Everything old is new again...

AT LAST! The cycle is complete. Now I won't have to post any more pictures of books that you all could just as easily look at online! :D

Whether the new DMG is an actual resource for me, or ends up being a very pretty coffee-table book remains to be seen. (As much as I love D&D, it's actually not my preferred system, at least in terms of games I'm willing to run.)

As an aside, I think the cover of the DMG is subtly hilarious. The Player's Handbook shows PCs in a scrape with a frost giant. (Makes sense.) The Monster Manual highlights the one monster from the franchise that might even be more iconic than an actual dragon: the Beholder. (Makes sense.) But what about the Dungeon Master's Guide... They couldn't have a picture of a Dungeon Master... OR COULD THEY?? Enter Acererak, grand-pappy of all Liches and architect of the Tomb of Horrors, shown here in his younger days, draining the life from another hero...

I guess if you're a DM, this guy is supposed to be your hero and spirit guide. :D LOL!

nice one Mike. I am still waiting my copy of the DMG. it won't arrive until 15th January at the earliest :(

I hate the waiting game. Are you going to snag the Player's Handbook then, as well. You *need* that one to play. The DMG, while excellent, is really more of an inspirational source-book of awesomeness.

I know I was hoping to have it over the Christmas break :(

Although I did go for the DMG for inpsiration and curiosity I am seriously thinking of getting all three books and playing the game.

Well i've bit the bullet and ordered the PHB & the MM! All three should be with me by the end of next week!!!

Woo hooo! From 1st to 5th, right? Man, I'm telling you: you skipped over all the crap. :D ;)

#smoothtransition

My DMG has still not been dispatched  I've got the other two books and I am pretty impressed so far. I reckon my chess rating is going to plummet as I am rushing my games so I can get time to read them!

Aw. :( On the bright side, the PH is where the action is anyway, at least for starts.

Hm! And next week, they're releasing the new DM's screen...

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/dungeon-masters-screen

It's been despatched and I should get it on Saturday!!! Whoop whoop. Have you actually played a game yet Mike?

Yes, though I've yet to run it. I've probably played about 6-7 sessions so far, each about 3-4 hours. It's good fun. Very smooth. Our gang doesn't go in for a lot of "tactical miniatures" play, but the system supports with or without.

My first character - a half-elf rogue noble who was trying to work out daddy issues by living on the wild side - walked lips-first into a gelatinous cube. Which was followed by death.

I'm now rocking Merric Greenbottle, a Halfling Bard ex-sailor who plays a wicked harmonica and raises profanity to the level of a (deadly) art.

DMG is here!! I've not had chance to give it a proper look yet but I've had a good look through the MM and it is a great book, I love the artwork.

here's the whole set with my previous versions

PHB

MM

And finally the DMG

Oh COOL. I didn't know you had the ad&d reprints. I guess that's good given how well-loved your originals are! :)

Seriously though, I'd set the new DMG aside till you've digested the PHB. You don't even really *need* the DMG to run the game — and without knowing the PHB, I don't think the rules-oriented parts of the DMG will make much sense.

Yeah my original PHB is seriously well worn and the DMG is close behind so I needed replacements and rather than get second hand like for like replacements I decided to go for the reprints which, I may say, are just great.

Well now I've got them, all I need to do is convince my party that we need to try a new system after 30 odd years! I tried to get my wife interested but she gave me that look................

I loved the adventure flavour in AD&D - the GDQ super series was absolutely awesome (even if a number of them were fairly light on in detail), and I loved both S1 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and S2 White Plume Mountain even though the dungeons themselves made absolutely no sense. I never actually played those adventures with anyone, though - just read about them and dreamed about them (I-something Tomb of the Lizard King was great too).

It was only after a long hiatus and some people showing an interest in playing that we started our group - what, 15 years ago, woo. I thought AD&D was a stretch too far for a group of mostly novices, so I got out B2 Keep on the Borderlands, with the intention of going on to the really fun X2 Castle Amber. The party made the mistake of starting from the highest cave instead of the lowest, and I made the mistake of letting them. TPK, except for the dwarf.

So we turned our hand to T1 The Village of Hommlet, and that was fun and cool. 

Then Wizards released 3rd Edition, and we thought we'd give that a go. We only played once a month, but the early Wizards adventures - The Sunless Citadel and The Forge of Fury - were awesome, and I thought the system hung together really well. 3.5 was a good refinement. The Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was a very long adventure, but I think we all enjoyed some of the twists that I threw in, although we all felt a bit fatigued with it towards the end - after the Second I skipped the other stuff and went straight to Imix.

So we went 4th Edition. As a system, it's consistent, but it's got a very different feel to 3.5 - whereas 3e used the same system for PCs and everything else (one of the things they finally started getting right towards the end of 3.5e with the idea of "monster levels"), I found that I didn't have to learn anything about the player classes in 4e at all - so my players have had to try and figure it out on their own. Treasure is way under, and magic is at a premium, but everyone gets a ton of hit points (even the magic users!) and a similar power progression. We're finally doing an adventure the team is actually getting into - Madness at Gardmore Abbey - albeit at the cost of being slightly (theoretically) overpowered for the encounters. We're outside of the rules slightly too - I'm sort of assuming potions of healing for everyone at low cost, and I'm letting them take an extended rest whenever they want to, even if it's only one or two encounters after their last on - but we're cool with that.

But we're only just starting to edge into the paragon tier, and now we've got this whole 5e thing to deal with. At least I haven't spent a bomb on 4e stuff like I have for 3.0 / 3.5 and learning about the history of the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk - I didn't bother keeping up to date with the changes in those campaign worlds wrought by 4e, so it's not a problem now either - but it doesn't feel like that long since the last system came out. I'll have to see what the team wants to do after this adventure - whether we want to switch systems or keep going with the existing adventures in 4e, which some are only JUST starting to get a handle on...

I've only played 1st edition AD&D, I bought the books for 3.5 but I couldn't convince anyone to give it a go. Now I've got 5e I've spoken to my friend and he seems willing to give it a chance, and to be honest I am quite looking forward to it.

Do you write your own adventures, purchase the published adventures, or convert adventures from previous editions? We've generally gone with the second option, although I've looked at (and worked on) some of the third with some of those adventures I really liked.

I believe that Ian Esselmont and Steve Erikson's Malazan series is based largely on the work they put into their D&D campaign, which seems to be a ridiculously incredible amount of work to me...