To those of you who haven’t managed to deciphered what I”ve been doing lately, I can finally come out and say it: I’ve been play testing D&DNext. I’m honored to have been a part of the ‘Friends & Family’ beta test that ran up until today’s launch of the open playtest. It puts a smile on my face to know that I, among many others have helped shape the document you’re all reading through right now. I know it will change again, many times over even but I’m just glad to have been part of the initial process.

Blog Posts Ahoy!

Now, you’ll be happy to know that during all of this clandestine gaming and lack of blogging I”ve managed to do a lot with D&DNext so far. By a lot I mean that I’ve run 4e content, old 1e and 2e modules and was even about to try my hand at 3.x stuff before I moved into my new place but that fell flat. Not D&DNext’s fault, I blame home ownership on that one. So, while the playtest document you hold today is likely very different from what I’ve been using I’m sure (hoping) the core of it is very much the same. Now I haven’t gotten a chance to view the open playtest document yet, I wont be able to until later this morning. Once I’ve had my chances to look it over I’ll be blogging about some of the differences between the F&F playtest and the one we’ll all participating in starting today. Hopefully most of the changes I see will please me, but if they don’t look out – I’m prepared to start logical, tactful debate on the internets!

Some Thoughts (and Shameless Promotion)

I’ve already written some of my playtest thoughts down for Kobold Quarterly so I’d rather not repeat myself here. Speaking of KQ, you should really go read his interview with Mike Mearls that went up today. Not only is the interview refreshing and genuine, but it all takes place on the newly redesigned and super clean layout put together for KQ by Sersa Victory. You should also keep your eyes peeled over at KQ for a new feature series by yours truly.

What I can say about D&DNext after running it exclusively for the last several months is that it is the edition of D&D I plan on playing for a very long time. It is everything I was expecting and a lot more. Myself and my players have not had so much fun playing D&D in years and I’m absolutely ecstatic about it. So please, join me and the rest of the world in helping to shape our game for the better. If you’re going to be loud about it, at least be graceful. If you’re looking for some exquisite advice on playtesting then look no further, Dave Chalker’s got you covered.

That being said folks, I’m keeping this short. Get out their and devour those playtest documents, let’s make the best of this. I’ll see you all on the other side of the screen. Cheers!