Unearthed Arcana Crawford On Lots Of Stuff! Release Tempo, Video Games, OGL, Conventions, Unearthed Arcana, 2018, Tia

Crawford confirms the brilliant strategy of the D&D team. Thanks for posting the highlights Morrus. Sales and fans returning to D&D are proof that they are doing something right.

Bravo!

 

[neobolts]

Another solid interview, the kind of communication that serves them and their most rabid fans well.

There will be a mix of products coming. As well as the material in partnership with Kobold Press, Sasquatch, Green Ronin, etc., there is also product they're doing alone which has not been announced yet.

...

To get obscure hints about what's coming, read current adventures very carefully.

This is great stuff. Let the theories flow...

The announcement schedule is about focus on the next thing to create a common experience among players. He and Mike Mearls liked that a common experience like that existed in early days, where it was a big deal when a product came out.

This actually makes a lot of sense.

Releases are synced up with Encounters seasons and D&D video games which feature the same storylines. The Neverwinter MMO and Sword Coast Legends both feature the Rage of Demons storyline, for example.

The players who are into both must feel like they're in a D&D renaissance right now. I wonder if this is causing the influx of players, i.e. videogames-->tabletop. They've definitely created a model that better equipped to succeed where 4e smade missteps (IMHO, 5e draws videogamers into the tabletop via similar events/narratives, while 4e tried to draw them in via similar videogame-like mechanics).

Other settings - "Nothing to announce right now." Other settings are all over the core books, with the multiverse emphasized as the official setting. Forgotten Realms is the most popular setting, but other settings are part of the multiverse.

...

Tiamat in Tyranny of Dragons failed with Krynn, and so tried again someplace else. It's not a Dragonlance story transplanted to the Realms, it's a multiverse story with villains which exist in some form or another in the entire multiverse. Princes of Elemental Evil bombed out in Greyhawk, so tried somewhere else. The demon lords don't just threaten one world, they threaten them all.

...

In some upcoming material, famous characters from other settings may show up under different names. It is canon that Elminster (FR), Mordenkainen (Greyhawk), and Dalamar (Dragonlance) know each other. This sort of thing will come more to the fore as one giant connected multiverse.

I've said before I love (and have used) the multiverse as setting. Running Planescape/Spelljammer and dropping in on various official and homebrew worlds is one of the best things about D&D, and such as great vehicle for very high level play. I'm really hoping they take us on a "Worlds Tour" via a multiverse sourcebook or a module sequence.

The mantra is quality over quantity. A different tempo. That has been successful so far.

They've made good on this. There are 1e/2e modules of legendarily lampooned quality. There are some late 3.5 books with chapters that felt like they existed to support the pagecount. Pathfinder sometimes feels like they've never met a book pitch they didn't like. Quality over quantity is a good thing.

 

[ZeshinX]

Until they ease up on the ridiculous Avengers-inspired cinematic universe approach, I will continue to have little confidence in WotC. This is the ADHD/Magpie Generation, hopping from one shiny new thing to the next at a pace never before seen. Sustainability is the fav new buzzword for business....this audience will not sustain the shared world concept.

Carry on with a storyline, sure, absolutely, but detach the insane connectedness of things. Loosen the stranglehold it has on products that are not the adventure modules themselves. 5e and D&D deserves better. Paizo is showing how it's done. You combine that type of separation but with WotC's more guarded and slower release schedule....

....ugh, nevermind lol. I'm just not in the target audience anymore. Long live D&D and game on folks.

 

[El Mahdi]

In some upcoming material, famous characters from other settings may show up under different names. It is canon that Elminster (FR), Mordenkainen (Greyhawk), and Dalamar (Dragonlance) know each other. This sort of thing will come more to the fore as one giant connected multiverse.

YES!!!

I loved those articles that Ed Greenwood used to do (The Wizards Three). The ones where he wrote in first person as a surreptitious witness to these three meeting together on our world. This facet is something I've exploited in my own games a few times - especially the idea that Elminster has knowledge of and access to our world.

Also cannon is that Elminster likes hot dogs, considering them a delicacy...

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

The players who are into both must feel like they're in a D&D renaissance right now. I wonder if this is causing the influx of players, i.e. videogames-->tabletop. They've definitely created a model that better equipped to succeed where 4e smade missteps (IMHO, 5e draws videogamers into the tabletop via similar events/narratives, while 4e tried to draw them in via similar videogame-like mechanics).

You might remember that whole "Neverwinter" thing with 4E where the region book and the new game were tied together, and going back farther the whole Diablo II thing with 3E. The only 5E videogame event so far was pretty similar. I'm still a little skeptical as to how much crossover there is between tabletop and videogame players that is driven solely by one or the other but I'll give it this much: it's an interesting approach.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Lets not get hung up on the exact dictionary meaning of a single word again, please, folks.

Morrus meet Internet; Internet, Morrus. Enjoy!

 

[Mad Zagyg]

In some upcoming material, famous characters from other settings may show up under different names. It is canon that Elminster (FR), Mordenkainen (Greyhawk), and Dalamar (Dragonlance) know each other. This sort of thing will come more to the fore as one giant connected multiverse.

Speculative, I realize, but this smells a little bit like they are bracing us for more classic stuff from other campaign settings to be shoehorned into the Forgotten Realms. I really, really, don't want to see Mordenkainen hanging out with Elminster in Shadowdale hiring a party of adventurers to go on a quest to defeat the Dragon Kings from Dark Sun because they tried and failed to conquer the world in Athas so now they're trying it on Toril. ...yawn...

Oh, and Keraptis, having failed to steal the magic weapons Wave, Whelm, and Blackrazor on Oerth has now moved to Toril and is building a new underground volcanic dungeon in Mt. Hotanow in the Sword Coast. I can see it now... The White Plumes of Mt. Hotanow.

If the plan is to appeal to nostalgia, the only people who are going to care about the nostalgic elements are also the same people that will hate that they're ripping the elements from their original habitat.

 

[neobolts]

Until they ease up on the ridiculous Avengers-inspired cinematic universe approach, I will continue to have little confidence in WotC. This is the ADHD/Magpie Generation, hopping from one shiny new thing to the next at a pace never before seen. Sustainability is the fav new buzzword for business....this audience will not sustain the shared world concept.

Carry on with a storyline, sure, absolutely, but detach the insane connectedness of things. Loosen the stranglehold it has on products that are not the adventure modules themselves. 5e and D&D deserves better. Paizo is showing how it's done. You combine that type of separation but with WotC's more guarded and slower release schedule....

....ugh, nevermind lol. I'm just not in the target audience anymore. Long live D&D and game on folks.

Funny, I feel like they are coming back around to the lifelong players once again. This feels less like some modern caffeinated revamp and more like a move towards some of the classic Spelljammer and Planejammer content. I remember a friend has this Planetary Display Map with Krynnspace, Realmspace, and Greyspace tucked away in the corners. We were bouncing from one Crystal Sphere to the next interacting with the locals. This feels like the logical next step forward for those old realm-hopping settings.

 

[flaviosobrenome]

"It is canon that Elminster (FR), Mordenkainen (Greyhawk), and Dalamar (Dragonlance) know each other" - does anyone know anything else about it?

 

[Morrus]

"It is canon that Elminster (FR), Mordenkainen (Greyhawk), and Dalamar (Dragonlance) know each other" - does anyone know anything else about it?

Everyone who used to read Dragon Magazine.

 

[Remathilis]

Tiamat implied to be Takhisis?!? Obviously he was suffering a cold and on sudafed. Obviously.

Takhisis/Tiamat and Bahamut/Paladine is an old Planescape era piece of lore. Same god worshiped differently on different worlds. Never outright STATED that was true, but it was heavily implied. (Same was true for Tharizdun/Elder Elemental Eye).

Of course, Dragonlance took 30 some turns to make it untrue, but its not something he pulled out of his kiester.