Critical Role The New D&D Book Is 'The Explorer's Guide to [Critical Role's] Wildemount!' By Matt Mercer

It looks like Amazon has leaked the title and description of the new D&D book a day early (unless it's all a fake-out by WotC) -- and it's a new D&D setting book called The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount; it's the Critical Role campaign setting, penned by Matt Mercer!

image from Critical Role wiki​

There's no cover image yet, so we're stuck with the "Coming Soon" image.

This book appeared without a title on Amazon last week, and a 'reveal' date of January 9th, which was then later delayed until January 13th. Amazon appears to have jumped the gun a day early.

Here's some information about Wildemount, which is a continent in the same world as Critical Role's other setting, Tal'Dorei. It is described by the official wiki has having "real-world Eastern European influence.... The Dwendalian Empire takes inspiration from 15th century Russia as well as Germanic nations in Central Europe (e.g., Prussia). Xhorhas has a more 13th-century Romanian flair. Outside of Wynandir, on the edges of the Dwendalian Empire, the cultures and peoples of those regions display a distinctly 14th-century Spanish flavor."

HOW DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS?

A war brews on a continent that has withstood more than its fair share of conflict. The Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty are carving up the lands around them, and only the greatest heroes would dare stand between them. Somewhere in the far corners of this war-torn landscape are secrets that could end this conflict and usher in a new age of peace—or burn the world to a cinder.

Create a band of heroes and embark on a journey across the continent of Wildemount, the setting for Campaign 2 of the hit Dungeons & Dragons series Critical Role. Within this book, you’ll find new character options, a heroic chronicle to help you craft your character’s backstory, four different starting adventures, and everything a Dungeon Master needs to breathe life into a Wildemount-based D&D campaign…

• Delve through the first Dungeons & Dragons book to let players experience the game as played within the world of Critical Role, the world’s most popular livestreaming D&D show.
• Uncover a trove of options usable in any D&D game, featuring subclasses, spells, magic items, monsters, and more, rooted in the adventures of Exandria—such as Vestiges of Divergence and the possibility manipulating magic of Dunamancy.
• Start a Dungeons & Dragons campaign in any of Wildemount’s regions using a variety of introductory adventures, dozens of regional plot seeds, and the heroic chronicle system—a way to create character backstories rooted in Wildemount.

Explore every corner of Wildemount and discover mysteries revealed for the first time by Critical Role Dungeon Master, Matthew Mercer.

Critical Role's other setting, Tal'Dorei, was published a couple of years ago by Green Ronin. This brings the list of settings in official D&D books to five: Forgotten Realms, Ravnica, Ravenloft, Eberron, and Wildemount.

UPDATE! Barnes & Noble has the cover (but not the title or description).

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

Could have just sold out. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if Green Ronin did another print run though, which means it could reappear in the store soon.

The Tal'Dorei campaign setting was published via a deal between Geek and Sundry and Green Ronin. However, Critical Role is now a company in its own right. I would not be surprised if Matt reclaimed his IP and plans to do something new with Tal'Dorei. I don't know anything about how IP law works in the US but this feels like unseen business moves behind the scenes.

If Matt could do this then it would make sense for him to do so and regain control over his intellectual property.

 

[Reynard]

The Tal'Dorei campaign setting was published via a deal between Geek and Sundry and Green Ronin. However, Critical Role is now a company in its own right. I would not be surprised if Matt reclaimed his IP and plans to do something new with Tal'Dorei. I don't know anything about how IP law works in the US but this feels like unseen business moves behind the scenes.

If Matt could do this then it would make sense for him to do so and regain control over his intellectual property.

It seems like they would want to do something with that setting in conjunction with the animated show, no?

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

It seems like they would want to do something with that setting in conjunction with the animated show, no?

Quite likely. I believe that the whole Exandria IP is shortly going to become commercially more valuable; it would make sense for Critical Role as a business entity to have full control of the setting. I predict a second edition of the Tal'Dorei setting at some point.

 

[jmucchiello]

I checked the website just yesterday. The book is still there under fifth edition.

Edit: That's weird, I just checked again and the book is gone from the website. Maybe it is out of print but there are still new copies to be had from Amazon. I'm wondering if Matt Mercer has pulled the Tal Dorei campaign setting from Green Ronin with a view to doing something new with it. Maybe it will get a WotC revision?

The real value in rereleasing Tal Dorei would be because it will tie-in directly with the cartoon. I can imagine it being released in a "deluxe" edition with some/all the artwork taken from the cartoon.

 

[Haffrung]

5E may be light for a WOTC version of D&D but it is hardly rules-light in the grand scheme of things. And frankly because every class ability works under it's own rules, it's actually pretty rules heavy. Then there are several more subsystems as well- Skills, Spells all work differently, Challenge Rating systems, etc etc. Luckily most players only have to know their own bits- but how many times to players have to reference spells or class abilities at the table? Not all, but plenty of people do.

I think most people who are experienced D&D players lose sight of just how complicated D&D- even 5E- is for complete newcomers to the game to pick up.

Probably the thing most surprising to me about the D&D boom we're experiencing is that a game this complicated has found a mass audience. I'm also a long-time hobby boardgamer, and as that hobby boomed in the last decade, the great proportion of the growth has been in the lighter, casual segment. The kind of complex, longer games put out by Avalon Hill back in the day have almost vanished, and most popular hobby boardgames today can be learned in 15 minutes and take under 2 hours to play.

So in the wider ecology of tabletop gaming, D&D 5E is a very complex game. You cannot verbally explain the game in 15 minutes, or even an hour. Players need to learn and memorise many pages of rules, including reams of specific and conditional rules. The rules themselves are not presented in a clear and easily-referenced way. The assumption seems to be that if you want to play D&D, you need to spend hours reading rules, put to memory 20-40 pages of detailed mechanics,, and learn how to apply them in a highly situational, fluid game environment.

Of course many players - especially the newer cohort who aren't hardcore gamers - don't actually do all that. From my experience the last couple years with tables of mostly new players, they typically learn only a small fraction of the rules, and need to be walked through many of their actions and choices by the DM or another player. And for many, this never changes. They never do take the books home and read them. They're clearly only interested in engaging with the mechanics in a very basic form - roll to hit and roll damage - and consider the rest of it a perplexing distraction from the imaginary story unfolding at the table.

I'd go so far as to say if WotC studied the people playing D&D in 2020, what elements they engage with and their tolerance for complexity, and then went away and designed an RPG from the ground up specifically to cater to those preferences, they would come back with a system that didn't look much like D&D 5E (or any previous edition). It would be much simpler, with a dramatically greater emphasis on narrative and character background and less on combat and number-crunching. Because IMHO, a great many people who have started playing D&D in recent years enjoy it despite the system mechanics, not because of them.

 

[JeffB]

So in the wider ecology of tabletop gaming, D&D 5E is a very complex game. You cannot verbally explain the game in 15 minutes, or even an hour. Players need to learn and memorise many pages of rules, including reams of specific and conditional rules. The rules themselves are not presented in a clear and easily-referenced way. The assumption seems to be that if you want to play D&D, you need to spend hours reading rules, put to memory 20-40 pages of detailed mechanics,, and learn how to apply them in a highly situational, fluid game environment.

…... new players, they typically learn only a small fraction of the rules, and need to be walked through many of their actions and choices by the DM or another player. And for many, this never changes. They never do take the books home and read them. They're clearly only interested in engaging with the mechanics in a very basic form - roll to hit and roll damage - and consider the rest of it a perplexing distraction from the imaginary story unfolding at the table.

…... if WotC studied the people playing D&D in 2020, what elements they engage with and their tolerance for complexity, and then went away and designed an RPG from the ground up specifically to cater to those preferences, they would come back with a system that didn't look much like D&D 5E (or any previous edition). It would be much simpler, with a dramatically greater emphasis on narrative and character background and less on combat and number-crunching.

Bingo.

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

Probably the thing most surprising to me about the D&D boom we're experiencing is that a game this complicated has found a mass audience. I'm also a long-time hobby boardgamer, and as that hobby boomed in the last decade, the great proportion of the growth has been in the lighter, casual segment. The kind of complex, longer games put out by Avalon Hill back in the day have almost vanished, and most popular hobby boardgames today can be learned in 15 minutes and take under 2 hours to play.

So in the wider ecology of tabletop gaming, D&D 5E is a very complex game. You cannot verbally explain the game in 15 minutes, or even an hour. Players need to learn and memorise many pages of rules, including reams of specific and conditional rules. The rules themselves are not presented in a clear and easily-referenced way. The assumption seems to be that if you want to play D&D, you need to spend hours reading rules, put to memory 20-40 pages of detailed mechanics,, and learn how to apply them in a highly situational, fluid game environment.

Of course many players - especially the newer cohort who aren't hardcore gamers - don't actually do all that. From my experience the last couple years with tables of mostly new players, they typically learn only a small fraction of the rules, and need to be walked through many of their actions and choices by the DM or another player. And for many, this never changes. They never do take the books home and read them. They're clearly only interested in engaging with the mechanics in a very basic form - roll to hit and roll damage - and consider the rest of it a perplexing distraction from the imaginary story unfolding at the table.

I'd go so far as to say if WotC studied the people playing D&D in 2020, what elements they engage with and their tolerance for complexity, and then went away and designed an RPG from the ground up specifically to cater to those preferences, they would come back with a system that didn't look much like D&D 5E (or any previous edition). It would be much simpler, with a dramatically greater emphasis on narrative and character background and less on combat and number-crunching. Because IMHO, a great many people who have started playing D&D in recent years enjoy it despite the system mechanics, not because of them.

With all due respect, a lot of this post is nonsense. Over the past 4.5 years I have had many people completely new to rpgs, let alone D&D, join my 5e games. Yes, I helped them create a new character but this never took longer than 20-30 minutes. All they needed to know was roll the D20, add that ability modifier and, if you are skilled, that +2 (or +3). They only needed to know what their class and race abilities were. Within 1 to 2 sessions these players got the gist of the game and learned the conditional stuff as it came up in play.

5e, being the DM orientated edition like 1e and 2e before it, makes the game easy to play and learn. On the spectrum of rules light - rules heavy I would rate 5e as rules medium bordering on the lighter side of the spectrum.

So, yeah, 5e being complex? Nonsense and humbug I say! 3.5 was complex. Rolemaster was complex. Shadowrun 4e was complex. 5e is not complex.

 

[gyor]

If they published through Green Ronin, then they didn't self-publish. Green Ronin, WotC, Games Workshop, they're all established publishers.

You fail to understand that for every independent writer on WotC's schedule, there's a slew of WotC or other contract employees involved - laying out galleys, copyediting, selecting artwork. So yes, it does take away resources.

It took some resources, but not enough to interfere with any other WotC project.

 

[SkidAce]

I can tell you exactly why I'm not pleased that they are devoting publishing schedule and resources to Wildemount. Its because it is no longer about the game. Its about voice actors who happen to play D&D being paid to voice act who are getting a product published that does nothing to further the game and everything to further their gravy train. Want your homebrew setting published? Great - have at it, but if the idea of publishing a campaign setting is so wildly-popular amongst their fans they should have self-published rather than take up schedule that could be used for a 5e version of any of the campaign settings that players have been begging WotC to produce - Planescape, Greyhawk, etc., or a crunch book, or anything else, while at the same time saturating D&D with yet another setting.

I guess you missed the part where it was said it didn't take up a schedule slot.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

So in the wider ecology of tabletop gaming, D&D 5E is a very complex game. You cannot verbally explain the game in 15 minutes, or even an hour. Players need to learn and memorise many pages of rules, including reams of specific and conditional rules. The rules themselves are not presented in a clear and easily-referenced way. The assumption seems to be that if you want to play D&D, you need to spend hours reading rules, put to memory 20-40 pages of detailed mechanics,, and learn how to apply them in a highly situational, fluid game environment.

I can explain D&D 5e in 1 minute. Like this;

"Tell the DM what you want to do. Then roll a 1d20. If it's high, you succeeded. If it's low, you didn't."