D&D 5E (2024) Is WOTC done publishing campaigns?

[Zardnaar]

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I have buckets of 3rd party pdfs to use. Some dating back to 2014 or 15 i have yet to use.

 

[aco175]

The sweet side of me thinks they are working on a great campaign book. They just waited until all the new core books came out and they were through with their corporate reshuffle/Christmas layoffs to start the new campaign. They have fresh, new, rising names working on it right now.

The crunchy side of me thinks that corporate numbers are down for their billion dollar business so put out some splat books and maybe an anthology does not cost much to slap together.

 

[Burnside]

6 reviews is nothing. More reviews the merrier.

When we buy stuff we often use an independent consumer site.

RPGs are a lot harder. Ive used ENworld to filter my purchases. Here's what I haven't bought.

Dragonheist
Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Storm Kings Thunder
Acquisitions Incorporated
Shattered Obelisk
The Vecna One.
Strixhaven
Dragonlance
Planescape
Spelljammer
Stanger Things boxed sets X2.
Descent into Avernus

IMO this is mostly a quite solid "do not buy" list, but I would argue in favor of a few on there.

Dragonheist - very terrible, yes

Dungeon of the Mad Mage - I think this is well worth buying, but not to run the whole as a campaign. Most of the dungeon levels are very, very good and can be cannibalized. Most groups just don't need to run 23 dungeon levels. Kind of a brilliant book, though. Third parties have done color versions of the maps which really elevates the experience, especially for VTT play.

Storm Kings Thunder - really bad

Acquisitions Incorporated - the adventure is quite good, but definitely not for all tastes. By no means a bad book.

Shattered Obelisk - hugely disappointing

The Vecna One - The behavior and plan of the central villain is nonsense, which hurts it a lot and makes it hard to salvage. Has some good set pieces though.

Strixhaven - Bad

Dragonlance - This is pretty good tbh

Planescape - the adventure is one of the worst official WotC adventures of the 5E era. The setting book and bestiary are good though.

Spelljammer - I actually really like the much-maligned Light of Xaryxis adventure. Setting book is disappointing, bestiary is ok. Kind of the mirror image of the Planescape box.

Stanger Things boxed sets X2. - The first one is a gimmick, but not terrible or anything. The boxed set from last year is GREAT and anyone skipping it is missing out on 4 very solid tier one adventures and excellent production values.

Descent into Avernus - pretty bad as written, yeah

 

[saviirkad]

Absolutely, which is why I started that post with “tastes vary, of course.”

That’s not my intent. I was speaking of my personal experience. The people I have played with typically gravitate towards railroads if they are disengaged, and enjoy more nonlinear structures when they are engaged. I have not played with every player in the world, or even anywhere near a significant fraction of such. Perhaps your experience has been different than mine, and if so, that would probably be a valuable counter-example to my experience for you to share.

My own, limited experience was different. I don't necessarily have disengaged players, but not everyone is equally engaged. When one of my players needed to step back from a weekly game to every other week, we obliged. To fill the gap, I started running adventures straight by the book. Minimal prep so I can focus my energies on the "main campaign."

And what I personally found was that the most engaged players were the most likely to engage with the railroad. Whenever there was movement to go off rails, it was almost always the two singularly most engaged players who got the party back on track. Which meant little help from me was ever needed.

In other words, my engaged players were engaged with the plot ahead of them, and were less distracted by things around them.

 

[Burnside]

I think we will see more long-form campaign books, and I think we will see one this year (late in the year). There's been a massive change in the creative team; Perkins was the lead on the vast majority of the campaign books for the past decade and he's gone. A bunch of new people just got hired.

It's pretty clear at this point that we're getting no D&D book releases at all in Q1 2026. Beadle & Grimm is announcing a Silver D&D box in March (presumably with a pre-sale), which means that the regular version of whatever that book is will likely release in...June?

I think the red wizards/Thay thing is dead. It was primarily a tie-in to Honor Among Thieves which, while excellent, didn't really have legs and WotC's production timelines meant that they failed to do anything timely to capitalize on its visibility. Perkins was the lead on it, and again, he is gone.

 

[bedir than]

...

deleted

 

[Zardnaar]

IMO this is mostly a quite solid "do not buy" list, but I would argue in favor of a few on there.

Dragonheist - very terrible, yes

Dungeon of the Mad Mage - I think this is well worth buying, but not to run the whole as a campaign. Most of the dungeon levels are very, very good and can be cannibalized. Most groups just don't need to run 23 dungeon levels. Kind of a brilliant book, though. Third parties have done color versions of the maps which really elevates the experience, especially for VTT play.

Storm Kings Thunder - really bad

Acquisitions Incorporated - the adventure is quite good, but definitely not for all tastes. By no means a bad book.

Shattered Obelisk - hugely disappointing

The Vecna One - The behavior and plan of the central villain is nonsense, which hurts it a lot and makes it hard to salvage. Has some good set pieces though.

Strixhaven - Bad

Dragonlance - This is pretty good tbh

Planescape - the adventure is one of the worst official WotC adventures of the 5E era. The setting book and bestiary are good though.

Spelljammer - I actually really like the much-maligned Light of Xaryxis adventure. Setting book is disappointing, bestiary is ok. Kind of the mirror image of the Planescape box.

Stanger Things boxed sets X2. - The first one is a gimmick, but not terrible or anything. The boxed set from last year is GREAT and anyone skipping it is missing out on 4 very solid tier one adventures and excellent production values.

Descent into Avernus - pretty bad as written, yeah

Stranger Things just not that into it and I have 4 starter sets already.

Some other stuff was just niche eg Aquisitions Incorporated.