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]

Yeah, they definitely fit into the Domains of Delight idea, complete with archfey. I think at least one person has done them up that way at DMs Guild.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

None of those where written by Gygax, and where closer to the "modern" style, with minimal authorial voice. You could certainly do WG4, but without Gygax's quirkiness it wouldn't be very interesting. It would be like reading a Terry Pratchett story written by Spock.

 

[Parmandur]

None of those where written by Gygax, and where closer to the "modern" style, with minimal authorial voice. You could certainly do WG4, but without Gygax's quirkiness it wouldn't be very interesting. It would be like reading a Terry Pratchett story written by Spock.

A big chunk of Yawning Portal is Against the Giants and Tomb of Horrors, and they retain a fair chunk of Gygaxian prose. I am not directly familiar with the originals, so I cannot speak to how much they may have changed it, but...they remain distinct.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, they definitely fit into the Domains of Delight idea, complete with archfey. I think at least one person has done them up that way at DMs Guild.

I didn't find that specifically just now, but discovery on the DMsGuild is painful and there are a metric ton of Domains of Delight out there, which is awesome.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A big chunk of Yawning Portal is Against the Giants and Tomb of Horrors, and they retain a fair chunk of Gygaxian prose. I am not directly familiar with the originals, so I cannot speak to how much they may have changed it, but...they remain distinct.

Even the original G series doesn't have a lot of interesting text. It was more interesting for its hinted-at ideas. Tomb of Horrors is where Gygax is in his AD&D DMG mode.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A big chunk of Yawning Portal is Against the Giants and Tomb of Horrors, and they retain a fair chunk of Gygaxian prose. I am not directly familiar with the originals, so I cannot speak to how much they may have changed it, but...they remain distinct.

YP Tomb of Horrors is gutted. The original was unfair and sadistic by design, and the text reflected that.

 

[Parmandur]

YP Tomb of Horrors is gutted. The original was unfair and sadistic by design, and the text reflected that.

Fair enough, I'll take your word for it!

 

[Parmandur]

YP Tomb of Horrors is gutted. The original was unfair and sadistic by design, and the text reflected that.

POK, appareI lowd about taking your word for it. Looking intonit, it seems the text is basically unaltered...but the rule referrants are not going to have vw the same effect. Like, a green slime falling on you in 5E is not a death sentence, but that is a difference in the rulebooks, not the Adventure text.

 

[Parmandur]

OK, again I realize I'm spinning whole kooky conspiracy board nonsense out of very thin gruel,.and there are decent odds that Drwelzna will just be an NPC cameo or something, but deranged fever-drram speculation is fun for me. Apologies in advance.

So, while S4 is tied directly to WG4 (as is WG5, apparently, ao I wouldn't of shock if WG5 shows up, which is appropriate since it appear zto faye back to 1973, prior to the game even releasing) and apparently pretty strongly to T1-4...other than being "S3" and "S4" in sequence, I didn't see much to connect them...but now I'm wondering:

When did the ship crash in the Barrier Peaks?

S3 says it was "decades ago" and doesn't seem too concerned with the details anyway (it's a tournament module designed to amuse and bamboozle, chill out, man).

But what else happened "decades ago" in the "present" of those early Greyhawk modules...?

The overthrow of the Witch Queen in Perrenland...Tasha...and the collapse of her facility at the Loat Caverns. When the Demon Lord Graz'zt turned on her in a bid for freedom (incidentally wounding their son, Iuz who is connected to the Twmple of Elemental Evil and Castle Greyhawk, for that matter).

So today's unhinged speculation on a lrosict thst might not exist: what if the events thst led to Tasha's downfall were related to what caused the spaceship to crash? And/or to Tharizdun?

Could be a fun frame for a gonzo collection. They could also juat throw the Dungeons in a book amd tell us to have fun. Or not!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The spaceship crashed because they couldn't get enough players for Metamorphosis Alpha.