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.

 

[Parmandur]

"Ed's earliest writings were made exclusively for his own entertainment, taking inspiration authors such as Rudyard Kipling, J.R.R. Tolkien, P.G. Wodehouse, and Leslie Charteris, among others. Ed greatly appreciated a style of worldbuilding employed by Fritz Leiber, in which each story in a series stood independently on its own, but contributed along with others to the lore of a rich, ever-expanding world.[6][4]"

Yup, and we can see how Greyhawk proper and Waterdeep are both major nods to Lankhmar. Big influence on D&D style fantasy.

But I definitely feel a nof difference is that Hreenwood got way more into certain 50's 60's stuff (love Narnia, like Tolkiwn, like Earthsea, maybe Lloyd Alexander) that was not in Gygax's reading lists as an adult when they dropped.

Like how someone 15 hears younger than me would put way more HarrybPotter or Last Airbender stuff in their work.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Yup, and we can see how Freyhawk and Watwrdeep are both major nodes to Lankhmar. Big influence on D&D style fantasy.

But I definitely feel a nof difference is that Hreenwood got way more into certain 50's 60's stuff (love Narnia, like Tolkiwn, like Earthsea, maybe Lloyd Alexander) that was not in Gygax's reading lists as an adult when they dropped.

Like how someone 15 hears younger than me would put way more HarrybPotter or Last Airbender stuff in their work.

Who would you say would be more of an influence on Gary Gygax's Grayhawk?

 

[pukunui]

Hope the new DMG does a better job unpacking these sorts of tools.

Something I thought the 3.5e DMG did well (and also some 3.5e adventures) was include the designers’ thoughts in little sidebars here and there. They gave a behind the curtain glimpse of the intent behind some rules and mechanics and gave advice on what to watch out for if implementing some of the optional things.

 

[Maxperson]

One is free to make characters with, the other you pay for, it's a massive difference, only being part of the PHB/SRD is more important.

All that does is make the evidence weaker. It doesn't make it not evidence. Evidence doesn't even have to be true. If you eat at a restaurant at the time of a murder and the knife you used to eat your steak(fingerprints are on it) is used to kill that person, that's evidence that you did it even if you didn't.

What they have shown is still evidence, however weak.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Who would you say would be more of an influence on Gary Gygax's Grayhawk?

I'd also say Ed Greenwood in turn was a major Influence on later setting like Golarian and Midgard, maybe somewhat Exandria, and never Nentir Vale.

 

[Parmandur]

Who would you say would be more of an influence on Gary Gygax's Grayhawk?

Not unseriously, Clausewitz.

More seriously, I think weird fiction stuff played a bigger role for Gygax than for Greenwood, more out there stuff like Vance and Zelazny. Not that Greenwood would be impervious to those sorta of influences, but I think he is more centered in a "High Fantasy" space while Gygax really liked his rldritch oddities.

Eliminster is way more Gandalf than Mordenkainen is. Mordenkainen is way more likely to be eaten by Cthulu than Eliminster is.

 

[Demetrios1453]

England has the advantage of a lot of Frencified Anglicizations of the Latinizations of a language nobody there speaks anymore, outside Wales. And even the Welsh fall victim to that ("Carmarthen" means "Fort Seafort").

But you still end up with things like "Newcastle", "Oxford", "Kingston", and "Cambridge".

 

[Maxperson]

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

That was my experience with Planescape as well.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Not unseriously, Clausewitz.

More seriously, I think weird fiction stuff played a bigger role for Gygax than for Greenwood, more out there stuff like Vance and Zelazny. Not that Greenwood would be impervious to those sorta of influences, but I think he is more centered in a "High Fantasy" space while Gygax really liked his rldritch oddities.

Eliminster is way more Gandalf than Mordenkainen is. Mordenkainen is way more likely to be eaten by Cthulu than Eliminster is.

Actually I think Ed prefers to compare Elminster to Merlin. Honestly I think Elminster is far different from either once you get to know them. Elminster I think is more gender fluid and pansexual then either of those, long before that was commonly accepted, but with a slice of demigods to him, although TSR was heavily pressured him into that.

 

[MGibster]

Not to pick on you specifically, because I see a lot of people say this amd this is just the most recent example...but I've been reading through the Grey Box and the Greyhawk box set a lot recently, and they are very distinct to me. Greyhawk feels like it was written by a Silent Generation American hardcore war gamer who was really into Adventure fiction from the 30'-50's and begrudginglyinvluded a few token Tolkieniams cuz that'swhat the kids loke these days, while FR feels like it was written by a Baby Boomer Canadian hippie literary berd who really liked Tolkien. Like, really really liked Tolkien, and Narnia for that matter.

In terms of how the game actually plays out, there isn't a big difference to me. And to be fair, this is a problem to one degree or another with most D&D settings where the rules are pretty much the same throughout.