Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Free Dungeons & Dragons


Last month I posted about some of the merits of 5th edition now being try before you buy. I find it incredible that there remains a hold out segment still angry with the upcoming release. How anyone can be mad with free is truly beyond my comprehension as a gamer. 

The biggest difference in this release is that every player can test for themselves at no cost. There is no financial commitment to TRY the game. The legendary stubbornness of some players seems akin to ancient dwarven kings and queens. This is a game that the community helped to make with thousands upon thousands of play testers. In short as the old adage goes don’t knock it until you try it.

One of the things I love about 5E is it’s very backwards compatible. You can dust off those old favorites and not worry about monster or trap stat blocks. Do they need to be converted? Barely. Besides any DM worth their salt should be able to shoot from the hip some. If you are so entrenched in the number crunching and dice rolling that is all together the subject of another post. A player asked me a few weeks ago for an analogy of the new game versus the old. The best I could come up with was 2E with all the shoe shine of the later editions.

Please enjoy this cover of Playtroll magazine. It sums up some of my feelings on the issue. If you fail your save versus humor I’m sorry!