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.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But, well, that's the name. I'm playing a swashbuckler rogue, but she's really just a duelist, complete with scar on her cheek. I can easily see an individual from Feudal Japan or Hellenistic Greece (or a fantasy culture with similar feel) who specializes in the kind of quick feints and fast movement that make up the swashbuckler archetype, even if they never set foot on a boat.

Way back when the samurai archetype was introduced, I remember seeing someone on reddit say that nobody would have any problem with it if it had just been called the retainer. Someone else (you?) said that they should be called knight-poets.

But anyway. I'm find with renaming things, if there's too much cultural baggage associated with the current name.

Swashbuckler Rogue makes a great master of single combat with devastating careful strikes, and/or Iaido.

From level 9 on, you can play a frustrating, infuriating, lethal blade master, in the style of Miyamoto Musashi. Make the enemy super angry, they rush you in a rage, you calmly cut them down.

 

[Tallifer]

As the world becomes more of a global village, we should embrace and share and blend our various cultures using imagination, versatility and the rule of gonzo rather than fence them off and keep their gates.

 

[Xeviat]

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

The "solution" I came to in my games was reducing the short rest to 15 minutes, but limiting players to 3 short rests per day. It really helped with pacing, since my "game days" tend to be 3 deadly fights up to 6 medium fights and I try to fit in room for 1 to 3 short rests.

 

[Charlaquin]

The "solution" I came to in my games was reducing the short rest to 15 minutes, but limiting players to 3 short rests per day. It really helped with pacing, since my "game days" tend to be 3 deadly fights up to 6 medium fights and I try to fit in room for 1 to 3 short rests.

Limiting the number of short rests you can benefit from in a day seems to be a pretty popular solution. Personally, I don’t like it, but then, I’ve never had a problem balancing encounter days with 1-hour short rests, so

 

[overgeeked]

As the world becomes more of a global village, we should embrace and share and blend our various cultures using imagination, versatility and the rule of gonzo rather than fence them off and keep their gates.

That’s how it was in the old days, but un/intentionally racist in places. If we can drop the racism but keep the gonzo grab-bag of world cultures, I’m in.

 

[overgeeked]

The "solution" I came to in my games was reducing the short rest to 15 minutes, but limiting players to 3 short rests per day. It really helped with pacing, since my "game days" tend to be 3 deadly fights up to 6 medium fights and I try to fit in room for 1 to 3 short rests.

How do you find “deadly” fights? When I’ve used them the PCs just blow through them. They might have a scary moment and one or two PCs might drop, but they win handily. To do anything approaching a deadly encounter I typically have to double the listed XP budget. The PCs still win, but it’s more tense and takes more resources.

 

[Malmuria]

The "solution" I came to in my games was reducing the short rest to 15 minutes, but limiting players to 3 short rests per day. It really helped with pacing, since my "game days" tend to be 3 deadly fights up to 6 medium fights and I try to fit in room for 1 to 3 short rests.

Do you make an effort at associating this to the fiction or does that not matter? Is there any in-fiction reason it is 15 min, and not 5min, or that you can only take 3 per day?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Limiting the number of short rests you can benefit from in a day seems to be a pretty popular solution. Personally, I don’t like it, but then, I’ve never had a problem balancing encounter days with 1-hour short rests, so

I would love to read a play report from your game. I genuinely cannot imagine running 6+ encounter days with several short rests, when just logistically. How long are your sessions? How frequent are sessions of a given campaign?

 

[Charlaquin]

I would love to read a play report from your game. I genuinely cannot imagine running 6+ encounter days with several short rests, when just logistically. How long are your sessions? How frequent are sessions of a given campaign?

6 encounters is a long day at my table, for sure. 3-5 is probably average. We usually play about 4 hour sessions, and most combats are usually quite short. Maybe 10-20 minutes on average? Climactic combats are of course longer, probably like 20-40 minutes.

 

[Malmuria]

6 encounters is a long day at my table, for sure. 3-5 is probably average. We usually play about 4 hour sessions, and most combats are usually quite short. Maybe 10-20 minutes on average? Climactic combats are of course longer, probably like 20-40 minutes.

Do you use a grid/VTT for each encounter?