Critical Role Wildemount: Most Pre-orders Since D&D Core Rulebooks

It seems that the most popular D&D setting in the 5E era is... Wildemount! Talking about the upcoming Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, WotC's Greg Tito said on a Twitch stream recently that "we're pretty sure that this book has seen the most pre-orders and pre-release excitement since any of the core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition were released".

Here's the quote in full:

"...It was number 1, ranked number 1, for all books on Amazon. How many of you out there remember when Amazon was just selling books? Raise your hands. Yeah, that's me. So it's really cool, even though obviously I do a lot more other fun stuff right now, there is a ton out there that are excited for this book, and it isn't even out yet.

"We have little bit of an internal metrics, but we're pretty sure that this book has seen the most pre-orders and pre-release excitement since any of the core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition were released, and if you've been following along at home, Dungeons & Dragons has been selling like hotcakes since 5th Edition released in 2014."

It sounds like the Critical Role setting is proving more popular (at least right now) than traditional D&D settings like Ravenloft or Eberron, newer ones like Ravnica, or adventures set in the Forgotten Realms.

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount will hit game stores on March 17th.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

It's another continent on the same world, basically.

Cheers

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Each book is a separate continent, the main setting for one of the "seasons" of Critical Role.

The Green Ronin book details Tal'Dorei, the main setting of the first "season" of Critical Role. Aside from a few trips to Vasselheim (City on a northern Continent), all of the adventures of Vox Machina (so far; I am not through season 1 yet), are on this continent, which is also the name of the land.

The WotC book is the setting of the season 2 campaign, "The Mighty Nein." Wildmount is the continent just to the east of Tal'Dorei, separated by a relatively narrow body of water.

Ok, that makes sense. Does the Green Ronin book deal with overarching setting stuff like gods? Or does that vary by continent too?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I think we could see the return of Gamma World, at least a videogame, like a previous playtesting before the ultimate d20 Modern 2.0.

And their antropomorphic creatures are perfect as action figures to be sold as toys. You can add no-lethal weapons and robots and it is perfect to be adapted to a cartoon.

Gamma World is the game where if your PC is a gunfighter there are never enought bullets, but if you are a melee fighter all enemies are snipers.

 

[teitan]

Ok, that makes sense. Does the Green Ronin book deal with overarching setting stuff like gods? Or does that vary by continent too?

They seem to have a similar approach. Wildemount it where the Demon Princes ruled and waged their war with the gods. A pretty cool adventure in Campaign 2 had the Mighty Nein exploring a temple of the Demon Lords and getting their butts handed to them. The emphasis in Campaign 2 has been on different gods of the pantheon. Where Campaign 1 had a lot of the Raven Queen and Vecna, campaign 2 had Torog, Tharizdun and Sarenrae as a sort of focus and the introduction of a trickster god in the Traveller.

I imagine there will be a lot of overlap as the Tal'dorei book sells out with the end of the GR license of Critical Role IP. It is a lot shorter than it looks like Wildemount will be by about 150 pages. Tal'dorei is around 150 I think, maybe slightly less. I think Wildemount is 284? So while you won't have much on Tal'dorei, it will certainly be more in depth and applicable to both continents aside from the timeline differences.

All speculation on my part though.

 

[teitan]

I think we could see the return of Gamma World, at least a videogame, like a previous playtesting before the ultimate d20 Modern 2.0.

And their antropomorphic creatures are perfect as action figures to be sold as toys. You can add no-lethal weapons and robots and it is perfect to be adapted to a cartoon.

Gamma World is the game where if your PC is a gunfighter there are never enought bullets, but if you are a melee fighter all enemies are snipers.

You keep talking about this D20 Modern 2.0 but there are 0 indications that WOTC plan anything but D&D.

 

[StormbringerAUS]

My reaction when I heard about the release, was interesting I will probably buy it but not sure if I will use it, the more I have read the various threads here in EN World (the best world) the more I am looking forward to it, even if it is just an interesting read (I am certain I will pilfer from it however). I wish had time to watch/listen to CR maybe one day.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Where Campaign 1 had a lot of the Raven Queen and Vecna, campaign 2 had Torog, Tharizdun and Sarenrae as a sort of focus and the introduction of a trickster god in the Traveller.

So basically gods stolen from an eclectic mix of different settings. Suggests Mercer isn't very interested in fantasy religion. You could justify it though, with the idea that Exandria has no native gods so they are all interlopers from other planes.

They couldn't mention Sarenrae and Torog though, since those are both from Golarion, and must belong to Paizo.

 

[teitan]

So basically gods stolen from an eclectic mix of different settings. Suggests Mercer isn't very interested in fantasy religion. You could justify it though, with the idea that Exandria has no native gods so they are all interlopers from other planes.

They couldn't mention Sarenrae and Torog though, since those are both from Golarion, and must belong to Paizo.

Well the campaign started as a 4e one shot so the gods were a matter of convenience. Torog is NOT from Golarion though, he is from the Dawn War.

Torog

Torog, The King that Crawls, is the evil god of the Underdark and imprisonment, patron of jailers and torturers. Common superstition holds that if his name is spoken, the King that Crawls burrows up from below and drags the hapless speaker underground to an eternity of imprisonment and torture...

dnd4.fandom.com

using the phrase "stolen" implies a maliciousness. In the first book the gods are renamed to the titles currently used in the podcast, Sarenrae is, for example, the Everlight. Melora is the Wild Mother. Tharizdun is the Chained Oblivion.

 

[akr71]

If you allow me the question from Spain. After Adquisition Inc and CR, and Adventure Zone... what are the most popular game-live show podcast (and with numbers for the jackot to be the next D&D world).

What will be the next, Critical Role the videogame, with options to create machinima movies for your own podcasts?

Well, they're doing the Whitestone arc in the animated series, but I'd buy an Exandria based video game. Maybe the Chroma Conclave arc, searching out artifacts so that you and your party have a chance to defeat the biggest, baddest dragons in the realm.

 

[zhivik]

Well, they're doing the Whitestone arc in the animated series, but I'd buy an Exandria based video game. Maybe the Chroma Conclave arc, searching out artifacts so that you and your party have a chance to defeat the biggest, baddest dragons in the realm.

You can already use Critical Role characters in Pillars of Eternity II - they are even voiced by the actors themselves