D&D (2024) "The Future of D&D" (New Core Books in 2024!)

The online D&D Celebration event, which has been running all weekend, comes to a close with The Future of D&D, a panel featuring WotC's Ray Winninger, Liz Schuh, Chris Perkins, and Jeremy Crawford, hosted by Elle Osili-Wood.

D&D is exploring the multiverse
Revisiting classic settings. 1st of 3 settings (Ravenloft) released this year. Next year, the other two major classic D&D settings come out. Both in formats they've never published products before.

Plus a "little peek" at a third classic D&D setting - a cameo.

In 2023, yet another classic setting is coming out.

Evolving D&D
Because of new players, they're always listening. Exploring new styles of play (like no combat needed in Wild Beyond the Witchlight). Also presentation of monsters and spells. New product formats. More adventure anthologies.

Making products easier to use. Ways to create the best experience. Experimenting and looking into technology.

Approaches to Design
Wild Beyond the Witchlight has interior design and tools to make running the adventure easier. Story tracker, guidance.

Beyond the books, they want to make different and varied products - packaging and form factor. Things different to hardcovers and boxed sets.

A blog post is coming soon detailing some of the changes, with more to come in future posts.

50th Anniversary in 2024
They've begun work on new versions of the core rulebooks. Recent surveys tie into that. They're still making plans, but expect more surveys. More will be said next year.

They will be completely compatible!

New experiences in the digital arena.

January Gift Set
Rules Expansion Gift Set -- Xanathar, Tasha, and a new book: Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse. All in a slipcase. Was intended for the Holidays, but global production issues mean January instead. There's also an alternate cover version.

D&D 5E - A Closer Look At January's D&D Rules Expansion Gift Set

WotC earlier announced a D&D Rules Expansion Gift Set for January, which includes three books - Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and the new Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse. These were intended for the holidays, but the global production issues...

www.enworld.org

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse
A treasure trove of creature related material from previous products compiled into one book and updated.

Opportunity to update material with a feel for how the 50th Anniversary books will be.

Improvements based on feedback, rebalancing, new and old art.

Over 250 monsters, and 30 playable races. All of the setting agnostic races that have been published outside the Player's Handbook.

Some content from Witchlight, Fizban's, and Strixhaven was influenced by Mordenkainen's.

Available first in the gift set, but separately later in the year.

Monsters alphabetized throughout rather than using subsections.

D&D 5E - Zooming In On Monsters of the Multiverse [UPDATED!]

Earlier, WotC announced Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse, a new D&D compilation of monster material from previous products updated to a new format. These screen grabs are as good as I could get them. They're not terribly clear, but you can make more out than in the original...

www.enworld.org

Stat block changes --

Spellcasting trait is gone. Spellcasting action, slimmed down. Spellcasting monsters need less prep.

Spell slots are gone for NPCs. Regular actions that would have once been spells.

It was too easy for a DM to use spells which result in the monster having a too low effective CR.

Monsters can be friends or foes, and some magic will help rather than hinder PCs.

Where are we going?
More adventure anthologies. Another classic setting fairly soon.

Two all-new settings. Completely new. In development stage, an 'exploration' phase, testing the viability of them. They might not see the light of day.

Retooling nostalgia and blending it with new concepts. A blend of things that you know, and things that they have never done before.

In the short term -- more news next month about a new product for 2022 which goes into a new scary place we've never been before.

Boo the miniature giant space hamster
Below is an sketch from Hydro74's alt cover, which features Boo the miniature giant space hamster.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah absolutely. I’d love to know why some folks are experiencing that.

My guess would be that it’s more of a communication issue than a significant disparity in play experience. Two different groups could have exactly the same encounter, and one group might describe it as a tough fight while the other describes it as a cakewalk. Not even because either had a much easier or harder time, but because they had different expectations going into it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My guess would be that it’s more of a communication issue than a significant disparity in play experience. Two different groups could have exactly the same encounter, and one group might describe it as a tough fight while the other describes it as a cakewalk. Not even because either had a much easier or harder time, but because they had different expectations going into it.

It’s hard to explain “how often do PCs come close to death, how often do they die, how often do they face opposition that worries them” etc as a perception/expectation difference.

There is definitely a significant play experience difference. Which should be no surprise. 5e is intentionally a very heterogeneous game.

 

[Charlaquin]

And that's a literal minefield. What if your cultural/sensitivity consultant misses something. Or what if their cultural heritage becomes criticized as not 'whatever' enough. Seriously, the only safe bet is to not write/talk about such things.

That’s not a safe bet at all, because then your work will lack diversity in representation.

No work is beyond reproach. There is always room for critique and always will be. But critique doesn’t equal condemnation. You do your best, and you try to take constructive criticism to heart so hopefully your next attempt is better. That’s always how art has worked, it’s just that there’s been a shift in what’s valued, and what deserves criticism.

 

[Charlaquin]

It’s hard to explain “how often do PCs come close to death, how often do they die, how often do they face opposition that worries them” etc as a perception/expectation difference.

There is definitely a significant play experience difference. Which should be no surprise. 5e is intentionally a very heterogeneous game.

I don’t doubt there’s a disparity of experience, but I think there’s also a disparity of expectations that plays a bigger role than it gets credit for.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don’t doubt there’s a disparity of experience, but I think there’s also a disparity of expectations that plays a bigger role than it gets credit for.

Fair enough. I think the expectation aspect is there, but I don’t think it’s a large portion of what’s happening.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fair enough. I think the expectation aspect is there, but I don’t think it’s a large portion of what’s happening.

I always think of Critical Role. Those players are rarely actually challenged in combat, but they always act like the situation is really dangerous.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I always think of Critical Role. Those players are rarely actually challenged in combat, but they always act like the situation is really dangerous.

They drop pretty often, including having to be revivified.

What do you consider a challenge, if not a fight where they have to regularly choose between offense and saving/restoring an ally’s life, and only avoid dying permanently by making other sacrifices and working together and playing smart?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm desperately hoping that the genasi get a revamp to bring them in line with aasimar/tiefling.

I really hope any revamp doesn’t try to make the genasi more like anything. Being influenced by things from other planes isn’t a unifying feature. There is no reason for genasi to resemble tieflings or aasimar.

guess it's just weird that every bard that isn't a PC just happens to have the exact same suite of powers from now on...

They don’t, though. The Bard NPC is an example, and nothing more.

But a big part of the reason the Psion had fans was the mechanical hack part of it that meant that you didn't have to faff with Vancian casting. That's gone. And the Aberrant Mind has just about everything you'd expect from a Psion only with a couple more tentacles.

This is a big assumption.

And the Aberrant Mind’s “tentacles” are hardly an insignificant part of the subclass.

A better psionic sorcerer would be one focused strongly on expanded meta magic, and with at-will telepathy and telekinesis.

I won’t be surprised either way, new psionic a UA or no new psionic options ever.

 

[rgoodbb]

I love Kenku

With garlic, mushrooms and a white wine sauce!

 

[Iamoutofhere]

Okay. This is basically the same argument as "failure is more interesting than success", you saying that powerful characters makes the game less interesting and somehow ruins roleplay.

This is wrong, because of one major reason: "failure is more interesting success" is wrong. The real, correct phrase is "Overcoming failure is more interesting than effortless success". Being flawed isn't what makes you interesting, it's overcoming those flaws that does. Being less powerful doesn't make you a better character and certainly doesn't make the game more interesting, it just makes you fail at what you try to do more often.

"If everyone is awesome", everyone is awesome. When everyone is super, everyone is super. Everyone having something doesn't suddenly make them not have that thing. Syndrome was wrong, as are you. This sounds a lot like "those dang participation trophies, sheltering our children from failure!!! shakes fist at cloud", and they're equally nonsensical. Your characters should be capable. They're adventurers. If they're not capable, they're likely to die, and stop being adventurers due to them being dead. Which is more interesting: being dead and not being able to go on adventures because of it or being alive and going on adventures and beating your enemies? The former could be cool in a game that focuses on the Afterlife, but the latter is more interesting 9 times out of 10. You need to be capable in order to be interesting and have interesting adventures, because otherwise you're not going to be an adventurer for very long.

Now, I'm not saying that players should never fail. I'm a strong believer of players having to learn a lesson every now and then if they get over their heads (try to kill a god/demigod at level 7, offend random people for no reason, murder hobos, etc). The PCs should absolutely be tested and not get too confident of their own abilities, because that can lead to their deaths just as swiftly as incapability can in a campaign. I've thrown obviously unbalanced encounters at my players' characters time and time again to make sure they know that they can get in over their heads. I've let my players' characters die or be kidnapped, I've let them fail at parts of the main plot without that ending the campaign, I've had their magic items destroyed or taken away, their abilities nullified by enemies or the environment, and so on. You can have effective and compotent PCs and still challenge them and have them fail. And you know what makes the characters and the campaign even more interesting when this happens? Them overcoming the failures. Not them failing, not them losing power, not them sucking, but them overcoming the hurdles in front of them and surviving, and becoming better characters because of it. Adversity doesn't build character, overcoming adversity does. Dying doesn't make your characters more interesting or better at roleplay, surviving and learning from it does. There are plenty of people, fictional or real, that have a ton of adversity, but aren't any more interesting than anyone else.

Character development happens because of failure, but the failure isn't the thing that makes them more interesting. Powerful characters don't get in the way of roleplay, and being a weaker character (such as a wizard with a d4 hit die, or having a lower AC, or rolling your ability scores 3d6 in order, or any other example from previous editions of players having weaker characters) doesn't mean that you're any better or more interesting than anyone else's character.

Everything (and everyone) is awesome, and characters can all be super-powerful heroes without somehow being worse characters. Overcoming adversity is what makes you interesting, not the failure itself.

Blimey...

It’s about dynamic range. You are correct...overcoming adversity is one of the keys to unlocking fun games. It’s about risk and reward too. D&D is also a class based game of teamwork with different skill sets working together to overcome the problems they face. I think some of that has been lost in an attempt to make ‘everyone awesome’.

As I mentioned dynamic range....In musical terms...5th Edition has compressed the dynamic range and made it safer and more compatible with poor quality speakers and made it appear to have a higher volume level to begin with...all the instruments sounding similar to each other. Like modern music....which for me...isn’t as much fun as the older stuff. Performances are perfected, auto-tuned, quantised and buffed up to a stunning shine....but they are less interesting because they lack the flaws which made them sound more organic and human...same with 5e.

I get that you really like it, I just think it has room for improvement.

I’ve made my point and I’m done. If you want to have the last word, go for it.

Have a good day and happy gaming