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.

 

[Parmandur]

Ah, I was thinking it could be done either way - a straight conversion of 1E/2E modules in the sci-fi vein to create a Tales of the Yawning Portal or Saltmarsh as a conversion/anthology being one method.

Or, taking the high ideas of those adventures and whipping up a new one, like Storm King's Thunder (as a re imagining of G1-G3), Princes of the Apocalypse (as a re imagining of Temple of Elemental Evil) or Tomb of Annihilation.

I suppose a third option would be to go the Curse of Strahd - take the original (S3) and expand on it. In that case, there'd be a way to get from the crashed ship back to the Frontier it came from somehow...

Yup, a bunch of different things could be happening here: all we really know is that Perkins teased Drelzna from S4 and the Wolf-in-Sheeps-Clothing from S3.

They could be doing so, so very many different things with that. Look forward to finding out, while I spin castles of cloud in my noggin.

 

[Parmandur]

I ran my group through the tomb earlier this year. It led to an interesting time when the group walked through the portal that transported metals to the last room with Acererak and I realized with a bit of awe and horror that one of the PCs was Warforged.

Dang! Gygax still has it.

 

[Azzy]

Did the Ramones ever weigh in on the late 1990s punk pop scene? I have to imagine they had opinions.

Dunno.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Or, taking the high ideas of those adventures and whipping up a new one, like Storm King's Thunder (as a re imagining of G1-G3), Princes of the Apocalypse (as a re imagining of Temple of Elemental Evil) or Tomb of Annihilation.

The only thing SKT and G1-G3 have in common is that they both have giants as the main foes. If that's the only criteria, then all the mini-adventures in Bigby's must also be counted as re-imagings of G1-G3. Bluntly, they are very different from each other....

PotA is at least a bit closer to ToTE, but they are pretty distinct from each other still...

 

[Parmandur]

The only thing SKT and G1-G3 have in common is that they both have giants as the main foes. If that's the only criteria, then all the mini-adventures in Bigby's must also be counted as re-imagings of G1-G3. Bluntly, they are very different from each other....

PotA is at least a bit closer to ToTE, but they are pretty distinct from each other still...

I actually really appreciate how the G material in Yawning Portal, and the Bigby stuff, and Storm King's Thundee...is all stuff that can be used together.

Also.wprth remembering thst WotC pit oit Yawning Portal right between Storm King's Thunder and Tomb of Annhilation...so.theubare not above reusing an old Adventure and referencing it in a home in different products within the same calandar year.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The original modules where repurposed to stand alone and be usable with any game world - it was assumed that homebrew was the standard, not Greyhawk.

But since they had originally been played, they retain remnants of the original connective tissue, with all of it's I'm-making-this-up-as-I-go-along-ness.

There is one thing that I find significant about the setting for Barrier Peaks is it assumes that the characters have a low-tech (and low-magic) mindset. Characters from a setting like Eberron would not react in the way the module expects. "These warforged are dumb. Rayguns, meh". As Clarke's Law states, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And these characters understand magic just fine.

So, to have the same sense of awe and wonder that the original Barrier Peaks module went for you would need a low-tech, low magic setting to put it in.

 

[Parmandur]

The original modules where repurposed to stand alone and be usable with any game world - it was assumed that homebrew was the standard, not Greyhawk.

And honebrew is the norm still: specifically homebrew which jives well with Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk assumptions is what most people are apparently doing, per Chris Oerkins. Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same! But thst continued domination of generic homebrew (See also: Exandria) is a big part of why some Greyhawk examples make sense in these upcoming products.

There is one thing that I find significant about the setting for Barrier Peaks is it assume that the characters have a low-tech (and low-magic) mindset. Characters from a setting like Eberron would not react in the way the module expects. "These warforged are dumb. Rayguns, meh". As Clarke's Law states, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And these characters understand magic just fine.

So, to have the same sense of awe and wonder that the original Barrier Peaks module went for you would need a low-tech, low magic setting to put it in.

It would hit differently, but that's also just part of cultural shifts in general.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Anyhow, I imagine that as more and more WotC designers (and players) naturally and inevitably come from younger generations, calls for Greyhawk's revival will lessen and eventually fully dwindle out.

Undoubtedly true, but when will it happen? WotC hires some younger contractors, and but with the actual decision-makers and main designers, it seems like the many of the same people have been in place for a while, and probably will be for another few years at the very least. Which wasn't really true of earlier WotC editions, for better and worse.

And it really seems like there must a pretty firm hand on the tiller from Crawford in terms of rules design, because I was looking at designers on recent D&D books, and D&D absolutely does have some interesting designers who have done interesting work on other RPGs, but that really isn't showing through in the rules design for 5E, particularly as exemplified by 2024. As I don't think WotC is mind-wiping them or anything, that surely has to be the result of either an extremely strong corporate culture (and not in a good way) or a very firm idea of what D&D rules/classes/subclass/etc. from Crawford (and again, not necessarily in a good way). They're still mostly vets, i.e. 40-somethings with significant experience, but you'd think they'd be a little more in touch than they seem to be from the rules output.

I don't think Perkins has quite as strong a hand in adventure design, even that credited to him, simply because it's so variable in quality, style and tone (only talking apparently unintentional tone variances here of course - obviously tone varies between settings/adventures), aside from the steady trend towards PG (which I think comes from above Crawford and Perkins).

Greyhawk, I'd say, is more like mopey 1970s folk rock. There's folk rock today, but very little of it is pulling from mid-tier work from 1974.

Yeah I think that's a little better as an analogy, though I am saddened to hear that accursed disco has risen from the grave once again. It rose whilst I was at uni, and absolutely pissed me off by making like half the nightlife for like 18 months be awful disco trash. To be fair there is gold in that pile of trash (Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' for example), but like, night after night of that monotony? I swear it contributed to my depression! I hold the Bee Gees personally responsible.

Punk is not dead, and nor is Greyhawk! Or maybe I’m just old?

No comment on that but like, I remember as a teenager, reading a UK sourcebook for World of Darkness, which came out in the mid-1990s, and whoever wrote it was very clearly under the delusion that they were young and hip and au fait with today's trends, when in fact they were like, permanently stuck in about 1983-1986, culture-wise. I was appalled. I guess at least D&D can't quite fall into that trap.

 

[darjr]

OSR fans haven’t dwindled. If anything they’ve grown. While I agree eventually a demand for Greyhawk will fade I do not think today is that day.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

White Wolf's regional books have always been extremely strange (the subway system in New Orleans by Night would essentially be mass transit submarines, for instance). One would have thought after the first round of thrown tomatoes, they would have gotten better at it, but they never have. Impressive, in a weird way.