To 3 or Not to 3

The success of the third edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game has put a well-deserved smile on the faces of a lot of people here at Wizards of the Coast. Though I had nothing to do with it personally, a number of my friends did, and I doubt most people can imagine the hard work, sweat, and blood they put into it. The response from the RPG community has been overwhelming.

That being the case, the subject of converting to the new D&D has come up. After all, we do work here and should really be supporting the company’s most important RPG project. But then, at this point we’re not even playing first edition. We’re basically still at zero.

The new gamers, as I’ve described above, are becoming old hands, and we play two lunch hours a week now instead of just one, so . . . could we? Should we?

The players took a quick glance through the new Player’s Handbook. Jumping three editions in one leap is a big step, though, so the initial response is best demonstrated by the photograph below:

Crusty Old gamer that I am, at first glance I fared no better.

Once I realized I was actually holding the book upside down, I started to see some great stuff.

But will we convert? The conversion rules were meant to take people from second edition to third. Will I need to convert to first edition first, then take out all the assassins, half-orcs, and monks to convert to Ssecond edition, then put them all back in to convert to third? I doubt it. We may look slow, but I think we could make the leap.

But will we?

About the Author

Phil Athans is a senior editor in Book Publishing at Wizards and the author of the successful novelization Baldur’s Gate. For more about Phil, read his author biography.

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