Modular: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
If you’ve jumped into the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, I’ve got a book for you.
Until now, you haven’t really needed anything apart from the main three manuals (The Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide). But with Xanathar’s Guide to Everything the Wizards of the Coast have created a handy companion with utility for both players and dungeon masters.
Sure, if you’ve followed the various expansion books closely you’ll have seen some good stuff: Volo’s Guide to Monsters helps flesh out some nasty critters so you can better bring them to life AND know their weaknesses, and the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide provides background material if you’re playing in a specific setting (or perhaps one similar to it). Xanathar’s, though, is something like the original Unearthed Arcana was for old school D&D.
It’s 192 pages are broadly divided into four categories. Chapter 1 is given over to new options for characters, Chapter 2 is stuffed with game master tools, Chapter 3 has spells, and the Appendix, for some reason, is mostly devoted to possible character names, some 15 pages of them. To me, that feels like the book’s only mis-step. Long lists of English, French, and Celtic names can be found in numerous places, and while the elf and dwarf (and other) categories can be useful for inspiration, I’d rather have seen these names left on an online companion and this space given over to some other useful subject – sandbox gaming, for instance – that never gets enough coverage.
But the rest… the rest is gold.
Between lotteries and televised poker tournaments, horse racing and casinos, games of chance play a large part on the world’s stage. It should come as no surprise that they play an equality large part in fiction, and perhaps in genre fiction in particular. As writers, aren’t we always looking for something for our characters to do while they’re talking to each other? Preferably something that also reveals character, and is interesting in itself?
