ungeons & Dragons--the classic roleplaying game in which players take on the role of fantasy adventurers who delve into stygian lairs to fight evil monsters, gaining glory and no small amount of treasure for their efforts--is back! Revised, retooled and revamped, this new D&D is the direct descendent of the original game created by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson back in the mid-1970s. While this new incarnation retains similarities to past versions, it is in many ways a whole new beast.
Three core rulebooks make up the game: The Player's Handbook contains all the rules, covering character creation and growth, skills, combat and magic. In a pinch, the game can be played with just this book.
The Dungeon Master's Guide has information and advice on how to best create and run a D&D session, as well as world-building tips, info on magic artifacts and more. Finally there's the Monster Manual, a catalog of the beasts, bugs, demons and horrors that inhabit the dungeons and other dank warrens where characters go adventuring.
Player characters are drawn from the usual menagerie of fantasy races: elves, dwarves, gnomes and the like. Players may also choose for their characters to follow any of 11 basic professions--called classes--ranging from hulking Barbarians to nimble-fingered Rogues and mystical Sorcerers.
But a character is not limited to one class. Any Fighter can put down the sword and study magic, for example, or take holy orders and become a Cleric.
Where the new D&D game diverges most from its ancestors is with the introduction of a new rules mechanic. Almost every undertaking--using skills, striking a blow, dodging acid sprays and so on--involves rolling a 20-sided die, adding a modifier based on the character's abilities, and comparing the result to how difficult the task is.
The first and still the best
Why is this new D&D such terrific fun? The new system smooths out all the old rules' quirks and bumps, creating gameplay that is easy to understand and quick moving, yet with more depth than ever. Combat is much easier to conduct, but it's more exact, always making it clear exactly what's happening. The full-fledged skill system allows characters to do many tasks that fall outside their stereotypical roles. This means that characters in the same class aren't all clones. A fighter can be a slow brute with an axe or a lithe, rapier-wielding acrobat. All this customizability leads to more engaging characters and more opportunities for roleplaying.
Beautiful books support the beautiful rules. The rulebooks are lavishly illustrated and expertly designed, with easy-to-use tables of contents and indexes that prevent fumbling about when the gaming gets fast and furious. The Player's Handbook is particularly slick, opening with a two-page spread that outlines character creation (the heart of any roleplaying game). But Best in Show goes to the Monster Manual, which is decked out with color illustrations of almost every nasty listed.
The Player's Handbook comes with a CD-ROM that includes character generation software, which is handy, especially for beginners. There's a sample adventure on the disc, but it would have been nice to see a full-blown adventure printed in one of the books. Also, and this may be an old-timer's complaint, the magic spells could use sprucing up--many are unchanged from previous versions of the game.
But these are minor complaints. D&D's designers have pumped electrifying vigor into this, the original RPG, and their love of the game comes through on every page. It's contagious. Experienced roleplayers and newbies alike are encouraged to take up pencils, paper and dice. You stand on the threshold of mighty deeds.
