D&D (2024) "The Future of D&D" (New Core Books in 2024!)

The online D&D Celebration event, which has been running all weekend, comes to a close with The Future of D&D, a panel featuring WotC's Ray Winninger, Liz Schuh, Chris Perkins, and Jeremy Crawford, hosted by Elle Osili-Wood.

D&D is exploring the multiverse
Revisiting classic settings. 1st of 3 settings (Ravenloft) released this year. Next year, the other two major classic D&D settings come out. Both in formats they've never published products before.

Plus a "little peek" at a third classic D&D setting - a cameo.

In 2023, yet another classic setting is coming out.

Evolving D&D
Because of new players, they're always listening. Exploring new styles of play (like no combat needed in Wild Beyond the Witchlight). Also presentation of monsters and spells. New product formats. More adventure anthologies.

Making products easier to use. Ways to create the best experience. Experimenting and looking into technology.

Approaches to Design
Wild Beyond the Witchlight has interior design and tools to make running the adventure easier. Story tracker, guidance.

Beyond the books, they want to make different and varied products - packaging and form factor. Things different to hardcovers and boxed sets.

A blog post is coming soon detailing some of the changes, with more to come in future posts.

50th Anniversary in 2024
They've begun work on new versions of the core rulebooks. Recent surveys tie into that. They're still making plans, but expect more surveys. More will be said next year.

They will be completely compatible!

New experiences in the digital arena.

January Gift Set
Rules Expansion Gift Set -- Xanathar, Tasha, and a new book: Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse. All in a slipcase. Was intended for the Holidays, but global production issues mean January instead. There's also an alternate cover version.

D&D 5E - A Closer Look At January's D&D Rules Expansion Gift Set

WotC earlier announced a D&D Rules Expansion Gift Set for January, which includes three books - Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and the new Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse. These were intended for the holidays, but the global production issues...

www.enworld.org

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse
A treasure trove of creature related material from previous products compiled into one book and updated.

Opportunity to update material with a feel for how the 50th Anniversary books will be.

Improvements based on feedback, rebalancing, new and old art.

Over 250 monsters, and 30 playable races. All of the setting agnostic races that have been published outside the Player's Handbook.

Some content from Witchlight, Fizban's, and Strixhaven was influenced by Mordenkainen's.

Available first in the gift set, but separately later in the year.

Monsters alphabetized throughout rather than using subsections.

D&D 5E - Zooming In On Monsters of the Multiverse [UPDATED!]

Earlier, WotC announced Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse, a new D&D compilation of monster material from previous products updated to a new format. These screen grabs are as good as I could get them. They're not terribly clear, but you can make more out than in the original...

www.enworld.org

Stat block changes --

Spellcasting trait is gone. Spellcasting action, slimmed down. Spellcasting monsters need less prep.

Spell slots are gone for NPCs. Regular actions that would have once been spells.

It was too easy for a DM to use spells which result in the monster having a too low effective CR.

Monsters can be friends or foes, and some magic will help rather than hinder PCs.

Where are we going?
More adventure anthologies. Another classic setting fairly soon.

Two all-new settings. Completely new. In development stage, an 'exploration' phase, testing the viability of them. They might not see the light of day.

Retooling nostalgia and blending it with new concepts. A blend of things that you know, and things that they have never done before.

In the short term -- more news next month about a new product for 2022 which goes into a new scary place we've never been before.

Boo the miniature giant space hamster
Below is an sketch from Hydro74's alt cover, which features Boo the miniature giant space hamster.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

While true, the Domains of Delight document looks like a testbed to me

Fair. I haven't read it myself, just seen the preview pages. I'm additionally doubtful, as Perkins seemed to indicate Whichlight may be one of his few chances to make material for the Feywild.

Lumping additional material into PDFs is not exactly new either. Ravnica got an adventure released on DMsGuild, for example.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Really? Because D&D Beyond's most popular subclasses are still the ones that are provided in the D&D 5e SRD. A lot of D&D players only play what's available for free on the sources where we get the information about the most played races and classes.

Except we know that isn’t the case. Bradford confirmed multiple times that the subclass rankings don’t change at all when only looking at users that have content unlocked.

It sure sounded like you meant that when you said "genasi aren't even unpopular. They're one of the most popular non-phb races.", as if applying that their popularity made it so they weren't subject to mechanical changes. Please correct me if that wasn't your intent there, it just came off that way.

It very clearly wasn’t, because it doesn’t follow in any way. You’re making a leap, and/lost track of the conversation. I replied to your insistence that they are unpopular by pointing out that this isn’t the case. It’s that simple.

Not really. They'd be a lineage, which is more or less the same thing as a race. A lineage is just something you can become, while a race is something you're almost always born as (barring the use of the Reincarnate spell). IMO, "letting dwarves be Genasi would diminish the identity of the Genasi" is not at all a compelling argument.

Okay. I disagree.

So, you're saying that the Genasi from 4e aren't actually Genasi (or, at least, they're completely different from 5e's Genasi).

Why not? How would allowing a person to become a Genasi through the blessing of a Genie or a similar option diminish their identity?

Great. Yet another person online saying "No! Keep the game how I want it, instead of also making way for your room to coexist with mine! Just reflavor it however you want!"

That argument hasn't been convincing the first 99 times I heard it, and it's not any more convincing the 100th time.

Except you’re trying to change something that is good the way it is, and is loved by a lot of people the way it is, into something more generic and bland.

 

[Xeviat]

- My biggest wish, and also the one that’s least likely to come true: please, please PLEASE don’t replace everything that recovers on a short rest with PB uses per long rest.

- Since the previous item is definitely not going to come true, at least leave the Warlock alone. Please, if there is any justice in this world, let the Warlock remain it’s bizarre and cool self and not just become another boring daily caster.

Your biggest wish, unfortunately, didn't work out with the way different groups play games, sadly. I love the short-rest mechanic, but you really have to stick with a 2 short rests per 1 long rest structure to have class balance, or the long rest classes steal the spotlight a lot. This isn't a problem for a lot of groups, though, so it's one that likely goes unnoticed. As a DM, I notice it when I want to push my players and make them afraid, but I have to push things hard enough to challenge the Wizard and Cleric, and then the Fighter and Monk end up suffering.

The Warlock, yeah, it would be sad to see it go. Maybe it could get a redesign and become significantly more at-will?

 

[Dungeonosophy]

As the author of the petition to release Jeff Grubb's lost Mystara Worldbook manuscript, I'm guessing (and sorely hoping) that one of the four classic settings in 2022-2023 will be Mystara. There was that kerfuffle awhile back where one WotC rep approved the Mystara Worldbook release, and then another rep nixed it, resulting in some community-wide disappointment. I'm guessing (and hoping) that WotC will turn lemons into lemonade by revamping Grubb's text and giving it 5E stats and art, as full-blown release. We'll see!

"Next year, the other two major classic D&D settings come out. Both in formats they've never published products before. Plus a "little peek" at a third classic D&D setting - a cameo. In 2023, yet another classic setting is coming out."

 

[Erdric Dragin]

Oh...yay. So after buying all those original books, let's sell you a compilation with "UPDATES!" because god forbid we sell you a faulty product and instead of just putting it up as free errata, like we should, we'll repackage it and sell it to you all over again and you can chuck the other ones out cause, well, they're useless now. And because we got you rabidly loving 5e D&D, you'll buy it no questions asked and attack anyone who disagrees.

Yup. That sounds about right with WotC.

 

[teitan]

Settings... I think we got a subtle clue to Greyhawk. I'm thinking we will see Planescape and Greyhawk, based on the strength of the Saltmarsh sales. Planescape because that's a lot of references to Multiverse aaaand Spelljammer will make the cameo as a Spelljamming ship actually functioning and being a part of another upcoming adventure.

 

[Erdric Dragin]

Worried what's gonna get wrecked with the classic settings coming out.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Except we know that isn’t the case. Bradford confirmed multiple times that the subclass rankings don’t change at all when only looking at users that have content unlocked.

It very clearly wasn’t, because it doesn’t follow in any way. You’re making a leap, and/lost track of the conversation. I replied to your insistence that they are unpopular by pointing out that this isn’t the case. It’s that simple.



Okay. I disagree.



Except you’re trying to change something that is good the way it is, and is loved by a lot of people the way it is, into something more generic and bland.

I'm not saying that they're unpopular, I'm just saying their popularity is overrepresented based on them being free and the oldest non-PHB race in the game.

As far as I can tell, you're the only one here that thinks that letting Genasi be half-dwarves would dilute the concept of the Genasi.

 

[Charlaquin]

Your biggest wish, unfortunately, didn't work out with the way different groups play games, sadly. I love the short-rest mechanic, but you really have to stick with a 2 short rests per 1 long rest structure to have class balance, or the long rest classes steal the spotlight a lot. This isn't a problem for a lot of groups, though, so it's one that likely goes unnoticed. As a DM, I notice it when I want to push my players and make them afraid, but I have to push things hard enough to challenge the Wizard and Cleric, and then the Fighter and Monk end up suffering.

The Warlock, yeah, it would be sad to see it go. Maybe it could get a redesign and become significantly more at-will?

I get why, but I hate everything being long rest based. The problem, in my estimation, is short rests taking an hour. Often, if you can get one hour undisturbed, you can get eight. Rather than being an hour and expecting two of them per day, they really should have stuck with 4e’s 5-minute short rest, expected after every encounter. I tried to stress this back during the playtest, but since you can heal on a short rest, 5 minutes was considered too short - too close to the verboten “martial healing.” Sigh

 

[pukunui]

Did anyone else catch Liz Schuh’s comment about incorporating technology into their experiments with new formats?

She didn’t elaborate on it at all, but I sure hope she wasn’t talking about micro transactions or DLC or anything like that.