This book wasn't quite what I expected, but it was a fun read. Wizards of the Coast has published a handful of books over the years that talk about how the game has evolved over the years, and there have been similar books published about specific deviations of D&D (like the World of Critical Role book I read earlier this year). And this book was kind of that, and kind of not. It was part history and fan letter to the game from celebrity players and other people in the space who weigh in on what D&D has meant to them over the years... but it's also sort of a campaign sales tool that talks about the different specific sourcebooks that D&D sells?

The parts of the book that were people talking about what the game means to them were great. I thoroughly enjoyed the images of people's home games, or events from years past that proved formative for the game and its current crop of celebrity endorsers. It was fun to watch the history unfold. It was less fun to, every few pages, see a reminder that we can, you know, buy more books if we want. And to have content from those books basically copied and pasted into this book and reformatted to fill space.

D&D has produced a lot of great products over the years, but in recent years they've received some criticism for pushing unnecessary content out to their fans. And I get... they're a company that creates a game product that doesn't require a subscription, or a membership. People can play D&D with a minimal one-time investment and that's not great for a company looking to maintain a bottom line. If they want to re-use art and copy, and if they want to repackage it in different ways, that's a smart way to get the most bang for your buck. My issue is with the way this was just kind of sloppily put together. It felt unfocused and unclear what the point of the book was.

While I enjoyed flipping through it when I had a couple hours to kill at the bookstore the other day, I'm not sure it's going to be a coffee table book that I'm clamoring to purchase and proudly display on my... well, coffee table.

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Created Jan 18, 2025 at 7:50pm • Submit your own review...