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From: Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com>
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Subject: [Starburst Magazine] Next Edition of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Changes
 Everything
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2024 11:22:20 +0200
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https://www.starburstmagazine.com/next-edition-of-dungeons-dragons-changes-everything/

Next Edition of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Changes Everything

     Posted on June 19 2024 By Ed FortuneIn Book, Gaming, News


The world’s most played tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, 
has a new edition on its way; it’s now available for pre-order. This 
50th-anniversary edition is wholly compatible with the incredibly 
popular 5th Edition while also promising to do something new.

The history of D&D is full of revisions; the game is constantly being 
refined and tinkered with, though the 2024 editions promise to clarify 
and make the game more balanced and accessible. The future of D&D is 
incremental change rather than radical shifts; time will tell if that 
truly does become the future of this iconic game.

The new Player’s Handbook (PHB) has some pretty interesting changes. For 
a start, it no longer assumes that you know how to play the game. The 
old model was that the PHB was something you picked up as you got into 
D&D, either through a friend or through one of the many starter sets. 
This assumption has been abandoned in favour of the brightly illustrated 
‘how to play’ chapter. This isn’t new to RPGs, but it is something we’ve 
never seen in D&D.



The PHB also revises and changes character creation. Character options 
are much more flexible. The upshot of this means that players are 
likelier to pick elf, human or dwarf characters because that’s the story 
they want to tell rather than for a mechanical advantage. Feats (special 
abilities) have become tied to your characters background, and are 
designed [sic!]


Character classes have also been overhauled. Of the twelve character 
classes you can play, each has four sub-classes, for a total of 48. This 
does mean that Wizard and Cleric characters only get four subclasses 
each, and traditionally those types of characters get a whole laundry 
list of options. Don’t panic. This new edition is completely compatible 
with the older iteration of the game, so the multi-class Grave Domain / 
War Magic character you have planned is still totally doable.

Monk and Ranger classes have been overhauled to be more attractive to 
players (previously, they were the least popular options), and at least 
sixteen of the subclasses have been radically changed to be more fun and 
interesting to play.



They’ve brought in the old ‘shopping catalogue’ style of presenting 
equipment; this was one of the more interesting bits of the older 
versions of the game, as you could actually see what the difference 
between a spear and a javelin was. There are more illustrations 
throughout the three core books than in the previous version. The 
Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual all promise 
to be prettier.

Fans of D&D’s fourth edition will be delighted to hear that the Dungeon 
Master’s Guide also brings back solid advice on how to run and manage a 
campaign (something the fourth edition did very well.) In addition, it 
contains a sample campaign, namely Greyhawk, D&D’s very first setting 
and the default world for the first edition of the game. It will also 
contain rules on Bastions; basically a way for characters to build a 
power base in the game world. This feature was part of the game 
primarily back in the 1970s and ’80s and is an artefact of D&D’s origins 
as a wargame. This style of gameplay has been missing from official D&D 
since the ’00s and it’s reintroduction might offer hints as to what is 
to come. Is a “diplomacy, politics, trade, construction and war” style 
game of D&D (such as 1995’s Birthright) on its way? Time will tell.

For now, the new books look like guides, even the Monster Manual, which 
has 500+ monsters, including 75 new ones.

The new Player’s Handbook comes out on September 17th , the Dungeon 
Master’s Guide on November 11th, and the Monster Manual on Feb 18th, 
2025, keeping another tradition of releasing the big book of bad guys 
till much later. You can pre-order them now.