Dragon Warriors

Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (commonly called the "2024 rules" or "D&D 2024") is the revised and updated version of the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition tabletop roleplaying game, published by Wizards of the Coast. Released across three core rulebooks throughout 2024 and early 2025, it is not a new edition. It is the same game, refined. The revision was driven by a decade of player feedback and data on how tables actually run 5E, and it shipped to coincide with the game's 50th anniversary. The three revised core books are the Player's Handbook (September 2024), the Dungeon Master's Guide (November 2024), and the Monster Manual (February 2025). All three are reorganized, reworded for clarity, and mechanically updated. Rather than replacing 5th Edition with a "6th Edition," 5.5E expands and tightens the existing framework while maintaining backwards compatibility with every 5E adventure module, sourcebook, and campaign setting published since 2014. If you are new to D&D entirely, start with the Dungeons & Dragons 5e (2014) entry for a full explanation of how the game works. Everything described there still applies here. This entry covers what 5.5E specifically changed. Description D&D 5.5E plays identically to 5th Edition at the table. Players create adventurers, one player takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), and the group tells a collaborative story driven by a twenty-sided die (d20) and the DM's rulings. The core loop, the "Three Pillars" of Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction, and the fundamental mechanics (Advantage and Disadvantage, Bounded Accuracy, the Proficiency Bonus, the rest system) all carry over unchanged. What the 2024 revision addresses is the rough edges that a decade of play exposed. Martial classes (Fighters, Barbarians, Monks, Rogues) now have more tactical options in combat instead of repeating the same basic attack every turn. Spellcasting classes have been rebalanced to reduce the gap between low-level and high-level power. Rules that were famously unclear or frequently house-ruled (grappling, crafting, surprise, two-weapon fighting) have been rewritten. The Dungeon Master's Guide, long criticized as poorly organized, has been restructured into a book that new DMs can actually learn from rather than only reference. The result is a game that feels the same at the table but runs more smoothly. Groups that have been playing 5E for years will notice the quality-of-life improvements. Groups starting fresh will simply have a cleaner ruleset from day one. Both 2014 and 2024 material can be used at the same table without conversion, though the newer rules are recommended for new characters.

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (D&D 5E) is a heroic fantasy tabletop roleplaying game published by Wizards of the Coast. Released in 2014, it is the edition that brought D&D from a niche hobby into mainstream pop culture - showing up in TV shows, podcasts, and actual-play streams, and introducing millions of new players to the hobby for the first time. 5E was designed after a massive public playtest ("D&D Next") with the explicit goal of being approachable to newcomers while still satisfying veteran players. The Basic Rules are free, and a game can start with nothing more than those rules, some friends, and a set of dice (or a digital dice roller app). In 2024 the core rules received a significant revision, now commonly referred to as Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (2024). Both versions are fully compatible and most groups mix material freely. The system it directly evolved from is Dungeons & Dragons 4E (2008) Description In D&D 5E, players create fantasy adventurers (a half-orc barbarian, an elven wizard, a tiefling rogue) and one player takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM). The DM builds and describes the world, voices the non-player characters (NPCs), controls the monsters, and acts as both the lead storyteller and the rules referee. There is no board. The game is a conversation: the DM describes a scene, the players say what their characters do, and the dice decide what happens when the outcome is uncertain. A typical session runs three to four hours with a group of three to six players plus the DM. The game describes itself as resting on "Three Pillars": Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction. A single session might include all three, from tracking a monster through the wilderness and negotiating with a shady merchant to fighting a troll at the entrance to a cave. Combat is the most mechanically detailed of the three and tends to take up the largest share of table time, though groups are free to lean as hard into roleplaying or exploration as they like. The default assumption is a high-fantasy world filled with magic, monsters, and ancient ruins. The flagship published setting is the Forgotten Realms, but Wizards of the Coast has released adventures across a range of worlds, and many DMs create their own. The game does not ship a single canon story. Every table's story is different, shaped by what the players do. 5E is designed to be approachable. The core philosophy is "rulings over rules," meaning that when something comes up that the rules do not explicitly cover, the DM is encouraged to make a quick call and keep the game moving rather than stopping to look things up. The rules reward creativity and improvisation, and the system explicitly expects that no one at the table has memorized the entire rulebook. That said, the DM carries most of the preparation work between sessions: building encounters, preparing maps, and keeping the story moving. Players can show up with nothing but their character sheet and a set of dice.

Daggerheart is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game published by Darrington Press, an imprint of Critical Role Productions. The game was released in 2025. Description Daggerheart is a story-docused role-playing game system, where the rules direct players to think narratively and not just mechanically. The game uses a system called Duality Dice, where players roll two twelve-sided dice. One for Hope and one for Fear. In addition to determining whether the character achieves success or fails at the action they are trying to perform, it also generates a helpful Hope resource for the player, or a challenging Fear resource for the game master (GM). Lead designer Spenser Starke explained that there is "also no initiative in Daggerheart". It functions very much like a Forged in the Dark or a Powered By The Apocalypse game, where the GM is making moves on certain dice rolls and we're passing play back and forth as a conversation. It all flows together in a way that supports the storytelling-first direction that Critical Role has really embraced over the last decade". The game features 279 supplemental cards to track player abilities and characteristics. Darrington Press also launched several digital resources, including an online custom card creator.

Another month, another big update. Happy April everyone.  We have been busy in the background improving Groupfinder to make it an even better place to find players or groups. But in addition to your finding journey, we have also finalized our current version of the library, which will help you all with discovering old and new tools and platforms, content creators, communities and will introduce you to various game systems.  For those, who might be interested - we recently published an article where we examined the statistics and listed the most popular systems according to your posts and groups. The library This is a big one. The library is a comprehensive collection of various tabletop gaming related resources. Whether you are looking for a virtual tabletop to run your games on, or need help creating a map for your campaigns. If you want to learn more about the hobby and discover various content creators, whether a Youtube channel for second-monitor viewing, blogs to read up on various news, guides, tips or other ideas, artists to hire to commission your character's unique artwork, or even podcasts to listen to - the library is the place to find those. Game systems You know Dungeons & Dragons, but do you know about the other systems that exist? Some more specialized in combat, others with more story-driven focus. Or do you want to run a vampire-themed game? Or something set in the space? Take a look at the various game systems, read about them and perhaps you will head back to your own player profile and add some additional systems that you would like to try out. Tools & Platforms The hobby-space is filled with creative people creating various tools for various purposes: mapbuilding, character creation, virtual tabletops, music and sounds, generators, worldbuilding and more. See if there are tools to make your or your group's life easier. Creators Whether you like to watch Youtube videos, listen to podcasts or read blog articles - this is your place to learn more about the nitty-gritty of the hobby. Whether to keep up with the news regarding the TTRPG hobby, follow along someone else's actual play journey or read about the ins and outs of the hobby. Or if you are looking for an artist to commission for an artwork - we have some of those as well. Communities & Events Hosting a public tabletop-related event and want people to discover and join it? Spread the word. Or if you are running a Discord or other type of a community, whether online or offline - this is the place to get the word out. Gather people and grow with the hobby. /images/general-media/1775848937_OGEqvwGB.jpgThe library is evergrowing. Submit your own projects or entries. All the library entries are sorted by recommended first. The more recommendations the entry has, the better it's position will be in their category. If you are interested in featuring your entry, you can get in touch with us and we'll tell you more about how you can get your post to be discovered by more people. As you can currently see, the library in some categories is quite empty. We invite everyone to submit their entry to it. Read more about how to submit here. And visit the library Layout changes In addition, during the past month we have slightly updated the way player and group posts look. Hopefully this will help you introduce yourself or your group a bit better. If you are curious about how to improve your profile even more - go ahead and read this guide article here. In addition to the post layout, you can see our updated footer, providing a better navigation to various bits and pieces of the platform. Also the creator spotlight section has been updated to provide a more clear layout to learn more about various projects in the hobby space. If you have a project you would like to spotlight, you can read more about the whole process here. These spotlighted projects are what help us keep working on the platform, cover our running costs and help us keep it free forever. We polished the chat with a few visual and functional improvements. Users can now @mention someone in the group chat. You can also react to a post, to show support or your feelings towards whatever thing they said. Wide As you can see, the whole platform is now wider (Or if you are on mobile, you can't see. But take our word for it). This improvement will help us provide a better user experience, as our interface is less busy now. The header has been updated and now includes the link to the library. On mobile, you have a brand new menu - again to provide a clearer visual experience and help you navigate the platform even better. Notifications Want to stay updated when someone contacts you? Or a game/player is added that might be interesting to you? You can head over to the Account page and adjust your notifications there. Notifications in the mobile app provide a better preview of what the notification is all about, so you can either swipe it away or open it, should it be important. /images/general-media/1775849670_l0NrsMZa.jpgDon't let yourself get overwhelmed with notifications or e-mails. Choose what is relevant to you and stay in the loop. Unofficial iOS app If you are an iPhone user, you can now see a message at the bottom of the page, that will guide you towards adding our unofficial Groupfinder app on your phone. It will send you relevant notifications and help you keep up with all the important bits. That wraps it up for now Thank you to all who have found their way to Groupfinder. If you have any feedback regarding the platform, please let us know, it doesn't have to be a long in-depth commentary or structured letter. Just get in touch with us or send me a mail (holger@groupfinder.eu) and I promise to read all of your mails.  Whether to praise us, or to let us know of a feature the platform is missing, we welcome both. And as a final note - if you have found Groupfinder to be helpful to you so far. Or you want to help it become even more popular (so you have more players/games to choose from) - spread the word. Tell people on Reddit, Facebook, X, Bluesky, Discord or any other channel about Groupfinder. We will love you to bits. Till next time.

GMS Magazine is a website dedicated to produce TTRPG video and podcast content: The GMS Magazine Podcast: A podcast about RPG, Board Games and the people who make them. Beyond Gaming: A podcast with advice on how to publish and how to write your TTRPG So Play We All: A channel about board games, mostly indie.

GarouApp is a free digital companion for Werewolf: The Apocalypse that helps players and Storytellers build Garou, keep their sheets alive and run their table together. Supporting W5 and W2, including W20 Changing Breeds, it covers guided character creation, interactive character sheets, shared tables with a live dice feed, edition-specific dice rolling, Storyteller generators for names, NPCs, locations, plot hooks and Veil breaches, the Spirit Test tribe quiz, PDF export and community sharing.