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I understand that if a task is impossible, I don’t call for a roll. But sometimes a task should be possible for PC1 but not for PC2. The new rule requires either: (A) that if anyone can do it, then everyone can do it; or else (B) that the DM must always track everyone’s mods.

People commonly misunderstanding the procedure you’re teaching them is definitely a reason to change the way you’re teaching the procedure—but it is not a reason to change the procedure you’re teaching. Having an alternative procedure that works just as well or better is—but I’m arguing this...

Should DMs track players’ mods, then, and only allow players to roll if their mods would be able to succeed on a 20 with the current rules? If so, then what’s the point of the new rule?

The 5.5e playtest includes just one change I really hate: a 20 automatically succeeds on an ability check, and a 1 automatically fails. I've seen precisely one rationale for this, stated over and over, that most groups already play that way because this is already a widely misunderstood...

There's a lot here that I like, so I won't attempt anything close to an exhaustive list. I'm just here to say that I LOVE spells not critting. I'm singling it out because something tells me it's a really iffy proposition whether this change is ultimately retained. It "takes something away from...

Funniest moment of the stream: I said to myself, "Gosh, they want 'One D&D' to imply exactly the opposite, but it sure does sound like some evil 'you will be assimilated' Borg-ey stuff instead—especially since it's all bundled up with an initiative to move D&D further toward bio-digital...

I’m not sure why it would. The only relationship that the OAR line has ever had to the WotC-produced content for 5e is that if WotC has published their own 5e update of a classic module (or has definite plans to do so), it’s apparently off-limits to Goodman. This doesn’t apply to...

My all-time favorite—though hardly the most usable in play, of course—is the 1988 Forgotten Realms box set "City System," which is an astonishing product about Waterdeep. The box consists of just three things: a thirty-two-page booklet with information on Waterdeep; a single poster featuring a...

Currently prepping one scheduled to start in three weeks.

That one, at least, is easy: 5e lore (such as it is) portrays Vecna as a sort of Kang the Conqueror type who uses chronomancy to hop around the timeline and the multiverse. Here's the Vecna Dossier: "Because Vecna is said to have mastered magic allowing him to travel through time, he can appear...

Not for me. I'm holding out for something lighter and whimmier, and darkhearted and gritsical.

I’m running this right now and I love it—but it definitely requires a lot of work from the DM to make it work. That is partly because the book is very light on information about various key locations (what is Summit Hall actually like? Make it all up! Or go read the novel “Thornhold,” where it...

Sure, but that still doesn’t explain why the river—which, decades after the disaster, is still shown on several recent maps (and in the still-active MMO) as flowing to the south of Castle Never—suddenly has started flowing to the castle’s north instead.

Also, remember the last (or last but one) WotC survey, the one that asked a bunch of questions about how angry you would be if (for example) a sorcerer was seen in the movie casting a healing spell? Yeah, it's now abundantly clear that this survey contained a load of hints about what would be in...

The DND Beyond video above claims it's Waterdeep. Whether it's NW or WD, they've taken liberties with the map.

That's Neverwinter, not Waterdeep. Edit: The cityscape we see twice doesn't quite match Neverwinter, either. But it's much closer than Waterdeep, which, for one thing, doesn't have a river running through it.

Check out the Faiths of the Forgotten Realms series on the DMs Guild. This series essentially does exactly what you're asking for, and is reasonably well designed.

Spoilers for Thornhold and Princes of the Apocalypse:

One point of clarification: only a tiny bit of the third novel in the Icewind Dale trilogy occurs on the Essentials Kit map. The rest of the story ranges all the way up and down the Sword Coast (and even south of it, and west of it). Still, the trilogy is a pretty good introduction to the...