D&D General Dungeons & Dragons Sneak Peek at Gameholecon: 50th Anniversary Adventure, Rod of Seven Parts, The Endless Stair, Tsojcanth, Barrier Peaks?

I was leaving a panel at GameHoleCon when Chris Perkins walked in and then Justice and Bill and then quite a few other WotC folk! So I stayed.

I'm glad I did because what started as a very funny trivia game challenge to the WotC folk and some of the audience soon turned into a discussion about things they are working on. Cool things. Oh and some of those questions were by Jon Peterson and were hard! I pride myself in getting a couple correct! Iron Rations for the win! Chris Lindsay talked about the DMSGuild too, and strongly hinted to me about the Manual of the Planes. I just wasn't on the same plane.

Anyway they discussed things that have already been covered, but I think with a bit more detail on particular things. This was more of a conversation than a presentation after all.

• Ron Lundeen discussed the internal playtests and that he liked it when he would see similar things discussed in the same ways in both public and private testing.
• Bill Benham discussed Jaquaysing the maps and adventures and how they are taking that more to heart. I think she was on everyone's mind at the panel, see this thread if you would, she could use our help.
• Ron also dicussed how he learned that scrolls are a secret magic item table of power and rarity for magic items generally. That's a nice hint I'll have to take a closer look at.

And then Chris talked about how their adventures take this fine line of between having too much and overwhelming new people yet also having to satisfy old hats like myself.

• The new core books will have an update to format and art like the more recent books.
• Gateway to new players was a term they kept using for the new PHB and even the DMG.
• Oh and they mentioned Tasha’s Bubbling Cauldron as a new spell, which Hollie will be delighted with.
• All three books will have mostly new art from new artists too, like from two concept artists from Obi Wan and the Avatar shows.

Then they went on to the DMG and how it'll talk about what a DM does, what are the parts of the game, the books and even how to use the DM Screen in play.

• It'll have handouts and tools to help you organize and build your notes and show you a campaign setting designed to be customized as a tutorial to make it your own and eventually build one from scratch.
• There will be new magic items to fill in more rarity niches and more cool common ones too.
• And finally we'll get the 1980 cartoon series magic items, something Chris seemed almost giddy about.

The Monster Manual will have more high level creatures and they noted things they'll put in stat blocks that were missing before, like proficiency bonus.

'Romp around the multiverse', I don't think that's a new book title, but it's a new kind of anthology book that revisits all the things they've done in D&D, a '50th anniversary book'. Chris Perkins actually ran the Ravenloft adventure at the convention, I wish I'd captured the events he ran because I'm guessing the title and a few details are in that entry. Anyone here play in his games? Care to share?

And then Chris started to display cool secrets. I'm not sure if any of these are separate books or part of the above mentioned book, but I think they are separate books the way Chris was hinting. I must also offer an apology. There was no way I could get all of these images. I was caught off guard and in a bit of awe. The last one especially is just killing me, it was wonderful and Chris refused to show me after the panel with that wry smile of his.

So here is the only clear image I got. What do you see? Give me your guesses and I'll later give you what the jokes were they made. I even got a laugh out of the crew with one!

However the missing last image was my biggest regret. It was a cute fluffy bunny on a stump...... Oh the agony! I got a selfie with Chris as a consolation prize!

OK I’ll spill more. I’m not sure but they indeed seemed to be talking about multiple books and this new book for the 50th. I think they intentionally obfuscated things.

• The key to me is that the 50th book is a visit to all the 5e adventures and the stuff that isn’t from those are either for the story to tie them together or are from other books
• The bunny was undead, a Sheep in Wolfs clothing. It was a brand new painting and I didn’t recognize the artist.
• My joke was that the Rod would fall apart way to easily, as they tried to hint what it was.

So from what they were taking about I think.

• A D&D 50th Anniversary book
• An Endless Stair book
• A Rod of Seven parts book
• And Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
• Oh and Tsojcanth

Please note those are all guesses by me. Oh and Tsojcanth.

Chris did say that the D&D 50th book had been announced but I can’t find anything on it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It seems plainly bizarre, not that it would happen, I get it they sourced it from some place new, whatever, naughty word happens, but like, MtG makes roughly 2 tribilmillions (yes) of cards on the year, like....what? You all dont just get together? Wild to me.

I have to imagine Brink will be answering these very questions on Monday. Maybe sooner.

 

[mamba]

It's impossible to never have issues: the question is how well you can mitigate them and handle them when they occur. That's just the reality of manufacturing (source: I work customer support for e-commerce in a factory every day).

agreed, but 'not ever' and 'on the first try' are miles apart. Pretty sure MtG does not have that issue with every single print run... I am not even blaming them for having the issue, it can happen, I just find the excuse pretty bad

 

[Parmandur]

agreed, but 'not ever' and 'on the first try' are miles apart. Pretty sure MtG does not have that issue with every single print run... I am not even blaming them for having the issue, it can happen, I just find the excuse pretty bad

They have it pretty much every print run. If the acceptable defect rate is, for random example, 1 in 400 foil cards....and MtG prints 10 million foils a month...that's still a lot of people who will expe9an issue, but if the acceptable rate is maintained and systems for helping the customer are in place and it's Baked into.pricing...well, it is what it is. But some print runs go very, very bad. Even for Magic.

 

[mamba]

They have it pretty much every print run. If the acceptable defect rate is, for random example, 1 in 400 foil cards....and MtG prints 10 million foils a month...that's still a lot of people who will expe9an issue, but if the acceptable rate is maintained and systems for helping the customer are in place and it's Baked into.pricing...well, it is what it is. But some print runs go very, very bad. Even for Magic.

I didn't mean they have zero cards with the issue, I meant they do not end up recalling / stopping the whole thing to fix the cards, and again, my main gripe is the excuse. WotC saying we have little experience printing cards is just a bit ... rich

 

[Scribe]

I have to imagine Brink will be answering these very questions on Monday. Maybe sooner.

I just kind of blank out some times when I think about how the company appears to function.

Then again, I sit back (this will be my first non-7 day work week in...2 months?) and look at my own company and...well I guess I get it lol

 

[Parmandur]

I didn't mean they have zero cards with the issue, I meant they do not end up recalling / stopping the whole thing to fix the cards

Not usually! But the d
D&dragons team might have a higher threshold, because fewer of these are being printed.

 

[darjr]

Boxes already shipped to Amazon….. that’s gotta be expensive.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

yeah, there might not be a lot of cards made for D&D, but WotC certainly does make a lot of them for some other game, kind of a weird excuse...

The teams are different.

 

[Parmandur]

Boxes already shipped to Amazon….. that’s gotta be expensive.

If WotC did their contracts with the manyfacturer right, and if Hasbro processes are good for anything it should be that...ain't coming out of WotC pocket.

 

[Scribe]

The teams are different.

My teams are global. If one works at the same company as the global leader is pushing millions of cards....send an email.