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.

 

[lingual]

I mean, I cannot see this as being a productive use of our time to go down, but in no way whatsoever is popularity a marker on quality to me.

It could be cost efficiency.
It could be brand recognition.
It COULD be quality.
It could be simply snowballing hype.

Are the transformers movies actually good? Or do they simply make money?

The target audience of the Transformers movies is kids.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The target audience of the Transformers movies is kids.

Ugh I wish. Plenty of adults like those movies.

I think the appeal is stuff explodes?

 

[vecna00]

Ugh I wish. Plenty of adults like those movies.

I think the appeal is stuff explodes?

Sometimes that's all you really need!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

nvm

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I've found that the people that enjoy those films are typically . . . and I'm not sure how to put this non-offensively, but the people who don't care if their entertainment is high quality or intelligent. Basically the male version of people who non-ironically enjoy the Twilight films.

I like explosions as much as the next guy, but in my book, they're absolutely no substitute for good writing or plot.

I feel privileged being able to enjoy both high and low culture. It all depend on mood and energy. As to movies, sometimes I want Peter Greenway or Tarkovsky, sometimes I want popcorn and Transformers style explosions.

What I don't enjoy is cultural snobbism and people judging others from their cultural consumption.

 

[Bolares]

Side note: I used modified Astral Dreadnought stats in my Eberron campaign to represent the Dreaming Dark, Il'Lashtavar, the leader of the evil Quori. It's a giant alien worm with crab-claws and a magical eyeball. It fits pretty freaking well thematically with how Quori are depicted in art.

That's a great idea! I might steal it.

 

[Cadence]

There isn’t any reason to think there is any difference between ddb users and D&D players in general. A sampling of thousands absolutely a useful sample size.

Ready access to a computer vs. not and playing with a DM who encourages it vs. not wouldn't possibly be associated with different levels of knowledge as to what's out there, years of experience playing, or different playstyles?

Increased sample size decreases variability, not bias. (You can take as big of a sample of _____ news channel watchers as you want. Doesn't make your results apply to the country as a whole very well).

It feels like they'd also want to adjust for how many different characters each player had (it feels like those who play in lots of campaigns regularly could be different than those who don't)

Very easily? They just remove all characters that are made without access to any paid content.

The content is purchased a la carte, and often by the DM. So how much paid content do you want them to have access to before counting it.

In any case, this ties back into the above. You've now restricted your sample to players on DnD Beyond who buy at least a certain amount of paid content. This would make your sample even more different from the population of all players.

Yes.

I haven't seen that said anywhere. Do you have a favorite link to one of the stat dumps that says they screen things out? Or would this necessarily leave out any character used in one shots where they didn't do they die rolling on beyond, for example?

EDIT: Next post has an answer to this one.

 

[Nikosandros]

I haven't seen that said anywhere. Do you have a favorite link to one of the stat dumps that says they screen things out? Or would this necessarily leave out any character used in one shots where they didn't do they die rolling on beyond, for example?

Back when Adam Bradford was still at DDB, he talked quite often about how they counted as active, characters that were frequently updated, for example, by changing current HPs. I was somewhat perplexed by the criteria, since - before the pandemic - in my two campaigns, the character were only updated once a level since the players were using printed sheets.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I’m an old fart who thinks 5e wandered into blandsville of blandness land. They keep smoothing any rough edges off to the point where it’s hard to get a grip on the game. It’s become the Lego Movie of roleplaying games...everything is awesome.

"When everyone is super then no one will be" is a literal supervillain line. And if you think that the Lego movie is blandsville then that's to do with you not the Lego movie.

Why was LEGO a blockbuster but Playmobil movie a bomb?

The Lego movie was almost Toy Story level good. As well as it being well written, it matters that it's about toys and, more importantly, it matters that the toys are lego in specific rather than any other type of toy. It's thematically strong and coherent in a way few films are right down to taking a side in a philosophical question that's more clearly made by Lego than anything else - and it's a story that's practically perfect in that if you changed anything else it wouldn't work so well. Spoilers for how below.

Spoiler

• There's the boy and his dad and the dad's incarnation in the lego/toy world leading to real world character development that could have been any toy line - but needed to be toys or games.
• There's the Chosen One thing that couldn't have landed quite as effectively with most toy lines because Legos are fundamentally interchangeable but that doesn't prevent you having either a favourite or a piece that you need right now and nothing else fits. Chosen One narratives also happen in the Toy Story universe - but they are very different because they are based on collector's editions and boxed sets because those are different types of toy to lego.
• Most importantly and at a metaphysical level there are two ways to play with Lego. You make what's on the box and that's what you do - or you have a great big bucket of lego that you store together and grab things from. The superweapon of the bad guy is 'The Kragle' which is quite literally a tube of Krazy Glue. And nothing is further to the "you make what the box says" than gluing your Lego together so they can't come apart.

By contrast the Playmobil movie was about appropriate for a movie trying to sell cheap knock-off toys. Instead of being about Lego and the ways people play with Lego and about a child playing with their toys and their relationship with other people the Playmobil movie just Isikai'd its protagonists into a dimension full of animated toys and played as a long toy commercial.

Are the transformers movies actually good? Or do they simply make money?

If the first Transformers film had been equal to the sum of its parts it would have been a great movie - but instead it's a movie with a lot of great parts.

The first Transformers movie has a solid story (other than the McGuffin of the glasses), two strong lead parts, decent comedy, and Michael Bay who is a director who is awesome at music-video length shots and, importantly, at shooting action sequences in a way that sells awe. It's less than the sum of its parts because Michael Bay shoots for the sequence more than the film as a whole - and because Mikaela (Megan Fox's character) is awesome and very well written in the script, but the camera basically pervs over her rather than supports who she can be.

But crucially no one shoots action scenes like Michael Bay. He's not a great storyteller but he's the best there is at shooting massive chaotic action set pieces that feel overwhelming. And either giant robots or giant monsters are exactly what massive chaotic setpieces need to be turned up to 11. So although I'd argue that the first (modern) Transformers film isn't great and the rest (other than Bumblebee) aren't even good if what you want is to watch something giant, awesome, and overwhelming then the Transformers are the best films at that that have ever been made. Instead of being across the board good they take one popular thing and do it exceptionally well.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Nothing about the race's features connects them to their Genie parent, they're just elemental in nature. (Genies get Darkvision, Flight, and other features that the Genasi don't get, while Genasi get abilities and spells that none of the Genies get.)

Weirdly, I prefer them to be more generally elemental, rather than genie specific. Like how pathfinder treats them. There is a huge amount of genie themes I don't like, so don't want to have to strip all that off every time I want an elemental character.