D&D nerdity
In case you forgot about the huge nerd thing, I got a copy of the 2024 Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook. I also obtained and read the play test material they have been putting out for a year or so before the release. There are some good points to it. The changes to the classes are mostly actual improvements. The Monk class got some much needed love, which is cool.
Don’t toss out your 2014 versions just yet though. Part of the upgrade was to make the races (yes, they call them species now and I’m not offended by that…)less important in character generation. You are no longer denying your sorcerer the highest level of min/maxing if you don’t start with a teifling. The character origins/backgrounds picked up the slack. Which is cool by me.
What does bother me is they really cut down on the level of detail on the various races. Dwarves are just dwarves now. Most of the “species” just have a single page dedicated to them. Of course the bloody Elves get two pages. In the 2014 book, there were multiple pages for each race, including detailed descriptions, examples of names (including regional variations, especially for the humans, since they spread all over the place), and other bits of detail that the role (as opposed to roll) players fornicating love.
Now they did add several new species covered in the 2024 book, which is good, including Orcs. There are two glaring omissions from the 2014 book however. Specifically Half-Orcs and Half-Elves. Apparently racial purity is now a priority at Wizards of the Coast.
They had a some rules (just a couple of paragraphs) in play test rules for mixed race humanoids, those rules are conspicuously missing from the 2024 book. I know it’s a honking big book, and there were editorial decisions to be made, but we are really talking about two paragraphs.
One of the main NPCs in the incredibly popular video game Baldur’s Gate 3 is a half-elf. Now you will have much wailing from the nerds about how they can’t play Shadowheart when the 2024 book gets a wider distribution.
Enough on that rant. The webcomic Does Not Play Well with Others (http://www.doesnotplaywellwithothers.com/) has some excellent D&D based gags. Those focuses on the ongoing D&D sessions some of the main characters have with the aliens who live down the street. I printed out this comic (https://www.doesnotplaywellwithothers.com/comic/pwc-0596) and inserted it at page 298 of the 2024 Player’s Handbook.
Monday Book Pick: Knight Watch
Filed under: Baen Books, Monday Book Pick, RPG, Science Fiction
Knight Watch by Tim Akers
This book had me laughing out loud. Uber-nerd goes the Ren Faire, and his opponent in the sword and board competition turns into a dragon, which he slays by driving his mom’s Volvo into its head. This gets him involved with Knight Watch, an organization that protects reality from it’s mythic past. If you have any experience with fantasy gaming, especially Dungeons and Dragons, you will get a lot of the ‘in jokes.’ The protagonist John is a classic sword and board Tank, and his ex-girlfriend is an Elven Princess with her magical longbow. I really enjoyed this book, and the sequel.
Quote of the Day
You may go play video games if you wish.
Remember this: Walk away now and you walk away from your interest in history, your ability to tell a good story, your ability to translate dreams into reality; leaving the next generation with nothing but recycled, unimaginative first-person shooters, online quasi-historical strategy games, yet another multiplayer NFL game, violence-laden driving simulations, and mindless revisions of innumerable cute Japanese animations. Depart now and you forever separate yourselves from the vital gaming legacies of James Dunnigan, Steve Jackson, Gary Gygax, Marc Miller, Loren Wiseman, Frank Chadwick, Andrew Keith, William Keith, John Harshman, Professor Barker, and Richard Tucholka.Turn your backs now and you snuff out the fragile candles of Board Gaming, Miniatures, Fantasy and Science Fiction Roleplaying, and when those flames flicker and expire, the light of the world is extinguished because the creative thought which has moved mankind through the decades leading to the millennium will wither and die on the vine of abandonment and neglect.
— John Kwon on the Traveller Mailing List