Dungeons and Dragons fans have had their hands on the Tyranny of Dragons and Player’s Handbook for a while now, and the Monster Manual lands on September 30. For those wanting to GM a session, and want to know all the rules, you’re going to have to wait a bit longer as Wizards of the Coast have pushed the release date.
The text of both books received a level of review and oversight that sets a new standard for D&D. We added an entire additional cycle of design and editing to ensure that the books were as close to perfect as humanly possible. The layout and visual design was the result of hours spent carefully handcrafting the books. That extra time proved to be a huge boon, as the designers had the chance to go through each book page by page to make sure everything fit perfectly.
Unfortunately, that additional effort came at the expense of the development schedule for the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
I’ll confirm that the books feel more complete than the previous edition books, and the Monster Manual arrived at the Major Spoilers HQ late Monday, and I’ll be diving into it over the next couple of days.
Rodrigo Lopez, the game master for the main story in the Critical Hit podcast, and I talked about the staggered release a few weeks ago and I postulated then it was to clean up the future rule books. Looks like I was on the nose with this one, but I didn’t anticipate the final core book being delayed.
According to Wizards of the Coast, the Dungeon Master’s Guide has now been pushed to December 09, 2014, but those who are on the early release program will be able to get their hands on the guide on November 28th.
4 Comments
As frustrating as a late release is, I’d prefer a late release over having a sub-par product or needing several extra sources with rules corrections/clarifications.
This is the one I’m most looking forward to for building a 5e world! The wait has been excruciating! Thanks for the info.
Speaking of this, did anyone else have a small issue with the inks they used on the pages? The first one I got, the pages were warped like they’d been water damaged, and several were stuck together near the bindings. I ordered off Amazon.ca, so I returned it. The second one had a very tiny spot of glue between two pages right at the binding, so I just let it go.
I wonder if they took steps to avoid this.
The PHB itself is just fantastically designed and illustrated though, so I’m really excited to get the DMG too.
Have you guys done a full review of 5th edition Player’s handbook?
If you guys ever want to play, let me know I can run a quick 1 hour D&D 5e game.