The New D&D Adventure Storyline Will Be Announced On June 2nd-3rd

WotC is holding an event, which they're calling the Stream of Annihilation, on June 2nd and 3rd to announce the new D&D storyline. Various D&D Twitch steamers have been invited to participate in the upcoming campaign, which will be live streamed along with interviews, and so on. "We’ll have folks from Misscliks, Maze Arcana, Critical Role, and Dice, Camera, Action! with Chris Perkins, not to mention international gaming groups like Yogscast's HighRollers (U.K.) and Dragon Friends (Australia)." You'll be able to watch it all live on Twitch at the time. Is this where we'll discover the identity of the mysterious Dust and Midway? Speculate away!

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Here's the announcement in full. There's more info about the hosts and the guests here.

Dungeons & Dragons loves the amazing video streams produced by our fans. This community-generated live-play highlights what’s fantastic about D&D—sitting down together with your friends to tell a grand story!


To celebrate, we’ve invited a bunch of D&D streamers and luminaries to Seattle, Washington to hang out and roll some dice on June 2nd and 3rd! This two-day event is called the Stream of Annihilation and it’s two full days of streaming that D&D fans won’t want to miss. We’ll have folks from Misscliks, Maze Arcana, Critical Role, and Dice, Camera, Action! with Chris Perkins, not to mention international gaming groups like Yogscast's HighRollers (U.K.) and Dragon Friends (Australia).
[h=3]PROGRAMMING[/h]Kicking off at 10am on both June 2nd and 3rd, hosts Anna Prosser Robinson and Kelly Link will talk to the Wizards of the Coast D&D team and learn all about our next exciting storyline coming in September. Then each group of streamers will play or share a sample of what to expect from the campaigns they’ll be running over the summer that preview the new D&D story. There will be multiple live games, interviews, new product unveils and improvised hilarity each day, starting at 10am PT and ending at 10pm each night. You’ll get introduced to the High Rollers crew delving into uncharted territory DMed by Mark Hulmes, a new Misscliks show investigating rumors called Risen, two weekly groups from our friends Satine Phoenix and Ruty Rutenberg at Maze Arcana, a new group of L.A. actors called Girls Guts Glory, and more!


Throughout the Stream of Annihilation, we’ll drop details on our expanded D&D Twitch programming, new accessories fans have been clamoring for coming later this year, and amazing board games and products from our partners. You’ll hear from Cryptic Studios about plans for Neverwinter, Curse Media for D&D Beyond, as well as WizKids, Gale Force 9, Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, and more. Plus, like any Dungeon Master worth their salt, we have a few exciting surprises to pull from our bags of holding!
[h=3]FURTHER DETAILS[/h]You’ll have to watch the Stream of Annihilation to catch it all live! Follow twitch.tv/DnD to get all the updates, then mark your calendars for Friday, June 2nd and Saturday, June 3rd to make sure you don’t miss a thing!


A full schedule, group bios and some more of the celebrities attending the Stream of Annihilation will be announced over the next few weeks. We’ll also be talking about the event on our official Twitter account (@Wizards_DnD) as well as interviewing some of the groups this month on Dragon Talk, the official D&D podcast.

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[Oofta]

What would you do with a 6e anyway? Rewrite for clarity? Class adjustment? Ooh - Group Classes/Subclasses/Races/Feats/Multiclassing into tiers to make it easy for a DM to define the type of game they'd like to run. More DM options for different types of mini-games like chases?

The core game seems pretty damn good (adjusting for additional clarity in some rules that is obvious in hindsight, but maybe not in development). I don't know that I'd change it too much.

Sorry for the tangent. As I become more familiar with the 5e rules, the more I like it.

That said, I did play Dungeon World once, and the way the backpack was dealt with was pretty cool. If that became part of D&D, would be D&D enough?

I kid, I kid! There are some people (who have been noticeably absent of late and may have been banned) that continuously posted that the end of 5E was nigh.

I like 5E. I have a handful of house rules to take the edges off some of the rough edges, but some of those are probably personal preference more than anything.

I do think a book that had some additional options that I could plug into the game, which based on the recent UA articles they appear to be working on, would be a good thing.

But I think a wish list for such a book would really derail this topic, and I've already contributed to thread hijacking enough lately.

 

[bmfrosty]

I kid, I kid! There are some people (who have been noticeably absent of late and may have been banned) that continuously posted that the end of 5E was nigh.

I like 5E. I have a handful of house rules to take the edges off some of the rough edges, but some of those are probably personal preference more than anything.

I do think a book that had some additional options that I could plug into the game, which based on the recent UA articles they appear to be working on, would be a good thing.

But I think a wish list for such a book would really derail this topic, and I've already contributed to thread hijacking enough lately.

Yep. If we really wanted to do that, it would be best to do it in a new thread.

 

[Jester David]

Between the "clue" in Hero that matches the hook of the next Acquisitions Incorporated game and the Green Devil Face and the name "Stream of Annihilation", it does sure seem like Acererak is being set-up as the villain. That he's stealing souls and slowly stealing the life of anyone who was resurrected/ cheated death.
(The latter is a pretty darn cool storyline hook for D&D.)

My thoughts on Acererak are on record but this seems cool and within his rather small wheelhouse. He's one of the oldest NPCs in D&D with some teasing clues of backstory, but so very little is actually known. He is a blank slate.


The stream…
Two 12-hour streams is too damn long.
I hope it's just 3-4 hours of content each day repeated a few times…

Even the previous Meltdown Comics event felt like it went on too long, becoming pretty damn lite in actual content, just teasing stuff with constant hype repeated again and again. Unless they're planning on streaming like four or five four-hour games (potentially Force Grey, AI, and Dice, Camera, Action are options, but what are the rest?) I have no idea what they'll actually do to fill that much time.

Honestly, it feels like D&D/WotC is getting even greedy. This is just too much content. People only have so much time, who wants to spend an entire week watching this stream in evening killing four-hour chunks?
After missing 3/4 of the first day's stream, who's going to tune in for the final bit? Isn't it just easier to find a summary of events/ contents?
I tried to keep up with the story over last summer, with just the two shows and convention games, and that was tricky. (And most of that was tangential to the "real" story.)
While there's not the financial cost of too much products, there is a time cost for stuff like this. Gamers tend to be obsessive and like to get it all/ watch it all. When they have to choose what to engage in, they might just opt out rather miss a piece. To say nothing of the cost of missing a Friday of work.

 

[DM Howard]

I just saw this thread, and I'm seriously debating on taking that Friday off to watch this. My wife and I don't have the money right now to go on a real vacation or for me to go to a convention so I might as well use a day on this.

 

[Prakriti]

Honestly, it feels like D&D/WotC is getting even greedy. This is just too much content. People only have so much time, who wants to spend an entire week watching this stream in evening killing four-hour chunks?

The deal with marathon streams is that you're not supposed to watch every second. You just tune in whenever it's convenient for you and enjoy whatever is being streamed at the time. In some cases, the VODs provide months' worth of entertainment after the fact, if you watch an hour here and there.

I tried to keep up with the story over last summer, with just the two shows and convention games, and that was tricky. (And most of that was tangential to the "real" story.)

Yep. I thought I would watch all of Force Grey, but I ended up stopping after 1 or 2 episodes. It seems like Wizards is trying to find the next Critical Role, and their strategy is to throw new shows at us until something sticks. We've had Force Gray; Acquisitions, Inc.; Acquisitions, Inc. the C Team; Dice, Camera, Action; and probably many more to come.

 

[darjr]

Turn it on in the background and play D&D.

 

[murquhart72]

The green-devil image and the reference to spheres of annihilation is more evidence to suggest that we'll be getting a Tomb of Horrors sequel, as I've been predicting for a while now.

Here's what we know:
etc. etc..

But of course we all know that WotC doesn't have a "default setting" so there's NO WAY Acererak would EVER be caught undead in the Forgotten Realms. Why, that would be proof beyond any reasonable doubt that the Forgotten Realms IS; as a cold, hard, provable fact, THE default D&D setting, once and for all and that Greyhawk, Mystara, etc. are all just quaint shadows chased by old losers that will never see the light of day. Only the glimmer of sidebar mentions, like light through the heartless grill of a barred dungeon window...

 

[Jester David]

But of course we all know that WotC doesn't have a "default setting" so there's NO WAY Acererak would EVER be caught undead in the Forgotten Realms. Why, that would be proof beyond any reasonable doubt that the Forgotten Realms IS; as a cold, hard, provable fact, THE default D&D setting, once and for all and that Greyhawk, Mystara, etc. are all just quaint shadows chased by old losers that will never see the light of day. Only the glimmer of sidebar mentions, like light through the heartless grill of a barred dungeon window...

Most people play in homebrew worlds. The Realms are use because it's easier to say"Chult" than leave a blank. And it's easier to use Acererak than make up a whole new iconic villain from scratch. The Realms is a place filler.

Why wouldn't Acererak be caught dead in the Realms? He was only very loosely connected to Greyhawk. Not that Greyhawk was even really a think at the time, as Tomb of Horrors predated that setting being published by two full years.
As an epic level demilich, Acererak is very capable of traveling across planes.

 

[Kramodlog]

Wow. More déjà vue. Now it is Acererak's turn.

The D&D paradox is fascinating. WotC as new(ish) rules, but can't* produce new adventures. Paizo has older rules, but innovates and experiments with its adventures.

*Yes, "can't". I'll be generous and won't call them lazy and say that Tales of the Yawning Portal was a bunch of old maps and text because they are under staff. Not because they are lazy and take their customer base for granted. I'm nice like that.

 

[Manalishi66]

Old Losers! F**k You. That includes Perkins? He's my age. Grow up. Yes FR is the default, but to tell it's creator Gygax (Greyhawk) and others that they are irrelevant, you forget the roots and ages of these pioneers. Without them, you would be playing Monopoly and Risk only!