Shadowfell Box set coming in 2011! (an other GenCon announcements)

[Jack99]

Rules Compendium isn't an alternative to the core books. Core books will be reprinted "when the time is right."

(meaning when demand is right, I assume)

 

[M.L. Martin]

Player's Handbook: Champions of the Heroic Tier. Introduces themes for core D&D. New options, feats. Non-combat options like Blacksmith

Sounds good. I've been of two minds about 4E, and one of my complaints is that the mechanics are tilted too heavily towards the combat side--I'd like a little more robustness on the noncombat side, a la Star Wars Saga Edition. This may address that issue. I'd still like less grid-oriented combat, but that's a lost battle at this point--and with the tokens (and the Castle Ravenloft board game) I should at least be able to get by without dropping thousands on miniatures, should I decide to take the plunge.

Hero Builder's Handbook. Aimed at players who want to tinker and build something detailed with your character. Not in development yet

Sounds like Player's Options: Skills & Powers--but this time, with the better underpinnings and more rigorous development, it could be done right. (I always thought the problem with S&P was poor execution combined with bringing to light some hidden problems in the system--proto-CoDzilla, for example--rather than the core concept.)

4th Quarter: Ravenloft Roleplaying Game. Play vampires, werewolves, as well as other standard classes.

Huzzah! Just when WotC ends one of my true loves this past year, they bring back the other!

And it sounds like it's a stand-alone game. I was wondering about this as a possibility when Gamma World was announced, and I'm glad to see it happening. Part of that is because, while I think 4E's rules can work with Ravenloft, the 'core D&D experience' that early 4E was shooting for would clash with a lot of Ravenloft's assumptions. What I've heard about later products (DMG2's alternate rewards system, Dark Sun) suggests they're willing to move away from that, but making Ravenloft a stand-alone but compatible with D&D means that the core game can be more solidly Ravenloftian, but you can dip into it or mesh it with standard D&D as well.

There is supposedly a new "RPG component" in the Ravenloft setting, to be revealed at a later date.

Intriguing. They've got a madness system in the Shadowfell boxed set; with the new inclusion of monster PCs as standard, perhaps we'll see a new take on the Dark Powers checks and corruption rules of previous editions?

Ravenloft where you actually play the vampires and werewolves as well as normal races? Am I reading that right? A bit of WoD in DnD?

The timing's right, since WW is largely abandoning print product and going to PDFs. This may make sense for their core audience, but it may also leave a hole that this new product can fill, in addition to the old fans and the core D&D audience.

 

[Jack99]

There will be more race based books- maybe. The Dragonborn and Tiefling books were a format that were difficult for stores, looking at new ways to present race books.

Atari has an announcement coming about some kind of D&D video game but they can't talk about it here.

Okay, that got a bit too big ><

Atari will make announcement on future #DnD digital games and products - is another version of the news, so...

 

[JoeGKushner]

I hope these boxed sets actually turn out to be, you know, boxed sets this time. The giants super adventure was supposed to be a boxed set and that was canned.

And I hope they are affordable boxed sets. Hard line to walk I imagine but...

 

[Jack99]

Fortune cards - not meant to be collected but they are randomized. Meant to be opened up at the table while playing. No deck-building.

Sounds to me like those random things that happen at encounters, via twitter. Probably (actually by far) the least interesting thing about what is coming the next year.

 

[Nyronus]

...

I am stunned, and baffled, and my head may a splode. Non-combat mechanics? Random tables? Reworking magic items? I-I-*POP*

Seriously? Why? I liked the material as written. I really did. I bought into the 4th Edition design asestetic, and now they're flipping it on its head.

Oi vay.

 

[Jack99]

There will be something for the Feywild, but no announcements yet.

 

[deganawida]

There will be more race based books- maybe. The Dragonborn and Tiefling books were a format that were difficult for stores, looking at new ways to present race books.

Atari has an announcement coming about some kind of D&D video game but they can't talk about it here.

Okay, that got a bit too big ><

Atari will make announcement on future #DnD digital games and products - is another version of the news, so...

Given the Neverwinter book, most likely a Neverwinter Nights MMO. Doubtful it would be BG3. Would be better IMO if it were set in the PoL world, but that's a pipe dream.

 

[Jack99]

Ravenloft wil be a campaign setting you can hook into your game AND is its own game (like gamma world for example)

Apparently, one of mearls's new job duties is reducing the amount of errata on new rules.

Also, it was mentioned that Bill S. told Mearls (live at the panel) to get to work on a Skill Challenge book.

 

[Jack99]

Also, another of Mearl's goals is to make the new D&D books more appealing to read with more story instead of just rules in Compendium.