Why Dungeons & Dragons Isn't Putting Out a Campaign Book in 2025

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Wizards of the Coast is not putting out a Dungeons & Dragons campaign book in 2025. Despite adding two more books to its D&D release schedule, there are no plans to release a new full-length campaign book. During a press event at Wizards' headquarters, EN World asked about why the D&D design team had chosen to skip over a campaign book for first time in a decade. "

"This year we have focused on providing, rather than one large adventure, many adventure options because you'll actually see there are more sort of discrete adventure options than we typically do in a year," said Jeremy Crawford, lead rules designer for Dungeons & Dragons. "So you're going to have not only the 10 adventures in Dragon Delves with three possible campaigns, you also have the adventure options in Eberron, you have the adventure options in the Starter Set, and you have a bunch of adventure options in the Forgotten Realms Adventure Guide. So in many ways, we are flooding you with adventure options."

Crawford added that the D&D design team is always experimenting with their releases and that yearly campaign releases didn't always allow players to finish up the previous campaign. "So we're looking at tempos that map to how people actually play," Crawford said. "And we find that often, especially with DMs who like to create their own adventure material, they often have a greater need for sort of micro material that they can swap around. They can build things the way they like. That's what we're doing this year."

Finally, Crawford noted that one of the advantages to continuing Fifth Edition rather than launching a brand new edition meant that players could continue to use existing campaigns. "We have a whole library of epic campaigns that people can play, including last year's Vecna: Eve of Ruin, and those are all playable with the new core books," Crawford said. "And so we've embraced that for 2025, that there's a whole bookshelf of these epic campaigns that people can pick up and play, and we know there are among those campaigns surely one or two that even the most dedicated 5e group hasn't played yet."

However, Crawford noted that the D&D team wasn't moving away from campaigns forever. "For the life of 5th edition, we've never believed in there's like only one way to do it and that's how we do it every year," Crawford said. "Just because there isn't a campaign book this year doesn't mean we're not doing them."
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


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Despite my snark, while adventure compilations like Quests from the Infinite Staircase and Tales from the Yawning Portal are really useful because you can lift small chunks for a night or three's gaming, it's still a hit to the pocketbook to be buying a book that you might only use 1 out of 5 adventures. I would really like to see the old single adventure paperbacks make a return in some form - maybe one a quarter or two a year. They could build up a stable of new adventures that isn't overwhelming, but might become somewhat revered like the old 1E-2E-3E standalone ones gained. They could, of course, still be (loosely) chained to work together, but could also be mixed or matched or just stopped/started wherever folks wanted, rather than locking them into a commitment for half a year or more that you have with the bigger "campaign adventures".
I’m not familiar with adventure league modules but was for Pathfinder Society. For a few bucks probably many free now you got a nice 4 hour adventure. A really good source to mine that is often overlooked imo.
 





Crawford said. "And we find that often, especially with DMs who like to create their own adventure material, they often have a greater need for sort of micro material that they can swap around. They can build things the way they like. That's what we're doing this year."
While Crawford says they are experimenting with how to reach DMs, this emphasis on "micro material" that worldbuilder DMs can "swap around", looks remarkably old school.
 


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