The new D&D Player’s Handbook feels like a real game-changer

I’ve read roleplaying sourcebooks for fun. I don’t have to play every game that’s published to get something out of it — in fact, no one has the time to join me in any game I find interesting, least of all me — but a good game usually gives me a sense of what it’s like to play, or tells a story in its world. That hasn’t always been the case with Dungeons & Dragons. While many older D&D books are fascinating to browse through, the most useful being the core rulebooks, including the Players Manual, Guide for Dungeon MastersAnd Monster Manual — usually leaves me with a slight headache. I am far from alone in this.

Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro store responsible for all things D&D, is using the 50th anniversary of the famous role-playing game to address this. After years of playtesting, planning, and rescheduling, the general public will be introduced to the 2024 Players Manual at this weekend’s Gen Con. Polygon got a look at it courtesy of Wizards, and, well — they may have done exactly what they set out to do. The Players Manual (2024) is a shockingly accessible renewal of the fifth edition of D&D, a modern and clean reworking of the first book of every D&D player reads — and one they’ll likely keep for generations.

A point of order: I’ve only had the new handbook for a few days and haven’t had a chance to play a game with it yet. Interesting or unfortunate wrinkles in the way the updated gameplay plays will continue to crop up in the weeks and months to come as the book breaks through its confines and spreads to the roleplaying masses. So I can’t tell you how this new version of D&D plays. I can I’ll tell you what it feels like to read this book: it feels amazing.

Wizards has not hesitated to communicate that the goal of this edition was to make the rulebook more readable. The designers have acknowledged that their previous design philosophy was, to put it mildly, backwards. Looking at my original 5e Handbook from 2014, it was clearly built with the assumption that the reader arrives with a certain level of buy-in or, preferably, someone to guide them. It expects you to to workand that work is laborious; there is a lot of flipping back and forth between sections devoted to minor aspects of casting a character and playing the game. It is a textbook, burdened with the weight of settings and history, and the assumptions that go into them.

The Players Manual (2024) is a beach read by comparison. As the reveal suggests, the book feels well planned in a way that previous books haven’t, offering an organic path through the game’s concepts and ideas. Rules are explained when necessary, and trickier questions are relegated to a glossary in the appendices. Character creation and development is carefully laid out, with the story behind each decision noted And mechanical expressions — which illustrates how any given D&D game might emphasize either or both.

The end result, in my opinion, is a book that presents a less rigid version of D&D, one that’s more in tune with how the game will be played in 2024. With only the simple decision to present essential information first and tuck heavier rules away elsewhere, the new book more overtly encourages players to take what they need and drop the rest — another way the designer seems intent on embracing how the game has been played for decades. It’s just that this time around, that fact is underscored more emphatically by the book’s instructions. The cleaner, reworked presentation of the 12 character classes (and their four subclasses each) makes it easy to immediately imagine how each of them plays and what my future adventures might look like.

Again, with fifty years of history and a player base that’s as diverse as it is idiosyncratic, there’s no telling how popular this rework will be. Wizards, for its part, has gotten in on the conversation early, with a lengthy series of videos detailing changes big and small — like, say, the completely overhauled Ranger class (one of the most radical changes coming to 2024 Handbook). But no matter how thorough the rationale, it’s a pretty big change, and some of the promises — such as the claim that the new core books will be backwards compatible with all previous 5e products — may not pan out in practice.

As the biggest name in tabletop role-playing, D&D is still, for better or worse, the first stop for many players in the hobby. While the strides made by other games in the space are starting to erode the idea of ​​D&D synonymous with TTRPGs as a whole, it remains a seminal moment for the role-playing curious – it can be the start of a great new hobby or an unfortunate letdown.

As a purveyor of countless D&D products with lucrative licensing deals to sign, it’s up to Wizards to read the tea leaves and meet players where they are, in order to provide the smoothest possible on-ramp into its sprawling ecosystem. The new Player’s Handbook (2024) does this. More than ever before, it helps D&D to look forward to it for anyone who wants to know, and gives the reader the itch to see what all these ideas look like in practice. It does this by using the oldest trick in the storytelling biz: show, don’t tell.

But it also arguably leaves new players better equipped to venture into the broader world of RPGs. To understand that, no matter what’s printed, there are things that serve the shared story being told and things that don’t, and that as long as everyone is involved, a roleplaying session can take on unlimited forms. It helps the reader see how a game that once seemed so rigid can be shaped into the kind of freeform experience they see in their favorite real-world game series, or gives them a sense of what parts of the hobby appeal to them and what parts don’t. Turns out, the best Dungeons & Dragons book might just be the one that best prepares players to move on to other games.

Players Manual (2024) was previewed with a pre-release copy of the book provided by Wizards of the Coast. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.