I’m not buying the new Dungeons & Dragons core books and for some reason that makes me sad.

Like many roleplayers, I started out with Dungeons & Dragons. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m quite old as the internet reckons things, and I cut my teeth on Basic D&D back when such a thing still existed. I quickly upgraded to Advanced D&D 2E, and the rest, as they say, was history. While I’ve never been a D&D obsessive—I love variety, novelty, and game design way too much for that—it’s always been an option for my table. Over the years I’ve tended to GM more than play, and people like fantasy adventures! I’ve happily bought the core books for every new edition of the game since. I even had a set of the first edition books that my mum found at a car boot sale.

D&D One/2024/5.5/whatever the heck they’re calling it will be the first time I don’t buy the new core book set, in spite of how much I love that DMG cover with Venger and Warduke! D&D and I have grown apart over the years. While I was quite taken with 5E at first, running and playing in long-term campaigns exposed flaws that became too much to ignore. I’m very tolerant of games that don’t particularly excite me but don’t get in the way of having a good time with friends. With time I discovered that D&D was getting in the way. I’ve not touched the game in years, and Baldur’s Gate 3 just reinforced my belief that it works better as a videogame, anyway.

So why do I feel sad about not wanting the new books?