Because it was his first version, Gabir often recalls those golden days when everything 4th was in ascendance. Jim Darkmagic was born there, so it will always be a kind of home. We don't need to talk about how odd it can get at higher levels, or how slow the official software toolset got as the powers database became more plump, or the kind of analysis paralysis that could occur for players new and old. It was also rad in its own way, and the notion of a "power source" - like Martial, or Divine - lead to some really interesting new class concepts I still kinda miss.

In the same way that the Playstation is just the Playstation, whether 4, Pro, or 5, and the Xbox is the Xbox across a bunch of platforms, One D&D is sorta what D&D is now. They had promised robust digital toolsets in the past, which sorta happened, but with a growing stable of exclusive devs and collaborators plus the acquisition of D&D Beyond means they can do everything. You can buy a book that includes a digital copy, with models and terrain for use in a simulated table. It's nuts. I don't know how you become more definitional of a medium than they already are, but I guess we'll find out.

I will tell you that it was kinda insane seeing that slipcover Spelljammer box over at Mox yesterday - the physical format is distinct, but as a ritual object it completely casts you back in time to the era of the TSR Boxed Set, full of maps and a handful of distinct books for distinct parts of the audience. It's some seriously nineties shit, and they're gonna do the same with Planescape it seems like. Doing Spelljammer and Planescape is kinda wild; I think of them as mostly trying to accomplish the same feat. We certainly didn't board any fucking space galleons once we learned how to traverse the very gullet of the multiverse directly. But then, Spelljammer is mostly about vibes. Well, vibes and space pirates who are also, against all reason and propriety, spiders.

(CW)TB out.