D&D 5E Everything You Need To Know About Witchlight

Todd Kenrick posted a video summarizing a press conference which listed many of the things you need to know about The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. The video is below, but I've bullet-pointed the key items if you can't watch it right now.

• The Witchlight carnival is a mirror of the carnival in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. Shadar Kair are in charge of the feywild carnival and someone else in charge of the Ravenloft carnival. If these two carnivals meet the ownership shifts again and it is part of the plot that Mr Witch and Mr Light do not want to trade the carnival back.
• The carnival will go to multiple worlds. Inspiration actually came from things like Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes; Mr Light is a reflection of Mr Dark from that movie.
• There's a map of the Witchlight carnival laid out like an amusement park map.
• Time is a component of the adventure. Time moves very differently in the feywild and the shadowfell. Expect time hijinks!
• The Witchlight carnival is a way of getting into the feywild itself.
• There are domains much like the dread domains but these are called domains of delight. Each is controlled by an archfey that has power over each of these domains.
• Some art included the Palace of Hearts of Desire, and they showed a treant called Little Oak who has a tree house built into his back and children live in that tree house, plus a displacer beast kitten named Star.
• This adventure will be a very light hearted. Any challenge in this book can be solved with combat but also in a non violent way. Talking your way out of things etc.
• The carnival has attractions and NPCs like a mermaid, a mime named kendlefoot, a Kenku that's up to to to to no good. Also classic characters from the D&D animated series. On the map there is a rollercoaster identical to the rollercoaster in the intro to D&D the animated series. This can imply that that entire amusement park was the Witchlight carnival in disguise.
• Playtesters loved the game you can play in the carnival.
• There's 'custard damage'.
• Player options include new backgrounds. The Feylost and Witchlight Hand. Plus the fairy and herangon (rabbit folk) races.
• Warduke, Strongheart, and Kellek from the cartoon.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I find it ironic how people complain that D&D is too combat focused, PCs are murder-hobos and that the social and exploraiton pillars are woefully underdeveloped, but when a module comes along de-emphasizing combat, it is viewed as "Disneyfied kiddieland with no stakes".

To be fair I'm not sure they're the same people. D&D has a lot of fans with a lot of opinions.

 

[Parmandur]

I think people are reading into this a little heavier than anticipated.

My take on it is whatever the main conflict is, it can be overcome without requiring the classic D&D BBEG or dungeon-crawl type of action. For example, you could have the main resolution be the PCs learning a spell/ritual that undoes what the villain is doing. As long as the PCs learn the spell and do it, the bad guy is defeated. No "slay the villain to stop his plan" or "explore the dungeon of doom to find the lost relic", but perhaps interacting with the carnival, nonlethal contests, puzzles, riddles, and exploring strange areas will be emphasized.

I find it ironic how people complain that D&D is too combat focused, PCs are murder-hobos and that the social and exploraiton pillars are woefully underdeveloped, but when a module comes along de-emphasizing combat, it is viewed as "Disneyfied kiddieland with no stakes".

Loud and clear message to WotC: D&D is all about the damage dice.

Well, different people, I'm sure. WotC does try to provide a variety of products: pretty sure you can't do much in Dungeon of thebMad Mage without participating in major bloodbath. Can't cover all styles every time.

 

[Parmandur]

I havent played as a PC in at least 15 years. I just got to play over the last 3-4 sessions of CoS and LMoP and Im already bored. I just want something different out of an adventure.

Different strokes: Curse of Strahd as a 0lauer is some of the best times I've ever had as a player (Dwarf Wild Mage with a Lycanthrope phobia). My wife took Phandelver and ran it out of the box never having DMed before, the first weekend 5E was available, and it worked so well. Great intro Adventure for new DMs.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Breaking: Tomb of Horrors not actually deadly

I think people are reading into this a little heavier than anticipated.

My take on it is whatever the main conflict is, it can be overcome without requiring the classic D&D BBEG or dungeon-crawl type of action. For example, you could have the main resolution be the PCs learning a spell/ritual that undoes what the villain is doing. As long as the PCs learn the spell and do it, the bad guy is defeated. No "slay the villain to stop his plan" or "explore the dungeon of doom to find the lost relic", but perhaps interacting with the carnival, nonlethal contests, puzzles, riddles, and exploring strange areas will be emphasized.

I find it ironic how people complain that D&D is too combat focused, PCs are murder-hobos and that the social and exploraiton pillars are woefully underdeveloped, but when a module comes along de-emphasizing combat, it is viewed as "Disneyfied kiddieland with no stakes".

Loud and clear message to WotC: D&D is all about the damage dice.

Fairly big misunderstanding of my comments here; the first being that I don't think anyone is expecting Prismeer to be a dungeon gauntlet like Tomb of Horrors is, so this comparison is odd.

Second, at no point did I say that "Less combat means less fun." I don't feel that way, and I'm actually happy to see a book de-emphasize combat. So don't pin opinions on me that I don't have.

Third, to restate what I'm actually curious about; I want to know whether the de-emphasis of combat also is translating to a less deadly overall adventure, or whether it is just providing more opportunities to avoid combat. And, whether there are still very dangerous situations that are unrelated to combat, like traps, magical riddles, all that stuff.

Anyway, if I seem annoyed here, it's because I am annoyed that people are so quick to take my comment so completely out of context.

 

[R_J_K75]

Why on earth is there this perception that the Carnival is innocent? Or lacking in danger?

The local carnival that used to come around Memorial Day weekend got banned within the last 5 years because of drugs, shootings and stabbings. Probably various other crimes as well. They dont call it the "Fun House" for nothing.

 

[R_J_K75]

Different strokes: Curse of Strahd as a 0lauer is some of the best times I've ever had as a player (Dwarf Wild Mage with a Lycanthrope phobia). My wife took Phandelver and ran it out of the box never having DMed before, the first weekend 5E was available, and it worked so well. Great intro Adventure for new DMs.

As much as I wanted to play Ive been DMing so long I think Ive become hardwired to that thinking. DMs newer to it but doing a great job, Id say he knows the 5E rules better than I do, but needs more behind the screen time to come up with something that is out of the ordinary to hold my attention. Those adventures were fun, good books I just think that strangely enough because Ive run so many of those type adventures they dont appeal to me.

One of players asked us to switch from Wed to Tues so he can watch Master Chef. So Im writing an Iron Chef/Chopped adventure in Lamordia. Complete with an electric chair that doubles as a microwave oven.

 

[Shardstone]

I think what I like the most about this book is that it is very apparent that its meant to be used with kids as well as with adults. The fact that every encounter can be gotten through without combat, and that its called a Domain of Delight, means that you really don't need a normal D&D character to even run it. You could make up very basic stats and give those to young kids and with those they could play this book. That's pretty neat.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

Oh, this looks... Well, DELIGHTFUL! Fun and whimsical are just my jams. And the Animated Series connection is cool.

I hope they do like the Waterdeep Enchiridion and have that map up for download, it'd make a nice prop.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sounds like a great adventure for kids (and/or for adults who want something more lighthearted and nonviolent, of course)! I probably won’t run it myself, but it sounds adorable, and good to have available as a lighter option. And there is something appealing about the symmetry between this and the carnival domain in Ravenloft.

Heck yeah. I plan on mining it relentlessly for as long as I keep playing D&D , just like I’ve been doing with Heroes of The Feywild.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I kept getting hung up on the term "Domain of Delight", but come to think of it the more malevolent archfey in 4E were mostly ones with a backstory involving them and their domain transforming from pleasant to bleak, with the possibility of them being redeemed. This includes both the Prince of Frost and the Bramble Queen at the very least.

So, there already was some parallel with the Domains of Dread and their dark lords where the evil archfey were concerned. Even the Prince of Frost's Vale of Long Night has the possibility of being transformed back into the demesne of the Sun Prince. The possibility of this succeeding is also probably higher than a dark lord being turned from evil, and even then the domain wouldn't transform into a more pleasant place, but disappear.