and the DM's duties. If you go and look at the first few pages of the PHB (I just pulled my 5E PHB out of storage) it talks about the duties of the players, the group, and contrasts them with the DM. It doesn't talk about shared narrative creation or players portraying characters other than the one they are about to write up.

That is really different from other games. Dungeon World (or PbtA games in general), Fate, Amber, Fabula Ultima ... they all discuss the roles of the players in terms of being able to shape stories. And there are many other games that do so as well.

D&D doesn't do this. In the rules. That's what I'm talking about when I say what it's designed to do.

But with that said: I give players authority to create things. I ran a game recently where the PCs stepped into a bar that one of the players described as being a place they went to all the time. I said, okay: set the scene and tell me about the place. And they had fun with that. I took some notes and added this place to the game world.

So you can definitely say I'm on the side of giving more authority to players. But I also admit that's not how D&D is designed. I was just looking through the new PHB last night and once again, the designers haven't taken the opportunity to explain to players all the things you're talking about in terms of creating material for the game. Compare that to a game like Fate, which goes into a lot of detail about that and has mechanics to back it up.

There's nothing wrong with playing D&D with giving players authorial control over parts of the game. That is literally how I do it. At the same time, there isn't design to back me up for this. I don't care about that, but if we're discussing the game as it is designed... it isn't made that way. Maybe 6E?

So are you speaking to rules or advice?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So are you speaking to rules or advice?

It doesn't matter. The text in the book is what the designers want you to do with their game.

 

[Imaro]

It doesn't matter. The text in the book is what the designers want you to do with their game.

1. It matters to me that's why I asked the question...
2. If it doesn't matter to you you can choose not to post
3. The designers are also proponents of rule zero which boils down to nothing written is sacrosanct and anything can be changed. There isn't one way to play D&D.

 

[SteveC]

So are you speaking to rules or advice?

I'm talking rules when I speak about how a game is designed. When we discuss these issues, it gets pretty spirited with the RAW crowd saying player narrative control is not in the rules. And there are a ton of games with rules for just this sort of thing.

I wish there were some more rules for doing this sort of thing. I have not seen the new DMG so there may be something there, we'll have to see on that front.

Edited to add: I hope folks realize that even though I don't believe the rules reflect this for D&D, I really do support this kind of gameplay. So both sides of the argument can feel free to be annoyed with me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

1. It matters to me that's why I asked the question...
2. If it doesn't matter to you you can choose not to post
3. The designers are also proponents of rule zero which boils down to nothing written is sacrosanct and anything can be changed. There isn't one way to play D&D.

No one here said there was only one way (why would you imply otherwise?), but that doesn't mean that the designers don't provide guidelines to their intentions.

 

[Imaro]

No one here said there was only one way (why would you imply otherwise?), but that doesn't mean that the designers don't provide guidelines to their intentions.

So what exactly do the designers guidelines to their iintentions say?

 

[Corinnguard]

So what exactly do the designers guidelines to their iintentions say?

Good question. It would probably depend on whether or not any of the WoTC designers frequent the forums here on EN World. Then we could blitz them with questions ad nauseum about 2024 D&D.

At this point, we can only guess ad nauseum about what were they were thinking with regards to what they did and didn't do in the 2024 PHB.