This review has been sponsored by the publisher. Find more DMs Guild Reviews on my website and YouTube channel.

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Designed by: Lucas Anderson, Joanne Loader, Brian Barfield

Sports are a ubiquitous part of human history. I enjoy seeing the culture, rules, and drama that surround sports when applied to more fantastical settings. Coach Kurzzlak’s Guide to Sports adds ten organized sports to the world of D&D, almost all of which have real-world analogues to our modern world.

I’m disappointed that most of the sports are slightly tweaked version of sports we’re already familiar with. Thwacker is basically homerun derby baseball. Celestial Rings is basketball with three rings instead of a single hoop. Dragon Brawl is a simplified version of American Football, and Mixed Martial Combat is a series of contested grappling checks.

Only a select few attempt to make the sport more interesting. Power Pong is tennis but with an exploding ball, which is kind of hilarious. Free Fishing combines swimming with trying to grab a single fish in a pool, which sounds impossible (are swimming races banned??).

Magic Flag is the most interesting. It doesn’t have a real-world comparison, but it does have a common video game reference: capture the flag! Each team is given a set of wands with select spells. The teams start on opposite ends of a field and try to grab a single suit of armor with a flag attached, which powers up the user, as they rush back to their base. Now we’re talking!

I wish the sports were less baseball and football and more magic armor-capture the flag. Or at the very least, more attempt had been made to make baseball and football more exotic and fantastical.

Each sport is given a brief blurb of history, a simple rules overview and mechanics breakdown, and a few suggestions for variants and competitor statblocks.

The lack of tables is jarring — this is a D&D rules book, isn’t it? I want to see tables for complications, weather, rivals, teams, crowds, etc. Tables (as well as subheadings and sidebars) would also help break up the monotony of the dreaded double columns of text. It’s not an attractive or easy read.

And what about Coach Kruzzlak? I picture the classic overweight, overbearing football coach trope, but he doesn’t make any appearance beyond the first page.

Coach Kruzzla’s Guide to Sports is unfortunately filled with missed opportunities. The extra sports-related player backgrounds are a nice touch, but the low-quality presentation, ho-hum sports choices, and super simplified rules make it a tough supplement to recommend.

Pros:

  • Ten sports with history, rules, and suggested variants and NPCs.
  • Four new sports-related player backgrounds.

Cons:

  • Almost every sport is a simple real-world analog (Dragon Brawl = football, etc).
  • Lacks tables for complications, variants, contestants, etc.
  • Low-effort presentation; mostly columns of texts.

The Verdict: Adding simple rules for major sports in D&D is well-intentioned, but Coach Kruzzlak’s real-world sports analogs represents a missed opportunity for more interesting and fantastical competitions.

A review copy of “Coach Kruzzlak’s Guide to Sports” was provided by the publisher. Find more DMs Guild Reviews on my website and YouTube channel.

Support my work by using my affiliate links and pledging via Patreon.