If you’ve ever wondered how to play a ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ character with a trans or nonbinary identity, this guide will help you navigate the decisions and thought exercises needed to bring your character to life in a way that celebrates you, your character, and the joint story-telling world you share with your friends.
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Over the last few weeks I’ve had a chance to sit down with the new 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG), the latest book release for the new 5e Dungeons & Dragons and, in my opinion, a grand-slam for Wizards of the Coast. Along with the 5e Player’s Handbook (PH) and the 5e Monster Manual (MM), players (that includes Dungeon Masters, or DMs) now have access to everything they need to host and play some legendary adventures of their own.
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Earlier this week, I wrote about the newly released 5th edition Dungeon Master’s Guide and how much I had enjoyed reading through it and uncovering some great tools for creating custom campaigns and adventures.
Well… it’s time to put the book to the test. And have some fun, obviously.
After finishing up with the 5e DMG, I thought it might be fun to try and create a mini-adventure using the new book’s content. Any experienced DM will tell you, however, that a good adventure will often require some (or a LOT of) tinkering once you’ve created the skeleton framework. My goal here is to create that framework and try to avoid going too deep into the nitty-gritty details that can either be made on-the-fly during gameplay or after the framework has “stewed” a little in my head.
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The circle is complete. Wizards of the Coast has released its 5th edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, and with that book the trio of books that has formed the basis of Dungeons & Dragons for decades is united again in a new edition. Earlier this year, WotC released the 5th edition Player’s Handbook and followed it up with the 5e Monster Manual. Based on reviews and fan reaction and my own informal discussions with numerous players during my own Adventurer’s League gathering every Wednesday evening, the opinion seems to be that the 5th edition is a welcome return to traditional dungeon crawls and role playing to satisfy veteran players while bringing in enough new content and rule updates to freshen up the game and make it welcoming to new players. These reactions, however, have been based on the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and the handful of ready-made adventurers that have been offered up to dungeon masters and players through the Expeditions and Encounters events. The 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide has been the most obvious missing element, but no longer. It’s here…
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Back in August, I had a fun time sitting down and going through the new 5th edition D&D Player’s Handbook and creating a new character for the Encounters hosted events that happen every Wednesday evening. Unlike the AD&D rules that I was most familiar with, my return to D&D came with some nice changes regarding leveling and Ability Score bonuses and more. With AD&D, every class had its own Experience Point chart — leveling for a fighter required less XP than leveling for a magic-user, for example. The new 5e Player’s Handbook not only strips out the complexities (instead offering a single XP chart for leaving of all classes, for example) that I recall with AD&D, but adds a lot of new (to me) interesting twists such as Feats and class-specific choices that offer even more customization and fun ways to play a character.
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I enjoyed being a DM for my friends, and I’m looking forward to taking the reins again. The original AD&D Monster Manual was a great source of inspiration for many adventures — I’d pick the right Big Bad, create a dungeon or castle or other location, and then scatter lesser creatures around as needed. When I reached for the MM, my players knew something was coming… or around the corner… or hidden just beneath the water’s surface. The DMG and MM were all I needed (plus a few hours or more of prep time) to give my players a good adventure, and now it’s looking like I’m going to once again have a chance to create new adventures as the 5th edition books are two-thirds released. My original AD&D Monster Manual has sat proudly on my shelf, and now it has a neighbor… the new 5th edition D&D Monster Manual.
Continue ReadingAccording to the Facebook page of the Gygax Memoiral Fund, and Wizards of the Coast, three reprinted Advanced Dungeons & Dragons core rulebooks — The Players Handbook, the Dungeon Masters Guide, and the Monster Manual — will finally go …
Continue ReadingAs previously reported by GeekDad’s MJ Harnish, Wizards of the Coast announced last month that, as a fundraiser for the Gygax Memorial Fund, they’d be releasing reprints of the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual. They’re coming out in …
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