19 May 2014

Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition Coming Soon(ish)


Although I haven’t been following the development of the ‘5th edition’ of Dungeons and Dragons very closely (indeed, not at all over the past year), I could not avoid learning that it very likely would start being released this summer.  And now it’s official.  The core rules will be released from July 20th to November 18th

For a basic summary, go here. For slightly more info, try here.

I’ll be getting the ‘Basic Set’ – er… the ‘Starter Set’ – for sure.  The price is okay, and I would like to see what this version of the game looks like. 

I really hope that I like what I see, that it turns out to be the case that the wonderful ‘Old School Renaissance’ did indeed have some impact on the development of 5th edition.   I hope this not because I’m dependent on the Wizards of the Coast for my RPG needs.  (Quite the contrary.  The only WotC products that I’ve purchased in recent years were the reprints of the 1st edition AD&D rules and modules, the reprint of the original (1974) D&D rules, and some PDFs of out-of-print materials.)  For ‘D&D-style’ gaming, my copies of 1st edition AD&D, Basic/Expert D&D, 0e D&D, the ‘clones’ like OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry, and the ‘quasi-clone’ Crypts & Things, will continue to meet my needs perfectly well.  Nonetheless, I would be delighted to see a broadly ‘old school’ style of play being supported, at least to some extent, by the hobby’s leader (or one of its leaders, if WotC really has been supplanted by Paizo).


The price for the core books, though, certainly is worrisome: 150 USD for the traditional triumvirate! 

5 comments:

  1. Nice to see C&T gets a mention in this ;) Been a good 2+ years since it was released.

    Looks like this time round they have done away with the subsided Core books and are marketing them at realistic prices.

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    Replies
    1. Newt, your comment made me realize that it's been a full year since I had a post devoted to C&T here! That's strange, since it's one of my favourite games from the OSR, and the only one to which I actually contributed. I'll try to rectify this in the near future. :)

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  2. The final decision to make the rules works as "Ability Mod + Proficiency Bonus (if any) + D20 roll vs DC" has really sold me.
    Proficiency covers weapons, tools, skills, and saves and is +2 to +6 (levels 1 to 20) for every class works better than I even imagined.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Or you could use Target20. http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/p/primary-house-rules.html

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  3. 4th edition was so atrocious this incarnation had better work. Honestly I wish that they never started meddling with the rules to begin with. A little re-organization of the original rulebooks were all they needed to do. If this flops at least there is Pathfinder.

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I'm a Canadian political philosopher who lives primarily in Toronto but teaches in Milwaukee (sometimes in person, sometimes online).