Critical Role Here's The Cover Of The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount; Plus It's #15 In Amazon Bestsellers!

While Amazon may have revealed the title and description of The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount earlier, it had no cover art. Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, has the cover but at the time of writing no title or description. Here it is!

The official announcement should be coming later today. In the meantime, the book - which has not yet been announced! - is already #15 in the bestsellers chart for all books on Amazon, based only on pre-orders. That's pretty astonishing for a book which 'officially' doesn't even exist yet (although the announcement is expected later today).

 

[Morrus]

I suppose in a sense, yes. I'll defer to your expertise and opinion on publishing - I have none.

It wasn't expertise; it was an funney!

 

[AriochQ]

Grats to Mercer and Critical Role. They have brought a ton of new blood into the hobby and I am glad they are getting even more recognition and making some money off their efforts.

That being said, it will be another pass for me. I didn't buy Ravnica or AI either. I am happy with the settings I have.

 

[dm4hire]

I'm interested in seeing how this turns out. I'm not a follower of CR, though have watched it. I follow Roll for Combat and Know Direction for PF2 so can understand the appeal of catering to CRs market. For me it's a disappointing surprise in only there has been no indication of it coming based on the surveys I saw, but could easily see it having been written in.

I picked up the Tal 'Dorei book by GR, but other than reading it the book has just sat on my shelf. Given WotCs new format of making sure books have material for both players and DMs there will hopefully be enough player material, which can be exported to other settings to make it a worthwhile product.

As for popularity, Tal 'Dorei was talked about a lot when it was first released, but haven't heard much about it since. The only downside to tying the hitch to CR is that the products popularity will only stay that way as long as they keep it popular. CR does spin offs of different games as a break or for holiday flavor (Undeadwood was done for Halloween using Deadlands Reloaded) so there are episodes that draw attention away from D&D as well.

 

[jhilahd]

The cover looks rather underwhelming.

Yeah, but my guess it's not the final piece. Just like the Eberron cover that was lamented as being simple when the concept piece was released, this probably just a placeholder.

 

[Koren n'Rhys]

I get why WotC is publishing this - no doubt they did their research, and they're smart to go after the huge influx of new players that CR has brought to the hobby. Personally though, it's disappointing and like AI or Rick and Morty, it's something I have no interest in. I'd prefer to see WotC focus on their own IP like the MtG settings, or refreshing classic stuff (Planescape, Dark Sun, etc). At the very least, that would open those up on DMsGuild so that the community could publish for them. That's free money for WotC. Let things like this go to a 3rd party publisher like Tal Dorei did.

 

[mjsoctober]

My first reaction was, yeah I like CR but why would I want another generic D&D world when I have Greyhawk and FR? But reading the comments about old players vs new players I realized that having a new generic D&D world is exactly the point. Newer, younger players don't want to have to deal with the 30+ years of fluff baggage that comes along with GH and FR. There is no need for them to read scores of books and back-story and history, they can buy this book, and start from scratch in their own generic D&D Fantasy world, one they already know A LOT about from watching the stream.

So, yeah, it's not what I wanted, but I'm glad they did it. Maybe I will buy it, if just to mine it for ideas for my FR campaign? Maybe not. But I'm not mad about it.

 

[MarkB]

One thing occurs to me about the cover art. WotC may be deliberately going for a more comic-book style with this book, in an attempt to tie it into the forthcoming Vox Machina cartoon series.

 

[Koren n'Rhys]

@mjsoctober That's a good point I hadn't really considered. I'm not mad either, but still disappointed from a more selfish POV.

 

[DemoMonkey]

But where are all the people who said they would be happy with ANYTHING that wasn't more FR?

 

[Mournblade94]

But where are all the people who said they would be happy with ANYTHING that wasn't more FR?

They probably rightfully so meant any of the many classic campaign settings that people want converted.

I just play the system that fits the setting best. I was really into 5e but left it because 3rd edition does the Forgotten Realms better. I still play 2e for Darksun. Theres little reason anymore for me to stick with 5e.