Spring's D&D Release Will Be Ship-Themed

So they talked about it a little bit on today's Fireside Chat. They mentioned that the full reveal are coming at a later date, but it will be a ship based product. It's almost done, but cover and title are not yet finalized.

Not much else was mentioned except some joke titles!

Not too surprising, given the UA, the upcoming seafaring comic book, the ship mini set, etc.

 

[Parmandur]

Listening more fully, other bits:

- The big Fall AP seems to be set to be in another Forgotten Realms location, about the same indeterminate start date as previous adventures

- A range of low-mid levels is the direction set for future APs right now, no high level AP in line

- When asked about Dragonlance point blank, they specified that all they could say is that there will be no Spelljammer in 2019, which is interesting after the earlier slip about the replica Dragonlance they are planning only being something they can discuss after the next Stream show

- At least one Hydra74 alt cover coming in 2019

- As to the "other cultures" products (Nathan was definitely plural) in 2020, they have had several outside consultants come in to work with them on getting it right (which they failed to do with Tomb of Annihilation)

- They are very happy with the 3-4 books a year, not too happy with the spacing of books in 2018 and will work on the format a bit, but no big increase in books as it is working well for the company and the customer base

- They are working with D&D Beyond, Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds on getting exclusive digital "official" content aimed at their customer bases (he threw out "D&D Noir" as an example of the sort of niche work)

- WotC has mock-ups of Funko Pops that they are working to make happen as a future product

- Ravnica has been received *really* well, one of the best selling products on D&D Beyond currently, there will be more settings, though Stewart is uncertain if there will be another setting product in 2019 because they wanted to wait to see how Ravnica was received: they will do more because it was well received, but that would be the 4th of the 3-4 products for 2019 and still up in the air.

- Asked about a Magic expansion set in a D&D world, Stewart said that he doesn't know about any right now, but that it comes up a lot and all of the "Powers That Be" want that to happen so he is confident that we will see a D&D Magic Set (!!!!)

- A couple of big surprises in the hopper, which he mentioned after laying out the Spring book, the Late Summer AP book and "any December book" as what we will know after the big stream

- No big changes in book format forthcoming

- Conservatively, there are 1.7-2 million new players in the last year, so WotC is working to figure out what new people are interested in, and Stewart asked people to be patient and charitable about their trying to cover a wide variety of playstyles and interests, and that a given product wasn't made "at the expense of Spellajmmer" getting released

- 2018 was the best year for Dungeons & Dragons ever by a wide margin

 

[Reynard]

I want pirates, big game hunters, pygmy cannibals, cursed undead, lepored priests, massive forest covered ruined temples, voodoo warlocks, and sirens. yes Indiana Jones meets pirates of the Caribbean, sea planes are optional but black powder and sabers for everyone.

I would guess we won't see much of that sort of pulp era exoticism in a modern D&D product.

 

[CydKnight]

Pirates of the Caribbean is very D&Dish. It's a lot close in tone to the-game-how-it-is-really-played than a po-faced LotR movie.

Not to me but to each their own.

 

[Parmandur]

Not to me but to each their own.

It's not just a matter of subjective feeling, though: PotC uses D&D-ish pulp tropes, you can assign Classes to many of the characters, and the big bad is a Mindflayer who has a Kraken buddy and a lost love who is a goddess pretending to be a hag.

 

[JPL]

I'd hope to see something Faerun-based. After all these years, there are still VAST uncharted areas on the map.

As a big Jack Aubrey fan, I hope they give ample attention to the actual nuts and bolts of running a ship.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe we could find a new region of FR mixing Caribea Sea (with African influence) and Oceania. The perfect place for pirates but adding new things.

And we can discover a sourcebook like Stormwrack from 3.5 Ed because now the new movie of Aquaman is a blockbuster with a great succes. Sometime I have tried to imagine a demiplane for undersea adventures with low level characters and the solution is a sea spirit realm, linked to the faywild, where the water is replaced with aether or something like "ghost/spirit water", invisible and incorporeal, but where no-fish beings can swim or dive (like an anti-gravity effect) but also surviving breathing air... until a naive predator floating on the "aether" goes to hunt and eat you.

 

[generic]

I would rather have Luskan than Sea of Fallen Stars myself, without Jaraxle and that burden. Better if they detailes part of the city and some of the other islands in the region, or along the whole Sword Coast.

Hmm...

I'd rather have Sea of Fallen Stars, but I can understand your wish to remove Jarlaxle from a Luskan plotline. In fact, Jarlaxle's presence is precisely why I want Sea of Fallen Stars.

 

[CydKnight]

It's not just a matter of subjective feeling, though: PotC uses D&D-ish pulp tropes, you can assign Classes to many of the characters, and the big bad is a Mindflayer who has a Kraken buddy and a lost love who is a goddess pretending to be a hag.

That's an interesting take. I was under the impression I could feel what I like in whatever way I wish. So yes, for me, in my own unique personal perspective as offered, it really is "just a matter of subjective feeling."

 

[Mercurius]

Not good. Now that there's a sizable 5E library, they need to transition to fewer releases per year. A lot of people are already suffering from official-release fatigue.

Huh? "Not good" because they're going from 3 to 3-4, with that 4th being a big "maybe?"

Fewer releases would imply 2 or less meaning one every 6-12 months. How is that a good thing?

As far as people "suffering from official release fatigue," I say they are a tiny minority and this is more their misperception, and WotC would be foolish to cater to this lot. The simply solution to so-called "official-release fatigue" is not to buy books you don't want. It is really that simple.

 

[Parmandur]

That's an interesting take. I was under the impression I could feel what I like in whatever way I wish. So yes, for me, in my own unique personal perspective as offered, it really is "just a matter of subjective feeling."

You have the right to your own opinion, but not your own facts: D&D is a pulp pastiche that hits certain genre notes that PotC also hits, including ones it clearly lifted from D&D.