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.

 

[JohnnyZemo]

I was just thinking it would be great to know if the WotC folks said "Infinite Stair" or "Endless Stair," because they are distinct things in the history of D&D.

CM8: The Endless Stair was a high-level BECMI adventure by Ed Greenwood.

Now, I admit that "Infinite Stair" seems more likely. But the actual words used in the title of this article are "Endless Stair."

Just something to think about.

 

[darjr]

I was just thinking it would be great to know if the WotC folks said "Infinite Stair" or "Endless Stair," because they are distinct things in the history of D&D.

CM8: The Endless Stair was a high-level BECMI adventure by Ed Greenwood.

Now, I admit that "Infinite Stair" seems more likely. But the actual words used in the title of this article are "Endless Stair."

Just something to think about.

The image posted in the article is supposed to be a clue. What do you see?

My notes do say Infinite Staircase.

It’s on the front page now so I think Russ will have to change it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A good chunk of the Eastern Faerun is inspired by Pulp

We were talking about Oerth.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We have some hints for what may either be the same book, or for one or more others: Perkins &Co. left several attendees with the impression that they were discussing more than one book, and more than 4 books in the big 50th seems probable since we have had 5 books a year two years running now.

But didn't they say they couldn't do alternate covers of the 2024 core books because too much of their potential print run was devoted to just printing the basic books?

Yes, it would be nice/logical if we got more books than the core and a big adventure book in 2024, but I wouldn't count our chickens before they're announced.

 

[Parmandur]

But didn't they say they couldn't do alternate covers of the 2024 core books because too much of their potential print run was devoted to just printing the basic books?

Yes, it would be nice/logical if we got more books than the core and a big adventure book in 2024, but I wouldn't count our chickens before they're announced.

No, it's true: I certainly wouldn't expect the 3 Core plus 5 independent books, or anything. We knew already there would be 1, however, and 2 or 3 is quite possible. Pwrkleft multiple people with the impression thst he was teasing books plural besides the Core. I'm not counting them, but after the Big Plot Book (Who? Vecna. What? The Rod of Seven Parts. Where? Everywhere. When? Yes. Why? Real Ulrimate Power) the two logical possibilities based on trends would be a lower key anthology and a Setting product, and there seem to be some anthology teases here.

Or it's all for Vecna Rides Again, we'll know soon enough.

 

[mamba]

But didn't they say they couldn't do alternate covers of the 2024 core books because too much of their potential print run was devoted to just printing the basic books?

yes, but the print run for the core could be significantly larger than for an adventure. Not sure what percentage the alt covers make up though

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I don't know that version.

By Greenwood’s own words it’s actually Nicol Williamson’s version from the film Excalibur that Elminster is based on, West Country accent and all.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I see Gandalf in Elminster far more than I see Merlin(not at all).

T. H. White's Merlin, I can see.

Yes, lots of different depictions of Merlin, and I suspect the TH White Merlin was a significant influence on Gandalf in the first place (JRRT toning down the zany). But if Elminster actually appears in a game as an NPC, he is going to be used as a plot-expositor and/or quest giver, so that's the aspect that is most familiar.

The current depiction of Mordenkainen is clearly heavily influenced by Doctor Strange, as played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There Tolkien elements to FR might be slightly stronger then in Greyhawk, but they are still very, very different from Tolkien, Ed's elves are much hornier, and less chaste, and the Catholism influences of Tolkiens are completely absent from the Realms, replace by more Canadian hippy values, more wonderfully pagan in nature.

These are differences between the author, not the setting. Randy Canadian Hippie vs Buttoned up Englishman. "Death of the author" isn't really a thing when it comes to campaign settings.

It's the same with real world history. You read books about the same period by two different historians and it feels like different worlds being described.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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").

This is why you should use your thesaurus. Mirkwood sounds much more interesting than Dark Wood, despite having the same meaning. Using a word that means the same but has less common current usage gives a sense of age.

England has lots of weird and whacky place names because their roots lie in a bunch of different languages, none of which are currently in use.