Dungeons & Dragons Will Announce New Products at Gen Con, Modules Returning to Game

Wizards of the Coast plans to use Gen Con as a launching point for future products. During a press briefing at Gary Con on Thursday, Head of D&D Franchise Dan Ayoub said that they would be announcing the product tied to the Season of Champions at Gen Con this year. Additionally, starting at Gen Con in 2026, D&D will also announce the roadmap for the upcoming year at the convention, which will include announcements of upcoming Seasons, announcement of new products, and other "stuff" tied to the season.

Ayoub told the press briefing that early feedback for the seasons have been "fantastic," so it appears that this will be the standard moving forward.

Later in the press briefing, Ayoub noted that the lengthy delay in announcements was due to a combination of internal reorganization for the D&D team and a shift in which products would be released in 2026. He also said that adventure modules will be returning to Dungeons & Dragons as part of the new Season models, although it's unclear whether this will be through the D&D Encounters program, Adventurer's League, or through some other kind of unannounced product.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Digital only.

Let them. If it ain't physical or in pdf format they won't get a dime of my money. Screw D&D beyond.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Let them. If it ain't physical or in pdf format they won't get a dime of my money. Screw D&D beyond.

Why?

 

[Scott Christian]

I love game stores, but that doesn't mean a product can't be successful without them. In this hobby, there are plenty of different sales models; most TTRPG products aren't readily available in a typical FLGS.

The quote to which I was responding asserted that, to be successful, these modules had to available in a FLGS. But DDB already has lots of prducts for sale that you can't easily get at an FLGS, and this type of low page count product fits the bill. Thus, I suggested that they might be intended as primarily or even exclusively digital products - we'll have to see. I'm not arguing against the value of game stores.

We can disagree. I happen to thing for modules to actually work; meaning tables use them and they gain traction in the community, prompting WotC to make more, they need to be in game stores.
I am not saying they can't make money anywhere else. They can. But for them to be a hot item, one where people want to scoop them up, and more importantly, one where WotC says "We want to keep making these." I think popularity inside the gaming stores is the only way to do that.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Why?

Because a PDF or physical product doesn't require a subscription or internet. Nor can it be taken away from me whenever a corporation arbitrarily decides that maintaining a server is no longer worth the time or money. Nor can they one day do something akin to banning me for refusing to provide a government ID should asinine laws be passed that require it because of an increasingly fascist government.

I refuse to buy into their payment for services bull$&!%. I buy products that I can use in perpetuity, or I do not buy them at all.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Because a PDF or physical product doesn't require a subscription or internet. Nor can it be taken away from me whenever a corporation arbitrarily decides that maintaining a server is no longer worth the time or money. Nor can they one day do something akin to banning me for refusing to provide a government ID should asinine laws be passed that require it because of an increasingly fascist government.

I refuse to buy into their payment for services bull$&!%. I buy products that I can use in perpetuity, or I do not buy them at all.

Eh, use your money how you like.

Paying for a service isnt BS. Ranting about it like they're trying to trick you is, though.

 

[Burnside]

We can disagree. I happen to thing for modules to actually work; meaning tables use them and they gain traction in the community, prompting WotC to make more, they need to be in game stores.
I am not saying they can't make money anywhere else. They can. But for them to be a hot item, one where people want to scoop them up, and more importantly, one where WotC says "We want to keep making these." I think popularity inside the gaming stores is the only way to do that.

If that was true, they'd make them.

To be clear, I very much prefer PDFs or physical products. But me wanting them doesn't at all mean that WotC needs to make them in order for them to be successful.

I would also add that the hit-to-miss ratio of the short adventures in Dragon Delves, Keys From the Golden Vault, Journeys through the Radiant Citadel, Candlekeep Mysteries, and Stranger Things: Welcome to the Hellfire Club, all in print, is quite strong.

 

[jayoungr]

I think its the format snd the reputation they developed of being sub-par

They didn't really have a reputation because people literally didn't know or forgot they existed. There would be tons of threads asking "Why doesn't WotC publish any short adventures?"

I'm the first to concede that the AL adventures do vary widely in quality, but there are some real gems in there.

 

[tetrasodium]

They didn't really have a reputation because people literally didn't know or forgot they existed. There would be tons of threads asking "Why doesn't WotC publish any short adventures?"

I'm the first to concede that the AL adventures do vary widely in quality, but there are some real gems in there.

Agreed. I used to run s lot of AL twice a week for years at a flgs . I occasionally heard of them mentioned online discussion here/YouTube but don't think any of usat the shop ran them other than the one that was written by someone there because she went around excitedly giving it to us.


Wotc's GM outreach for AL somehow manages to be even worse than the GM support in AL or 5e in general. I'm not sure where I would have gotten those adventures and don't even have a solid idea of where I would go looking for them if I were to try.

 

[Burnside]

Agreed. I used to run s lot of AL twice a week for years at a flgs . I occasionally heard of them mentioned online discussion here/YouTube but don't think any of usat the shop ran them other than the one that was written by someone there because she went around excitedly giving it to us.


Wotc's GM outreach for AL somehow manages to be even worse than the GM support in AL or 5e in general. I'm not sure where I would have gotten those adventures and don't even have a solid idea of where I would go looking for them if I were to try.

They're on the DMsGuild, but yeah.

I'm taking a wait-and-see approach to this latest attempt at organized play. There have been too many half-hearted relaunches and false starts over the past decade for me to get excited about the latest iteration until I see what's actually done.

 

[Stormonu]

...skipping ahead, sorry if I'm rehashing old stuff.

I could get behind a 32, 48 or 64 page book/module that has the left page with a short dungeon key and an annotated map on the right page.

Something akin to this on the right page:

Spoiler

The left side of the page might have some background, general notes, treasure tables, rumors or other additional material/stat blocks to enhance the map.

A lot of current D&D adventure books take up a lot of room to thoroughly and tediously explain the details of an adventure site. It was refreshing to see the abbreviated examples in the 2024 DMG and a book of this sort of stuff would be a breath of fresh air (and treat DMs as being intelligent and pressed for time, not a bunch of noobs too green to make their own stuff).