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]

$15 is not "fair" for a DM's screen, it's highway robbery.

And $20 is not "fair" for a 64-page book, either. Nor is it "fair" to have no option for a non-hardback book which would presumably be considerably be cheaper unless WotC are truly super-gouging.

Nor is an 80% price increase on a digital product "fair", I would suggest, and I don't think you even disagree with that last.

WotC did charge $20 for 64 page hardcovers in 4E, which would be over $25 now if yheybstill published 64 page hardcovers (like they are just doing). The current official DM screen actually is $25, just checking now. So, what WotC would usually price for $100 individually are in a $70 package. I'm not going to say that's some fantastic deal, but it's fair and I'll pay it. I understand where you are coming from.

 

[Uta-napishti]

Personally, I would rather have a single hardcover book, but we have to remember the original Spelljammer set was also in multiple parts.

I just pulled out my Spelljammer boxed set from 1989, and it was $18 U.S. back then. Inside are 2 x 96 page flimsy softcover booklets with color covers and B&W interior art = 192 pages, 4 Full color one sided poster maps, and 18 ship stat cards with color illustration on one side and B&W stats on the back. The new set is 3x64 page hard covers with full color interior art = 192 pages, a GM screen, and a poster map. What this means is that they are providing the same amount of printed material as back then, and similarly split between DM and player resources, but the modern (interior) art and production values will be better in 2022 than in 1989.

I do still find $70 quite high, and would rather a $50-60 price point for a single hardcover book personally, but spliting the books up, I can see how they got to $70 through the better bindings x3 and the full color interior art alone.

As a related excercise this inflation calculator, -- fair warning, it has has exactly zilch to do with the publishing industry -- suggests $18 in 1989 would work out to $42 bucks today. $18 in 1989 → 2022 | Inflation Calculator Again, see previous paragraphs for why the new spelljammer will have to be more expensive than this.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sorry, that is the number that stood out to me because it was such a shock. The $4500 price I quoted as supposed to take into account Covid based inflation - boy was our engineer wrong.

And please stop assuming negative intent on my part. Relax a bit.

Then stop repeating that canard, frankly. It's extremely misleading, and I think you know it. Steel was underpriced, and further, if you know anything about steel, you know it fluctuates wildly in price:

Look at this: Steel - 2022 Data - 2016-2021 Historical - 2023 Forecast - Price - Quote - Chart

It's a very variable commodity. Ok, not everyone knows that, but I think it's genuinely disrespectful to people suffering in what is actual economic crisis for you to pass off steel price fluctuations as "inflation". Steel will be half that price in two years. And then it'll be that price again, or higher! That's how steel works! See the graph I linked!

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Two points:

1. Three books, a DM screen, map, & a slipcase
2. Inflation has been even higher recently. In 2021 the price of steel was $4500/ton (installed), we got prices on a project in February '22 and the cost $9000/ton. That is 100% inflation in one year.

I feel like I'm on a loop here, but 3 books 64 pages each can easily be one book. Before, that'd be $50. Accounting for inflation, which overall since 2014 is 20%, an increase to $60 is a fair price hike, and one I'd be comfortable purchasing.

Books are not made of steel. Please don't use one material's price variation to make a point about something completely unrelated.

I don't want to divert into general politics, but many companies have been using the loose term of "inflation" to hike prices beyond the increase of their actual costs, and this reformatted book style to me looks like an excuse to increase prices rather than a legitimate increase in costs.

 

[Uta-napishti]

Oh, and why do I dislike boxed sets...? because they end up crushed and held together with tape in far too few years.

 

[OakenHart]

Hmm. Looks like I'm actually going non-digital for their products this August. Nicely done, WotC.

 

[dave2008]

Then stop repeating that canard, frankly. It's extremely misleading, and I think you know it. Steel was underpriced, and further, if you know anything about steel, you know it fluctuates wildly in price:

Look at this: Steel - 2022 Data - 2016-2021 Historical - 2023 Forecast - Price - Quote - Chart

It's a very variable commodity. Ok, not everyone knows that, but I think it's genuinely disrespectful to people suffering in what is actual economic crisis for you to pass off steel price fluctuations as "inflation". Steel will be half that price in two years. And then it'll be that price again, or higher! That's how steel works! See the graph I linked!

I will stop using it, since it seems to bother you so much. Just to clarify the number I was using was an installed cost for fabricated steel. The labor and material of the fabrication and installation is big part of that. That service cost also increase quite a bit. I wasn't giving you just a commodity cost.

 

[EthanSental]

IMO, this is not luxury pricing for most people, Beadle and Grimm is luxury pricing for their product that is an accessory to the game, not a book you need for the game at $70.

 

[dave2008]

I feel like I'm on a loop here, but 3 books 64 pages each can easily be one book. Before, that'd be $50. Accounting for inflation, which overall since 2014 is 20%, an increase to $60 is a fair price hike, and one I'd be comfortable purchasing.

Books are not made of steel. Please don't use one material's price variation to make a point about something completely unrelated.

I don't want to divert into general politics, but many companies have been using the loose term of "inflation" to hike prices beyond the increase of their actual costs, and this reformatted book style to me looks like an excuse to increase prices rather than a legitimate increase in costs.

That was not commodity cost I gave, but an installed cost that includes fabrication and installation. However, i will stop using it since it seems to bother you and others.

Just to point out someone up thread prices each if the items individually from WotC and the cost came to $100, so $70 is a discount!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I love Spelljammer. I'm ecstatic that we're finally getting it in D&D 5e. I'm not a huge fan of how short each book is, I think that it would be better if all of them were in the 100-page range to be similar in length to the Wildemount and Eberron setting books, but I'm fine with the price because of inflation and the included DM screen. I also really like what we've seen so far about how the Astral Sea will be incorporated into these books, which will make for some pretty epic space battles between Githyanki and Mind Flayers.