I’m fairly new to Dungeons and Dragons. I played a few games when I was a teenager but I and my friends didn’t get heavily involved in it and we only played a few sessions. Last year, a couple of mates and I got interested in board games, and one of them met someone who had a lot of D&D stuff. We started playing the 4th edition and created our characters etc, although I have to admit I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, not knowing what attacks I should be aiming for and what strategy to go for with my character. I was a Dragonborn Paladin and I was pretty damn badass, and I had a cool backstory too. However, we never managed to get a good schedule going and the sessions were months apart. I couldn’t immerse myself in the campaign but I knew I wanted to play it more, and see my character develop as it levelled up. I also found some aspects of the 4th edition rules clunky. I couldn’t quite get my head around some of the finer nuances, and the way some of the skill scores were calculated left me scratching my head. There seemed to be a lot of information to keep track of, and because we weren’t playing regularly I couldn’t get a steady hold of it.
Then we discovered that the 5th edition was coming out, and it looked quite promising. Being new to D&D it seemed a good idea to get in on the new edition rather than collect up all the old stuff. We printed out a beta campaign with rough versions of the rules and pre-generated characters so we could get used to how it played and see what things were different. It’s only a six chapter story so we planned to play it before the actual game was released (we almost met the schedule, the starter set and player handbook are out and we only have one chapter left to complete). I chose to be a Human Monk, with the background of a bounty hunter, and looked forward to fighting with my fists of fury as we attempted to help the broken town of Blingdenstone. While we weren’t too invested in our characters, as we hadn’t created them and knew they would only last for the duration of this beta campaign, I actually had a lot of fun and decided that I wanted to be a Monk when the actual game came out. The rules also seemed far more streamlined and everything on the character sheets flowed nicely. It definitely feels like a more user-friendly system and we were able to get straight into the story with no hassle.
Last week the player handbook arrived so we got a chance to look over the different races and classes. I immediately turned to the Monk to see what the final version of the character was. One thing that really appeals to me in this edition is that each class, upon reaching level 3, has a different path to take. The ones open to the Monk are either a mastery of martial arts, one where you become a ninja, or one where you gain control over the elements. I dismissed the martial arts instantly because, while it’s cool on its own, it doesn’t offer much grandeur, especially when compared with the other two. I was tempted by the ninja because, well, it’s a freakin’ ninja, but when I read about controlling the elements I was hooked on that, and my excitement only grew when I read all the spells and abilities that await me.
Then I looked at the races and decided that being a Half-Elf would complement my class. Plus, the description is basically Spock, so that’s cool too. And one of the background options is that of a Hermit, and being a Hermit has always appealed to me. One new thing in this edition as well is that you don’t have to come up with your backstory all by yourself. This is still an option, but you now have the ability to roll dice and randomly get assigned background. I like this aspect a lot and I’m definitely going to try it out, although I hope the rolls are kind! I’m looking forward to seeing what comes out.
We’re also trying to get a regular game going so that we can properly level up our characters and keep track of the story.Levelling up characters is something we didn’t get very far with in our previous games, and its one of the things that appeals to me the most so I can’t wait to fully explore it. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep regular sessions up as it will mean we can get through a lot of adventures, although it does mean that we’ll be rotating DM duties, and this is something that I find a bit daunting. My mind is already buzzing with ideas for storylines and NPCs, but it seems like there’s a lot to keep track of and a lot of improvisation needed.
All in all though I’m very excited to be playing it regularly, and I’ll probably be posting a few updates here and there of how the game is going, and maybe my thoughts after I’ve DM’d (although I’m not sure when that will be). I’d love to hear from anyone else who is playing the 5th edition.