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]

Thanks!

More interesting is the gulf between tiefling and aasimar. D&D players are a bit on the naughty side, I guess...

One is a PHB race, the other is not, you can't compare the two.

For races you can't fairly compare the 3 different categories with each other, the three being PHB race, Free None PHB race, and Race-Four-Pay.

 

[Parmandur]

Thanks!

More interesting is the gulf between tiefling and aasimar. D&D players are a bit on the naughty side, I guess...

Well, ad @Henadic Theologian has been pointing out, the Aasamir are the only option on thst list that have ever been behind a paywall...all the other paywalled options in 2017 didn't even rate appearing on the table, and the ratios actually aren't that different for newer data scrapes people.have done. Anyone can create a free qccount with a burner email and start building a Genasi Wizard, Tiefling Fighter or Goliath Barbarian with nothing down. You have to pay several dollars at least to make an Aasamir.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, ad @Henadic Theologian has been pointing out, the Aasamir are the only option on thst list that have ever been behind a paywall...all the other paywalled options in 2017 didn't even rate appearing on the table, and the ratios actually aren't that different for newer data scrapes people.have done. Anyone can create a free qccount with a burner email and start building a Genasi Wizard, Tiefling Fighter or Goliath Barbarian with nothing down. You have to pay several dollars at least to make an Aasamir.

Planescape (94) introduced a bunch of playable races, but only tieflings quickly made an almost immediate jump into general play. The others remained in their Planescape niche.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Planescape (94) introduced a bunch of playable races, but only tieflings quickly made an almost immediate jump into general play. The others remained in their Planescape niche.

Tieflings were definitely the most popular. The Githzerai were probably the distant 2nd choice. Bariaur we sometimes forget even exist.

 

[Parmandur]

I did play in the adventure! And yeah, as you said, we were a group of level 10 adventurers sent by some names you'll recognize to collect the Rod of Seven Parts. The part we played was a trip to Ravenloft, chasing leads to the Death House. The adventure is going to take you to all corners of the D&D-verse - he explicitly mentioned Dragonlance and Eberron, so it's not just the core Forgotten Realms. I'm pretty excited to play in the full campaign when it releases!

I hope that you taught that freaking animated broom a lesson or two, tell you what.

OK, so thst sounds like maybe the Rod of Seven Parts is involved in the Vecna Campaign as a greatest hits Multiversal tour...was the Infinite Staircase involved? Were you sent by some Mages whose names rhyme with Gordonkeinin, Sasha and/or Rigby...?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Planescape (94) introduced a bunch of playable races, but only tieflings quickly made an almost immediate jump into general play. The others remained in their Planescape niche.

That isn't true, Aasimar and Genasi became major races in the Forgotten Realms, starting with 3e. There is more FR lore for Tieflings, Aasimar and Genasi then there is for Planescape Tieflings, Aasimar, and Genasi.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That isn't true, Aasimar and Genasi became major races in the Forgotten Realms, starting with 3e.

I'm talking about 2nd edition. And what was being played, not what was written into setting books.

 

[Kannik]

Look at some real world maps. I live in Sunnyvale. It is in a valley, and it is sunny. So apt enough.

Aye, and nearby is Mountain View where you can, indeed, view some mountains.* Amusingly, those are the two towns I've lived in this area**... do I have something regarding "it is what it says on the tin" towns?

* They're only roughly 3000ish feet high though, so whether it's a mountain or just a hill is in the viewing eye of the beholder...
** Doubly amusingly, I also live off a road with the same name as the nearby road of my childhood home.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'm talking about 2nd edition. And what was being played, not what was written into setting books.

The former translates into the later, if Aasimar and Genasi weren't popular in 2e, they'd never have added them into FR's Setting book in 3e, it was an attempt to tap into that popularity.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Tieflings were definitely the most popular. The Githzerai were probably the distant 2nd choice. Bariaur we sometimes forget even exist.

Aasimar & Genasi would have been 2nd and 3rd, Gith races were far below that.