This update with WotC's Todd Kenreck, who talks to Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford (who have the titles 'Game Design Architect') talks about next year's new version of D&D.
A few take-away points:
Here's a transcript, thanks to Dausuul, cleaned up by Morrus.
Todd Kenreck: Hello everyone. Today, we have a bit of a fireside chat with Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford and we are talking about a number of topics. Some of that's going to be UA but mainly, we're talking about the 2024 core rulebooks and how they apply to all the D&D books that have come out since 2014 and all the books are going to come out after 2024. So, tell me a little bit about how these books bring everything together and how things are going to be moving forward?
Jeremy Crawford: You can think of these books as the culmination of the last decade where we have all been playing D&D, DMing, talking about the game, creating content for it. And here I'm talking about not only the members of the D&D team but everyone in the entire D&D community have been engaged in this. People giving feedback on Unearthed Arcana, these rulebooks represent that decade of conversation among all of us D&D fans and is our chance to make the foundational books of the game. The three core rulebooks reflect the best state of the game in 2024. Because, as we have developed the game since 2014, we've made a number of interesting design choices, experiments, explored new directions in later books that can now feed into the core books so that they get to be state-of-the-art. Because since they are the oldest books in the line, that means they don't currently get to benefit from some of the things we've learned over the years. The 2024 books are our chance for those foundational books for the whole game to incorporate all of these lessons.
Chris Perkins: Yeah, we want the gateway products for the fifth edition line to be among the best looking, easiest to read, most mechanically robust that we can, so that it's a great first experience for somebody coming into the game.
Jeremy Crawford: And a part of that, creating that experience, we have also endeavored to make it so that these books will work with the products that fed into them. So, you will be able to play a 5th Edition adventure you already own, like Curse of Strahd or Planescape that just came out. Or, you know, the things coming out between now and the core books: all of those, you will be able to use with the 2024 rule books that we have designed to both look backward and forward. We view the game as this living thing now that is continuing and, rather than this being a stop or a pause, this is a renovation. Let's make the foundation of the game even stronger so that we can have another decade, or however long, after that. The key for us is that the new books will not only introduce all sorts of new options, whether it's weapon mastery or bastions or new subclass options or new class features and new equipment, new magic items. on and on and on, new monsters: all of that 'new' is going to coexist seamlessly with the material that is already in the game. In any case, where maybe we have adjusted how something functions, the core rule books will walk right beside you and make it clear how that new functionality interacts with 5th Edition books you already have. So, you're not going to need like a conversion guide or anything like that; you're going to be able to just get these books and keep playing. And you'll even have the option of having mixed character groups. You might have somebody who has made a character using the 2014 version of a class and its subclasses, right next to somebody who's using the 2024 version of that class and subclasses.
Chris Perkins: Or if you're a DM running a game at home, you can pull monsters from the new Monster Manual, Monsters of the Multiverse, or any adventure that we've published, or any stat block that we've released on DDB. And all of that meshes together.
Todd Kenreck: You can have two different players playing warlocks, one from 2014, one from 2024, and they're going to be seamless and work together fine.
Jeremy Crawford: Yes. Now, I think people are going to want to play the 2024 version.
Todd Kenreck: I do too!
Jeremy Crawford: And in fact, I have the Unearthed Arcana feedback that indicates that at least the people who took the survey agree with me. Because my goodness, did that subclass leap up in satisfaction!
Todd Kenreck: Did it step up because of all the misty steps? Sorry.
Jeremy Crawford: Yes. It did step up because of all the misty steps. And now I'm imagining a movie about dancing. We're gonna 'step up' onto the streets. I know we always love talking about scores. The archfey warlock used to be one of the lowest rated warlock subclasses. As of the UA in which it just appeared, it is at 89% satisfaction. Satisfaction scores for a community as large as ours usually don't get any higher than maybe like between 90 and 93% just simply because the D&D audience is so massive. You can almost think as 90% is about as close as you're going to get to 100% satisfaction. So if something has 89% satisfaction, that is essentially a home run. And the warlocks are running around the bases.
Chris Perkins: With their fey patrons.
Jeremy Crawford: That's right, misty stepping around the bases.
Todd Kenreck: And cheating! I was to say, just like 'bloop bloop bloop'.
Jeremy Crawford: Misty stepped from first base right back to home.
Todd Kenreck: It's like playing checkers. No, that is one of my favorite subclasses to be tested so far, for sure. So what's interesting, is we were talking about the evolution. We've had Monsters of the Multiverse and we've had changes from 2014. Ten years later a lot has gone on and there's been some variation but we already talked about this before. It's like 2014 and then this linear growth of 5th Edition. And you all are trying to take 2024, the core rule books, and not be the beginning of something but in the very center of everything. Like the center of the web, the center of the cog that unites all the books that have existed and all the books that will exist in the 5th Edition.
Jeremy Crawford: Exactly, yes, these books are the uniter. They connect to the best options that have existed up until they come out and they set the stage for new options that will come out after they're released.
Todd Kenreck: Was this fun? Was this hard? Like, what was this process like?
Chris Perkins: Both, actually. Yeah, so, it's a fun challenge just from a design point of view but also, cramming in as many new Easter Eggs as we can into the books has been very exciting and rewarding. Seeing the art, you know, stepping up the art in the core rule books so that the core rule books now have some of the most fabulous art that you can find anywhere in fantasy, I think, has been enormously fun to see that.
Todd Kenreck: And covering a lot more like you mentioned: classes are getting art, subclasses are getting art, very indicative of those classes. Like, I've seen some of this art and it just blew my mind of how smartly it was done.
Chris Perkins: Yes, we have more resources at our disposal now than we did back in 2012 when we were putting the core rulebooks together. So we're just pouring a lot of beautiful, beautiful work into these books and turning them into real, real showpieces.
Jeremy Crawford: Yeah, because now you know every class has, opens with a full-page piece of art. Every subclass has an illustration of a character who is a member of that subclass. More spells are illustrated in the Player's Handbook, more magic items are illustrated in the DMG.
Chris Perkins: Yeah, more monsters.
Jeremy Crawford: And the Monster Manual for anyone who hasn't heard us talk about it before has over 80 brand new monsters in it. This is on top of the monsters from 2014.
Todd Kenreck: I mean, it's a really cool opportunity just to see like new layouts. And the font sizes are changing. I know this is a weird thing to be excited about but like...
Jeremy Crawford: You do Todd!
Todd Kenreck: I'm getting old, I have trouble reading! But, there's like a lot of great like quality of life improvements and how these books are now structured. That will be like way, you know like, it's going to be friendlier for those who are new to this hobby as well.
Chris Perkins: Yes, we're doing a bunch of explorations in terms of how information is presented on the page. How we can beautify the pages, making it easier to, make them more beautiful and also making it easier to navigate. So that you can find the information you need, and that is a glorious challenge. And I think people will be delighted, truly delighted by some of the innovations they're going to see.
Jeremy Crawford: And on top of the brand new play experiences they're going to have, people have gotten to see through the Unearthed Arcana process that at least half of the classes are being revolutionized in terms of how they play, thanks to the introduction of weapon mastery. We have the Bastion system that gives a new kind of mini-game that can occur between sessions. And there's a whole lot more that people are going to see, that you know, the stuff that they love will be there, but tuned up. Paired with brand new options and then you're going to be able to, as so many of us love to as D&D players and DMs, tinker with it all and mix it up in ways that are satisfying for your individual campaign.
Todd Kenreck: But we still have some surprises. Not everyone, you're not going to see everything in UA that's coming gup.
Jeremy Crawford: Oh, absolutely not. So we're making sure that every major piece of class design does appear in UA at least once. But there are going to be some spells that people won't see, brand new spells that people won't see until the book is out. There are a bunch of monsters, people won't see until the books are out. There are magic items people won't see until the books are out. Unless, of course, we next year do some previews. I mean, I suspect there will be previews where you will see some of it before but, they will not be a part of the UA process.
Todd Kenreck: I mean, it's interesting because we're not used to getting such a substantial update and having an edition last 10 years. But you know, the idea is like the Planescape campaign guide is the 5th Edition Planescape campaign guide, definitively. Like this is the thing, you know, Curse of Strahd. This is Curse of Strahd for 5th Edition. For the 2024 core rule books, you're not getting a different version of this adventure later that needs to be revamped. Pardon my pun. It's there; it's done, and we have revamped it. But like that's what's exciting is like Bigby's; you can pick up Bigby's now, the Deck of Many Things; you can grab Planescape and it's all going to be connected to the core rulebooks.
Jeremy Crawford: Absolutely! Because we developed a book like Bigby's while we were working on the new core books. Now the new core books are going to have like new ways of presenting certain kinds of information, enhancements to the stat block format, that sort of thing. But none of those changes make the thing that you already have stop working. You will still be able to use one of those fabulous giant stat blocks in Bigby Presents with your 2024 core rulebooks. And, I say that because there could be, especially the closer we get to release, and when people see parts of the books, an inclination to see that something is different and then ponder: does that mean it doesn't work anymore? The answer is no. It will keep working. The things will keep working together, because we have been very careful throughout this edition to kind of segment things off in terms of the design - it is possible for us to change something over here without creating a shock wave over there. We've made it so that we can make enhancements, also to presentation, that do not undermine how the system functions.
Chris Perkins: And if you've been following us on our journey through 5th Edition, you've seen us do this kind of thing before. Like, you know, the monsters in Monsters of the Multiverse - the stat blocks are formatted slightly differently than some of the earlier monster stat blocks that we presented. But they work perfectly together. This is a continuation of that.
Jeremy Crawford: And in Tasha's, another example where we presented new optional class features. And in the years since that book came out, people have seen you can have a warlock who doesn't use the Tasha's features playing next to a warlock who does and they can coexist. With the 2024 rule books, it's going to be the exact same kind of thing where, sure, your characters might have a few different abilities, but you can still play together.
Todd Kenreck: Has there been like any delightful surprises - like I know the bastion system, I'm fairly well obsessed with. But like in this process, like something that came up or some new idea? I know weapon mastery comes up a lot because that is kind of a game-changer in a huge way, especially if you're a melee class fighter. But is there anything that was a delight? Bastions, I'm obsessed with them - because that inevitably, especially in Ravenloft, because I love to introduce a bastion-like thing, or like a home base. Because nothing's better for horror than like a house that can be haunted. Like, give someone a financial stake in a house, and then haunt it or have a vampire invade it, and see where that breaking point is. Have we gone too far? Or have we sold the property? But like, is there - what excites you the most?
Jeremy Crawford: Oh gosh, it's hard because, combined, the three new books - which are the biggest versions of the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual the game has ever had - will be close to a thousand pages. There is a lot in there that we have been carefully tending and working on. So, yeah if we pause, it's like, 'Oh my God, I love so much of it!' But really, if I had to choose, I'm most excited about how some of the brand new options, when paired with things that are already in the game, will not only feel new on their own because they're brand new, but are also going to make old things feel new. Because, as soon as you pair some of these new options with an old thing, the whole context changes. That's true with weapon mastery; that's true of some of the new feats that are going to be in the Player's Handbook. That's true of some of the new spells, magic items, monsters and other game options that are present. You'll have this sometimes - this one element that will get added in and, even though everything around it's like, 'Oh yeah, I recognise that from 2014', but it will all feel different because of the introduction of that new thing that shifts the whole context. And there's something like that in just about every part of the game. Whether it's the changing encounter building rules or the way we're organizing treasure - that is different and how that will be noted in the new Monster Manual. There are all sorts of these little beautiful grace notes in every part of the game that bring new options, change your perspective on how that piece of the game works, gives you a new option, gives you new inspiration for making your own content and so on.
Chris Perkins: Yeah, I can't agree more. And I would add that, for me, one of the most exciting things is the chance to go back and just drop in a few new little surprises for people, and also just pay off on, now that we've got 10 years of playing the game and analyzing and hearing from folks, we know what some of the pain points are in the books and we can address them. Things like, well there aren't very many common magic items in the magic items chapter of the DMG so we'll put a few more in, uh, you know, that kind of thing. And then sprinkle in a few little surprises like, oh, uh, here's a new item that not only fills kind of like a hole or a niche, but actually kind of taps into something else in the D&D multiverse that we haven't touched on really yet. That opens up possibilities for products and stories in the future.
Todd Kenreck: Could you have had any idea that this would be going on this long for 5th Edition? It just grabbed people immediately. Like I remember everyone telling me about 5th Edition and saying, 'You've really got to try it. You have to jump in.' And I was immediately enchanted. It started with interviewing you all, and then I bought all the books. 'I'm like oh, this is so, this is so fantastic.' That's got to be gratifying, right? Or humbling? I don't know which.
Chris Perkins: Both, both, yes. It's gratifying that people care enough and enjoy the game enough to want to see where it goes next, and to be part of that creative process, that's enormously gratifying. It's a wonderful honor to get information from the community that helps us make the experience better for everyone. Like when we hear, 'Oh, you could do more in the game to support high level play with more high level monsters in the Monster Manual,' we can address that, and then cackle with delight as we come up with CR 20 threats to sneak into this book.
Todd Kenreck: Be careful what you wish for. You've been kind of on tour this year, you've been going to a lot of conventions. What's that experience like when you get to meet fans? 'Cuz sometimes I even forget, like we're all so busy, and you're busier than me, but like when you go to a con, you get to have this human-to-human interaction, and you see what these books and these games mean to people. What have some of these takeaways been?
Jeremy Crawford: One of my favorite things about going to Gen Con this year is we had our panel where we talked about some of the things we're most excited about in the three new core rulebooks. I loved that after that panel, the number of people over the rest of Gen Con, who would come up to me and say, 'I wasn't sure about the 2024 rulebooks until I listened to that panel, and now I can't wait to get them.' And I think we can certainly convey that excitement and convey information in conversations like this, but there's a special magic, seeing those faces, face to face,
Chris Perkins: It's a totally different experience than say reading survey data on UAS, which is completely dissociated from the human connection. In the wake of the pandemic, it's kind of shocking to me. It's like, 'Oh yeah, this is nice.' It's nice to be back out at these places and talking to folks in the flesh and hearing what they have to say about their characters, about their campaigns, about their fears and concerns, and about their joy at being able to play with their friends and see this game sort of carry on its legacy.
Todd Kenreck: So, UA's has been going on, we've got some survey results. You mentioned that feywild warlock did quite well, which shocker. I like a good teleporter! Well, did we get any feedback from the bastions system already?
Jeremy Crawford: Not yet. The data that we have right now is for the UAs right before that, and the overall scores were fantastic. Great old one warlock - 87%, the abjurer in the wizard - 78%, the diviner - 81%... like, you go through, and the satisfaction levels--and, again, for anyone joining us for the first time in a talk about scores, we're always looking for a score that is 70% or higher, that is our goal and right now I'm looking at the scores for everything that was in that UA and it looks like every single thing scored 70% or higher except for the brawler in the fighter, and also a few features within the barbarian. And so, because of that...
Todd Kenreck: My world tree barbarian is safe though?
Jeremy Crawford: The world tree barbarian is safe. So part of, sometimes, the pain of this process is the brawler didn't make it. We might revisit the brawler because we've talked before about sometimes it's just not the time for something and we can put the idea on a shelf and we can come back to it. What we found is the brawler's niche for people just wasn't clear enough. There was a sort of a lot of conceptual static for people between it and the monk and the barbarian. And so we're going to go in a different direction for that subclass slot in the fighter, but the path of the world tree barbarian made it, and but does have some things that need tweaks. So, people are going to see the base barbarian along with that subclass come back out in Unearthed Arcana, along with the monk and the druid. So right now, in a game that has 12 classes, 9 of them or rather a core book that has 12, we never forget the artificer, uh, 8 of them now are moving forward in our internal game dev with just the druid, monk, and barbarian needing another visit to Unearthed Arcana.
Chris Perkins: And I know Jeremy has said this a hundred times but the UA process, the way it's built, is everything that you've seen in UA is trial balloons. And so when the Player's Handbook comes out again in 2024, that will be a really exciting opportunity for many people as it's their first chance to experience these elements in their final form. You know, we're going to be making little tiny tweaks right up until the time the books are no longer in our hands.
Todd Kenreck: Aside from the profound questions like, 'Why do we keep creating D&D? Why do we love it?' we also have some fun news. We have a new building! It's nice, and the studio space isn't next to a microwave, so you're welcome. It's hilarious that we started out making these videos seven years ago with just a door slamming next to us. Back then, I was taping fabric to the walls as a backdrop. Now, we actually have a studio setting. Not with all the bells and whistles yet, but we do have a new building, There's a Ravenloft section which is amazing. Although, I'm a bit sad that we're not stationed in that section.
Jeremy Crawford: Most of the time when I'm in the building, I work in the Ravenloft.
Todd Kenreck: We have different sections that have themes in the building, and now you know where Jeremy is lurking. It's a Jeremy-shaped coffin with a light and a laptop desk.
Chris Perkins: Whereas I've been in the Feywild all day.
Todd Kenreck: Yes, I am also stationed in the Feywild. Any parting notes? I want to conduct these kind of fireside chats where we just casually talk about what's on our minds. As we're wrapping up the year, it's been a big year.
Jeremy Crawford: We have more Unearthed Arcana coming before the end of the year, including the classes I mentioned, along with some other goodies that we'll include with those classes. In addition to that, we have PAX Unplugged--Chris and I will be both be there to talk to people in person about D&D in general, as well as specifically the 2024 core rule books along with the game's 50th anniversary. And, we will also be having the Acquisitions Incorporated episode, which is the epilogue to the video series that we shot, that is currently airing. So, I also recommend people go watch that series.
Todd Kenreck: It's a really good series.
Jeremy Crawford: Thank you.
Todd Kenreck: It's been really... We also had a movie and we had 'Baldur's Gate 3'. So it's, uh, it's amazing to see so many new players like get interested in Dungeons and Dragons this year. So it's been fun.
Chris Perkins: And there are other products surrounding the core rule books that we can't talk about yet, but we'll be excited to next year.
Jeremy Crawford: That's right, because we have other books coming out next year, just as a part of it. It's still a regular year of D&D, but also those books all are connected in some way to it being the 50th anniversary. So we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary pretty much all of next year and also into the year after that. Because as you often like to point out the anniversary actually starts later in the year.
Todd Kenreck: Yeah, it's going to be a very big year. We're not going to be busy at all. Thank you, everyone, for watching. Thank you to Jeremy and Chris for taking time out of their clearly not busy days to do a 30-minute video. Thank you so much.
A few take-away points:
- Where something functions differently in 2024 the books will guide you on that.
- Archfey warlock 'stepped up' in the survey results to 89% satisfaction.
- Each class gets a full page art piece, each subclass gets art.
- Over 80 new monsters in the Monster Manual.
- The font sizes are changing...
- There is stuff that won't be seen in Unearthed Arcana.
- Close to 1,000 pages in total over the three core books.
- New options change the context of old options.
- More common magic items, more high level monsters.
- Fighter brawler didn't make it. World tree barbarian did, with tweaks.
- 8 classes done, druid, monk, barbarian will appear in UA again.
- WotC's new office building has setting-themed areas like Ravenloft and Feywild.
- There are other unannounced books coming out next year.
Here's a transcript, thanks to Dausuul, cleaned up by Morrus.
Todd Kenreck: Hello everyone. Today, we have a bit of a fireside chat with Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford and we are talking about a number of topics. Some of that's going to be UA but mainly, we're talking about the 2024 core rulebooks and how they apply to all the D&D books that have come out since 2014 and all the books are going to come out after 2024. So, tell me a little bit about how these books bring everything together and how things are going to be moving forward?
Jeremy Crawford: You can think of these books as the culmination of the last decade where we have all been playing D&D, DMing, talking about the game, creating content for it. And here I'm talking about not only the members of the D&D team but everyone in the entire D&D community have been engaged in this. People giving feedback on Unearthed Arcana, these rulebooks represent that decade of conversation among all of us D&D fans and is our chance to make the foundational books of the game. The three core rulebooks reflect the best state of the game in 2024. Because, as we have developed the game since 2014, we've made a number of interesting design choices, experiments, explored new directions in later books that can now feed into the core books so that they get to be state-of-the-art. Because since they are the oldest books in the line, that means they don't currently get to benefit from some of the things we've learned over the years. The 2024 books are our chance for those foundational books for the whole game to incorporate all of these lessons.
Chris Perkins: Yeah, we want the gateway products for the fifth edition line to be among the best looking, easiest to read, most mechanically robust that we can, so that it's a great first experience for somebody coming into the game.
Jeremy Crawford: And a part of that, creating that experience, we have also endeavored to make it so that these books will work with the products that fed into them. So, you will be able to play a 5th Edition adventure you already own, like Curse of Strahd or Planescape that just came out. Or, you know, the things coming out between now and the core books: all of those, you will be able to use with the 2024 rule books that we have designed to both look backward and forward. We view the game as this living thing now that is continuing and, rather than this being a stop or a pause, this is a renovation. Let's make the foundation of the game even stronger so that we can have another decade, or however long, after that. The key for us is that the new books will not only introduce all sorts of new options, whether it's weapon mastery or bastions or new subclass options or new class features and new equipment, new magic items. on and on and on, new monsters: all of that 'new' is going to coexist seamlessly with the material that is already in the game. In any case, where maybe we have adjusted how something functions, the core rule books will walk right beside you and make it clear how that new functionality interacts with 5th Edition books you already have. So, you're not going to need like a conversion guide or anything like that; you're going to be able to just get these books and keep playing. And you'll even have the option of having mixed character groups. You might have somebody who has made a character using the 2014 version of a class and its subclasses, right next to somebody who's using the 2024 version of that class and subclasses.
Chris Perkins: Or if you're a DM running a game at home, you can pull monsters from the new Monster Manual, Monsters of the Multiverse, or any adventure that we've published, or any stat block that we've released on DDB. And all of that meshes together.
Todd Kenreck: You can have two different players playing warlocks, one from 2014, one from 2024, and they're going to be seamless and work together fine.
Jeremy Crawford: Yes. Now, I think people are going to want to play the 2024 version.
Todd Kenreck: I do too!
Jeremy Crawford: And in fact, I have the Unearthed Arcana feedback that indicates that at least the people who took the survey agree with me. Because my goodness, did that subclass leap up in satisfaction!
Todd Kenreck: Did it step up because of all the misty steps? Sorry.
Jeremy Crawford: Yes. It did step up because of all the misty steps. And now I'm imagining a movie about dancing. We're gonna 'step up' onto the streets. I know we always love talking about scores. The archfey warlock used to be one of the lowest rated warlock subclasses. As of the UA in which it just appeared, it is at 89% satisfaction. Satisfaction scores for a community as large as ours usually don't get any higher than maybe like between 90 and 93% just simply because the D&D audience is so massive. You can almost think as 90% is about as close as you're going to get to 100% satisfaction. So if something has 89% satisfaction, that is essentially a home run. And the warlocks are running around the bases.
Chris Perkins: With their fey patrons.
Jeremy Crawford: That's right, misty stepping around the bases.
Todd Kenreck: And cheating! I was to say, just like 'bloop bloop bloop'.
Jeremy Crawford: Misty stepped from first base right back to home.
Todd Kenreck: It's like playing checkers. No, that is one of my favorite subclasses to be tested so far, for sure. So what's interesting, is we were talking about the evolution. We've had Monsters of the Multiverse and we've had changes from 2014. Ten years later a lot has gone on and there's been some variation but we already talked about this before. It's like 2014 and then this linear growth of 5th Edition. And you all are trying to take 2024, the core rule books, and not be the beginning of something but in the very center of everything. Like the center of the web, the center of the cog that unites all the books that have existed and all the books that will exist in the 5th Edition.
Jeremy Crawford: Exactly, yes, these books are the uniter. They connect to the best options that have existed up until they come out and they set the stage for new options that will come out after they're released.
Todd Kenreck: Was this fun? Was this hard? Like, what was this process like?
Chris Perkins: Both, actually. Yeah, so, it's a fun challenge just from a design point of view but also, cramming in as many new Easter Eggs as we can into the books has been very exciting and rewarding. Seeing the art, you know, stepping up the art in the core rule books so that the core rule books now have some of the most fabulous art that you can find anywhere in fantasy, I think, has been enormously fun to see that.
Todd Kenreck: And covering a lot more like you mentioned: classes are getting art, subclasses are getting art, very indicative of those classes. Like, I've seen some of this art and it just blew my mind of how smartly it was done.
Chris Perkins: Yes, we have more resources at our disposal now than we did back in 2012 when we were putting the core rulebooks together. So we're just pouring a lot of beautiful, beautiful work into these books and turning them into real, real showpieces.
Jeremy Crawford: Yeah, because now you know every class has, opens with a full-page piece of art. Every subclass has an illustration of a character who is a member of that subclass. More spells are illustrated in the Player's Handbook, more magic items are illustrated in the DMG.
Chris Perkins: Yeah, more monsters.
Jeremy Crawford: And the Monster Manual for anyone who hasn't heard us talk about it before has over 80 brand new monsters in it. This is on top of the monsters from 2014.
Todd Kenreck: I mean, it's a really cool opportunity just to see like new layouts. And the font sizes are changing. I know this is a weird thing to be excited about but like...
Jeremy Crawford: You do Todd!
Todd Kenreck: I'm getting old, I have trouble reading! But, there's like a lot of great like quality of life improvements and how these books are now structured. That will be like way, you know like, it's going to be friendlier for those who are new to this hobby as well.
Chris Perkins: Yes, we're doing a bunch of explorations in terms of how information is presented on the page. How we can beautify the pages, making it easier to, make them more beautiful and also making it easier to navigate. So that you can find the information you need, and that is a glorious challenge. And I think people will be delighted, truly delighted by some of the innovations they're going to see.
Jeremy Crawford: And on top of the brand new play experiences they're going to have, people have gotten to see through the Unearthed Arcana process that at least half of the classes are being revolutionized in terms of how they play, thanks to the introduction of weapon mastery. We have the Bastion system that gives a new kind of mini-game that can occur between sessions. And there's a whole lot more that people are going to see, that you know, the stuff that they love will be there, but tuned up. Paired with brand new options and then you're going to be able to, as so many of us love to as D&D players and DMs, tinker with it all and mix it up in ways that are satisfying for your individual campaign.
Todd Kenreck: But we still have some surprises. Not everyone, you're not going to see everything in UA that's coming gup.
Jeremy Crawford: Oh, absolutely not. So we're making sure that every major piece of class design does appear in UA at least once. But there are going to be some spells that people won't see, brand new spells that people won't see until the book is out. There are a bunch of monsters, people won't see until the books are out. There are magic items people won't see until the books are out. Unless, of course, we next year do some previews. I mean, I suspect there will be previews where you will see some of it before but, they will not be a part of the UA process.
Todd Kenreck: I mean, it's interesting because we're not used to getting such a substantial update and having an edition last 10 years. But you know, the idea is like the Planescape campaign guide is the 5th Edition Planescape campaign guide, definitively. Like this is the thing, you know, Curse of Strahd. This is Curse of Strahd for 5th Edition. For the 2024 core rule books, you're not getting a different version of this adventure later that needs to be revamped. Pardon my pun. It's there; it's done, and we have revamped it. But like that's what's exciting is like Bigby's; you can pick up Bigby's now, the Deck of Many Things; you can grab Planescape and it's all going to be connected to the core rulebooks.
Jeremy Crawford: Absolutely! Because we developed a book like Bigby's while we were working on the new core books. Now the new core books are going to have like new ways of presenting certain kinds of information, enhancements to the stat block format, that sort of thing. But none of those changes make the thing that you already have stop working. You will still be able to use one of those fabulous giant stat blocks in Bigby Presents with your 2024 core rulebooks. And, I say that because there could be, especially the closer we get to release, and when people see parts of the books, an inclination to see that something is different and then ponder: does that mean it doesn't work anymore? The answer is no. It will keep working. The things will keep working together, because we have been very careful throughout this edition to kind of segment things off in terms of the design - it is possible for us to change something over here without creating a shock wave over there. We've made it so that we can make enhancements, also to presentation, that do not undermine how the system functions.
Chris Perkins: And if you've been following us on our journey through 5th Edition, you've seen us do this kind of thing before. Like, you know, the monsters in Monsters of the Multiverse - the stat blocks are formatted slightly differently than some of the earlier monster stat blocks that we presented. But they work perfectly together. This is a continuation of that.
Jeremy Crawford: And in Tasha's, another example where we presented new optional class features. And in the years since that book came out, people have seen you can have a warlock who doesn't use the Tasha's features playing next to a warlock who does and they can coexist. With the 2024 rule books, it's going to be the exact same kind of thing where, sure, your characters might have a few different abilities, but you can still play together.
Todd Kenreck: Has there been like any delightful surprises - like I know the bastion system, I'm fairly well obsessed with. But like in this process, like something that came up or some new idea? I know weapon mastery comes up a lot because that is kind of a game-changer in a huge way, especially if you're a melee class fighter. But is there anything that was a delight? Bastions, I'm obsessed with them - because that inevitably, especially in Ravenloft, because I love to introduce a bastion-like thing, or like a home base. Because nothing's better for horror than like a house that can be haunted. Like, give someone a financial stake in a house, and then haunt it or have a vampire invade it, and see where that breaking point is. Have we gone too far? Or have we sold the property? But like, is there - what excites you the most?
Jeremy Crawford: Oh gosh, it's hard because, combined, the three new books - which are the biggest versions of the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual the game has ever had - will be close to a thousand pages. There is a lot in there that we have been carefully tending and working on. So, yeah if we pause, it's like, 'Oh my God, I love so much of it!' But really, if I had to choose, I'm most excited about how some of the brand new options, when paired with things that are already in the game, will not only feel new on their own because they're brand new, but are also going to make old things feel new. Because, as soon as you pair some of these new options with an old thing, the whole context changes. That's true with weapon mastery; that's true of some of the new feats that are going to be in the Player's Handbook. That's true of some of the new spells, magic items, monsters and other game options that are present. You'll have this sometimes - this one element that will get added in and, even though everything around it's like, 'Oh yeah, I recognise that from 2014', but it will all feel different because of the introduction of that new thing that shifts the whole context. And there's something like that in just about every part of the game. Whether it's the changing encounter building rules or the way we're organizing treasure - that is different and how that will be noted in the new Monster Manual. There are all sorts of these little beautiful grace notes in every part of the game that bring new options, change your perspective on how that piece of the game works, gives you a new option, gives you new inspiration for making your own content and so on.
Chris Perkins: Yeah, I can't agree more. And I would add that, for me, one of the most exciting things is the chance to go back and just drop in a few new little surprises for people, and also just pay off on, now that we've got 10 years of playing the game and analyzing and hearing from folks, we know what some of the pain points are in the books and we can address them. Things like, well there aren't very many common magic items in the magic items chapter of the DMG so we'll put a few more in, uh, you know, that kind of thing. And then sprinkle in a few little surprises like, oh, uh, here's a new item that not only fills kind of like a hole or a niche, but actually kind of taps into something else in the D&D multiverse that we haven't touched on really yet. That opens up possibilities for products and stories in the future.
Todd Kenreck: Could you have had any idea that this would be going on this long for 5th Edition? It just grabbed people immediately. Like I remember everyone telling me about 5th Edition and saying, 'You've really got to try it. You have to jump in.' And I was immediately enchanted. It started with interviewing you all, and then I bought all the books. 'I'm like oh, this is so, this is so fantastic.' That's got to be gratifying, right? Or humbling? I don't know which.
Chris Perkins: Both, both, yes. It's gratifying that people care enough and enjoy the game enough to want to see where it goes next, and to be part of that creative process, that's enormously gratifying. It's a wonderful honor to get information from the community that helps us make the experience better for everyone. Like when we hear, 'Oh, you could do more in the game to support high level play with more high level monsters in the Monster Manual,' we can address that, and then cackle with delight as we come up with CR 20 threats to sneak into this book.
Todd Kenreck: Be careful what you wish for. You've been kind of on tour this year, you've been going to a lot of conventions. What's that experience like when you get to meet fans? 'Cuz sometimes I even forget, like we're all so busy, and you're busier than me, but like when you go to a con, you get to have this human-to-human interaction, and you see what these books and these games mean to people. What have some of these takeaways been?
Jeremy Crawford: One of my favorite things about going to Gen Con this year is we had our panel where we talked about some of the things we're most excited about in the three new core rulebooks. I loved that after that panel, the number of people over the rest of Gen Con, who would come up to me and say, 'I wasn't sure about the 2024 rulebooks until I listened to that panel, and now I can't wait to get them.' And I think we can certainly convey that excitement and convey information in conversations like this, but there's a special magic, seeing those faces, face to face,
Chris Perkins: It's a totally different experience than say reading survey data on UAS, which is completely dissociated from the human connection. In the wake of the pandemic, it's kind of shocking to me. It's like, 'Oh yeah, this is nice.' It's nice to be back out at these places and talking to folks in the flesh and hearing what they have to say about their characters, about their campaigns, about their fears and concerns, and about their joy at being able to play with their friends and see this game sort of carry on its legacy.
Todd Kenreck: So, UA's has been going on, we've got some survey results. You mentioned that feywild warlock did quite well, which shocker. I like a good teleporter! Well, did we get any feedback from the bastions system already?
Jeremy Crawford: Not yet. The data that we have right now is for the UAs right before that, and the overall scores were fantastic. Great old one warlock - 87%, the abjurer in the wizard - 78%, the diviner - 81%... like, you go through, and the satisfaction levels--and, again, for anyone joining us for the first time in a talk about scores, we're always looking for a score that is 70% or higher, that is our goal and right now I'm looking at the scores for everything that was in that UA and it looks like every single thing scored 70% or higher except for the brawler in the fighter, and also a few features within the barbarian. And so, because of that...
Todd Kenreck: My world tree barbarian is safe though?
Jeremy Crawford: The world tree barbarian is safe. So part of, sometimes, the pain of this process is the brawler didn't make it. We might revisit the brawler because we've talked before about sometimes it's just not the time for something and we can put the idea on a shelf and we can come back to it. What we found is the brawler's niche for people just wasn't clear enough. There was a sort of a lot of conceptual static for people between it and the monk and the barbarian. And so we're going to go in a different direction for that subclass slot in the fighter, but the path of the world tree barbarian made it, and but does have some things that need tweaks. So, people are going to see the base barbarian along with that subclass come back out in Unearthed Arcana, along with the monk and the druid. So right now, in a game that has 12 classes, 9 of them or rather a core book that has 12, we never forget the artificer, uh, 8 of them now are moving forward in our internal game dev with just the druid, monk, and barbarian needing another visit to Unearthed Arcana.
Chris Perkins: And I know Jeremy has said this a hundred times but the UA process, the way it's built, is everything that you've seen in UA is trial balloons. And so when the Player's Handbook comes out again in 2024, that will be a really exciting opportunity for many people as it's their first chance to experience these elements in their final form. You know, we're going to be making little tiny tweaks right up until the time the books are no longer in our hands.
Todd Kenreck: Aside from the profound questions like, 'Why do we keep creating D&D? Why do we love it?' we also have some fun news. We have a new building! It's nice, and the studio space isn't next to a microwave, so you're welcome. It's hilarious that we started out making these videos seven years ago with just a door slamming next to us. Back then, I was taping fabric to the walls as a backdrop. Now, we actually have a studio setting. Not with all the bells and whistles yet, but we do have a new building, There's a Ravenloft section which is amazing. Although, I'm a bit sad that we're not stationed in that section.
Jeremy Crawford: Most of the time when I'm in the building, I work in the Ravenloft.
Todd Kenreck: We have different sections that have themes in the building, and now you know where Jeremy is lurking. It's a Jeremy-shaped coffin with a light and a laptop desk.
Chris Perkins: Whereas I've been in the Feywild all day.
Todd Kenreck: Yes, I am also stationed in the Feywild. Any parting notes? I want to conduct these kind of fireside chats where we just casually talk about what's on our minds. As we're wrapping up the year, it's been a big year.
Jeremy Crawford: We have more Unearthed Arcana coming before the end of the year, including the classes I mentioned, along with some other goodies that we'll include with those classes. In addition to that, we have PAX Unplugged--Chris and I will be both be there to talk to people in person about D&D in general, as well as specifically the 2024 core rule books along with the game's 50th anniversary. And, we will also be having the Acquisitions Incorporated episode, which is the epilogue to the video series that we shot, that is currently airing. So, I also recommend people go watch that series.
Todd Kenreck: It's a really good series.
Jeremy Crawford: Thank you.
Todd Kenreck: It's been really... We also had a movie and we had 'Baldur's Gate 3'. So it's, uh, it's amazing to see so many new players like get interested in Dungeons and Dragons this year. So it's been fun.
Chris Perkins: And there are other products surrounding the core rule books that we can't talk about yet, but we'll be excited to next year.
Jeremy Crawford: That's right, because we have other books coming out next year, just as a part of it. It's still a regular year of D&D, but also those books all are connected in some way to it being the 50th anniversary. So we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary pretty much all of next year and also into the year after that. Because as you often like to point out the anniversary actually starts later in the year.
Todd Kenreck: Yeah, it's going to be a very big year. We're not going to be busy at all. Thank you, everyone, for watching. Thank you to Jeremy and Chris for taking time out of their clearly not busy days to do a 30-minute video. Thank you so much.
