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This is tricky because it's so much longer than the human experience, even longer than most earthly civilizations (excepting a few ancient cultures). Create the structure of a new philosophy, school of thought, or religion, with the eventual goal of enlightenment. This would be more than...

I wish it was better with not requiring certain character archetypes. For example, a party without access to healing magic is going to struggle. In my experience, finding someone who wants to play a cleric is a challenge. Even in 4E with healing surges, the party couldn't get "up to speed"...

I like Level Up. One of my players was telling her college-aged daughter about it, and she asked to look through my books while her mom was making her character at our Session Zero last week. The daughter was excited and said "everything I was thinking about changing in 5E has already been...

I also like Dread, but I think calling it an "RPG" is a stretch. It's Jenga with storytelling.

Rolling dice is fun. Being surprised by the outcome of attacks and damage is fun. As the GM, I'm also there to have fun. It adds excitement for the players to see rolls in the open. I have thrown out systems (such as Symbaroum) because I don't get to roll.

Can anyone verify if these dice sets are compatible with 2024 D&D? ;)

I ran several seasons of D&D Encounters at my FLGS - and attempted last year to start a campaign around the "Lost Crown of Neverwinter" season. My group couldn't get a handle on the "artificial" structure - like you can only recharge Daily powers at the end of a chapter. They're also extremely...

Also, the DM's Kit includes the pretty great adventure The Reavers of Harkenwold.

The genres I don't do well with... Sci fi. There's just too many varieties to get a consistent expectation of play. Also, technology can destroy traditional adventure set-ups. Additionally, they tend towards crunchy rules, over reliance on gear, and lots of fiddly numbers. Westerns. They...

I'm not trying to defend Howard or Lovecraft's world views, but what they offer is short fiction that isn't a 900 page Brandon Sanderson epic. It's episodic and a good basis in pacing for a gaming adventure. I've been unable to find contemporary and less problematic writers who can do the same...

It's strange coming into it as a guy in his 40s in 2025. And I understand it was written for a different audience in a different time, but it feels uncomfortable. I guess in a different way than reading HP Lovecraft or Robert E Howard, because this is recent by comparison. I've only read the...

Everyone in my group is voraciously reading Dungeoncrawler Carl. Some are fans of Brandon Sanderson. For me, last month I started RA Salvatore's Icewind Dale trilogy (for the first time).

The "When We Were Wizards" podcast has some nice interviews with Ernie and discusses his involvement in the history of the game and its business. It's worth a listen.

MOST traps are garbage. If you're talking about a tripwire across the floor that fires a hidden bolt that might hit a character and do 4 points of damage, you know, the easiest thing to do is just ignore that. I've run published adventures for years and didn't have the time or inclination to...

Hmm. So if they keep setting off traps remotely, then they find themselves blocked out of the areas they need to access, destroying treasure, alerting nearby enemies, and setting off traps that roll down the hallway to get them. Just blindly setting off traps is a foolish way to proceed in an...

I thought it was a rogue archetype that could disarm traps with mage hand. (Or maybe I'm thinking of a prior edition?) So ... no, unless you're trained in this archetype, mage hand doesn't work this way.

Just came in this thread to see if I needed to explain the confusing cycle of releases between the individual books, the basic tome, the advanced tomes, etc.

I'm a librarian. One of the departments I oversee is Inter-library Loan (where we mail books to and receive books from other libraries). The cost of Media Mail has already ballooned to the point where we can barely offer this service.

I've been trying to dodge buying the 2024 edition. I don't want to have to get a new PHB (et al) to use the new Eberron book. I think I'd prefer not having the players interact with Dragonmarks than run an amalgam of 5.14, A5E, and 5.24.

My gaming group refers to the hobby as D&D. Even if we're playing a different system. Even if we're playing a different genre. Even if what we're playing doesn't resemble D&D at all (such as playing Dread with a Jenga tower). At this point, once summer weather gets here, I'm going to invite...