Trollish Delver

While edition wars are the purview of a rotten mind, I’m here to convince you that the best version of Dungeons & Dragons isn’t your favourite one.

Back in 2019 Penguin Random House produced a line of books by Jim Zub, Stacy King and Andrew Wheeler under the banner of D&D Young Adventurer’s Guide. The collection of slim volumes acted as an introduction to the world and play culture of D&D without the mechanics. The books span everything from hero creation and dungeon mapping to bestiaries and spellcasting, all written diegetically. They’re ostensibly for kids, so why do I think they’re the best unofficial edition?

Being a book series that forefronts fiction over mechanics I believe the YAG D&D has a higher potential for immersion and simulation than the official game. In character creation you’re not looking at classes, races and equipment in terms of hard numbers but what you WANT to play based on flavour and what weapons and armour suit the situation.

In fact, armour is a microcosm of the “game”. Descriptions provide pros and cons for each type along with reasons why you might want to have multiple armours depending on what you’re doing. While full plate offers unparallelled protection, it isn’t suited for long journeys. Same for clothing, which gets a couple of pages detailing what sort of clothes you might wear and when to wear them. Adventuring clothes are great for dungeoneering but you might attract unwanted attention in town. Aristocratic vestments will make an impression at a courtly gathering but will leave you liable to be robbed or pursued by treasure-hungry creatures. The 5e rulebook has none of this flavourful narrative that, ironically, makes things far more gameable than +3 AC. My favourite part of the weapons section is a box giving options for combining weaopons, like making an axe crossbow or tying a chain to a hammer and swinging it around. This is the foundation of adventure gaming here in a kids’ book.

Monsters are detailed in terms of ecology and behaviour. Cleverly YAG uses a scale from 1-5 for how dangerous the creature is, with the highest being epic encounters fit for only the mightiest heroes. This is where you can see the potential of using 1d6 for attacks – PC hits if higher than than monster rating. Similarly the PC has its own level the monster must hit. Double its rating for its HP. All weapons do 1 damage. This was actually a suggestion from James Haeck.

The best part of the bestiary are the do’s and dont’s aimed squarely at player characters who find themselves up against the monster. Diegetically, how should you fight them? What should you avoid? Check out the Beholder entry below:

These two page spreads are great for at-a-glance reading. The PC facing advice also implies how the DM should role play the monster. The beholder here should watch from the shadows, focus fire on an individual and try stay away from melee.

We’re unencumbered by saves, modifiers, conditions and such. The beholder hits with a fear ray? The PC legs it.

YAG has no adventures in the traditional sense, but offers some brain juice for some of the iconic locations in the D&D multiverse. Snippets of rooms and encounters allows more experienced DMs a chance to build on this info and make it their own.

YAG D&D RULES

My own version, that I’m calling the YAG edition, follows a loose set of mechanics.

Whenever you want to do something roll a d6 per level and take the highest. On a 5+ you do it. If you’re good at that thing you succeed on an 4+.

In a fight use the fiction. Go around in a circle and state what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. If you’re attacking roll a d6 per level. Get the monster’s danger level or above to hit it. Do 1 damage or 2-3 if the monster has a weakness. The monster attacks you in the same way, rolling a d6 per danger level and trying to beat your level. Most monsters do 1 damage, but special abilities may do 2-3.

Character hit points are 5, increasing by 2 per level. Monster HP is twice its danger level. If the monster has armour add a few extra HP (like 3HP for heavy armour or 1HP for light). Do the same with characters. At 0HP the monster dies. At 0HP a character is unconscous and will die if not treated in an hour per level.

Level up when it makes sense, usually after a pivotal moment.

Magic users have 1 spell per level, usable once per day. If it deals damage the DM states how much. Spells are usually instant or don’t last more than an hour.

If you don’t know if something’s going to happen, roll a d6. On 4+ it happens.

That’s it really. Just play the world. The DM has the final say but will always be fair.