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.

 

[Mercurius]

The kids aren't into Greyhawk. That's really obvious from the way Greyhawk is discussed on reddits, Discords and so on, where people in their 20s and younger 30s and so on discuss D&D (as opposed to here, which is more of a 40-60 crowd). It's not an exciting retro setting they're keen to see come back - it gets dismissed in discussions of that topic (and indeed the way it's almost completely absent from Tiktok etc.).

However, to WotC, that's completely immaterial, because of the bolded bit.

I won't go into the full details again, because I had to do research and wrote it up in a post long ago, but both TSR and WotC have repeatedly tried to "make Greyhawk happen" after it was eclipsed by the Forgotten Realms in the later 1980s. Over and over. For the thirty+ years. None of it has worked. People just aren't interested, and imho that's because it's not inherently a cool or distinctive setting. It's more generic than the Forgotten Realms, which is saying something. Excuses can be made about it, but the fact is, the sort of people who work on D&D for WotC tend to love Greyhawk, but D&D's audience, for the last thirty years, has shown that it really just doesn't care. It's like trying to light a fire with a bow-drill and sopping wet materials. Even making it the implicit setting of 3E didn't work.

I know that's hard to hear if you're longer-term GH fan (as a Dark Sun fan I understand, it was hard to hear WotC basically say they'd never do Dark Sun - and really I'm a Taladas fan and that ain't NEVER coming back baby), but on the upside, even if D&D's audience as a whole doesn't care, the odds are good WotC will try and shove it on them anyway! So it's quite likely there will be more GH material or they'll shift it to being the "default setting" of D&D. I'm honestly surprised they've made so few attempts in 5E.

Yeah, I hear that - which is why I can see it as the DMG example setting, but probably not as its own book. If it does end up being the example setting, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd be doing so as a not-so-sneaky way to shoehorn Greyhawk back into the mix.

This is not to say that I think it is likely that it ends up being the example setting, just that it wouldn't surprise me. I'd guess that a new setting or the FR (like a focus on Shadowdale) is more likely, for different reasons.

Anyhow, I imagine that as more and more WotC designers (and players) naturally and inevitably come from younger generations, calls for Greyhawk's revival will lessen and eventually fully dwindle out. I see Greyhawk as being more like disco than jazz. Jazz is a tradition of music that has both classic forms and also evolves and incorporates new elements. Disco, on the other hand, is more of a cultural artifact from a specific context; it survives a bit through interest in all things retro, but mostly through being incorporated into other musical traditions. In that sense, Greyhawk represents D&D of the 70s and early 80s and survives through those elements still existing, but within a much broader and more diverse umbrella of "what D&D is, circa 2023."

 

[GuyBoy]

Yeah, I hear that - which is why I can see it as the DMG example setting, but probably not as its own book. If it does end up being the example setting, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd be doing so as a not-so-sneaky way to shoehorn Greyhawk back into the mix.

This is not to say that I think it is likely that it ends up being the example setting, just that it wouldn't surprise me. I'd guess that a new setting or the FR (like a focus on Shadowdale) is more likely, for different reasons.

Anyhow, I imagine that as more and more WotC designers (and players) naturally and inevitably come from younger generations, calls for Greyhawk's revival will lessen and eventually fully dwindle out. I see Greyhawk as being more like disco than jazz. Jazz is a tradition of music that has both classic forms and also evolves and incorporates new elements. Disco, on the other hand, is more of a cultural artifact from a specific context; it survives a bit through interest in all things retro, but mostly through being incorporated into other musical traditions. In that sense, Greyhawk represents D&D of the 70s and early 80s and survives through those elements still existing, but within a much broader and more diverse umbrella of "what D&D is, circa 2023."

Punk is not dead, and nor is Greyhawk! Or maybe I’m just old?

 

[Parmandur]

The spaceship crashed because they couldn't get enough players for Metamorphosis Alpha.

Well, sure, that's the real reason. But if they are mixing S3 and S4 in a prodict somehow, if they don't just go full Yawning Portal "here it is make of it what you will (which they probably would, to be honest)...the potential for making a link is there.

If they don't do something like that, I probably will.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Disco, on the other hand, is more of a cultural artifact from a specific context; it survives a bit through interest in all things retro, but mostly through being incorporated into other musical traditions.

Not to get really pedantic about things but Disco evolved into House Music, and House Music is still around last time I checked. So saying Disco is dead is inaccurate, since it's direct descendant is still around.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, I hear that - which is why I can see it as the DMG example setting, but probably not as its own book. If it does end up being the example setting, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd be doing so as a not-so-sneaky way to shoehorn Greyhawk back into the mix.

This is not to say that I think it is likely that it ends up being the example setting, just that it wouldn't surprise me. I'd guess that a new setting or the FR (like a focus on Shadowdale) is more likely, for different reasons.

The big advantage for Greyhawk over FR here is that Hreyhawk can really be done, in whole, in one Chapter woth commentary. What Perkins has dropped regarding whatever example Setting we are getting is that it is there as much to show how to build one's own homebrew Setting as much as to.be used straight. Shadowdale, while cool, is a. It too focused to fit that bill. I do expect that we will see Shadowdale.in a product ere long, though.

 

[GuyBoy]

The big advantage for Greyhawk over FR here is that Hreyhawk can really be done, in whole, in one Chapter woth commentary. What Perkins has dropped regarding whatever example Setting we are getting is that it is there as much to show how to build one's own homebrew Setting as much as to.be used straight. Shadowdale, while cool, is a. It too focused to fit that bill. I do expect that we will see Shadowdale.in a product ere long, though.

And the other big advantage of Greyhawk over FR is that it links better with the whole 50th Anniversary thing.

 

[Parmandur]

And the other big advantage of Greyhawk over FR is that it links better with the whole 50th Anniversary thing.

I also don't know if anyone has noticed, but...it has been 2.5 years since a D&D prodict nominally set in the Forgotten Realms was released (Candlekeep), and over 3 since a product really well-rooted was released (Icewind Dale).

 

[Parmandur]

Oops, wow, I posted that forgetting Phandelver & Below just came out, lol, my bad. Maybe don't entirely think of it as a "new book," despite most of it being brand new and strikingly original.

But still, Forgotten Realms is much, much less prominent in the D&D product line in 20's than it was in the '10's. Dragonlance and Greyhawk have gotten just as much attention lately.

 

[Stormonu]

sure, but that does not mean I am interested in it


I have a hard time seeing them do anything else with S3 and S4. They won’t release them individually and there is no other anthology they could go in (in 2024) that I am aware of.

Personally I am not looking for a straight reprint, update them, expand them, tie everything together better….

S3, Tale of the Comet, City of the Gods, Temple of the Frog and IM1 could all be put together in a "another worlds" or sci-fantasy compilation. Similar to Tales of the Yawning Portal without having to string them together.

Or, they could go the Tomb of Annihilation route, and incorporating Spelljammer create a Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy epic adventure that hurls characters into space via a spelljamming galleon to do battle with an evil empire of worms (Sathar) and their space rocket fleet commanded by clockwork terrors.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, I hear that - which is why I can see it as the DMG example setting, but probably not as its own book. If it does end up being the example setting, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd be doing so as a not-so-sneaky way to shoehorn Greyhawk back into the mix.

This is not to say that I think it is likely that it ends up being the example setting, just that it wouldn't surprise me. I'd guess that a new setting or the FR (like a focus on Shadowdale) is more likely, for different reasons.

Anyhow, I imagine that as more and more WotC designers (and players) naturally and inevitably come from younger generations, calls for Greyhawk's revival will lessen and eventually fully dwindle out. I see Greyhawk as being more like disco than jazz. Jazz is a tradition of music that has both classic forms and also evolves and incorporates new elements. Disco, on the other hand, is more of a cultural artifact from a specific context; it survives a bit through interest in all things retro, but mostly through being incorporated into other musical traditions. In that sense, Greyhawk represents D&D of the 70s and early 80s and survives through those elements still existing, but within a much broader and more diverse umbrella of "what D&D is, circa 2023."

Disco has made something of a comeback -- to the extent that it ever left -- in the dance and R&B music scenes.

Greyhawk, I'd say, is more like mopey 1970s folk rock. There's folk rock today, but very little of it is pulling from mid-tier work from 1974.