Wizards now has the Basic rules available for the Dungeon Master's Guide including some monsters for y'all.

Top 5 reasons to try Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition

Dungeons and Dragons.  I've played it since it came in a red box.  My brothers and I poured 10,000 hours into the hobby making me a bona fide master.  Every incarnation was better than the previous.  When AD&D became bloated with too many new power-creeping classes, 2nd edition wiped them away. When magic items became dangerously unbalanced and unhinged, 3rd edition codified them into a unified theory of magic.  And as certain spells, like haste, fly, and ability buffs, were obviously every spellcaster's favorite, 3.5th edition attenuated them.

Fourth edition sorta went off the deep end.  But now we have 5th ed.  Or simply, Dungeons ampersand Dragons!  Like myriad grognars before me, I met the new books with skepticism, sniffing them like a cave troll might sniff a washing machine.  I have some first impressions based solely on the Introductory Set, the Player's Handbook, and the Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

Here are my top 5 reasons you should try the new Dungeons & Dragons.

5. It's free to play

You can get all the rules you need online.  Wizards is making the basics available on this page.  The free version lacks the artwork, has a much shorter spell list, and does not fully explain all of the options available in the player's handbook.  The PHB doesn't hit stores until the 19th, so until then this is the best you're going to get as a player.

What about monsters?  Well, you can either buy the starter set  which contains a pretty good sized adventure and two dozen monsters, or you can just wing it.  The PHB mentions that monster stats will be available on dungeonsanddragons.com, but I can't find it.  Maybe it won't be up till August 19th.  

4. Artwork

As we've come to expect the artwork is inspiring.  I like Clint Cearley and Tyler Jacobson but it's all really good.  They've come up with a style that feels a little more like traditional fantasy.

3. Level Attack Bonus

Now a 20th level fighter doesn't get +20 to hit, he gets +6.  This is called your "proficiency bonus" and covers every skill and weapon you're proficient with.  The power progression is slower in the "to-hit" department which means you'll have to use your special skills, feats, and maneuvers to make things die.

2. Sub-genera

In addition to your race there are sub-races to choose from, and in addition to classes there are sub-class specializations.  Domain powers, monk traditions, fighter martial archetypes.  I like having these not only to tweak the power of your character, but to add some roleplaying to the selection of your abilities.

1. Common Ancestry

The new D&D is not a direct descendant of 4th edition.  Both 5th ed and 4th ed share a common ancestor: 3.5.  The lineage of D&D 5th also shows vigorous interbreeding with Pathfinder and contains much of its DNA.

While 4th edition was an adventurous experiment with many fans, it departed from the feel of the original in ways that are hard to fully understand.  The use of powers streamlined the game and simplified it.  This sounds good, but perhaps a simpler game wasn't what people were looking for. D&D Next certainly went back to its roots yet seems to have made a slightly better game than 3rd edition.

We'll have to play it a while to know

Puzzles take a lot of patience.  In order to complete them effectively you must adopt a strategy or group of tactics.  Identifying the edge pieces is a pretty good first move.  It reduces the dimensions in which a person might combine the pieces to one, since the edge can be viewed as a simple continuous line.  Grouping the pieces by color can allow you to narrow the pool of pieces that have to be considered.  Also, by looking at the box photo pieces can be grouped by geography, or where those pieces are going to end up in the final product.  Most really difficult puzzles eliminate one or more of these tactics by printing on both sides, using false edge pieces, not including a final image, or contain large tracts of repetitive color.

This Lord of the Rings puzzle my daughter and I are powering through had numerous helpful features that led us to complete it rapidly.  The edge of the piece of artwork has a border that not only allows you to complete the edge pieces easily, but also add a comfortable margin to that edge.  Banners naming Boromir, Faramir, Gandalf, Frodo, Gollum, and others allow you to identify the location of lone pieces pretty easily.  And a variety of distinct colors means you can start separating this puzzle out into pretty small piles of related pieces.  You're not going to mistake the orange of Faramir's shield for the bright orange of the flaming ring, and there's no mistaking the Black Speech written on its circumference.

Real Klingons Donate Blood

Time at a convention is extremely dear.  Gen Con is only 4 days out of the year that we have to mingle with 40,000 other gamers.  That's why it's hard to give up just under an hour to go donate blood in the middle of it.  However, I decided it was worth it.  The Heinlein Society drums up business for the Indiana Blood Center at the convention and they provide some modest swag for the effort of donating blood.  I freely admit I am motivated by the swag provided at science fiction and gaming conventions.  Last time I donated at Dragon Con I was presented with a Klingon blood knife pin.  Pretty cool.  At Gen Con here I walked away with a pin and some miniature model terrain.

What I didn't realize from previous Gen Cons was that the gaming really starts on the Wednesday before the official opening. The convention hall is open and people start playing pickup games of "Settlers of Catan", "Are you a Werewolf?", "Game of Thrones the CCG," and everything in between.

Wednesday is Trade Day for Gen Con as well, where anyone in the industry can pay an extra $100 to gain access to seminars catered to the business of creating, publishing, marketing and selling games. It is also a chance to play game demos for almost all the new games at Gen Con before the crazy busy event schedule begins.

For out-of-towners, coming Wednesday means that you can get settled, pick up your swag-bag, and register for events if you need to. This will end up costing an extra $200 in hotel and parking though, so coming early Thursday is a viable play for many. A trip to Gen Con costs a lot of money. If you're going to flop down that expense, you may as well squeeze as many games and other experiences out of it as you possibly can. So that's what I did.

Along with 30,000 other people I will be attending Gen Con Indy 2011. I stayed with my grandparents the first time I went to Gen Con and used the bus to ferry myself to and from the convention. It was incredible. It was 1986 and the convention was in Milwaukee at the Mecca Convention center. I don’t think they can call convention centers “Mecca” anymore. Mostly because Mecca will not pay for the naming rights.

Gen Con is one of the best run conventions in existence. The key is the event submission and sign-up system. Anyone can submit an event. Pre-registered users can obtain tickets for those events. If there are open slots for any reason, guests can show up on the spot with generic tickets to get in. The result is to allow attendees to form a reliable schedule months ahead of time and eliminate or reduce useless waiting in lines to get into events. I like it a lot. This system allows mainstream games plenty of room to satisfy demand while also gives fruity bizarre events a chance to be seen; it doesn’t hamper the creativity of exhibitors.

The people at Gen Con simply do a great job.