Wizards Presents: Races and Classes

• 1. Introduction

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  Wizards Presents: Races and Classes arrived in December 2007 with an unusual proposition: here was a book about a game that did not yet exist. Before a single rulebook for the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons had reached store shelves, Wizards of the Coast handed players a glimpse inside the design process itself. What goes into rebuilding a roleplaying game from the ground up? Who decides which races and classes survive, which ideas get cut, and why? This documentary unpacks how that slim preview volume became, in the words of at least one reviewer, possibly the most important book of 2007.

• 2. Behind the Curtain

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  Richard Baker, Rob Heinsoo, Mike Mearls, and more than a dozen other designers contributed their voices to the book. Michele Carter compiled and edited the material, drawing together writing from Bruce R. Cordell, Logan Bonner, Gwendolyn Kestrel, David Noonan, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Stephen Schubert, Chris Sims, Matthew Sernett, Rodney Thompson, and James Wyatt, alongside Bill Slavicsek, Andy Collins, Christopher Perkins, and Daniel Reeve. What made the book unusual was not just who wrote it but what they wrote: the text detailed not finished rules but the concepts and decisions that shaped them. A timeline of the 4th edition design process ran through its pages. Excerpts from actual internal emails were reproduced. Anecdotes from the design team gave readers the sense of watching a creative process in motion rather than reading its polished outcome.

• 3. Art and Visual Identity

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  William O'Connor painted the cover and also served as one of the book's interior illustrators, a dual role that linked the visual framing of the product to its interior imagination. Eric Deschamps, Wayne England, David Griffith, Ralph Horsley, Todd Lockwood, Howard Lyon, Lee Moyer, Steve Prescott, Arnie Swekel, and Stacy Longstreet each contributed illustrations alongside O'Connor and Daniel Reeve. For many readers, this was a first extended look at the visual language that Wizards of the Coast intended to carry into the new edition. The artwork was not incidental. It was part of the argument the book was making about where Dungeons and Dragons was heading.

• 4. Sources of Inspiration

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  When the online edition of Pyramid reviewed the book on the 22nd of February 2008, the reviewer singled out several apparent influences on the new edition's design. The Saga Edition of the Star Wars Roleplaying Game was named as one touchstone. The reviewer also pointed to earlier Wizards of the Coast supplements: Complete Arcane, the Miniatures Handbook, and Tome of Battle. These were not obscure titles but recognizable milestones in the company's recent catalog, which suggested the 4th edition was building in recognizable directions rather than breaking entirely with its own recent past.

• 5. A Publishing Strategy

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  Shannon Appelcline observed that the release of Wizards Presents: Races and Classes, paired with its companion volume Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters, both published in 2007, served a specific function in the transition between editions. Wizards of the Coast was reluctant to publish new third-edition game material during what Appelcline called their "final year of third-edition publication." The preview books filled that gap, building anticipation without advancing the old ruleset. Appelcline also noted that by appearing in the 21st century, the 4th edition had an unusual abundance of documentation: interviews, blogs, journals, tweets, and forum posts supplemented the books. Appelcline credited the pair of Wizards Presents volumes as a significant reason why more is known about 4th edition than about almost any other roleplaying game.