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.

 

[Azzy]

But the punk that's popular today is the 1990s punk-pop, which would have been unrecognizable as punk to the practitioners in the late 1970s.

The Ramones have entered the chat.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Ramones have entered the chat.

Did the Ramones ever weigh in on the late 1990s punk pop scene? I have to imagine they had opinions.

 

[Mercurius]

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.

You kind of prove my point: "Disco" only exists as a style of House, or as flavorings of House. House itself had elements other than Disco, so it isn't quite the same thing as "Jazz" which is a living tradition. But either way...

 

[Mercurius]

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

"Punk" is no longer punk; it has lost its teeth (and what make it punk) and has been assimilated. We can call it the Green Day Effect.

This is not to say that authentic punk doesn't still exist, but that it is rather deep underground. What most consider "punk" is a pale simulacrum.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

"Punk" is no longer punk; it has lost its teeth (and what make it punk) and has been assimilated. We can call it the Green Day Effect.

This is not to say that authentic punk doesn't still exist, but that it is rather deep underground. What most consider "punk" is a pale simulacrum.

Hardcore is genre of Punk that seems quite strong in presence to me. Though that may be me as a metalhead, wondering why Hardcore Punk keeps on getting into Metal. I know that something like Terror doesn't sound like The Exploited or Minor Threat, but they're still all considered Hardcore.

 

[Jahydin]

Hardcore is genre of Punk that seems quite strong in presence to me.

Sure is! Turnstile was featured in a Taco Bell commercial after all, lol!

 

[billd91]

Did the Ramones ever weigh in on the late 1990s punk pop scene? I have to imagine they had opinions.

I wouldn't expect too much complaint since they were all still active in the music scene until they started dying off and at least Dee Dee and Joey had pretty diverse musical tastes.

 

[mamba]

I'm not sure I follow - wouldn't that follow the Tomb of Annihilation route that takes Dwellers in the Forbidden City and Tomb of Horrors and makes a modern adventure from it, or is that too radical?

then maybe I did not understand you correctly, I thought you were creating an anthology around stranded alien spacecrafts, similar to Ghost of Saltmarsh, ie separate adventures, not combining them into one big one.

Having one ship, taking one adventure and expanding it with bits from the other three to get it to a full sized book is an option too. Not sure they all need to revolve around a ship to begin with, much like ToA took the jungle from one and the temple from the other.
I believe @Parmandur covered most options for that already however.

 

[Stormonu]

then maybe I did not understand you correctly, I thought you were creating an anthology around stranded alien spacecrafts, similar to Ghost of Saltmarsh, ie separate adventures, not combining them into one big one.

Having one ship, taking one adventure and expanding it with bits from the other three to get it to a full sized book is an option too. Not sure they all need to revolve around a ship to begin with, much like ToA took the jungle from one and the temple from the other.
I believe @Parmandur covered most options for that already however.

Ah, I was thinking it could be done either way - a straight conversion of 1E/2E modules in the sci-fi vein to create a Tales of the Yawning Portal or Saltmarsh as a conversion/anthology being one method.

Or, taking the high ideas of those adventures and whipping up a new one, like Storm King's Thunder (as a re imagining of G1-G3), Princes of the Apocalypse (as a re imagining of Temple of Elemental Evil) or Tomb of Annihilation.

I suppose a third option would be to go the Curse of Strahd - take the original (S3) and expand on it. In that case, there'd be a way to get from the crashed ship back to the Frontier it came from somehow...

 

[Maxperson]

POK, appareI lowd about taking your word for it. Looking intonit, it seems the text is basically unaltered...but the rule referrants are not going to have vw the same effect. Like, a green slime falling on you in 5E is not a death sentence, but that is a difference in the rulebooks, not the Adventure text.

I ran my group through the tomb earlier this year. It led to an interesting time when the group walked through the portal that transported metals to the last room with Acererak and I realized with a bit of awe and horror that one of the PCs was Warforged.