Okay! 2023! Look at this. That's too many books! Okay. So you want to play some Dungeons & Dragons,
but you Googled it and found like dozens of books published over the course of 50 years
and have no idea where to start? Well, you’re in the right place! And if you already are familiar with D&D,
and you’re just curious to hear some quick reviews of these books, you’re in the right
place too! In fact, anyone who clicked on this video
is in the right place, please keep watching no matter what-- So in this video I’m going to walk you through
all 44 Dungeons & Dragons books and box sets that have been published for fifth edition
D&D!--Can you believe it’s 44 already? Geez! I’ll be doing my best to let you know whether
or not a book is right for YOU by explaining what each book provides the reader, and by
summarizing my own experience with the book if any, and sharing the general opinion among
the D&D internet community about each book. Also, you may or may not know that many of
the books published by the big company of D&D have fantastic alternatives or supplements
published by much smaller game companies or independent authors, so I’ll be highlighting
a few of those as well! But FYI, none of these books are sponsors! There will be a sponsor in this video… but we’ll get to that later! Most importantly, I want you to know that while I’ve been playing D&D and similar games for about 8 years, I didn’t buy a
single D&D book until I was two years into this hobby! And today, I don’t rely on the books very
often because more books do NOT make this game more fun! What makes these games fun is your own creativity! How you and your fellow players imagine fantastic
adventures through mere conversation, and you all embrace the randomness of rolling
funny dice to see what happens! That is the spirit of Dungeons & Dragons,
not these books! And that’s what this channel is all about,
just learning how to have more fun playing these games together! And my name is Bob, and I did this intro backwards,
but in that spirit of learning together, please leave a comment below, if you have experience
with any number of D&D books from any edition, share with the rest of us, which book has
been the most valuable toward creating fun games at your table! Thank you! So while you experienced folks are pondering
and writing your comments, I need to talk with the n00bs for a second! Whatever they say in the comments,
I think you should check out as a total beginner to D&D is… CAIRN! Now there’s a very important reason I recommend
starting with this little booklet instead of any of the official D&D Starter Sets. Dungeons & Dragons 5e is a complicated game,
but the basics are very simple, and those basics are better expressed in rules-lite
indie roleplaying games like Cairn. Not to mention the digital version is FREE
on DriveThruRPG, link below! The Cairn booklet version does cost a couple
bucks, and you’ll need to buy a set of dice to play it, but in less than 1 hour, you can
read this 20 page rulebook, watch my video about how to play it, make up a simple location
with some monsters to fight and treasure to claim, and you’ll be ready to begin your
first roleplaying game session! Then after you try out Cairn, or if you decide
off the bat that you want a more complete package, I recommend getting the newest D&D
Starter Set with the BLUE dragon on the cover! Because while each D&D box set gives you a
LOT of bang for your buck -- there’s dice, a basic rulebook, an adventure to play, character
sheets, and more -- this one doesn’t overwhelm you with extra stuff, and the character sheets
in this particular set have explicit instructions for how to use your characters special features,
which I think is super awesome for beginners. Also, I have run this adventure, Dragons of
Stormwreck Isle. I've made some videos about it, and it’s
pretty fun! After that set, or if you already have some
experience with D&D, I’d recommend the Essentials Kit, with a WHITE dragon on the cover! ...I just didn’t keep the box. This set contains a slightly larger ruleset
explaining how to make your own characters, plus a few extra dice, a bunch of cards, a
foldout map, and a freeform adventure, The Dragon of Icespire Peak! Really Icespire Peak just provides a dozen
or so adventure locations that you can play as a whole story, or as little one-off game
sessions! And that flexibility, plus all the resources,
makes this one of my favorite D&D resources! I even made a whole video series about this
set and the adventure, because it’s a LOT of fun! Recently however, I ran the original D&D 5e
Starter Set with the GREEN dragon, and this adventure was also a lot of fun, but I gotta
say, the rulebook is not very beginner friendly. And it kinda makes sense, this was the very
first product published for fifth edition so it's really written for people
who had experience with previous editions, not total beginners. But you should know that the fun adventure
in here is FREE online at D&D Beyond dot com! Finally, if you’re really into Rick & Morty
or Stranger Things, there are D&D crossover box sets based on those shows. I have not played either myself, but I’ve
heard they’re pretty good, But if by any chance you’d like to get some
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description, or code “BOB” at checkout, to let ‘em know who sent ya! Okay, we’re done with boxes, onto the BOOKS! Because by now you’ve played through a couple
D&D adventures, and you want a more complete understanding of the game! You want the one and only core rulebook of
Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition: the Player’s Handbook! I emphasize “the one and only core rulebook”
because D&D does this weird thing where they call three different books “the core rules”
but I promise you, the Player’s Handbook is the only core book for this game! Aka the “PHB” this book has more rules
and character options than you could possibly need, like character classes that go all the
way to level 20, while statistically most groups only play to about level 12. The best part though, is that most of this
book is totally and utterly FREE! …like without piracy! Basically, at the beginning of 2023, D&D tried
to impose really harsh royalties and other restrictions on how independent publishers
can publish things independently! Fortunately, it totally backfired, and to
try to make up for it, D&D released all the core rules under Creative Commons in a FREE
PDF called the System Reference Document! Linked down in the description! Since this free SRD covers the entire core
rules of the game, it actually comes with even MORE monsters and WAY more magic items
than what you get if you buy the Player’s Handbook! What you don’t get with the SRD is any of
the amazing artwork from the PHB, or the convenience of flipping through a physical book versus
scrolling through a 400 page PDF with no bookmarks, because I guess the convenience of bookmarks
would’ve taken things too far. Then whether you go PHB or SRD, you should
really consider if you’re enjoying D&D 5e! There are unique RPGs for Lord of the Rings,
Star Wars, Cyberpunk, Lovecraftian horror, and even a game for being a tough little mouse,
or a skate-boarding wizard! I have a video about this one because it’s
awesome. Or if you want to stick with D&D-style fantasy
but want more intricate and detailed rules, try Pathfinder! If you like D&D but wish it was a little less
like a Marvel movie and more like an 80’s Conan movie, try Dungeon Crawl Classics! It’s great to experiment with other games
because you’ll learn new rules and fun ways of doing things that you never would have
come across if you develop tunnel vision on one single game. And I recommend exploring other games early
in your RPG journey, because once you spend a bunch of money on rulebooks for just D&D,
you might feel kinda stuck with just D&D. However, let’s not forget: if you’re having
fun with just D&D, by all means, get stuck in that FUN! That’s what these games are all about! And now you have another decision to make! If you’re riding the D&D hype train and
you prefer playing as a single player character, you might want to look into the supplemental
rulebooks like... the ones I have buried under this stuff: Xanthar’s Guide to Everything and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. These are official D&D 5e books just packed
to the brim with powerful character options, mainly subclasses. I personally prefer Xanathar’s Guide because
it contains very useful tables of random names, random encounters, as well as low level magic
items, new spells, and in general, extra rules that I actually use. Tasha’s Cauldron is also cool, but in the couple years
that I’ve had it, I almost never actually USE this book, and since it came out more
recently, the character options are not as well balanced with the core rules of the game,
so if you only want one of these two, I’d personally recommend Xanathar’s guide. However, there are TONS of independently published
5e supplemental books! The two mostly highly reviewed that I know
of are The Ultimate Adventurer's Handbook and Valda’s Spire of Secrets! Both are completely 5e-compatible, and each
one has like 100 new subclasses, new races, new spells, everything! So if you’re really into tinkering with
character options, these third party 5e books will give you a lot more material to explore! Now, if you’re riding the D&D hype train
and you like being a Dungeon Master more than a player character, or you’re thinking about
running a game but aren’t sure if you have what it takes to DM--first of all, you totally
do! I believe in you! And it’ll be easier if you check out Sly
Flourish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master! Unlike the official D&D Dungeon Master’s
Guide, Return of the Lazy DM gives you a concise step by step process for how to plan out original,
fun, and memorable adventures for your players! If that’s your goal, to run and play fun
games, this book will most likely be more useful to you than this one. Alright if you’ve been keeping track, we’ve
only talked about 10 boxes and books out of the 44 total, that’s because the other 34
books are extra stuff that will mostly appeal to just Dungeon Masters, however, players
who are really into lore will also appreciate these books. And by the way, if you’re finding this video
helpful, please give it a thumbs up because that will help it reach more people! So if you’re primarily a gamemaster, and
you love to build your own worlds and prepare your own original quests, then all you need
are monsters! I did a quick count, and there are over 300
creature statblocks available for FREE in the System Reference Doc we talked about earlier,
and that’s definitely more monster than you’ll ever really need. You can always modify one of those creatures
to build your own monsters, and there’s even a short section about how to modify creatures
and build your own monsters! That said, the SRD does NOT include any of
the amazing artwork for all of these monsters or any of the LORE about where and how these
monsters live! That information is fun for Gamemasters and
players, and you can get a lot of that online, but if you want it all in one convenient physical
book, you should get the Monster Manual. Besides the player’s handbook, the Monster
Manual is probably the most-used D&D rulebook on my shelf and everyone else's, but I guess
I have to check out those comments from earlier to find out! Then if for some reason you want more than
300+ monsters, I recommend checking out the Tome of Beasts book series by Kobold Press! I personally only learned about the Tome of
Beasts after I owned some other monster books, so I never picked one up, but I’ve heard
MANY folks say that these are the BEST bestiaries you can buy! The other monster books on my shelf are Volo’s
Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. Personally, I prefer the standard fantasy
theme of Volo’s Guide over the extraplanar, demons and devils theme of Mordenkainens,
but both books are great because they contain a bunch of monsters, plus fun character options,
and chapters and chapters of LORE about these iconic creatures! Unfortunately, D&D decided to stop printing
these two books, and instead combine the monsters and character options into one new book called
Monsters of the Multiverse, but in doing so, they cut out all of the awesome lore about
these iconic creatures. And for me, that makes this new book far less
valuable. So if you're all about the lore, I recommend checking out a
friendly local game store or a used book store to see if you can find
a used copy of one of those two books Speaking of LORE, this next category can easily
appeal to players and gamemasters alike, but especially GMs who just don’t enjoy building
their own worlds. These are the D&D setting books! Setting books typically contain some character
options like a couple new races or subclasses, a few new spells and magic items, a few new
monsters, a low level adventure to help you get a feel for adventuring in the setting,
and then TONS of LORE. SO let’s fly through the 10 current D&D
5e setting books, then give a couple third party recommendations… Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide: was the first D&D 5e setting
book to come out, and many people say the information is redundant with the information you get
in any of the first several D&D 5e campaign books, and I personally have avoided this
one based on that popular opinion. Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica: was the first
Magic the Gathering setting ported into D&D 5e, and many folks say the Magic setting books
are the best D&D setting books, but I’m not into Magic the Gathering, I never heard
of Ravnica before this book came out, so I didn’t buy it. Acquisitions Incorporated: is based on one
of the first popular live-play D&D shows, but ironically, I think this is one of the
least well-known D&D setting books, because I’ve never heard anyone say anything about
it, except for comments on previous videos like this one, where a couple people come
out of nowhere to say it’s pretty good! Eberron: Rising from the Last War: is a mix
of swashbuckling adventure and noir mystery packaged in a futuristic setting of magical
technology, but don’t call it sci-fi because in last year’s video I called it sci-fi
and some people assured me that it’s not sci-fi! Overall though, I’ve heard that Eberron
is the BEST D&D 5e setting book published to date. I just never bought it because I prefer generic
fantasy stuff 🙂 and that’s why I thought this was sci-fi. Explorer's Guide to Wildemount: is the region
where Critical Role’s second campaign series takes place, however, Critical Role now has
their own setting book for their entire campaign world: Taldorei Reborn, and according to a
lot of people, including my wife Grace World Destroyer, Taldorei Reborn is one of the BEST
setting books ever written! Mythic Odysseys of Theros: is another Magic
the Gathering setting this time heavily based on the themes, aesthetic, and stories of Greek
mythology. I own this one because my wife really loves
Greek mythology, and I’ve also enjoyed reading this one. But I’ve never heard any major complaints about
it, or really a lot of praise for it, so it might just be an average setting
book. But gosh darn it, this special edition cover
is like my favorite D&D book cover ever! Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft: was a big
hit because it filled a gap for horror and mystery in D&D 5e, but once again, it just didn’t seem like something I needed to own. Similar to… Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos: which is
yet another Magic the Gathering, this time with pretty mixed reviews. It’s all about roleplaying within a wizard
school, which seems like a lot of fun and many people agreed, but a lot of people also
said the contents really fell flat, and this is around the time when that started to become
a theme with official D&D products. Case and point: Spelljammer *wonky Star Trek theme Spelljammer is technically
a three book, box set that was poorly received for a number of reasons including but not
limited to: not consulting the original creators of the setting from second edition D&D, being
a sea-faring space travel rulebook that omitted rules for ship to ship combat, overall lower
page count than people hoped for, as well as including a wildly insensitive portrayal
of one of the character types that had to be redacted and rewritten. So Spelljammer was a prime example of how
the companies that control D&D, who are more concerned with quantity of production and
sales over the quality of that production, can sometimes make it really difficult for
D&D’s design team to actually design high quality game material! Versus the smaller publishing companies out
there producing amazing work! LIke... Lord of the Rings 5e by Free League Publishing! This is a stunning rendition of JRR Tolkien’s
work converted to 5e D&D, but if you’re really into Lord of the Rings, you don’t
want this 5e version. You want the One Ring 2e, which is not only
a setting, but an entire game system devoted to bringing Middle Earth to life at your game
table. There’s a main rule book for One Ring 2e,
and a starter set box, which I’d recommend starting with unless you’re really
familiar with d6 dice pool systems. Similarly, if you’re really into Lovecraftian
horror, you might want to check out Cthulhu-- Oh. This is the wrong one lol --Cthulhu Mythos for 5e Fantasy, or you can just go
all the way and buy the Call of Cthulhu starter set and/or rulebook to play an entire game
based on those themes. And a quick one: Historica Arcanum by Metis
Media is a wonderfully rich, historical-fiction fantasy take on the real-world city of Istanbul
during its height in the Victorian Era that includes a substantial 5e adventure to go
along with it! It’s a perfect example of a high quality
niche product--like obviously this isn’t interesting to everybody-- but it’s something
that official D&D could never have successfully produced in their current state. Okay, this next category is a weird one. I’ve boiled it down to being pretty much
just for gamemasters, and specifically for gamemasters who do not like world building,
do not like writing their own adventures, but still have a LOT of time on their hands
to read 300 page books and prepare notes for their game sessions. Or for people who just really like specific
adventure themes and want to read about them for fun! These are the big campaign books, where it
seems like most of the work is done for you, but you still have to study the book and If you can’t tell, I’ve learned the hard
way that large campaign books don’t fit my personal GMing style very well, so take
this part with a grain of salt. Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat:
are the first two campaign books published for D&D 5e, and they are widely considered
to be the worst two campaign books for D&D 5e Because of that terrible reception, I’ve
never bothered to read them myself. Princes of the Apocalypse: is also considered
to be pretty bad, but I personally enjoyed playing through most of this one with my friends. My wife however, who was our game master,
said it was definitely a challenge to run. So we donated that book! That said, all three of these are partially
overland adventures through various environments mixed with dungeon crawling, and that’s
what I like! So like I said earlier, your enjoyment will
probably hang on what themes you prefer in your RPG adventures! For example… Out of the Abyss: is a sprawling subterranean
adventure through one of D&D’s most infamous regions, the Underdark! I found this campaign to be a lot of fun as
a player… until about 1 year into the campaign where the overbearing theme, the Underdark,
became less and less exciting over time because it’s just all caves, all the time, caves,
forever. But we finished it, and decided we would never
play it again, so we donated that book! Curse of Strahd: is incredibly popular, highly
praised, who doesn’t love fighting vampires after all? In fact, the only complaints I’ve EVER heard
about this book is that the first section, “the Death House” is too deadly… What were they expecting? Storm King's Thunder: is another overland
campaign with sorta norse mythology GIANTS theme to it, and this is the campaign book
that apparently includes all the same lore as the Sword Coast setting book, as well as
some lore about giants of course. But I’m not particularly into giants, so
I never bought this one. Tomb of Annihilation: is the jungle-themed
hex crawl adventure that also has a massive deadly dungeon inspired by the original D&D
Tomb of Horrors! Plus the creator of Adventure Time was a design
and story consultant for this book, and it really shows, there’s a lot of little silly
things in the book that just makes it fun to read! Since I love forests, dungeons, and adventure
time, I love this book! Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: is an urban-themed
mystery adventure where the party is trying to find out who stole a bunch of gold, although
they themselves are not performing a heist-- just to make that clear! And the adventure is written such that it
has a different main villain depending on which season of the year you run the adventure,
which gives this campaign way more replayability than most D&D adventures. On a personal note, my wife played through
this book twice, and basically said that if it wasn’t for the groups she played with
being fun, this adventure would not have been that fun on its own. I think the only reason we still own this one is because we're both kinda interested in the sequel... Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage: where
the party explores a huge megadungeon beneath the city of Waterdeep, potentially all the
way to level 20, Also, I’ve never really heard anyone praising
or complaining about this book, probably because it’s just average, and almost certainly because nobody
actually plays high level D&D. Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus: is a
desert-hellscape, kinda Mad Max-themed adventure that seems pretty metal, and most of the adventure
takes place in hell, so my wife wanted this book because she likes all the Satanic parts
of D&D. But I have heard that the first few levels
taking place in the city of Baldur's Gate before you go to hell, are pretty bad, we’ll
find out one day. Next… Tyranny of Dragons: is a reprint of Hoard
of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat, but according to the internet, they didn’t make
either campaign more fun to play! Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden: is
an epic arctic-horror adventure and setting book and bestiary all in one! Honestly, this book probably should have been
a three book set, not Spelljammer. I really liked this theme, and while I found
the adventure itself to be a little disjointed, the book gives you a TON of material to use
and play with, so for my style, this worked quite well. But I don’t have it anymore because I donated
it to my old high school. The Wild Beyond the Witchlight: is apparently
the BEST selling D&D 5e campaign book, following a classic feywild theme of faeries and their
shenanigans, so probably a lot of fun, but I couldn’t get past the carnival-themed beginning, because it just doesn't fit with how I imagine D&D should be however, this
is a very popular book, and a unique feature is that every “combat” encounter is written
with alternatives to avoid fighting in one way or another, so it’s almost certainly
worth reading just to expand one’s perception of how D&D encounters can play out! Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep: is
another campaign that I’ve heard very little praise or complaints about. The one thing I know is that it involves a
rival adventuring party working against the players, but nothing about this really jumped
out to me that made me want to buy it. Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen: received
kinda mixed reviews because many people wanted this to be more of a setting book for Dragonlance,
which is a major D&D setting from older editions. But this book is a campaign. Finally, Phandelver and Below: The Shattered
Obelisk: is coming either late this year or early next year, and it promises to build
on the awesome adventure from the original D&D 5e starter set, as well as tie together
an underlying plot of mysterious black obelisks that have been scattered throughout the D&D
5e setting books and campaign books over the last decade, and I have a whole theory about
where they’re going with it, so idk if I’m going to buy the book, but I’m pretty excited
to see whether or not my predictions are correct! This last category of books is my favorite
because I like reading SHORT adventure modules! You can quickly skim through it, and decide
whether or not it seems cool, and if so, where it would fit into your setting,
and how you can make easy changes That’s the kind of session prep I personally
enjoy, so I think D&D’s adventure anthologies can provide a lot of value to gamemasters. The important thing is to pick the right anthology! Tales from the Yawning Portal and Ghosts of
Saltmarsh: each contain seven classic D&D adventure modules converted to fifth edition. The only reason I don’t own these is because
I already own too many modules that I haven’t run yet. Candlekeep Mysteries is a collection of 17
generic high fantasy adventures from level 1 all the way to level 16. We’ve played a few of them, and they were
fun! Meanwhile Journeys through the Radiant Citadel
contains 13 high fantasy adventures from level 1 to 14, specifically influenced by real world
cultures and folklore outside of the typical european folklore that most of D&D is based
on. I liked reading them, but I haven’t run
any of them yet! And Keys From the Golden Vault contains 13
high fantasy adventures from level 1 to 11, but unlike the Dragon HEIST campaign book,
my wife said that these adventures actually seem like more legitimate heists! Now here’s the real secret, everybody writes
and publishes adventures compatible with D&D 5e! A couple of my favorite 5e adventures have
been modules from Goodman Games’ fifth edition fantasy series, and I myself have published
a bunch of short 5e one shot adventures with original monsters, items, and other dragon
and drop resources to truly make them MODULAR adventures! Because remember: it’s that freedom to just
pick apart an adventure or create something totally new for your group, that makes these
games special! If you agree, please give this video a thumbs
up and consider checking out my 5e adventures on the shop tab of my Patreon linked on your
screen as an awesome way to support the channel, and as always THANK YOU to the Bob World Builder
Patrons who make this all possible, thanks to our amazing sponsor Displate, thank you
for your support with comments and likes and sharing this video, and keep building!
