D&D 5E Ray Winninger mentions third project!

WotC's Ray Winninger has confirmed that another D&D release, by James Wyatt, will be released in between Witchlight (September) and Strixhaven (November). Strixhaven was Amanda Hamon's project, while Witchlight is Chris Perkins'. That assumes he's not referring to the Feywild accessory kit in September.

A lot of people are asking Qs about the [D&D] releases for the rest of this year.

Yes, WILD BEYOND THE WITCHLIGHT is the [Chris Perkins] story product I referenced in our dev blog. STRIXHAVEN is [Amanda Hamon's] project. We have not yet announced [James Wyatt's] project, which releases between WITCHLIGHT and STRIXHAVEN.

Why did we announce STRIXHAVEN so early? Pretty simple--there was no way to release the STRIX-related Unearthed Arcana without letting the cat out of the bag.

You'll learn a lot more about all of these products at D&D Live on G4, July 16 and 17. And yes, there is still a little surprise or two ahead.

D&D 5E - Two New D&D Books Revealed: Feywild & Strixhaven Mage School

Amazon has revealed the next two D&D hardcovers! The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is a feywild adventure due in September, and Curriculum of Chaos is a Magic: the Gathering setting of Strixhaven, which looks like a Harry Potter-esque mage school, set for November...

www.enworld.org

 

[Mercurius]

And the bigger point isn't fandom dingaling measurements (Greygaek is my favorite!), it's predicting WotC behavior, and what WotC believes yo be true is more important than objective truth. And since they did that research and publicly reached these conclusions, they have indeed published books for those top tier Settings.

I would go one step further and say that what WotC believes to be true is almost certainly far closer to "objective truth" than any small sampling of people on the internet, especially of older generations of players.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Mystara doesn't add anything new to the 5E's thematic coverage, except for elves with mustaches.

1E Greyhawk drow had mustaches, so not even that.

I enjoyed Mystara back in the day, and could see a very narrow slice of it being reused, to bring forth a flavor of playstyle that hasn't been seen yet. But Strixhaven likely stole Glantri's thunder and I think if WotC wanted to publish a swashbuckling setting, they wouldn't pick Darokin. Wizard wars? They'd obviously use the Forgotten Realms. We already got our Hellenic setting with Theros.

I think Mystara is going to remain where it lies, a BD&D through 2E setting, and that's it.

 

[Mercurius]

I would go one step further and say that what WotC believes to be true is almost certainly far closer to "objective truth" than any small sampling of people on the internet, especially of older generations of players.

A bit more to this (I didn't want to edit it, just in case those who "liked" don't like what I want to add...haha).

The above is not a knock on "older generations," not least of which because I, being in the latter half of my 40s, am part of. But I am pointing out that we--all of us upright hominids--often confuse what we want with what will (or should) be. The gap between the two has widened for old gamers, because the majority of WotC's flock is now much younger, so their focus is more on them than us.

If I'm WotC, I'm going for a big umbrella, but there's still an ordering of priorities, something like so:

1a) Keeping the gains that have been made (and continuing to appeal to the new masses).
1b) Continuing to expand and appeal to new players.
2) Making older players feel included and (mostly) happy.

There's a sizeable gap between 1a/b and 2, but it isn't so much that 2 doesn't matter. But it doesn't matter as much as 1a/b.

 

[Lycurgon]

Meepo is RIGHT there, man!

You are the second person to respond about Meepo. My response is NO WAY! Keep that pump-action shotgun toting abomination away from my D&D! He can stay right over THERE in D20 Modern, thank you very much!

Also, he is not a scholarly type whereas Deekin is a known author of books, so he is a way better fit.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

If I'm WotC, I'm going for a big umbrella, but there's still an ordering of priorities, something like so:

1a) Keeping the gains that have been made (and continuing to appeal to the new masses).
1b) Continuing to expand and appeal to new players.
2) Making older players feel included and (mostly) happy.

And 3) only publish material that will make enough money to justify to Hasbro that it was worth all the time and effort to produce.

This is why I believe a lot of the more niche stuff that some people want will never happen. Limited time and limited staff mean being limited to what they think will be most profitable. And another pseudo-medieval world competing with the Realms, and maybe Exandria, is not profitable. Now, if they shifted from the Realms completely, maybe one of the others could get published, but not until then.

 

[nyvinter]

The feral tieflings in SCAG, terrible name aside, are pretty good. I now use them for the default tiefling NPCs in my campaign.

I feel those miss the mark too, they're still the unified marketable look tiefling and not the ones that could be whatever ancestry as long as it's not elemental or angelic.

 

[Malmuria]

Alignment is almost entirely something that matters to planar creatures in 5E.

They can publish Planescape under 5E and be fine.

I think the question would be if they are still going to attach alignments to outer planes and keep the "belief-is-reality" element of the setting. Can a city in the outlands still "slip" into a LE plane? That would mean the alignments have a metaphysical reality in the dnd cosmos and are not descriptive. I can't see them doubling down on alignment int his way.

The biggest question would be how big the treatment would be for Sigil and what, if anything, they do with the state of affairs for the factions. I can easily see them mentioning that the factions exist, but not naming them, and leaving it at that, so that groups that want to roll back the end of the Faction War can do so and the ones who want to follow the storyline out further can as well. (I mean, every group can do whatever they want, but obviously, there's a big group that likes their take on things to be canonized.)

This really shows how limiting canonical timeline/lore is: Sigil exists in a timeless infinity, and yet a reboot of the setting would have to take place around the time of this one specific event (the faciton war) for the sake of nostalgia.

 

[Mercurius]

And 3) only publish material that will make enough money to justify to Hasbro that it was worth all the time and effort to produce.

This is why I believe a lot of the more niche stuff that some people want will never happen. Limited time and limited staff mean being limited to what they think will be most profitable. And another pseudo-medieval world competing with the Realms, and maybe Exandria, is not profitable. Now, if they shifted from the Realms completely, maybe one of the others could get published, but not until then.

I agree, although think that is a result of the other priorities. But yeah, as long as the Realms are the default "anything goes" setting, there's no reason to produce another - unless it is thematic and/or opens up new territory, like Eberron, Ravenloft, Ravnica, Theros, and Strixhaven; and presumably like Dark Sun and Planescape/Spelljammer will.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

A bit more to this (I didn't want to edit it, just in case those who "liked" don't like what I want to add...haha).

The above is not a knock on "older generations," not least of which because I, being in the latter half of my 40s, am part of. But I am pointing out that we--all of us upright hominids--often confuse what we want with what will (or should) be. The gap between the two has widened for old gamers, because the majority of WotC's flock is now much younger, so their focus is more on them than us.

If I'm WotC, I'm going for a big umbrella, but there's still an ordering of priorities, something like so:

1a) Keeping the gains that have been made (and continuing to appeal to the new masses).
1b) Continuing to expand and appeal to new players.
2) Making older players feel included and (mostly) happy.

There's a sizeable gap between 1a/b and 2, but it isn't so much that 2 doesn't matter. But it doesn't matter as much as 1a/b.

It occurs to me folks are too quick to dismiss influence of older gamers because they are a minority, but I've seen younger gamers turn to more experienced gamers with questions. Older Gamers have an outsided influence because they are knowledgable so inexperienced gamers turn to them, and so the tastes of older gamers help shape the younger gamers.

Plus older setting lore is plastered all over wikis making it alot easier to make new young fans of older settings.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

[/QUOTE]

We do not know that Witchlight has any player content: the preview product description says it has "new characters," not "character options" as the Strixhaven blurb does. There has not been any indication of PC options either way yet.

Actually we do know that, it was confirmed by one of the articlesby a news outlet, I forget which one.

Btw Strixhaven does have Goblins, but not in any creature cards, a Goblin is depicted on Rejected, which I believe is a counterspell. I suspect the artist didn't realize the setting wasn't supposed to have Goblins as planned, for space reasons, but no one was opposed to them being there, so it stayed. Just a guess.

But no Hobgoblins and no Faeries in the set.