Dungeons & Dragons

[Nihilistic_Impact]

So it's out there, Wizards has released their release dates and some information on their up coming edition of the classic Dungeons & Dragons. So far I have to say I'm interested and will be picking up the starter kit, because twenty dollars for lvl 1-5 doesn't seem like too bad of a buy in point.

Information Here!

Article for those too lazy; but click it since it'll show some cover art.

Release dates for the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set, Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, Dungeon Master's Guide, and various adventures unveiled.

Update 12:25 AM EST: Kobold Press has confirmed that they are the design studio behind the new adventures, and Wizards of the Coast will simply publish that material. In a joint statement, Dungeons & Dragons R&D member Mike Mearls said that Kobold Press writers Wolfgang Baur and Steve Winter were "at the top of his list" for writing the new D&D adventures. "What I love about Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat is how Wolfgang and Steve Winter have approached the traditional adventure format. While the episodic structure makes it easy for DMs to trace the campaign's humble beginnings to its epic conclusion, within those episodes is a level of flexibility and freedom for DMs and players that places this among the great D&D campaigns." From that information, it appears that the new adventures will have an episodic format within individual books, meaning that both adventures may include multiple mini-adventures within them.

Original Story: Wizards of the Coast has revealed the covers and release dates for not only the core books of the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, but the adventures and miniatures that will accompany the release later this year. In addition to the previously revealed dates for the Player's Handbook and Starter Set, we now have dates for the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide for a three month window after the release of the Player's Handbook in August. The covers, prices, and details were revealed via Wizards' website product listings, as well as on Amazon. Among the new reveals are two adventures, Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat, both intended as part of Wizards' Tyranny of Dragons story event for D&D. Regarding the extended game launch window, Wizards of the Coast's Mike Mearls said that the development team wanted to ensure that each book was as high quality as possible.

Much of the same information as was announced by Wizards of the Coast has been posted to multiple listings on giant online retailer Amazon.com. Most of that information is duplicated, but it does include the details that the Adventures for the new D&D are designed by Kobold Press, a popular third party RPG publisher that makes material for a variety of fantasy roleplaying games.

The products announced are:

Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set (July 15, 2014); Fantasy Roleplaying Fundamentals; $19.99; Will include six dice, a 64-page rulebook with adventure, rules for characters levels 1-5, and 5 pregenerated characters.

Player's Handbook (August 19, 2014); Core Rulebook; $49.95; Looks like the same book it has always been - learn the game's systems from it, but it includes only basic rules.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen (August 19, 2014); Tyranny of Dragons Adventure; $29.95; The first of the Tyranny of Dragons adventures, looks like the kickoff of the big event at 96 pages. The Amazon listing says that this one was designed and developed by Kobold Press, a third party firm.
Monster Manual (September 17, 2014); Core Rulebook $49.95; Bills its game statistics as "easy to use" and is supposedly full of "thrilling stories to feed your imagination" - same old, same old with a chance of increased game fluff.

The Rise of Tiamat (October 21, 2014); Tyranny of Dragons Adventure $29.95; Looks like the battle against Tiamat will become "increasingly political" - which would be an interesting twist for a second game adventure. Also designed by Kobold Press.
Dungeon Master's Guide (November 18, 2014); Core Rulebook $49.95; Full of "inspiration and guidance" as well as the optional rules modules we've been hearing so much about, as well as all the magic items - so not an optional book at all.
Deluxe DM Screen (January 20, 2015); $14.95; This one is listed at Amazon without details and not yet listed by Wizards.

Dungeons & Dragons, to be released later this year, will be the fifth official edition of the fantasy roleplaying game. It went through an extensive public playtest in late 2012 and early 2013, and has been in private development ever since.

Posted alongside the releases were two new miniatures products which by the familiar look of the sculpts are part of the line of miniatures produced by WizKids that were previously announced:

Icons of the Realms: Starter Set (July 14, 2014); Miniatures; $19.99; Described as a starter pack and clearly including figures intended as adventurers. Described as including "the dwarf cleric, human ranger, halfling rouge[sic], northlands fighter, elf wizard, and the famous drow ranger, Drizzt Do'Urden."

Icons of the Realms: Booster (July, 2014); Miniatures; $15.99; A box of four blind miniatures "inspired by the Tyranny of Dragons storyline" and almost definitely catered to go alongside the starter set and first adventures including "dragons, kobold fighters, bugbears, wraiths, mind flayers, and many more iconic D&D characters."

 

[Battle Bunny Riven]

Hm... This certainly looks like it might be worth giving a shot. This might be DnD's last chance at redemption following the past two terrible renditions of the game and I'm happy to give the company that brought me into the role playing world one final chance to prove that they've still got it. Most of my friends have moved onto Pathfinder, myself included, but it should not be hard to convince them to give DnD one last shot. We've all got such fond memories because of them.

 

[Micbunny]

Having played around with some of the tester stuff they put out, I'm rather excited. Although I'll probably stay out of "investing" in the books until they get around to adapting Eberron to the new system. But it looks like they tried to fix the whole "falls off the RNG" problem that 3.x had. I'd suggest at least looking into it for anyone who played and managed to enjoy D&D in its myriad of forms.

 

[Battle Bunny Riven]

Unfortunately, the RNG is the god of the tabletop role playing world. It's why I prefer D6 systems like Shadowrun or Iron Kingdoms. The RNG is slightly less harsh.

 

[Nihilistic_Impact]

If what they've said is true, even partially, you should be able to easily convert any Eberron materials you might already have for this edition. I know I came to D&D fairly early in the 3.5 era and left before it was over. PF was more welcoming when I returned then 4th; but I grew tired of the tedium of character creation, even if I love it, and so wandered off into the independent production of D&D clones due to the OGL. There's some really interesting stuff coming out of the OSR and it's general Do It Yourself D&D attitude often makes things relatively compatible. I know I've considered grabbing the Advantage/Disadvantage system for my own game.

Fuck, I love the creative cannibalism you can do with D&D.

 

[Micbunny]

oh there's some wonderful stuff you can do to try to transfer it over, but I am pretty sure WOTC is going to attempt to convert Eberron, and I'd rather not go through the firestorm that is "houserules" even if it is just attempted conversion. I had a hard enough time getting a group to accept some 3.0 stuff that didn't get straight updated to 3.5 (technically still legal but... yeesh some people. And it was one feat, for fluff reasons D: ) So I think I'll just wait for WOTC to do the work for me, and see if it needs tweaking from there. And then it'll be easier to get a group to accept it (maybe.)

 

[Nihilistic_Impact]

I can understand that. All the crunch in 3.x makes house ruling things a little more challenging. It makes me happier to use a simpler system based upon the old Basic/Expert box sets.

 

[Nihilistic_Impact]

So, interesting development. After the release of information on the starter box and the core three books, plus adventures and an eventual DM screen, there was a big hoopla in the online communities I frequent about the lack of character creation. Well questions over that have been answered in a way. WotC is going to be releasing a free pdf of a strip down bare bones system, article is here.

Another interesting development is that they may set it up for print on demand.

As you might have noticed, we made an exciting announcement last week about our upcoming storyline called Tyranny of Dragons, and after over two years of work, countless hours of testing, and hundreds of thousands of playtest packets downloaded, we’ve finally announced release dates for the books and the Starter Set that make up the core of the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

It’s been a long road to this point. It seems like just yesterday that we were in crunch mode for that first playtest packet. The team faced a daunting final push of work that day. I’m pretty sure that my rendition of several Public Enemy tracks provided the morale-boosting energy to finish that first release. Either that or everyone just wanted to get their work done to shut me up.

It’s been an interesting journey these past two years. The overwhelming response to the playtest showed us that demand for RPGs is still out there, despite a host of other gaming options. Your feedback and the steadily increasing approval in our surveys showed that we were on the right track. A simpler, leaner, extensible game was right not just for new players, but also for people who had put decades into playing D&D.

There’s a lot to talk about with the new game, but I’d like to take this week to focus on a piece of the puzzle we haven’t talked about yet: Basic Dungeons & Dragons.

Basic D&D is a PDF that covers the core of the game. It’s the equivalent of the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia, though it doesn’t have quite the same scope (for example, it won’t go into detail on a setting). It runs from levels 1 to 20 and covers the cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard, presenting what we view as the essential subclass for each. It also provides the dwarf, elf, halfling, and human as race options.

But the best part? Basic D&D is a free PDF. Anyone can download it from our website. We want to put D&D in as many hands as possible, and a free, digital file is the best way to do that.

If Basic D&D is the equivalent of the classic Rules Cyclopedia, then the three core rulebooks are analogous to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Want more character options? Pick up a Player’s Handbook. Looking for more critters for your campaign? The Monster Manual has you covered. Want to sculpt a unique campaign? Pick up the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Still, Basic D&D is the true heart of the game and could easily provide a lifetime of gaming.

At the launch of the D&D Starter Set, Basic D&D will include the material needed to create characters and advance to 20th level. In August, with the release of the Player’s Handbook, Basic D&D will expand to include the essential monsters, magic items, and DM rules needed to run the game, along with the rules for wilderness, dungeon, and urban adventuring. (The Starter Set already covers the aspects of these rules that you need to run the included campaign.)

As we introduce new storylines like Tyranny of Dragons, we’ll also make available free PDFs that provide all the rules and stats missing from Basic D&D needed to run the adventures tied into the story. The adventures released as part of Tyranny of Dragons are playable without requiring any of the core rulebooks or the Starter Set. With just the Basic Dungeons & Dragons rules, you can play D&D for years.

Basic D&D makes it easier than ever for new players and DMs to jump into tabletop RPG play. We’re involved in the greatest gaming hobby ever invented. It’s time to bring that hobby to everyone who wants to take part.

 

[the_high_king]

I'm personally looking forward to seeing what D&D Next will be like. I've playtested it once but as I recall, it's changed a lot since then so it'll be like replaying an all new system to me I guess. However, it still looks a lot like 3.5 so maybe I don't have much to worry about after-all.

That said, I'm still a fan of the 4E system.

 

[Nihilistic_Impact]

Well folks it's here, the Basic version of D&D 5th has been released in pdf format for free. You can find it right here.

 

[Nihilistic_Impact]

The player's handbook is also out, and the monster manual has been released in stores that are part of their network. Everywhere else it's out on next Tuesday.

 

[Rogue]

So I've never actually played a table top RPG before. I played some Marvel version with my brother briefly when I was 12 but for reasons I'll not get in to we lost touch and I've never done anything since then. I've always wanted to try D&D but those few people I've met around where I live who play are either clannish and reluctant to bring in new players or I just straight don't get along with them (the snobby nerd/geek archetype is common in these parts). But I've always been interested in giving D&D a try. I owned the three core rule books for 3.5 for the longest time along with the Book of Vile Darkness, Psionics Handbook and the Eberron Campaign Setting so I know a lot of the terminology and I understand the rules as well as one can without having actually put them in to action.

So do any of you play online by any chance? I have heard of some groups that do that. I'm not too keen about getting on a cam and mic but I think it'd be pretty doable and even fun from a narrative standpoint to do it through a chat system. Dice are easy enough for me to come by (albeit a bit pricey) and there are even dice simulators that you can find online.

But hey, if no one is really interested in that then that's cool. I've actually done a forum-type role play that was D&D style where a DM set our characters up on an adventure and guided us through the story while she controlled the NPCs. It was sort of like the table top without the saving throws or paper work. So any of you D&D fans that might be interested in something like that? I figured I'd post this here rather than make a new thread since all you D&Ders are already right here.

 

[Dr. Nibbles]

Alrighty, so I played a bit of DnD 5th ed. Whelp... I personally fuckin hate it. Hate it worse than 4th. The systems are too condensed and simplified, it feels like the game is litterally holding my hand with everything. The games changes have taken it quite a bit from its origin. I feel the casters are hurt again, not as bad as 2nd but I felt weak as a caster in 5th. It didnt help that the group itself was terrible, as well as the starting from the set. Personally not for me, I'll stick with Pathfinder, we're still getting a shit ton of books for that, Mythic 2 next year bitches!!