D&D 5E Announcement Next Week--What Hints For Upcoming D&D Books?

WotC uses Unearthed Arcana to playtest D&D material which often ends up in a later hardcover book. Mages of Strixhaven was in Unearthed Arcana in June 2021, and Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos was published in December 2021. Draconic Options was in Unearthed Arcana in April 2021, and Fizban's Treasury of Dragons came out in October. The same applied to Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, and other books--the lead time appears to typically be somewhere around 6 months. So what have we had recently which might give us an insight into upcoming books?

WotC is holding a press event this coming Friday, with an embargo for March 22nd (which is Tuesday next week), meaning that an announcement is around the corner.

Unearthed Arcana has slowed in the last year or so, but there have been two notable articles:

• August 2021 -- Travelers of the Multiverse. 6 months after this was February, so if the 6-month lead time theory holds true, a multiverse-themed book would be imminent. The amount of speculative chatter about Spelljammer, Planescape, and 'Planejammer' is at a high.
• March 2022 -- Heroes of Krynn. This UA was released last week; six months would put a Dragonlance hardcover roughly about September, around the same time that Weis & Hickman's new Dragonlance novel releases.

So these two appear the most likely--some kind of multiverse book, and a Dragonlance book.

We know that a new starter set--Dragons of Stormwreck Isle--is on its way this year. WotC has spoken about two brand new settings, and two classic settings in 2022 (which fits the theory!)

They also spoke about a 'brand new format' for the 2 classic settings--WotC's Ray Winninger said in June last year that ""Each of these products is pursuing a different format you've never seen before. And neither is "digital only;" these are new print formats."

As I've mentioned on a couple of occasions, there are two more products that revive "classic" settings in production right now.

The manuscript for the first, overseen by [Chris Perkins], is nearly complete. Work on the second, led by [F. Wesley Schneider] with an assist from [Ari Levitch], is just ramping up in earnest. Both are targeting 2022 and formats you've never seen before.

In addition to these two titles, we have two brand new [D&D] settings in early development, as well as a return to a setting we've already covered. (No, these are not M:tG worlds.)

As I mentioned in the dev blog, we develop more material than we publish, so it's possible one or more of these last three won't reach production. But as of right now, they're all looking great.

 

[Parmandur]

That would be anticlimactic for me.

I've been digging, this user, CriminalNegligee has been posting for a while that they work in the publishing pipeline and sees all the books early. On Thursday, February 27, they posted that:

"Next book announcement will be in March and is for the next adventure compilation (a la [sic, again] candlekeep) and will release later this year."

"Spelljammer releas is this Summer so you are right there."

"Dragonlance is EOY so you're on point again."

 

[Quickleaf]

 

[Ibrandul]

Anyone recognize that circle sigil in the middle?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Anyone recognize that circle sigil in the middle?

looks like a neon potion sign.

 

[darjr]

Front page news D&D 5E - What D&D Product Can Be Seen In The Crystals?

 

[michaeljpastor]

Fingers crossed for boxed sets.

Slipcover sets with players manual, dms guide. Adventure/bestiary for the setting. Done in that faux leather cover style.

 

[michaeljpastor]

Here's my prediction for 2023:

GAMMA WORLD.

Or some other non-D&D property, such as Star Frontiers or Top Secret.

Why?

Because it's a safe place to test mechanical changes that might appear in 5.5E one year later, the same way that Star Wars Saga Edition previewed 4E D&D.

It's also a way to fill out the product schedule during a year where anything branded as "5E" will likely sell relatively poorly because consumers will have concerns about it being incompatible with 5.5E.

And it's a bone to nostalgic grognards like myself.

As much as I would love it for to be gamma world, my personal favorite, I think that star frontiers is the more likely of the two because of the additional races that appeared in publication recently. Star frontiers also is very spelljammery because of ships.

But oh, to be able to work on Gamma World...

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Gamma World is easier to be adapted to 5th Ed because it is a setting where firearms and high-tech are hard to be found or crafted, and if it was necessary the Game-Master could choose a limit about the ammo and bullets to avoid possible abuse by munchkins.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Agreed. Plus, part of Spelljammer was resource management because you could easily run out of water, food, and air on your trips. Even if Wildspace remains the same and it's only the phlogiston that gets replaced by the Astral, you lose that urgency. After all, you don't need to eat, breathe, or even age in the Astral. And then--unless it's been changed this edition and I forgot--you immediately catch up in age when you re-enter reality. Which would make any sort of inter-sphere travel kind of annoying.

WotC pretty clearly does not care about that kind of resource management, so sadly that is not an argument against the spectre of Planejammer.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Ten or fifteen years ago I'd absolutely have assumed this was what it was.

But I think the era of pushing minis as a big thing is somewhat passed. And I'm not sure that WotC has the facilities to get minis manufactured that are sufficiently high-quality as to impress the general D&D audience enough that it would override the "Why the hell are you packaging a bunch of minis with this campaign setting and doubling the price?!?!??!" factor. Games Workshop probably could just about pull that off, because their modern plastic minis are astonishing. But they're specialists.

Also it being a setting rather than an adventure makes the idea of minis kind of odd. Especially as I believe WotC themselves claimed a very large percentage of people (the majority?) play 5E Theatre-of-the-Mind.

What you say can all be true. But if, as speculated above, the new Dragonlance book features a reintroduction of mass combat, a box set that includes minis to play out those rules with makes sense.

And will also, per one of your own comments above, be very expensive. Ouch.