Spelljammer D&D Direct Live Report: 9am PDT (5pm BST) SPELLJAMMER CONFIRMED! DRAGONLANCE!

D&D Direct, WotC's new video-format announcement show launches today at 9am PDT (5pm BST). If you aren't able to watch it, I'll be updating this article live. Feel free to comment below! Once it launches, you will need to refresh this page when you want to see new updates. The video is expected to last about 30 minutes.

If you CAN watch it, you'll find it on YouTube or Twitch at the above times. Otherwise, follow along below!

• 45 mins to go. Live updates incoming!
• 30 mins to go!
• 5 minutes to go!
• Here we go! Opens with a sea shanty.
• Forgive typos. They talk fast and I can't type.

• Spelljammer is confirmed!
• They talk REALLY FAST!
• Spelljammer Adventures in Space, project lead Chris Perkins, Trystan Falcone graphic designer
• Cities built on asteroids, dead gods floating in the ether
• 6 races---astral elves, autognomes, hedozi(?), gif, plasmoids, thri-kreen
• 3 hardcovers in a slipcase: Astral Adventurers Guide, Boo's Astral Menagerie, Light of Xaryxis adventure
• Prequel adventure in July
• Wizkids miniatures

Other stuff also discussed!

• Baldur's Gate 3 CRPG preview video (game is in 2023)
• Journeys Through Radiant Citadel intro video -- 3 of the adventures are: Wages of Vice (5th level), Caribbean; Orchids of the Invisible Mountain (14th level), feywild, far realm, Whistler new monster; Fiend of Hollow Mind (4th level), skeletons and spirits

• "Campaign Cases" -- Creature tokens! Terrain tiles! July!

D&D Movie directors now onscreen. The movie in March 2023 is called HONOR AMONG THIEVES.

• New D&D starter set. Comes with 'digital onboarding'. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. We knew about that one.
• D&D digital monstrous compendium. Available to those with WoTC or D&D Beyond Accounts. Volume 1 has an eldritch lich and the 10 legged asteroid spider. And the starlancer. Might have misheard some of that!

• MMO Neverwinter video. Dragonslayer begins June 2022. (I wonder if they'll need a dragonance for that?)
• New D&D actual play video, Legends of the Multiverse. Lots of 80s cartoon style soft rock music. Boo is in it.

WIzKids skirmish game D&D Onslaught. October

Finally -- DRAGONLANCE WARRIORS OF KRYNN! SHADOW OF THE DRAGON QUEEN!

 

[Parmandur]

View attachment 155720
I for one am shocked... shocked.... that I didn't see this coming through my spyglass.

Must be some plasmoid on the lens.

@Parmandur I stand at your mercy, oh seer of wildspace. What shall my new avatar be?

The main character from the space shanty trailer, your choice of exact clip.

 

[teitan]

My guess is that the whole slipcase multipack format is as much about allowing them to sell a major release at more than a $50 MSRP as anything else. The $50 price point established for their standard hardcovers releases was based on what made sense in 2014 dollars, for equivalent profit it should be a little over $60 in 2022 money. I think they decided to kick price increases on standard hardcovers down the road to the 2024 refresh to avoid upsetting regular customers but that they are going to create more alternative releases at moderately higher price points to make up for that.

And as I write this I see the listing is now live, and $69.99.

Nah. Other companies are selling for less on much smaller print runs and remaining profitable.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

80% increase on digital, going from 30 to 50.

And yeah, for a pathetic number of pages. And the usual lower-tier art too, adding insult to injury.

Art is subjective, but I've always found 5E's art of the highest quality.

But yes, I agree that even if a price hike was inevitable, these are huge price hikes. Really unjustifiable.

 

[DarkCrisis]

08/01/2022 (Target Exclusive, NA Only) | 10/04/2022 (General Release)

Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle | D&D Beyond

Everything you need to start playing the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

dnd.wizards.com

"5 ready-to-play characters"

Baed on art and guesses:

Diana the Acro.. Monk
Eric the Cava... Fighter
Hank the Ranger
Sheila the Thie... Rogue
Presto the Wizard

 

[darjr]

Ohhhh so who is changing their avatars?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

All their books have been $50, not $35 unless you buy at a discount (and this will be discounted). I buy from my FLGs, so I pay full price anyways, so it's only a bit more.

This won't be discounted any time soon (barring the current DDB discount for buying sight unseen) and on digital it's an 80% price increase. Inflation since 2014 is 21% and they're making record profits so costs are definitely not a problem.

Your argument makes them look worse not better. Especially as older books had more pages.

 

[OblivionDrive]

This whole twitter thread has good info about the starter set.

That’s definitely a nice addition to help onboard new DMs. I mean sure any potential new DM can seek out YouTube videos on their own but there is such a glut of those types of videos online that having a focused set of content to help explain stuff in a more illustrative way than a book could do both saves page count for more important stuff and also can be useful for those who aren’t “learn by reading” types.

 

[Parmandur]

This won't be discounted any time soon, and on digital it's an 80% price increase. Inflation since 2014 is 21%.

Your argument makes them look worse not better. Especially as older books had more pages.

I'm not really thinking about digital, since I don't use it, but I totally appreciate your frustration.

Amazon will definitely sell this for a discount.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Nah. Other companies are selling for less on much smaller print runs and remaining profitable.

I didn't say it was what they had to do to be profitable, I said it's what would give them equivalent profit to when they established the pricing model.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It's definitely fair, but I'm going to buy it anyways and am fine with it.

I mean, fair. I probably won't until at least Christmas. It's content I want, but $70 is a lot of money.