D&D 5E 5-Part Forgotten Realms Adventure Coming Next Week

From Polygon comes a report that WotC is releasing for download an anthology of five adventures for character levels 8-10 on June 29th to celebrate the Magic the Gathering: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms card set.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, a Dungeons & Dragons-themed set of cards for Magic: The Gathering, is introducing something special — and free — for fans of D&D. A substantial role-playing adventure will be made available for download starting around June 29. Wizards made the announcement earlier this month during a private press event.

In the past, new sets of Magic cards have been heralded by some excellent digital fiction — lengthy and well-written short stories that set the mood for the coming cards. This time around, publisher Wizards of the Coast is taking a different tack. Instead of short stories, it’s releasing a module for characters level eight through 10. Meris Mullaley, world-building and narrative design manager at Wizards, said that there would be five adventures. Each will run between 15 and 20 pages in total.

That's a pretty interesting level range -- presumably to make traveling the planes at some point in the adventure easier. And at a total of between 75 and 100 pages, it's a pretty significant work.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I read the first few... I suppose we all have different tastes, because they were pretty boring to me.

Anyway, clearly we disagree with this, but there is a mountain of available fiction available for both D&D and MTG. Good, official, quality adventures, not as much (this is not disparaging of the great work of DMsGuild, but you do have to sift through the dumpster to find the gems!)

Read the Mentor its the best MtG story I've read since the original Ravnica trilogy.

 

[Parmandur]

Magic fiction, like D&D fiction, is really hit or miss over the years. Adventure writing is a different beast, and I have more confidence that the members of the marketing team at WotC who also Dungeon Master (I assume this is coming from Bart Carroll & Co. to coincide with Dragon+) can put together fun Adventure material as their hobby than I am that they can write good fiction on the side.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

Read the Mentor its the best MtG story I've read since the original Ravnica trilogy.

I'll echo that, and "The Chains that Bind," by the same author, isn't half bad. I also enjoyed "Blue-Green Ribbons," but it had moments where it seemed like exposition got cut in the editing process.

 

[Ibrandul]

Magic fiction, like D&D fiction, is really hit or miss over the years.

There's no denying that! But it seems to me that the quality improved toward the end of the 4e era, partly as a result of decreased quantity of output (so that, for the most part, only the better writers remained), and by the time they stopped the novel line entirely Forgotten Realms fiction was more hit than miss. At least three of the writers who had the plug pulled on under-contract FR series are quite strong, in my opinion (Erin Evans, Paul Kemp, Richard Lee Byers).

 

[Parmandur]

There's no denying that! But it seems to me that the quality improved toward the end of the 4e era, partly as a result of decreased quantity of output (so that, for the most part, only the better writers remained), and by the time they stopped the novel line entirely Forgotten Realms fiction was more hit than miss. At least three of the writers who had the plug pulled on under-contract FR series are quite strong, in my opinion (Erin Evans, Paul Kemp, Richard Lee Byers).

I'd agree with that: WotC increased the professionalism all around on that front, and the novels that have been done out of house under license seem to be well received. WotC stopped doing full Magic novels at the same time they stopped D&D novels, and I actually suspect that the long-form Magic ending was what actually led to the D&D fiction line ending, as WotC changed rack as an organization and let go everyone involved exclusively with fiction publishing. Since they stopped in-house Magic novels, they've mostly done short fiction done by members of the Magic team put up on the website (there were a couple licensed novels, which were mainly a radioactive dumpster fire).

 

[Henadic Theologian]

There's no denying that! But it seems to me that the quality improved toward the end of the 4e era, partly as a result of decreased quantity of output (so that, for the most part, only the better writers remained), and by the time they stopped the novel line entirely Forgotten Realms fiction was more hit than miss. At least three of the writers who had the plug pulled on under-contract FR series are quite strong, in my opinion (Erin Evans, Paul Kemp, Richard Lee Byers).

The Sundering series was epic, although the marking was wildly misleading as the series, except for The Reaper was more about the Shadovar War, which was like WWII would have been like if it was occurring after a nuclear war while the earth was being reterraformed to clean up the mess.

Erin M Evans last two novels were AMAZING.

I was hoping for some stories from her, Kemp, Greenwood, Byers, Denning, etc... for AFR. That would have worked way better to pull MtG playera into FR.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'd agree with that: WotC increased the professionalism all around on that front, and the novels that have been done out of house under license seem to be well received. WotC stopped doing full Magic novels at the same time they stopped D&D novels, and I actually suspect that the long-form Magic ending was what actually led to the D&D fiction line ending, as WotC changed rack as an organization and let go everyone involved exclusively with fiction publishing. Since they stopped in-house Magic novels, they've mostly done short fiction done by members of the Magic team put up on the website (there were a couple licensed novels, which were mainly a radioactive dumpster fire).

WotC no longer doing novels is one big dumpster fire period. Huge missed opportunity. Imagine the short stories of Strixhaven interweaved together and expanded to full trilogy size.

 

[Parmandur]

WotC no longer doing novels is one big dumpster fire period. Huge missed opportunity. Imagine the short stories of Strixhaven interweaved together and expanded to full trilogy size.

Given the changing nature of the publishing world and reading habits, the ROI probably just wasn't there for TSR/WotC quality fiction in novel form. It makes sense. The lichened Salvatore novels seem fine: the War of the Spark novels were actively offensive and shoddy. I am not terribly confident they would have been better if done in house.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, fantasy novels have gone through massive changes since WotC purchased D&D. It's hard to picture the traditional D&D novels outside of Salvatore doing well nowadays. You don't see licensed books selling the same way they did even a few years ago.

That said, once fantasy fiction settles down, I think it might be worth them revisiting the issue in a few years. For all we know, they keep an eye on the situation and are just waiting to jump back in when they've got an approach that will work in the new environment.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, fantasy novels have gone through massive changes since WotC purchased D&D. It's hard to picture the traditional D&D novels outside of Salvatore doing well nowadays. You don't see licensed books selling the same way they did even a few years ago.

That said, once fantasy fiction settles down, I think it might be worth them revisiting the issue in a few years. For all we know, they keep an eye on the situation and are just waiting to jump back in when they've got an approach that will work in the new environment.

Well, now WotC has other people pay them money for the privilege of publishing D&D or Magic books. The last 4 or so Salvatore books were not published by WotC: WotC took no risk, and just collected the royalties from the publisher who did the heavy lifting. Previously, they had an in-house book editing and publishing team, so there was risk involved. If the movie takes off, probably there will be more books.