Product Description
One hundred and sixty pages of
Dungeons & Dragons® hotness.
The
D&D® Player’s Strategy Guide is aimed at
D&D players who crave the envy of their gamer peers. If you want a character that’s jaw-droppingly cool, this book is for you. It provides tips and tricks for optimizing your
D&D characters—to make them more awesome and fun to play at the game table.
In addition to character optimization tips and player advice, this book includes entertaining sidebar essays written by celebrity gamers and a distinctive comic art style unlike other books in the
D&D game line.
Steve Bonario @ 3:10 pm
At 160 pages, this book does a good job of covering a lot of ground, from creating your character to building a party. This is NOT a rehash of the comments in the PHB or the DMG — it is new material. I have not read it word for word, but skimmed through each section.
From this DM’s point of view, one of the best parts is Chapter 3: Strategy and Tactics, especially “Tactics 101″. Not all players may have heard of, or even understand the benefits of, focusing fire but this is nicely covered on page 105. Then follows discussions of movement and positioning, timing, managing resources, and even a brief look at common mistakes (like overextending and taking unnecessary damage). The reason I think this is such a strong chapter is that it covers a good spread of tactical and strategic elements without going into unnecessary detail or trying to cover every possible tactic or strategy. It’s enough to give players who may have never thought about all of these things a concentrated introduction.
Some may complain that a chapter like this makes the guide too focused on D&D as a mechanical game — a game of combat where optimizing the party’s numerical chances for success outweighs the fun of roleplaying characters who undertake heroic deeds. To that I say, the book’s title is your best clue that this is NOT a guide to playing or inhabiting a character role or persona. WOTC could easily release a “Player’s Roleplaying Guide”, and that would be the book for helping players create more memorable characters.
Even so, there are gems like this on page 93 (that may remind players who need such reminding): “Avoid building characters that marginalize the efforts of other players at the table…Even though being awesome certainly is awesome, D&D is not about being the best – it’s about everyone at the table having fun.” It takes a certain maturity level to understand what those two sentences really mean, and why they are important. I find as a DM it’s part of my role to think about how to make the game fun for everyone at the table, and having statements like that in a player’s guide might help some players see how they too can make it part of their role.
I have told my players that while I highly recommend this book, it is not a must-have to play the game. I have 2 mixed groups of long-time veterans and relative newcomers, and even the vets might find some new ideas in this book. Frankly, the newcomers could take the long way and play the game for 15 or 20 years and then take the time to analyze why and how they are successful or not. Reading this book is the shortcut.
That said, as a DM, I also find reading this gives me a great reminder on how to look at things from the player’s perspective, which I think will improve my DMing.