Mearls announces end of Legends & Lore & New D&D Columns in 2015!

WotC's Mike Mearls has announced the end of the long-running Legends & Lore column, which was used during D&D Next playtesting to showcase ideas and concepts, and the start of the previously announced series of articles called Unearthed Arcana, "a monthly look at the art of tabletop RPG game design featuring insights into our philosophy, and examples of new and variant material to use at your table."

Additionally, series called Campaign Notebooks and Sage Advice will be launched. Sage Advice follows the old format of years past, and will be manned by Jeremy Crawford as he answers your rules questions. Campaign Notebooks will feature Chris Perkins and others -- "insights into D&D and tips for your games taken directly from the campaigns of Dungeon Masters here at Wizards."

 

[Dire Bare]

Noting that the TSR of Gygax Mag isn't the original TSR. The only connection is Ernie Gygax, who happened to have been a shareholder of the original TSR. They poached the Trademark when it lapsed from Wizards's registration.

Intentional brand confusion.

Yeah, that's why I've never picked up the mag. It really felt like poaching on the name TSR and even Gygax, despite the involvement of his sons. Wow me with amazing content, don't play games with brand confusion. Heck, the mag might even have great content, but I'll never know, after that initial sour taste.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

Sage Advice, eh. Given that one of the traits of this edition is that the rules are intentionally left open for DM interpretation, I frankly find the notion of 'official interpretations' counter-productive. All that means is that there actually is a 'correct' way to do things; they're just not telling us what it is..

I think there is a lot of room to do Sage Advice that is in the spirit of the edition.

Q: I have this issue with the "Hunter's Mark" spell... what should I do.

A: Well, if you adjudicate it this way... you can probably expect this. If you rule this other way.... look out for that, but it has a nice benefit in this other thing. Also... here is an alternative "Hunter's Mark" spell that might be more to your liking that might do this other thing. And here is a feat that you might use instead if your players are looking for a less magical version. And over here is how you can use the Mark option from the DMG to bolster up the spell if you want to do that.

There is no reason they have to go into 3e and 4e style rulings over RAW quibbles and endless errata, they could just give options.

 

[delericho]

I think there is a lot of room to do Sage Advice that is in the spirit of the edition.

True. (And it could go as you describe in the bit I've snipped.)

But past experience with Sage Advice as far back as TSR days would seem to suggest otherwise. I guess we wait and see.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

True. (And it could go as you describe in the bit I've snipped.)

But past experience with Sage Advice as far back as TSR days would seem to suggest otherwise. I guess we wait and see.

I imagine the first couple of columns might collect a dozen of the most common misunderstandings of the RAW or RAI where it is clearly a case of people parsing grammar and terminology wrong to find an exploit. But really most of that kind of thing can be done on Twitter and then collected in a FAQ. I am not sure you need a whole column for that kind of thing whereas something a bit more expansive looking at different options is the kind of thing that people would actually read for pleasure and could bring some new elements to people's games.

Then again, we will see. If they do something more traditional, I don't begrudge them, but there is no reason that they have to go down that route with Twitter and a well maintained FAQ.