D&D 5E Review Part 8: Personality & Background
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D&D 5E Review Part 7: Character Classes (Part 3)
Time to burn through the last of these character classes. I vaguely remember something about the next chapter seeming ineteresting. Rogues Thieves Cant now includes Hobo Signs. If a Locoviathan shows up in the 5E Monster Manual, we might have to sober up our lawyer. Rogues have three “Roguish Archetypes” (it’s like they just didn’t…
D&D 5E Review Part 6: Character Classes (Part2)
Ok, we’re jumping right into this one. There are a lot of classes left and we don’t have time for niceties. Druids This edition is considerably more specific about what the hell is meant by “preserving the balance.” It’s an improvement for the game, but it ruins my Thanos joke. Every time they refer to…
D&D 5E Review Part 5: Character Classes (Part 1)
As an author, co-author, or contributor to twenty-something RPG books and publisher of something like 50, I’m very familiar with introductory filler. Sometimes you can just jump right into the actual content, but other times you have to put some words in between the chapter title and the first header even if there’s nothing to…
D&D 5 Review Part 4: Character Races (Part 2)
Before we start this, I’d like to ask a question I’ve been wondering about for a while now: WHAT THE FUCK IS A TIEFLING? Apparently it and the Dragonborn showed up somewhere between 3rd Edition and now, and I don’t understand why. Admittedly, the fact that I’m an Old Fart is part of the problem…
D&D 5E Review Part 3: Character Races (Part 1)
Chapter 2 describes the PC races for the new version of Dungeons & Dragons and starts up with about half of page of fluff about character races wherein the writers adorably try to pretend that different races appear as PCs in roughly the same proportions that they appear in game fiction. The multiple mentions of…
D&D 5E Review Part 2: Character Creation
Now that I’ve dumped on the cover of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, it’s time to actually open the book. The first page is a piece of art that’s similar (and similarly unappealing, in my opinion) to the 3E art: noncommittal water-colory backgrounds, indistinct linework, and just kind of bleh. Then there’s the usual front…
From the Archives: Assassination Games
Here’s a game idea from the DC archives: I’ve stumbled upon a rather odd true story, full of secret agents, (cyber)sex, and murder. According to the judge in the case, “Skilled writers of fiction would struggle to conjure up a plot such as this.” Since I don’t have the time or ambition to write a…
D&D 5E Part 1: Books, Covers, Judging
Before I start what may very well turn into a way-too-long review of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, I’m honor-bound to mention that Hex Games released the third PDF in our American Artifacts series (cleverly titled American Artifacts 3) earlier this week. For those not familiar with the series, each American Artifacts PDF collects 20…
From the Archives: D&D 3E Review
After mostly ignoring an edition and a half, curiosity got the better of me and I picked up a copy of the 5th edition Player’s Handbook. The fact that a store I visited had it on sale for 20% probably helped. I wasn’t $50 curious, but apparently I was $40 curious. My plan is to…