When I was young, I started reading Dragon Magazine when Skip Williams was the Sage, and would often buy the magazine just to read his column, especially any answers related to the controversial Stoneskin spell…
One year ago, the 5th Edition was launched and I was very curious to see how it would develop. During the designing and Playtest stage, Master Mike Mearls and Master Rodney Thompson helped players via Twitter gain a deeper understanding of the rules.
Twitter was not really the best tool, as all Dungeons&Dragons-related answers about the 5th Edition were mixed up with their personal tweets. Therefore, looking up the answers required a lot of research.
When Dragon Magazine went dark for over a year without any hopes of a revamp, I decided to collect tweets from Master Mike and Rodney, and later posted them on wordpress.com so as to help players better understand this NEXT edition. What was it called? As a tribute to the legendary 30-years old column, its name was Sage Advice.
Most tweets from our designers have always been friendly and broad-minded, far from being dogmatic assertions. Master Mike would tell players to listen to their DMs, and his most common response was “DM’s call” as this edition was meant to avoid mandatory rules, encouraging free-thinking and improvisation instead. Master Rodney has shown his deep passion for rules design with multiple tweets aimed at examining in depth the core ideas behind the rules.
A few months later, Master Jeremy quietly came on board and instantly became the Official D&D Sage with his monthly rules column. I have always admired Jeremy’s patience, and I can figure him smiling even when faced with the toughest questions.
Finally, the anti-technological Dungeon Master landed on Twitter, our beloved Christopher Perkins. One of his first tweets was, “I’m just here for comic relief,” yet his answers on How to Dungeon Mastering literally stand as 140 characters of green flame blast.
30 years ago Dragon Magazine launched for the first time a column titled Sage Advice, edited by the delightful Jean Wells. “She tried to bring some humour to the column, believing that some of her young readers were taking D&D too seriously.”
Now, this is going to be the editorial approach of Zoltar Sage Advice. Not only a place where you can find Q&A about rules, but an extensive library including Tips for Dungeons&Dragons, how to play or Dungeon Mastering, rules options, jokes, inspiration for storytelling, ideas for writing, and various news.
I usually spend two hours every day collecting tweets, scheduling Facebook posts, draw images and helping players out when I am asked about D&D rules, but please keep in mind that I am not a native English speaker, so it might take me some time to elaborate an exhaustive answer.
Well, I hope I will be able to help you dream on around the game table, and sincerely wish for you to keep on playing the best game ever made until the end of time.
If you like Sage Advice, buy me a Dwarf Ale and I will cheer to your next d20 roll!
