Most players know a d20 when they see one and stop there. The Book of Dice keeps going for 107 pages: where the shapes come from, how the table talks about them, every way to roll, and why we keep coming back [1]. Full disclosure: we wrote it. We rolled for objectivity and got a 1. rpgcreator.net is ours, the…
Gen Con 2026 ran from July 30 to August 2 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, and it was the biggest Gen Con yet. I was not there. I was at my desk in a different hemisphere, refreshing three liveblogs at once and doing the time zone arithmetic every non-American gamer does in early August. (Constitution save against the…
DnD Dice Roller has had its biggest update since it launched. Your dice lines can live on an account instead of in one browser, the save button is gone because the site saves as you go, and you can see, and choose, where your random numbers come from. Here is what changed and how to use it. Your dice lines…
Advantage and disadvantage are two of the most important dice rules in modern Dungeons & Dragons. They are also two of the easiest to explain badly. The rule, from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 (the free 2024 rules text, "Playing the Game", D20 Tests) [1]: Advantage: roll two d20s and use the higher. Disadvantage: roll two d20s and use the…
D&D repeats itself. The same attack, the same damage, the same Constitution save every time the wizard takes an arrow. A preset is a roll you make often enough that rebuilding it wastes a turn. In DnD Dice Roller a preset is a dice line with a label. Name each line, press ++ to duplicate one instead of rebuilding it,…
Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5E attract the same players and still split tables down the middle. Both are d20 fantasy games with classes, spells, monsters and loot. They don't feel the same at the table. D&D 5E is easier to start and easier to improvise. Pathfinder 2e is more structured, more tactical and more precise. Neither is better; they solve…
Dungeons & Dragons is the default front door to fantasy roleplaying, and for good reason: it's everywhere, and finding players is easy. But "most popular" isn't "best for every group." Groups go looking for something else when they want one of four things: deeper tactical combat, faster and deadlier dungeon crawls, a gentler and more structured start for young or…
Six numbers decide whether your wizard can hit a door with a fireball and whether your barbarian can spell "door". The method your table uses to make them sets the campaign's power level and fairness before anyone says a word in character. Some methods make lopsided, memorable heroes. Some keep the party level. Some reward nerve. This guide shows the…
. . . If a character sheet, spell or stat block has ever shouted this at you, you were reading dice notation: a shorthand for how many dice to roll, which kind, and what to do with the result. It looks like algebra for about five minutes. This guide gets you through those five minutes, then into drop, reroll and…
In January 1974, a small Wisconsin company shipped three booklets in a woodgrain cardboard box. The whole print run was 1,000 copies, assembled by hand, and it took eleven months to sell out [1]. Since then Dungeons & Dragons has had more makeovers than a polymorphed wizard, and every edition has partisans ready to tell you theirs was the real…
