Pages From The Upcoming Nautical D&D Book!

These screencaps were posted by GM Leigh (of Mage Productions) on Twitter after being showed on WotC's Twitch stream, presented by Kate Welch and Nathan Stewart. Note the old Saltmarsh trilogy references!

 

[Ash Mantle]

I just wish that we'll get rules or tables for exploring island chains/archipelagos. Hopefully what things we may find on these islands would be of an overall darker bent, like islands of cannibals (could be the lost remnants of a stranded ship, or the devolved descendants of an Atlantis expy), or things stranded on islands that came from the stars (grotesque things with too many mouths, and eyes, and lashing malevolence), or an island completely dominated by devil worshippers and their want is to dominate their neighbours, or you could find ruins dedicated to gluttonous gods that fed on sacrifice and their influence is still being felt into the present day, etc. And of course the obligatory sea monsters.

Hopefully they'll also include a list of sea shanties.

I've a crazy campaign idea, of having seen Aquaman a few times now, of having an Atlantis expy civilisation coming back into dominance. An idea to start could be to have the PCs be part of colonists attempting to settle an island, and unbeknownst to them is actually an outpost of that Atlantis expy and this Atlantis expy wishes to reclaim it back. There's also things on the island that are better left undisturbed, and there's the predations of pirates to deal with. Then there's also the undersea empires, of sahuagin, of sea elves, of tritons, or merfolk and others, that don't want to see the dominance of this Atlantis expy and their influence is also being felt.

 

[DQDesign]

Saltmarsh is not mostly about boats and seasickness. It's one of the greatest series of adventures ever. There are some who say it was the best beginner adventure ever. I know you're disappointed that this isn't something else, but I think you have this one pegged wrong.

So let me understand. When me or other posters say wotc is not doing well in not supporting more campaign settings for 5E, the standard answer by the majority on these forums is 'you don't need that, check dmsguild or your father's library for the old fluff/stuff, it is still completely applicable!'. Stuff that, regarding Mystara or Birthright for example, is so old that has never been updated since AD&D 2nd edition.
Now that wotc is (maybe) modernizing Saltmarsh for 5E, after having done exactly the same thing just a couple of editions ago (check 3.5 DMG2 chapter on Saltmarsh), they are issuing "one of the greatest series of adventures ever. There are some who say it was the best beginner adventure ever.".
I would say, coherently with the answers I received: 'you don't need that, check dmsguild or your father's library for the old fluff/stuff, it is still completely applicable!'. Moreover because you now have TWO beginner boxes, so you don't need other support for beginners.
So I would like to understand, is right when wotc decides to support old stuff but is it not right when I ask them to do the same for older one??

 

[Parmandur]

So let me understand. When me or other posters say wotc is not doing well in not supporting more campaign settings for 5E, the standard answer by the majority on these forums is 'you don't need that, check dmsguild or your father's library for the old fluff/stuff, it is still completely applicable!'. Stuff that, regarding Mystara or Birthright for example, is so old that has never been updated since AD&D 2nd edition.
Now that wotc is (maybe) modernizing Saltmarsh for 5E, after having done exactly the same thing just a couple of editions ago (check 3.5 DMG2 chapter on Saltmarsh), they are issuing "one of the greatest series of adventures ever. There are some who say it was the best beginner adventure ever.".
I would say, coherently with the answers I received: 'you don't need that, check dmsguild or your father's library for the old fluff/stuff, it is still completely applicable!'. Moreover because you now have TWO beginner boxes, so you don't need other support for beginners.
So I would like to understand, is right when wotc decides to support old stuff but is it not right when I ask them to do the same for older one??

I mean, yeah, 1E modules can be run as is with fairly minor work. Still, it's nice. Most people don't disagree that having Mystara or Birthright would be cool, just that it is perfectly reasonable for WotC to release things not all-at-once.

 

[Mistwell]

So let me understand. When me or other posters say wotc is not doing well in not supporting more campaign settings for 5E, the standard answer by the majority on these forums is 'you don't need that, check dmsguild or your father's library for the old fluff/stuff, it is still completely applicable!'. Stuff that, regarding Mystara or Birthright for example, is so old that has never been updated since AD&D 2nd edition.
Now that wotc is (maybe) modernizing Saltmarsh for 5E, after having done exactly the same thing just a couple of editions ago (check 3.5 DMG2 chapter on Saltmarsh), they are issuing "one of the greatest series of adventures ever. There are some who say it was the best beginner adventure ever.".
I would say, coherently with the answers I received: 'you don't need that, check dmsguild or your father's library for the old fluff/stuff, it is still completely applicable!'. Moreover because you now have TWO beginner boxes, so you don't need other support for beginners.
So I would like to understand, is right when wotc decides to support old stuff but is it not right when I ask them to do the same for older one??

Hey, I didn't say one word about not wanting past campaign settings updated. My reply to you does not have to match what you've heard from others, particularly about a different topic, because I never made a claim to represent the views of all others on all other topics. All I said it's a good adventure and your description of it does not match the adventure very well.

If you're going to misrepresent the adventure (which has more to do with a haunted house than anything else really) then expect to be corrected on that misrepresentation. The rest of that baggage you're carrying can be left to someone else.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yup, their work seems delayed slightly: this is why they avoid promising specifics, life happens.

And yet, we still somehow see regular complaints about them "breaking promises" that they never made. lol

Yep. Not sure why they changed it. All the old pronunciation guides had sa-HWA-gin, as did the voice-overs in Dungeons & Dragons Online, which is where I learned how to pronounce it.

Okay, but that guy also said "catacoombs", "gray-mah binder", and some other silly pronunciations!

For years, we would ask eachother if we wanted to play DDO by yelling "WE HAVE TO SAVE GRAY-MAH BINDER [not bine-der, but bin-der] FROM THE SA-HWA-GIN IN THE CATACOOMBS!"

 

[gyor]

If this is based on Saltmarsh, and the U series which is set in Greyhawk but they set this in FR, a lot of Greyhawk fans are going to be upset. Seriously this silly, FR has a major old school adventure that is widely seen as one of the best, Desert of Desolation, but instead they largely bastardize adventures from other settings, but twisting them for FR.

 

[Parmandur]

If this is based on Saltmarsh, and the U series which is set in Greyhawk but they set this in FR, a lot of Greyhawk fans are going to be upset. Seriously this silly, FR has a major old school adventure that is widely seen as one of the best, Desert of Desolation, but instead they largely bastardize adventures from other settings, but twisting them for FR.

No reason to think they are: they didn't for TftYP. This isn't the big storyline book, that's coming later in Summer.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

If this is based on Saltmarsh, and the U series which is set in Greyhawk but they set this in FR, a lot of Greyhawk fans are going to be upset. Seriously this silly, FR has a major old school adventure that is widely seen as one of the best, Desert of Desolation, but instead they largely bastardize adventures from other settings, but twisting them for FR.

Desert of Desolation was retrofitted to FR. It was originally released as being setting-neutral. I'm running it now. It really is a very good adventure, though I think that a good-faith update---not a thematically loosely related "spiritual successor" to other IMO often overdone classics as the others have been, but one that keeps a good bit of the story and plot intact---would be in order. The supermodule version has some rough patches and annoying decisions (e.g., the whole "teleport people to Raurin" to force them into the adventure) and a lot of areas that could be explored/filled out, either by WotC or by writers online. It would make a magnificent levels 1 to about 15 campaign, although I ended up running it starting at level 8 with existing characters. I wish I'd thought of running it before establishing some things I'm running now, because I'd fill out a lot of the details myself. It's a great story.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

If this is based on Saltmarsh, and the U series which is set in Greyhawk but they set this in FR, a lot of Greyhawk fans are going to be upset. Seriously this silly, FR has a major old school adventure that is widely seen as one of the best, Desert of Desolation, but instead they largely bastardize adventures from other settings, but twisting them for FR.

Kind of odd to argue about stealing adventures from other settings by using an Adventure that wasn't originally based in FR and was transplanted there as an example.

Isn't it?

 

[EthanSental]

Greyhawk fans would be upset if they used Saltmarsh and spelled one npc name wrong by mistake....wotc wont make the older, less numerous greyhawk fans happy unless it’s a perfect update so it’s a lost cause...so wotc is doing a good job making the more numerous fans happy by updating adventures some of us older players never saw, don’t care about setting being based the original and new players never heard about....I’m for a Saltmarsh update no matter how it’s updated!