Second Dungeons & Dragons Product for Fall 2018: Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage

Wizards of the Coast announced the second product for Fall 2018, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

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A video promotion from D&D Beyond (linked below) aired at the end of the Saturday events on the "Stream of Many Eyes" and was uploaded to YouTube shortly after. The book will be a megadungeon that runs from Level 6-20 that details 23 different levels to Undermountain each with their own feel and theme, along with a full detailing of Skullport. It's stated in the video that running the module with weekly sessions will take at least eight months. Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage will be out November 13, 2018, with an MSRP of $49.95.

[video=youtube;wbVRQIOuI8s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbVRQIOuI8s[/video]
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This is the second product announced during the "Stream of Many Eyes" event on the Dungeons & Dragons Twitch channel. The event will continue on Sunday with celebrity games and potentially more product announcements from third-party companies like Gale Force Nine. The first product announced, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (along with a special dice set), were announced on Friday, June 1.

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[Klaudius Rex]

...I for one, have always loved Undermountain and cant wait to DM this!!

 

[gyor]

Three products, hundreds of pages, and nothing outside Forgotten Realms.
I'm very disappointed about that.
It is now clear, at least for me, that we will never see anything about some of the oldest and not-so-known settings (like Mystara, for example).
I can understand wotc behaviour, they have to produce books that sell, and FR definetely sells, what I cannot understand is keeping the settings locked on DMsGuild. I'm totally sure that for each wotc boss worried about profit there are a lot of fans willing to develop not profitable settings. I'm one of them.

Tome of Foes does in fact discuss things outside the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, Dragonlance all get mentioned.

 

[AmerginLiath]

I'm so glad to see an official megadungeon being developed for 5e! I anticipate many hours spent exploring this with my players.

That’s the exciting part in my eyes, seeing a proper megadungeon (with the tools for a DM to populate and respawn it) instead of another one-and-done, alongside a similar toolkit on running urban-based campaigns. As someone who tends to play in sort of “megacampaigns” where multiple groups under different DMs are existing in the same world, the way they describe these two books makes me curious. I’d love to partner up two or more local DMs, each running Dragon Heist with a different possible enemy and then each running this one, allowing players to move between groups as schedules allowed as members of one big adventuring company of sorts.

 

[gyor]

That’s the exciting part in my eyes, seeing a proper megadungeon (with the tools for a DM to populate and respawn it) instead of another one-and-done, alongside a similar toolkit on running urban-based campaigns. As someone who tends to play in sort of “megacampaigns” where multiple groups under different DMs are existing in the same world, the way they describe these two books makes me curious. I’d love to partner up two or more local DMs, each running Dragon Heist with a different possible enemy and then each running this one, allowing players to move between groups as schedules allowed as members of one big adventuring company of sorts.

They're interconntected too, so as I undersrand it you can blend them into a single adventure.

 

[TerraDave]

Two linked Waterdeep products that actually draw on FR and not just some stuff randomly inserted into it??

Makes. Too. Much. Sense.

 

[Xavian Starsider]

Three products, hundreds of pages, and nothing outside Forgotten Realms.
I'm very disappointed about that.
It is now clear, at least for me, that we will never see anything about some of the oldest and not-so-known settings (like Mystara, for example).

It's a shame how many people fail to look beyond the title on these books. These books are tool kits. It may say Waterdeep and Undermountain but what they really are is resources for sprawling urban adventures or labyrinthine dungeons full of traps and riddles. Any campaign in any world that has large cities and/or deadly labyrinths can benefit. In fact, nearly every adventure has provided tools for different types of campaigns. 5e products aren't going to go out of their way to produce setting books. Why should they? Mystara has setting books. Go download one off drive thru rpg. The fluff is the same. But while they may not do a Mystara book, they might still give you everything you need to run Mystara. We are DMs. They don't need to hold our hands. We can connect the dots.

 

[Mortellan]

Tome of Foes does in fact discuss things outside the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, Dragonlance all get mentioned.

Hate to quibble, but name-dropping does not necessarily equal discussion.

 

[werecorpse]

It's a shame how many people fail to look beyond the title on these books. These books are tool kits. It may say Waterdeep and Undermountain but what they really are is resources for sprawling urban adventures or labyrinthine dungeons full of traps and riddles. Any campaign in any world that has large cities and/or deadly labyrinths can benefit. In fact, nearly every adventure has provided tools for different types of campaigns. 5e products aren't going to go out of their way to produce setting books. Why should they? Mystara has setting books. Go download one off drive thru rpg. The fluff is the same. But while they may not do a Mystara book, they might still give you everything you need to run Mystara. We are DMs. They don't need to hold our hands. We can connect the dots.

I agree. I mean seriously a city adventure chasing a pot of gold in a big independent city linked to a nearby dungeon created by a long missing mad arch mage. Hmmm I reckon I could port that across to a certain large Free city on Oerth and link it to a nearby dungeon created by ..... Wait for it...,,, yes a long missing mad arch mage.

 

[Mortellan]

Two linked Waterdeep products that actually draw on FR and not just some stuff randomly inserted into it??

Makes. Too. Much. Sense.

Besides being too large to fit, I've argued Undermountain is FR's best "dungeoncrawl" and was a glaring omission from a book titled "Yawning Portal". This two-part release however feels right and should be quality. Now let's see WotC man up and do a City of Greyhawk-Greyawk Ruins two-parter.

 

[DQDesign]

It's a shame how many people fail to look beyond the title on these books. These books are tool kits. It may say Waterdeep and Undermountain but what they really are is resources for sprawling urban adventures or labyrinthine dungeons full of traps and riddles. Any campaign in any world that has large cities and/or deadly labyrinths can benefit. In fact, nearly every adventure has provided tools for different types of campaigns. 5e products aren't going to go out of their way to produce setting books. Why should they? Mystara has setting books. Go download one off drive thru rpg. The fluff is the same. But while they may not do a Mystara book, they might still give you everything you need to run Mystara. We are DMs. They don't need to hold our hands. We can connect the dots.

It is a shame that people do not understand that I'm complaining about having settings locked on DMsGuildfor development and that having "toolkit books" (what?!?) does not allow anyone to develop books set in Mystara or Eberron. I do not want to download lore from dmsguild, I would like to uplad things there. And I m not allowed to do that, apart from Fr, Ravenloft or 'generic' (what?!?).