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.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

swashes bucklers

Or is is someone that buckles swashes? I can't remember
(I believe Xanathar said something along these lines in XGtE.)

 

[Charlaquin]

Or is is someone that buckles swashes? I can't remember
(I believe Xanathar said something along these lines in XGtE.)

It’s so hard to resist the urge to answer this as if it’s a serious question, even though I know it isn’t

 

[ad_hoc]

(I've taken the quote out as the writer was thread banned. I'm replying to the idea that we can't have stories about other cultures as we'll be labelled 'racist'.)

Or they could just hire writers from those cultures to represent themselves.

It's really very easy to be inclusive.

 

[Gradine]

So the issue at play here is "cultural appropriation" versus "cultural appreciation", and it boils down to giving credit where credit is due, and not exploiting the history and culture of another without a modicum of input and compensation in the process. This is where sensitivity readers come in, mind you.

The problem isn't the presence of Samurai or Ninja or Monks; the problem is they very often obviously do not come with any kind of input from the peoples whose cultures are being presented, often stereotypically.

The issue isn't that Stephanie can't write about native americans in her books; the issue is that she probably should have consulted with a few of them before presenting a real-life actual tribe as a bunch of werewolves. One of the issues. Many, many issues (I mean, you want to talk about healthy relationships...) There's so much to unpack there.

I'm getting off track.

Consult the appropriate folks; that's all you gotta do, seriously. And not just "someone Asian"; find someone Japanese to work with you on your Samurai and Ninja, for instance.

Especially have them work with your artists, holy forking shirtballs

 

[Remathilis]

Great, let's have our Japanese analogue be hobgoblins. That's not problematic at all!

You got that backwards. The Dhakaan are a fleshed out culture in Eberron already, mixing in elements of several martial and industrial cultures that fell to cataclysm long ago. Keith suggested that the best place to put the samurai class, with it's focus on martial honor, was in Dhakaan. He did NOT say Dhakanni are Japanese. Much like how the valenar elves borrow elements of Arabic culture or drow have elements of subsaharan Africa, Dhakaan borrows parts of the samurai culture and uses it. Eberron also has a picture of an orc in a conical hat on stillts collecting rice, but orcs are not Chinese in Eberron either.

But it's helping prove my point though: if cultural names cannot be divorced from their native culture, then those names need to go. If the image of a Indian paladin, a Zulu samurai, an Inuit bard or a Aztec monk is hard to accept, then those classes need revising so that they ARE generic enough to make that work.

 

[Remathilis]

What cultural baggage does the name swashbuckler carry? It’s literally a descriptive name for one who swashes bucklers.

I mean, the typical swashbuckler tends to fit the image of post-Medieval European warrior, from about y the Renniasance though to the early modern era, classically Musketeers to Caribbean pirates. Not a great fit for, say, Feudal Japan or Hellenistic Greece. It's not offensive (not all baggage is) but it is certainly grounded in a specific place and time.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So the issue at play here is "cultural appropriation" versus "cultural appreciation", and it boils down to giving credit where credit is due, and not exploiting the history and culture of another without a modicum of input and compensation in the process. This is where sensitivity readers come in, mind you.

The problem isn't the presence of Samurai or Ninja or Monks; the problem is they very often obviously do not come with any kind of input from the peoples whose cultures are being presented, often stereotypically.

The issue isn't that Stephanie can't write about native americans in her books; the issue is that she probably should have consulted with a few of them before presenting a real-life actual tribe as a bunch of werewolves. One of the issues. Many, many issues (I mean, you want to talk about healthy relationships...) There's so much to unpack there.

I'm getting off track.

Consult the appropriate folks; that's all you gotta do, seriously. And not just "someone Asian"; find someone Japanese to work with you on your Samurai and Ninja, for instance.

Especially have them work with your artists, holy forking shirtballs

This. Qft.

You got that backwards. The Dhakaan are a fleshed out culture in Eberron already, mixing in elements of several martial and industrial cultures that fell to cataclysm long ago. Keith suggested that the best place to put the samurai class, with it's focus on martial honor, was in Dhakaan. He did NOT say Dhakanni are Japanese. Much like how the valenar elves borrow elements of Arabic culture or drow have elements of subsaharan Africa, Dhakaan borrows parts of the samurai culture and uses it. Eberron also has a picture of an orc in a conical hat on stillts collecting rice, but orcs are not Chinese in Eberron either.

But it's helping prove my point though: if cultural names cannot be divorced from their native culture, then those names need to go. If the image of a Indian paladin, a Zulu samurai, an Inuit bard or a Aztec monk is hard to accept, then those classes need revising so that they ARE generic enough to make that work.

No, they don’t need to go. Because they aren’t broadly hard to accept, they’re just hard to accept for some people. The game should not lose cultural inspiration and make itself bland because some people go cross eyed when they see a Irish Celtic Fianna inspired swashbuckler.

I mean, the typical swashbuckler tends to fit the image of post-Medieval European warrior, from about y the Renniasance though to the early modern era, classically Musketeers to Caribbean pirates. Not a great fit for, say, Feudal Japan or Hellenistic Greece. It's not offensive (not all baggage is) but it is certainly grounded in a specific place and time.

And that grounding is a very good and useful thing.

 

[Charlaquin]

I mean, the typical swashbuckler tends to fit the image of post-Medieval European warrior, from about y the Renniasance though to the early modern era, classically Musketeers to Caribbean pirates. Not a great fit for, say, Feudal Japan or Hellenistic Greece. It's not offensive (not all baggage is) but it is certainly grounded in a specific place and time.

I’d also include Medieval English characters like Robin Hood. Sounds like a pretty broad range of places and times to me. And while the term is evocative of those places and times, I think it’s perfectly appropriate as a generic term for flashy, acrobatic fencing.

 

[Faolyn]

I mean, there is the Circle of Wildfire that summons a Wildfire Spirit, and a Circle of the Shepherd that summons spirit animal totems, and the Circle of Dreams' connection with the Feywild could be seen as a "connection with the spirit world" (as "spirit world" isn't very well defined, at least in D&D terms).

Yeah, but that's summoning spirits to fight for you. It's not quite the same thing.

 

[Faolyn]

I mean, the typical swashbuckler tends to fit the image of post-Medieval European warrior, from about y the Renniasance though to the early modern era, classically Musketeers to Caribbean pirates. Not a great fit for, say, Feudal Japan or Hellenistic Greece. It's not offensive (not all baggage is) but it is certainly grounded in a specific place and time.

But, well, that's the name. I'm playing a swashbuckler rogue, but she's really just a duelist, complete with scar on her cheek. I can easily see an individual from Feudal Japan or Hellenistic Greece (or a fantasy culture with similar feel) who specializes in the kind of quick feints and fast movement that make up the swashbuckler archetype, even if they never set foot on a boat.

Way back when the samurai archetype was introduced, I remember seeing someone on reddit say that nobody would have any problem with it if it had just been called the retainer. Someone else (you?) said that they should be called knight-poets.

But anyway. I'm find with renaming things, if there's too much cultural baggage associated with the current name.