Search results

This kind of “how to run the game” advice is something that the new version - a version that has brought unprecedented amounts of new players into the game - sorely needs. It’s largely intuitive to us for for a first time DM, how are they supposed to know?

Maybe I am being optimistic, but it feels like increased market penetration means they can’t tell people to throw all their 5e books away to clear space for 5.whatever like they used to. We put up with that in the past but I don’t think the ranks of new players would.

I think my growing dissatisfaction with WOTC adventure books is that they for the most part make an assumption that your players are going to run through the adventure pretty much as intended which is destined to fail the longer the campaign goes on. It doesn’t seem to help that that writers...

Agreed, I think it makes skill resolution more prone to meta gaming while simultaneously more difficult to adjudicate. I’m not going to change anything about how I DM (is there a chance for success, is there a chance for failure, and is there a consequence for failure?) but I see it making it...

I get that and I hope they word it more succinctly in future revisions, but it feels like they’re devoting a lot of space for a bunch of examples no one is going to take as written when they could just say “tool proficiency, pick one.” It just seems like some sort of simplified life path system...

In that vein, I’d like to see all spells require an attack roll so they can have critical hits and fails but maybe that’s just me.

Yes, but… My own heretical opinion is that worldbuilding is, for the most part, a time sink and a diversion so if I have a homebrew D&D setting it’s “generic fantasy with a splash of the Renaissance and the Victorian Era and also sort of the Sword Coast with the numbers filed off based on my...

So after reading the document, it feels a little weird… One of my big problems about character creation in 5e is it’s so janky and all over the place. I like that your character is a combination of race/lineage, background, and class but it’s so clunky to explain to newbies sometimes. It is...

You're right, it seems to imply that you can set a DC to fifty so that tests aren’t “warranted,” to use their language. Hopefully a later document more about running the game will codify it better for newbies.

Aside from the whole “this is a commonly misunderstood rule so instead of explaining it better, we’re just going to change the rule” mindset which irks me quite a bit, I am not a fan. I’ve never liked the “I have at least a five percent chance to do literally anything” style of play because it’s...

The review made me pretty good to hold off, now I can delete it from my wishlist. I have to say, I’m getting kind of tired with their “we’re just going to leave gaping holes and let you, the reader, fill them in yourself“ editorial policy. If I have to make up huge parts of the adventure myself...

I think if I were an armored fighter and a Druid cast Heat Metal on me, my main priority would be to grapple the Druid so they’d get that 2d8 same as me, we‘ll see who lasts longer…

I find it telling that for every “5e doesn’t given me enough impactful character choices to make an interesting builds” there is a “I am going back to B/X with its more streamlined play” it depends what you want out of the game, some people like strategizing over builds, some do not. By...

Late to the party, but yeah - players never care about setting lore near as much as the DM does. If the lore does not directly impact them, they have little to no reason to care. (Also, exposition dumps are super boring)

I’ve never understood why people can’t just play the game they like and let other people (and in the age of the Internet, the other people are often people they will never even encounter IRL, much less play with) play the games they like. Unfortunately there are all sorts of groups online...

This feels like an obvious next move to me - they had an opportunity to do this with Dragon Heist but it didn't really work that way.

IMO, there are some substandard third party products but when they're good they're way better than a lot of WOTC stuff.

Speaking of bluegrass covers of metal, there's always Hayseed Dixie (AC/DC, but they do a lot more than that)

A lot of the best ones have already been covered but some more fun ones:

Also there is a massive difference between "I need to customize this adventure to fit in with my players' backstories/motivations/whatever" and fixing problems with an adventure. I think everyone gets that "well, my party is all dwarves so some customizing is required" is part of being a DM but...