D&D General Dungeons & Dragons Sneak Peek at Gameholecon: 50th Anniversary Adventure, Rod of Seven Parts, The Endless Stair, Tsojcanth, Barrier Peaks?

I was leaving a panel at GameHoleCon when Chris Perkins walked in and then Justice and Bill and then quite a few other WotC folk! So I stayed.

I'm glad I did because what started as a very funny trivia game challenge to the WotC folk and some of the audience soon turned into a discussion about things they are working on. Cool things. Oh and some of those questions were by Jon Peterson and were hard! I pride myself in getting a couple correct! Iron Rations for the win! Chris Lindsay talked about the DMSGuild too, and strongly hinted to me about the Manual of the Planes. I just wasn't on the same plane.

Anyway they discussed things that have already been covered, but I think with a bit more detail on particular things. This was more of a conversation than a presentation after all.

• Ron Lundeen discussed the internal playtests and that he liked it when he would see similar things discussed in the same ways in both public and private testing.
• Bill Benham discussed Jaquaysing the maps and adventures and how they are taking that more to heart. I think she was on everyone's mind at the panel, see this thread if you would, she could use our help.
• Ron also dicussed how he learned that scrolls are a secret magic item table of power and rarity for magic items generally. That's a nice hint I'll have to take a closer look at.

And then Chris talked about how their adventures take this fine line of between having too much and overwhelming new people yet also having to satisfy old hats like myself.

• The new core books will have an update to format and art like the more recent books.
• Gateway to new players was a term they kept using for the new PHB and even the DMG.
• Oh and they mentioned Tasha’s Bubbling Cauldron as a new spell, which Hollie will be delighted with.
• All three books will have mostly new art from new artists too, like from two concept artists from Obi Wan and the Avatar shows.

Then they went on to the DMG and how it'll talk about what a DM does, what are the parts of the game, the books and even how to use the DM Screen in play.

• It'll have handouts and tools to help you organize and build your notes and show you a campaign setting designed to be customized as a tutorial to make it your own and eventually build one from scratch.
• There will be new magic items to fill in more rarity niches and more cool common ones too.
• And finally we'll get the 1980 cartoon series magic items, something Chris seemed almost giddy about.

The Monster Manual will have more high level creatures and they noted things they'll put in stat blocks that were missing before, like proficiency bonus.

'Romp around the multiverse', I don't think that's a new book title, but it's a new kind of anthology book that revisits all the things they've done in D&D, a '50th anniversary book'. Chris Perkins actually ran the Ravenloft adventure at the convention, I wish I'd captured the events he ran because I'm guessing the title and a few details are in that entry. Anyone here play in his games? Care to share?

And then Chris started to display cool secrets. I'm not sure if any of these are separate books or part of the above mentioned book, but I think they are separate books the way Chris was hinting. I must also offer an apology. There was no way I could get all of these images. I was caught off guard and in a bit of awe. The last one especially is just killing me, it was wonderful and Chris refused to show me after the panel with that wry smile of his.

So here is the only clear image I got. What do you see? Give me your guesses and I'll later give you what the jokes were they made. I even got a laugh out of the crew with one!

However the missing last image was my biggest regret. It was a cute fluffy bunny on a stump...... Oh the agony! I got a selfie with Chris as a consolation prize!

OK I’ll spill more. I’m not sure but they indeed seemed to be talking about multiple books and this new book for the 50th. I think they intentionally obfuscated things.

• The key to me is that the 50th book is a visit to all the 5e adventures and the stuff that isn’t from those are either for the story to tie them together or are from other books
• The bunny was undead, a Sheep in Wolfs clothing. It was a brand new painting and I didn’t recognize the artist.
• My joke was that the Rod would fall apart way to easily, as they tried to hint what it was.

So from what they were taking about I think.

• A D&D 50th Anniversary book
• An Endless Stair book
• A Rod of Seven parts book
• And Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
• Oh and Tsojcanth

Please note those are all guesses by me. Oh and Tsojcanth.

Chris did say that the D&D 50th book had been announced but I can’t find anything on it.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

We do not have solid direct evidence. WotC, however, does have thst from research. The indirect evidence of Goliaths being added to the PHB by WotC speaks to what their data shows them.

They gave the reason for that already, and it wasn't popularity, it was they wanted a different big race then Orcs (Orcs aren't popular, but they get grandfathered in as the replacement for Half Orcs).

 

[Rabulias]

Sure, but I thought it was odd they mention prof. bonus when that has been in the statblock since Volo's IIRC.

No, they're more recent than that. They don't appear in Descent into Avernus (2019) but they are in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021). So they appear sometime within that time period. Volo's was back in 2016 and lacks the proficiency bonus in the stat block.

I think Candlekeep Mysteries (March 2021) was the first WotC release to add Proficiency Bonus to the stat block.

 

[Parmandur]

It could be literally as simple as a Goliath featuring prominently in Legends of Vox Machina.

Grog Strongjaw's iconic status goes back a few years before the show, and that's a bit of a Chicken and egg situation still: is Grog popular because Goliaths appeal to folks like Travis Willingham sonhenpicked a Goliath Barbarian, or did his performance make them more popular and well known? The answer is "yes."

One of thenmain Might Nevin characters is an Aasamir, didn't get them in the PHB edit: or my spellcheck

 

[Parmandur]

They gave the reason for that already, and it wasn't popularity, it was they wanted a different big race then Orcs (Orcs aren't popular, but they get grandfathered in as the replacement for Half Orcs).

And they wanted that because...that is a popular desire.

 

[Reynard]

Grog Strongjaw's iconic status goes back a few years before the show, and that's a bit of a Chicken and egg situation still: is Grog popular because Goliaths appeal to folks like Travis Willingham sonhenpicked a Goliath Barbarian, or did his performance make them more popular and well known? The answer is "yes."

One of thenmain Might Nevin characters is an Aasamir, didn't get them in the PHB edit: or my spellcheck

I would guess that an order of magnitude (at least) more people have seen LoVM than have watched a full episode of Critical Role.

 

[Parmandur]

I would guess that an order of magnitude (at least) more people have seen LoVM than have watched a full episode of Critical Role.

I mean, quite easily possible, but picking a random episode from Campaign One (25: Crimson Diplomacy) it has 3.1 million views on YouTube.

That's a lot of views, and the point is that Goliath has years and years of being a pretty popular option in D&D. For context, Goliaths have been a part of the game for longer than I've been playing. So was Aasamir, but it just doesn't have the same resonance.

 

[Azzy]

But, you can stick it in a single chapter pretty effectively.

Pretty much. The setting info in the original folio and the first boxed set is fairly thin (intentionally, I presume) and would be easy to slot into a chapter of the DMG. Also, the random encounters section could use locations in GH as examples. Heck, they could go all in with using GH as examples for many of the rules the DMG presents aside from the gazetteer chapter.

 

[Reynard]

I mean, quite easily possible, but picking a random episode from Campaign One (25: Crimson Diplomacy) it has 3.1 million views on YouTube.

That's a lot of views, and the point is that Goliath has years and years of being a pretty popular option in D&D. For context, Goliaths have been a part of the game for longer than I've been playing. So was Aasamir, but it just doesn't have the same resonance.

I am merely saying that Grog on LoVM explains the popularity of Goliaths more than the reverse makes sense.

 

[overgeeked]

While including Greyhawk might be a nice tip of the hat to the game’s history in the game’s anniversary year, I’m skeptical. Most new players literally don’t care. The chances of them following their current MO is basically 100%. Which means they’ll water things down, pointlessly change details, cram everything in the setting, and generally poke at old fans as much as “revive” the old setting. I think it’s more likely they’ll use the amalgam/kitchen sink “First World” or whatever it’s called they’ve been hinting at for a few years now. Defaulting to everything’s in and only with good reason opting to exclude things will likely be part of the worldbuilding advice.

 

[Parmandur]

Pretty much. The setting info in the original folio and the first boxed set is fairly thin (intentionally, I presume) and would be easy to slot into a chapter of the DMG. Also, the random encounters section could use locations in GH as examples. Heck, they could go all in with using GH as examples for many of the rules the DMG presents aside from the gazetteer chapter.

A lot of stuff in the box set, while fun as a relic, is pretty unnecessary (weather tables??) or even best left in the past (the ethnography...).

The gist is pretty concise, for sure.