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]

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.

Stewart was asked about this point blank, and he said they are very happy with the current rate, and it seems to be working for customers.

 

[dwayne]

I hate the realms always have, i just scavenge it for other settings, i was brought up in greyhawk and old school. I would like, no love to see an old school setting treatment of greyhawk, go hard core or go home. Make it gritty and dangerous alter spells to hearken back to when it cost constitution points to rez someone. Death was a shock to the system and wizards needed no concentration if only in melee, and spells were limited only by the number per day you can cast on ones self. Yes please give grey hawk the old gary gygax i am going to have the sword have charges treatment, gary sorry to see you gone but sometimes people fail a con check man

 

[Vael]

I forgot, I have screencaps!

View attachment 103950

It's the "E" thar makes it classy.

 

[vecna00]

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

If I remember correctly, the uncertainty about another setting product in 2019 was only in regards to a new Magic in D&D setting. I'll have to watch it again to make certain though.

You nailed everything else!

 

[Parmandur]

If I remember correctly, the uncertainty about another setting product in 2019 was only in regards to a new Magic in D&D setting. I'll have to watch it again to make certain though.

You nailed everything else!

My read on it was that they had waited for feedback to see if they wanted to move forward with another full setting book, and now that they know they want to do it Stewart is hesitant to commit to a 2019 release. But, you might be right or he might have been imprecise (which is the danger of off-the-cuff hedge-y spoilers).

If their next planned setting book is Eberron, making sure everything is polished might get it bumped of the year, but Stewart might not be certain at this point. They did certainly succeed in getting me pumped for the year.

 

[vecna00]

This next book screams supplement, not adventure, to me. It'll probably have ALL (tm) of the nautical rules. What exactly that will involve...I don't know. Will there be new races, backgrounds, subclasses, or feats? Maybe? If this were an older edition, it would definitely include all of these things. There will probably be monsters though, that will fill half a book!

 

[vecna00]

My read on it was that they had waited for feedback to see if they wanted to move forward with another full setting book, and now that they know they want to do it Stewart is hesitant to commit to a 2019 release. But, you might be right or he might have been imprecise (which is the danger of off-the-cuff hedge-y spoilers).

If their next planned setting book is Eberron, making sure everything is polished might get it bumped of the year, but Stewart might not be certain at this point. They did certainly succeed in getting me pumped for the year.

It's hard to know for certain, but we'll be finding out soon-ish!

 

[Aaron L]

Ugh... that's what they're wasting one of their few, precious books on this year? A book about ships and sailing?

Sorry, I really dislike nautical themed D&D stuff. Absolutely zero interest for me. And seeing as how they publish so few 5th Edition rulebooks, this seems like a complete waste of an opportunity for new stuff.

I'm happy for the people who will enjoy it, but for me it's an absolute disappointment.

If it were a book about various climate/terrain types then it might be worth it, but still pretty boring to me. What I really want is a book full of more Feats and subclasses to expand the base game.

 

[Parmandur]

Ugh... that's what they're wasting one of their few, precious books on this year? A book about ships and sailing?

Sorry, I really dislike nautical themed D&D stuff. Absolutely zero interest for me. And seeing as how they publish so few 5th Edition rulebooks, this seems like a complete waste of an opportunity for new stuff.

I'm happy for the people who will enjoy it, but for me it's an absolute disappointment.

If it were a book about various climate/terrain types then it might be worth it, but still pretty boring to me. What I really want is a book full of more Feats and subclasses to expand the base game.

Not necessarily a contradiction, it could still be partly that. It is not an adventure book, so there are going to be rules in it of some sort, maybe monsters, maybe sub-classes.

 

[CydKnight]

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.

Pulp pastiche, genres were never disputed or introduced in my original thread nor does it influence my original opinion. It still doesn't feel D&D to me which is all I was trying to say. It feels more like its own genre to me.