Spelljammer D&D Direct Live Report: 9am PDT (5pm BST) SPELLJAMMER CONFIRMED! DRAGONLANCE!

D&D Direct, WotC's new video-format announcement show launches today at 9am PDT (5pm BST). If you aren't able to watch it, I'll be updating this article live. Feel free to comment below! Once it launches, you will need to refresh this page when you want to see new updates. The video is expected to last about 30 minutes.

If you CAN watch it, you'll find it on YouTube or Twitch at the above times. Otherwise, follow along below!

• 45 mins to go. Live updates incoming!
• 30 mins to go!
• 5 minutes to go!
• Here we go! Opens with a sea shanty.
• Forgive typos. They talk fast and I can't type.

• Spelljammer is confirmed!
• They talk REALLY FAST!
• Spelljammer Adventures in Space, project lead Chris Perkins, Trystan Falcone graphic designer
• Cities built on asteroids, dead gods floating in the ether
• 6 races---astral elves, autognomes, hedozi(?), gif, plasmoids, thri-kreen
• 3 hardcovers in a slipcase: Astral Adventurers Guide, Boo's Astral Menagerie, Light of Xaryxis adventure
• Prequel adventure in July
• Wizkids miniatures

Other stuff also discussed!

• Baldur's Gate 3 CRPG preview video (game is in 2023)
• Journeys Through Radiant Citadel intro video -- 3 of the adventures are: Wages of Vice (5th level), Caribbean; Orchids of the Invisible Mountain (14th level), feywild, far realm, Whistler new monster; Fiend of Hollow Mind (4th level), skeletons and spirits

• "Campaign Cases" -- Creature tokens! Terrain tiles! July!

D&D Movie directors now onscreen. The movie in March 2023 is called HONOR AMONG THIEVES.

• New D&D starter set. Comes with 'digital onboarding'. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. We knew about that one.
• D&D digital monstrous compendium. Available to those with WoTC or D&D Beyond Accounts. Volume 1 has an eldritch lich and the 10 legged asteroid spider. And the starlancer. Might have misheard some of that!

• MMO Neverwinter video. Dragonslayer begins June 2022. (I wonder if they'll need a dragonance for that?)
• New D&D actual play video, Legends of the Multiverse. Lots of 80s cartoon style soft rock music. Boo is in it.

WIzKids skirmish game D&D Onslaught. October

Finally -- DRAGONLANCE WARRIORS OF KRYNN! SHADOW OF THE DRAGON QUEEN!

 

[Parmandur]

As one of the gamblers, I'm honestly not sure. For what it's worth, here's the avatar I knocked together for @Parmandur in the event that I won:
View attachment 155734

I think this one might be a draw, because it's both?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I just realized that Spelljammer is product that's going to have a cameo for another setting, Planescape. In 5e Spelljammer, you can fly to Sigil easily enough, so Sigil might get somekind of a mention. This feels so weird.

 

[Parmandur]

But that's just too fun, and there is a hardcover adventure book. @ersatzphil

 

[Greg Benage]

Is it really such an enraging issue? I'm not sure were you live, but cost are going crazy here in the States. I'm an architect and just had the budget on a project jump 25% and we didn't change a damb thing. Steel has jumped %100 in the last year. I just see this as such a big issue. Cost are going up everywhere, why should this be any different?

I expect cost increases, but for the very reasons you mention, this would not be the moment I'd launch a relatively inefficient new product format. Most likely, it was conceived before prices really started spiking, in which case it's just bad timing for everyone.

 

[Staffan]

I guess if sales are disappointing, they can ignore the price increase and claim it confirms their priors that campaign settings don't sell.

They've only done seven or so setting books for 5e so clearly they're not selling well. </s>

I think they have refined the older lesson about settings not selling into: "Supporting settings doesn't sell," which seems to fit the old 2e situation better anyway. One of the financial problems with 2e was that they were supporting half a dozen settings at any given time. In other words, the problem wasn't Al-Qadim: Lands of Fate, or Planescape. It was Golden Voyages, City of Delight, Secrets of the Lamp, Planes of Chaos/Law/Balance, Factol's Manifesto, In the Cage, and Faces of Evil – treating each setting as a product line in itself meant that many customers saw themselves as Al-Qadim players, Planescape players, Birthright players, etc. instead of D&D players.

 

[Faolyn]

Terrible sarcasm fail.

192 pages unnecessarily split into three books for $20 more than normal and 192 pages was a bad deal at $30.

I'd rather just have a book. Preferably with more than 192 pages. For $20 less. Sell the DMs screen separately if you must

Particularly huge rip off for digital customers and you have zero come-back there, I imagine.

Edit: I would be willing to pay more, personally, if the art was incredible MTG quality stuff but we can see it is not.

I for one am glad that the adventure is not part of the main book. I wish it were a separate purchase entirely, so I wouldn't have to buy it, but I'll take it as a separate book.

 

[Jer]

I just realized that Spelljammer is product that's going to have a cameo for another setting, Planescape. In 5e Spelljammer, you can fly to Sigil easily enough, so Sigil might get somekind of a mention. This feels so weird.

I wonder. You could fly to the Outlands easily enough, but flying to Sigil seems like it would be difficult. I might be wrong, but I thought that the spire that it was on top of was infinitely tall, so you can't reach it by climbing or flying from the ground. So you might not be able to reach it via the Astral either without having to fly to the top of an infinitely long spire.

 

[ART!]

Speaking as someone who works in printing: just as an example of the insane current situation when it comes to paper stock availability, in the last 2 years or so over 200 paper and wood mills in China have closed. There's a paper stock we usually use for lots of things, and have never had shortages of, and now we literally can't get it, from any vendor. We've had to switch to a different stock for those orders. Who knows what we'll do when we run out of that.

So, sudden price increases for printed things makes complete sense.

So players just need one of the three books, the DM has the other two, with the monsters in a separate book to keep that page open to the monster while the other book is open to the adventure page you're on. Makes good sense to me. Much better than cramming it all in one book.

Yeah, the utility of this is very attractive - and the set includes a map and a DM's screen! I like it.

 

[Parmandur]

Speaking as someone who works in printing: just as an example of the insane current situation when it comes to paper stock availability, in the last 2 years or so over 200 paper and wood mills in China have closed. There's a paper stock we usually use for lots of things, and have never had shortages of, and now we literally can't get it, from any vendor. We've had to switch to a different stock for those orders. Who knows what we'll do when we run out of that.

So, sudden price increases for printed things makes complete sense.



Yeah, the utility of this is very attractive - and the set includes a map and a DM's screen! I like it.

China doesn't impact WotC, since they have always printed in the USA, but the market is going whicky-whacky.

 

[ersatzphil]

I think this one might be a draw, because it's both?

Yeah - if anyone won, it was @Mercurius who was the first (that I saw) to call it as a 'boxed' set.