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.

 

[BB Shockwave]

I guess this guy doing the interview is an old timer, none of these images rang any bells for me. Except the one not shown, the Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing. I do hope we get that creature in the Monster Manual so we can finally get a mini of the silly thing!
The dead/magically asleep knight lady, isn't that Kitiara from Dragonlance? I mean she has a bat winged helmet. No-one with a good alignment wears those.

 

[BB Shockwave]

No one cares about poor bunnies.

Surely this guy could not have been the only one at this presentation who took photos. I hope one surfaces eventually...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I wouldn't be surprised if Greyhawk is the setting in the DMG. For one, it is a perfect fit for the 50th anniversary DMG without committing full resources to a setting book. Secondly, don't underestimate the fact that Kidz These Dayz are into "retro" (which I'd differentiate from nostalgia: the latter is a feeling evoked by someone who was there, while retro is an interest in a past that was never experienced and thus more "in the style of" than a "rosy remembrance"; e.g. Stranger Things is retro). Add to that, the bonafide nostalgia of the designers and you've got a lot going for Greyhawk as being the DMG setting.

The kids aren't into Greyhawk. That's really obvious from the way Greyhawk is discussed on reddits, Discords and so on, where people in their 20s and younger 30s and so on discuss D&D (as opposed to here, which is more of a 40-60 crowd). It's not an exciting retro setting they're keen to see come back - it gets dismissed in discussions of that topic (and indeed the way it's almost completely absent from Tiktok etc.).

However, to WotC, that's completely immaterial, because of the bolded bit.

I won't go into the full details again, because I had to do research and wrote it up in a post long ago, but both TSR and WotC have repeatedly tried to "make Greyhawk happen" after it was eclipsed by the Forgotten Realms in the later 1980s. Over and over. For the thirty+ years. None of it has worked. People just aren't interested, and imho that's because it's not inherently a cool or distinctive setting. It's more generic than the Forgotten Realms, which is saying something. Excuses can be made about it, but the fact is, the sort of people who work on D&D for WotC tend to love Greyhawk, but D&D's audience, for the last thirty years, has shown that it really just doesn't care. It's like trying to light a fire with a bow-drill and sopping wet materials. Even making it the implicit setting of 3E didn't work.

I know that's hard to hear if you're longer-term GH fan (as a Dark Sun fan I understand, it was hard to hear WotC basically say they'd never do Dark Sun - and really I'm a Taladas fan and that ain't NEVER coming back baby), but on the upside, even if D&D's audience as a whole doesn't care, the odds are good WotC will try and shove it on them anyway! So it's quite likely there will be more GH material or they'll shift it to being the "default setting" of D&D. I'm honestly surprised they've made so few attempts in 5E.

 

[mamba]

TSR and WotC have repeatedly tried to "make Greyhawk happen" after it was eclipsed by the Forgotten Realms in the later 1980s. Over and over. For the thirty+ years. None of it has worked.

I am not expecting them to ‘make it happen’ now. There won’t be a settings book for GH, they might republish some old adventures that originally took place in GH, but can basically fit anywhere, just like in the Saltmarsh book.

Maybe WotC is even using pieces from GH for the DMG setting example, but even that is a far cry from trying to revive GH as a setting

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I am not expecting them to ‘make it happen’ now. There won’t be a settings book for GH, they might republish some old adventures that originally took place in GH, but can basically fit anywhere, just like in the Saltmarsh book.

Maybe WotC is even using pieces from GH for the DMG setting example, but even that is a far cry from trying to revive GH as a setting

I think the setting in the DMG will probably be Greyhawk, not just "pieces of Greyhawk", and I think they'll then set multiple adventures there, which will confuse the heck out of players who started in 5E and had FR as the sort of "assumed" setting, but I think all they'll achieve is mildly annoying people, rather than causing anyone to go "Damn Greyhawk rules", which is the actual goal. Re: a setting book, I agree that probably won't happen because the failure of people to get excited about GH will cause them to draw back. And that's not a "far cry" from trying to revive the setting - that's exactly the approach they've taken historically and repeatedly with GH. Whenever there's an opportunity, they shove Greyhawk in there, and players are nonplussed.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The most interesting thing about WG4 is Gygax's writing style, embodying the "Evil DM" trope to the tee. I keep expecting to see he has written "Bua ha ha ha". I can't see that surviving a do-over.

Aside from that it's a fairly small generic dungeon (plus a few wilderness encounters).

In my personal opinion, the best stuff Gygax wrote was Dungeonland/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The dead/magically asleep knight lady, isn't that Kitiara from Dragonlance? I mean she has a bat winged helmet. No-one with a good alignment wears those.

Drelzna predates Kitiara by a few years. And no, not good alignment.

 

[GuyBoy]

Drelzna predates Kitiara by a few years. And no, not good alignment.

Definitely not good alignment, but a campaign featuring the two classic Yatil Mountain adventures, with the Rod of 7 parts, and possibly a redemption arc for Drelzna as an NPC, sounds pretty cool as a 50th Anniversary product.
Of course, Iuz could be the villain, but who needs Iuz when you have the infinitely scarier and more powerful Tharizdun.
Greyhawk forever!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Definitely not good alignment, but a campaign featuring the two classic Yatil Mountain adventures, with the Rod of 7 parts, and possibly a redemption arc for Drelzna as an NPC, sounds pretty cool as a 50th Anniversary product.
Of course, Isuzu could be the villain, but who needs Iuz when you have the infinitely scarier and more powerful Tharizdun.
Greyhawk forever!

No one could predict the second coming of JOE ISUZU!

 

[Parmandur]

The most interesting thing about WG4 is Gygax's writing style, embodying the "Evil DM" trope to the tee. I keep expecting to see he has written "Bua ha ha ha". I can't see that surviving a do-over.

Curse of Strahd (which has the full text of I6 in one chapter barely.chsnged), Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and Yawning Portal are examples suggesting it could survive better than yoy think...particularly since those are some of the best selling 5E products. Of course, every line has to pass two sensitivity readers, it would be interto see the results of that.

In my personal opinion, the best stuff Gygax wrote was Dungeonland/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.

On a completely different line of unhinged idle speculation (since I am determined to pull a muscle by stretching way too far), I was thinking a while back about the "Domains of Deloght" idea from Witchlight, and how those two modspecitically would make some sense as Fey Domains, should theybever wxpand on that.