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I love that you can still see the indents left by the many character sheets filled out on top of this old copy of Dragon Magazine from July 1983. It feels like a small link to the past. The characters may be long gone, but traces of those old games still remain more than 40 years later.

Wherever those players are today, I hope they’re doing well, and that at least a few of these characters survived.

I still mostly play with 5E stuff but I occasionally check in on 5.5e

And with my autistic superpowers I noticed there were 3 things that seemed really different.

1) The lack of flavor disclaimers. All of the 5e books had these fun, tongue-in-cheek disclaimers on them.

This is the one from the 5e PHB:

*Disclaimer: Wizards of the Coast is not responsible for the consequences of splitting up the party, sticking appendages in the mouth of a leering green devil face, accepting a dinner invitation from bugbears, storming the feast hall of a hill giant steading, angering a dragon of any variety, or saying yes when the DM asks, “Are you really sure?”*

That's just not a thing anymore.

2) Lack of nuance where some worlds might be different. This is from the 5e PHB:

https://i.imgur.com/m5sfTzi.png

A whole sidebar explaining not every race will be in every world, and how things can be different depending on where you go. Coupled with now every race has a "human equivalent lifespan" and matures all at the same rate. Everything has been homogenized.

Even Greyhawk has aasimar, goliaths, and tieflings, now. It's like they are reaching Bethesda-levels of being terrified of ever telling a player "no."

3) The "inspirational reading" sections of the books and lore bibliographies. In the 5e books, there were things like this:

https://i.imgur.com/4qWuhhB.png

https://i.imgur.com/mYEv0GC.png

It felt like it gave you these ideas that there was more to this universe and there were other places to check. What does 5.5e say?

https://i.imgur.com/vV4fmf9.png

"Baldur's Gate 3, Baldur's Gate 3, Baldur's Gate 3! Astarion! Astarion!" Don't forget Brand Movie, Brand MMO, and other Brand materials! Like they are pushing absolutely nothing but current retail Brand.

I dunno, maybe I'm just a 30 y.o. grognard but I feel like 5.5e is so bland and flavorless. It feels very "consume product." Even moreso when now WotC is locking exclusive class features and monsters behind a monthly subscription service.

Karva is a Gnoll Kensei Monk who uses a blade as her melee weapon and a scabbard on a 20 ft string as her ranged weapon. Since we already taking liberties with the character - her Gnoll-ness is really just a reskinned Swiftstride Shifter. Karva is on a never ending quest for revenge that only seems to grow bigger and bigger as the campaign goes on. Whilst not the smartest tool in the shed, she is also not the quietest tool in the shed. Instead, she opts for raw violent power and quick senses to slice through her ever expanding list of enemies. Don’t mistake her violence for anger though. She abhors rage, seeing it as a weakness, and actively fights the urge to throw hands at every occasion. Art by me.

"IF YOU WANT TO LEARN D&D, READ THIS FIRST"

There are continuous posts asking how to play, how to start, what to do, where to go. That tells me people are missing the help articles already sticky'd. I see these questions asked, they get minimal help, and probably get down voted because people see that the poster made no effort to find answers first.

Maybe they don't know about sticky posts, or it's the first time at this sub, or other reasons. I feel an all-caps and obvious "link for dummies" might get folks to check those out instead of asking the same questions.

(This is just a sketch) Navanna is a forest gnome who's also a druid. Since she's my very first one, i fear she's not the best out there. She has an artisan background. Neutral Good. I rolled for her abilities but, i might change that since i recently read that way i get an overly skilled character lol plus the gnome and artisan bonus, i think that's true! her bigger numer is 16 and the smaller is 11! She also owns a short bow and a punch knife, i'm pretty sure i got suggested a scimitar but i can actually remember if i added it.

​

I'm the DM for a party of 3 people. I made a detective campaign where they're trying to uncover a conspiracy that is fake in the first place.

I've prepared a lot of different ways for them to find clues, with multiple contingencies in case they miss something, and so far they've been able to find and figure out literally everything, even the difficult stuff. I prepared letters, a clue board, a necklace with a hidden piece of paper inside... I really put a lot of effort into this.

They noticed that the handwriting on the letters they're looking for was different on two of them.

(I asked different people to write different letters IRL for immersion, and they actually noticed the difference)

They didn't like the name of one of the people involved, so they searched through the city's chronicles to check whether someone like that actually existed

(Thankfully, I had those prepared)

They literally turned into a dog so they could identify the scents of different people and crime scenes

They noticed inconsistencies in the accounting books

(I made several pages of them specifically so they could get lost in all the numbers)

I know they've discovered secrets about some of the noble families, and they haven't told anyone or confronted anyone because "the time isn't right yet"

They're even hiding some things from me, which is starting to make me paranoid

They have no problem with the campaign and they've assured me that they're genuinely having fun. The campaign isn't over yet, but I honestly don't think I've prepared anything harder than what they've already solved

Do you guys have any advice, methods, or puzzles I could use to make the investigation more complicated?

Edit: I don't want them to lose, I'm not playing against them and as I mentioned, they're happy with the campaign and having fun. I just feel like I haven't given them enough of a challenge

Hi everyone, thanks for reading my post. I hope you don't mind a little against-the-grain opinion this morning. This concerns my own personal preferences as a player, which I don't see reflected in the discourse too often. I've been playing for nearly 3 decades, predominantly as the DM. Please be gentle with me in the comments, I already know most of you will disagree so you don't need to tell me that.

In a nutshell, when I'm playing a PC in a game of D&D, I don't want to contribute to worldbuilding, either directly as the world is brainstormed or indirectly through my character's backstory. In fact I generically don't want my backstory to be "used" in the game. I'm extremely uninterested in that, it always feels contrived and in a sense sort of condescending. I feel that I'm already interested and engaged, so you do not need to make the moon and stars revolve around me. I want to earn my place in the story through action, not hand myself a starring role on a silver platter. Backstory is important to me, but it's important because it's where my character comes from and what they left behind, not because I want the adventure to revolve around it, that sounds like hell.

All this is because the biggest appeal of playing D&D is exploration and discovery. Getting out of one's comfort zone, venturing to the blank spot on the map, bringing only one's wits and essentials, and seeing what is out there to be found. That's what adventure is all about to me. But if I was involved in authoring what's out there, then it's almost completely spoiled. That makes sense, right?

The feeling of leaving one's past behind and exploring the unknown is exhilarating, and it is largely incompatible with "collaborative" worldbuilding and storytelling. I don't get the same thrill of a first encounter with the aloof aaracokra in the mystic mountains if I already knew they were there because I helped the DM design their culture or whatever. I can't get the feeling of setting off into the great unknown when the party's backstories are constantly intruding and getting in the way. It can feel like being stuck in a fishbowl with the same stale stuff swirling around endlessly in circles. At that point, my character is ready to start playing D&D himself, as a form of escape from the dreary backstory chains!

Thanks again for reading. If there's any actionable takeaway here, just be aware that there are people like me. Perhaps you've dealt with a player who is resistant to having their backstory interwoven in the plot, or who doesn't want to contribute to worldbuilding. Well, now you know at least one possible reason why someone might be that way. They probably weren't just being difficult for no reason, they may have been putting up necessary boundaries to preserve their fun. This doesn't mean they'll necessarily be compatible with your table, but you can part ways with mutual understanding which seems preferable to how a lot of rpg stories end. Have a great day and let me know what you think.

This piece started with the idea of a tiefling rogue who wins the room before anyone realizes the fight has begun. I pushed the low camera angle to make her feel composed and dangerous, then used the pale hair and warm skin as the brightest shapes against the dark interior. The curved horns, dagger, corset details, and long cape were arranged to keep the eye moving back toward her face. I also wanted the surrounding figures to remain readable without competing with the focal point, so their values stay compressed into the shadows. The final challenge was balancing the warm candlelit atmosphere with enough cool accents in the jewelry, flowers, and background to keep the image from becoming visually flat.

https://preview.redd.it/7zlme2wywymh1.png?width=2076&format=png&auto=webp&s=b34090b4ea50acba44608c65d2dce4e472727a3b