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.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

Is there really much of an overlap between OSR fans today and Greyhawk fans?

I mean I'd call myself an OSR fan, thanks to games like Worlds Without Number and a general ton of cool and innovative RPGs/settings which are technically OSR in terms of rules/tone.

I don't think there is much of a demand for Greyhawk, period, and I don't say that to be mean, just realistically look at the countless attempts to revive it, and their total failure. Or at the relative lack of activity associated with it online, as compared to other settings. I'm not saying there's none or people are wrong to like it, I'm just saying, I don't think it's really there outside of the D&D team themselves.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

They made up a subway system for New Orleans?

My god. That's pretty next-level. That's like something you'd do as a joke. Kind of blows the mind that they didn't find a New Orleans resident or even someone with any real conception of where New Orleans is to write it though. I feel like even if you'd asked me to do a New Orleans sourcebook in say, 1993, when my sole knowledge of New Orleans was Gabriel Knight I'd still have realized a subway was impossible...

At least with the UK sourcebook I'm describing it was pretty clear a UK person was involved in writing it, just like, a nerd in their 30s or older who hadn't kept up with the culture. That said I think WW put out another one for a different line which was written solely by Americans and was absolutely bananas - or maybe I'm thinking of another horror RPG.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

I am not sure how many OSR fans would buy a $50 Greyhawk sourcebook full of 5E stats and design assumptions, especially when they can just get the originals as POD from DMs Guild/DriveThruRPG. Getting laughed out of Dragonsfoot for making the suggestion would be the best case scenario, IMO.

In contrast, a lot of them are excited about the re-release of Castle Yggsburgh from Troll Lords, since very few people have the originals and there's the tantalizing prospect of new content coming in the future.

 

[Parmandur]

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.

Yeah, it's not like Greyhawk has a particularly niche style: vanilla generic high fantasy is profoundly popular. And it is not just older people! I am attached to Greyhawk from 3.5 era stuff, and I didn't even do Loving Hreyhawk or anything. I just dug the vibe in the Core.

I think being very lightly detailed helps Greyhawk: means it is easy to update and modernize, as they did in Ghosts of Saltmarsh super casually.

Vanilla is one of the most valuable substances in the world. More of an apt comparison than disco or 70's indie folk rock.

 

[Parmandur]

I am not sure how many OSR fans would buy a $50 Greyhawk sourcebook full of 5E stats and design assumptions, especially when they can just get the originals as POD from DMs Guild/DriveThruRPG. Getting laughed out of Dragonsfoot for making the suggestion would be the best case scenario, IMO.

In contrast, a lot of them are excited about the re-release of Castle Yggsburgh from Troll Lords, since very few people have the originals and there's the tantalizing prospect of new content coming in the future.

Maybe: but how many of them might buy a DMG if it has a new Greyhawk poster map thst tickles their fancy...?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Maybe: but how many of them might buy a DMG if it has a new Greyhawk poster map thst tickles their fancy...?

Even fewer.

The folks at Dragonsfoot, who are pretty much the biggest audience of OSR gamers who are passionate about Greyhawk, tend to hate 5E with a fiery, often irrational, passion.

If Greyhawk should reappear for 5E, there has to be a case made for it among 5E players, rather than some OSR unicorns who are perfectly happy with the setting books from 1980 and 1983.

 

[Parmandur]

Even fewer.

The folks at Dragonsfoot, who are pretty much the biggest audience of OSR gamers who are passionate about Greyhawk, tend to hate 5E with a fiery, often irrational, passion.

If Greyhawk should reappear for 5E, there has to be a case made for it among 5E players, rather than some OSR unicorns who are perfectly happy with the setting books from 1980 and 1983.

Fair. As someone who didn't get into Greyhawk till the Bush 2 administration, I think that case can be made. Particularly in the "here is how to make a homebrew Setting step by step" DMG case study I suspect is coming. Basically perfect for that purpose.

I do agree a slipcase for Greyhawk would be a hard sell. "It’s like normal D&D! $85, please."

 

[Azzy]

The thing is, though—regardless of whether Greyhawk is in demand, WotC will be roundly lambasted if the DON'T have some Greyhawk content for the 50th anniversary. Especially from the OSR community even if they have absolutely no intention of buying such content.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The thing is, though—regardless of whether Greyhawk is in demand, WotC will be roundly lambasted if the DON'T have some Greyhawk content for the 50th anniversary. Especially from the OSR community even if they have absolutely no intention of buying such content.

I think putting in all or part of Oerth into their "how to develop a setting" chapter in the DMG would work, as would making the next Starter Set an update of Keep on the Borderlands (with notes of how to place it in Oerth, Faerun or elsewhere -- originally it had no setting other than "the Borderlands").

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think putting in all or part of Oerth into their "how to develop a setting" chapter in the DMG would work, as would making the next Starter Set an update of Keep on the Borderlands (with notes of how to place it in Oerth, Faerun or elsewhere -- originally it had no setting other than "the Borderlands").

The trouble is that Oerth is an extremely bad example of how to develop a setting. I mean, not the absolute worst, but it's pretty much down there. They'd be infinitely better off using the Nentir Vale, which is actual good positive example of how to set up a D&D setting. Using Greyhawk solely because the designers are huge Greyhawk boosters would perfect example of sacrificing good design for the sake of bad nostalgia that literally 95% of people buying the book will be either nonplussed or annoyed by.

I'm sure Greyhawk will feature in the 50th anniversary adventure(s).