D&D 5E Roundup: Check Out These Previews from D&D Celebration

WotC's online D&D streaming event is taking place all weekend, and throughout the process they have released a few previews upcoming books.

From Fizban's Treasury of Dragons:

• Metallic Dragonborn
• Drakewyrm Ranger
• Moonstone Dragons

D&D 5E - Fizban's Treasury Dragons Ranked By Challenge Rating

WotC has been sending out previews of Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, due out next month, to folks on Twitter. Amongst those are art pieces and other items. By Challenge Rating the dragons in the book are: Ancient crystal (19) Ancient topaz (20) Ancient emerald (21) Ancient moonstone (21)...

www.enworld.org

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight: An In-Depth Review

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight isn't just Wizards of the Coast's latest Dungeons & Dragons adventure. It's the first official, full-length adventure from WotC set in the Feywild. While often mentioned, the counterpart to the Shadowfell has gotten much less attention through the editions...

www.enworld.org

From Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos:

 

[Geoff Thirlwell]

I think Strixhaven will be the first WotC 5e book that I won’t buy

 

[BookTenTiger]

Magical Academy is one D&D concept I've never thought to run. Strixhaven may be the first setting book I've ever bought.

 

[EthanSental]

The Guild stream right now is funny stuff. Fun seeing them back together.

 

[Bird Of Play]

Is it troublesome and offensive if I say this looks like utter poo?

I so miss when D&D was darker and more Tolkien-inspired. Now it's Harry Potter, but as an anime.
Makes sense however, since the majority of D&D players in general either choose to play as their favorite anime character or as their idealized waifu/husbando.

 

[Fallen star]

Don't forget, Strixhaven is a Magic the Gathering setting, directly inspired by Harry Potter.

I'm glad D&D has a diverse fanbase, and I dont fault WOTC for making products for demographics other than mine.

But yeah, I'm not buying strixhaven either.

 

[Aldarc]

Is it troublesome and offensive if I say this looks like utter poo?

I so miss when D&D was darker and more Tolkien-inspired. Now it's Harry Potter, but as an anime.
Makes sense however, since the majority of D&D players in general either choose to play as their favorite anime character or as their idealized waifu/husbando.

Nostalgia for your personal aesthetic preferences is fine, but D&D has been different from standard Tolkien fare for quite some time. 2e gave us Planescape, Dark Sun, Planejammer, and more. Even then I don't think Tolkien is the primary influence on D&D when compared to other writers. The world of fantasy has changed. I don't think that younger gamers particularly care or know about the fantasy of Fritz Lieber, Michael Moorcock, or Robert Howard, which inspired Gygax. That's (mostly*) fine. Our sense of fantasy adventure has changed.

* "That's not a Witcher or Arthas clone, younglings! That's an Elric clone!"

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Is it troublesome and offensive if I say this looks like utter poo?

I so miss when D&D was darker and more Tolkien-inspired. Now it's Harry Potter, but as an anime.
Makes sense however, since the majority of D&D players in general either choose to play as their favorite anime character or as their idealized waifu/husbando.

Am I the only one who find Harry Potter to be darker then LotRs?

Anyways I watched both the Strixhaven and Fizban Panels.

For Strixhaven there are 5 new spells, one for each college, like Barrowed Knowledge which gives you a skill prof, but these spells are also added to class lists.

They built this relationship system, it doesn't have to be romantic, but they really went whole hog on the social pillar, but there is still combat and stuff.

Everybody, even fighter gets magic.

Strixhaven is much more designed to be self contained then Theros or Ravnica, so it can be dropped into any D&D world like FR or Greyhawk or MtG setting like Theros or Ravnica or it's actual plane.

For Fizban's they have 3 feats tied to main Dragon Families, 15 Lair maps, they mention some of the other monsters like some kind of a Sacrab that looks like a gold coin, champions of the Dragon Gods. One thing they really emphasis is the whole First World thing, but as a mythology, so it's not completely presented as absolute truth. 80+ monsters. Dyson Logos did the Lair maps, so they will be practical and functional, but not pretty.

All 20 of the Dragon types that get 3-6 page deep dive have a table with one if the things being different from the typical behavior for the Dragon type, so like you can have a Gold Dragon villain.

I add stuff as I remember it
and it occurs to me

 

[NaturalZero]

Am I the only one who find Harry Potter to be darker then LotRs?

I associate old school Hobbit media with little cartoony people with hairy feet. It's weird to claim that Tolkien was grim-dark compared to 5e.

Remember when DnD was sooooo dark??

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Is it troublesome and offensive if I say this looks like utter poo?

I so miss when D&D was darker and more Tolkien-inspired. Now it's Harry Potter, but as an anime.
Makes sense however, since the majority of D&D players in general either choose to play as their favorite anime character or as their idealized waifu/husbando.

It sounds like you might need to find people who prefer a game more in the style you do; they're not particularly rare from how you've described your tastes. It's a big tent game, not everything is there for everybody.

There are also lots of games that constrain the genre more, some to a "darker and more Tolkien-inspired" mode. If you actually want something with a Tolkien feel, D&D has always been a poor prospect for that, even when the race options were basically "Tolkien +gnomes" because the magic level and magic system just doesn't correlate at all.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Remember when DnD was sooooo dark??

Like a few months ago, when they released Ravenloft for 5e? Or a year ago when they released a horror adventure for Icewind Dale? Or two years ago when they released Mad Max in Hell? Or when they re-released Curse of Strahd last year?

 

[NaturalZero]

I glad to see the UA metallic dragonborn made the cut. I'm playing the UA chromatic and this leads me to believe they probably made it too.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I associate old school Hobbit media with little cartoony people with hairy feet. It's weird to claim that Tolkien was grim-dark compared to 5e.
View attachment 144384
Remember when DnD was sooooo dark??
View attachment 144385

While I agree with the basic point, that Return of the King video cover art is not really representative of the tone of the movie. Yes it's reasonably kid-friendly, a cartoon, and a musical, but it is not a smiley fun time on horses version of the story by any stretch.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Am I the only one who find Harry Potter to be darker then LotRs?

Anyways I watched both the Strixhaven and Fizban Panels.

For Strixhaven there are 5 new spells, one for each college, like Barrowed Knowledge which gives you a skill prof, but these spells are also added to class lists.

They built this relationship system, it doesn't have to be romantic, but they really went whole hog on the social pillar, but there is still combat and stuff.

Everybody, even fighter gets magic.

Strixhaven is much more designed to be self contained then Theros or Ravnica, so it can be dropped into any D&D world like FR or Greyhawk or MtG setting like Theros or Ravnica or it's actual plane.

For Fizban's they have 3 feats tied to main Dragon Families, 15 Lair maps, they mention some of the other monsters like some kind of a Sacrab that looks like a gold coin, champions of the Dragon Gods. One thing they really emphasis is the whole First World thing, but as a mythology, so it's not completely presented as absolute truth. 80+ monsters. Dyson Logos did the Lair maps, so they will be

practical and functional, but not pretty.

All 20 of the Dragon types that get 3-6 page deep dive have a table with one if the things being different from the typical behavior for the Dragon type, so like you can have a Gold Dragon villain.

I add stuff as I remember it
and it occurs to me

a decent social pillar is of use to me.

I glad to see the UA metallic dragonborn made the cut. I'm playing the UA chromatic and this leads me to believe they probably made it too.

I would hope so.

 

[Bird Of Play]

It sounds like you might need to find people who prefer a game more in the style you do; they're not particularly rare from how you've described your tastes. It's a big tent game, not everything is there for everybody.

Allow me to disagree: they seem pretty dang rare to me.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Allow me to disagree: they seem pretty dang rare to me.

maybe you are just looking in the wrong places? I saw adverts for a grimmer darker setting the sold well so someone is buying it.

 

[Ravenbrook]

There was a 2e supplement called College of Wizardry. It's probably darker than what Strixhaven appears to be. Btw, is Strixhaven a girls' school? Just wondering because of the pictures and the names.

 

[Mind of tempest]

There was a 2e supplement called College of Wizardry. It's probably darker than what Strixhaven appears to be. Btw, is Strixhaven a girls' school? Just wondering because of the pictures and the names.

no, it seems mixed just those are the ones listed.

 

[Mecheon]

Makes sense however, since the majority of D&D players in general either choose to play as their favorite anime character or as their idealized waifu/husbando.

So uh, take it you haven't heard of Record of Lodoss War, then?

The anime based on a story which was just a AD&D campaign some guys in Japan played, and directly lead to the creation of Sword World because TSR wouldn't licence D&D in Japan?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Am I the only one who find Harry Potter to be darker then LotRs?

The books get pretty dark, and the evil is less abstract.

In LotR the evil is evil because it says so in it's stat block. In Harry Potter we actually have descriptions of evil people engaging in acts of racism, torture and murder.

In both good triumphs over evil, so neither is truly grimdark.