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.

 

[Iamoutofhere]

well, sure. I just don't get how 5e doesn't allow this to happen.

Because...of reasons lol

The characters are too powerful and don’t stay in their respective lanes anymore...every class is awesome at just about everything with Wizards with higher attack bonuses than Fighters and every class wizpopadoodling spells left right and centre... every race/species/ancestry (whatever they are currently calling them) is flawless with no negatives. Like I said....everybody is awesome....and that to me...is boring. Groups full of Mary Sue, fantasy superheroes...

 

[Marandahir]

Remember that they want this to stand without cross referencing Volo’s Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes but not Xanathar’s or Tasha’s (the two books they’re packing it with) nor the Core Rules. It’s quite likely that they’ll publish a separate book with all the variant lineages for the core rules’ lineage options, maybe even cram them into the 2024 PHB, with the idea that this book will stand aside the remastered Core Rules that come out two years later.

Here’s the list of potentials:
01. Aasimar
02. Aarakocra
03. Genasi
04. Goliath
05. Firbolg
06. Kenku
07. Lizardfolk
08. Tabaxi
09. Triton
10. Bugbear
11. Goblin
12. Hobgoblin
13. Kobold
14. Orc
15. Yuan-ti
16. Tortle
17. Grung
18. Gith
19. Changeling*
20. Kalashtar*
21. Shifter
22. Warforged
23. Centaur
24. Loxodon
25. Minotaur
26. Vedalken*
27. Simic Hybrid*
28. Locathah
29. Verdan*
30. Leonin
31. Dhampir
32. Hexblood
33. Reborn
34. Fairy
35. Harengon
36. Owlin

Clearly, 6 of these lineages aren’t going to make it. And I’ve put 5 asterisks above - 5 lineages that don’t really exist outside of their respective campaign settings. For example, 4e showed us what Warforged and Shifters are like in Nerath and the Realms, so they could be reprinted here, but Kalashtar and Changelings are really specific to Eberron. Verdan are a very specific Goblinoid from Acquisitions, Incorporated campaigns. Vedalken and Simic Hybrids are very much exclusive to Ravnica, save for a few Planeswalkers in other MtG worlds (though I’ve argued in the past that Vedalken are at least highly applicable to represent people the Chiss from Star Wars or the Vulcans from Star Trek).

As for Leonin, Loxodons, and Owlins, these are MtG people but are very popular to represent types of characters on other worlds. And they also appear in other MtG worlds. So they’re not counted out.

What’s the last one I’d have to cut? I guess it if came down to it they’d cut Warforged, even though those have established stories in FR and Nerath, only because they haven’t established their presence in 5e Realmslore, just 4e. And Nerath is relegated to a few sidelong glances here and there and a “sample pantheon” in the DMG.

****edited to reflect Gith and what that means for the count.

 

[Remathilis]

Remember that they want this to stand without cross referencing Volo’s Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes but not Xanathar’s or Tasha’s (the two books they’re packing it with) nor the Core Rules. It’s quite likely that they’ll publish a separate book with all the variant lineages for the core rules’ lineage options, maybe even cram them into the 2024 PHB, with the idea that this book will stand aside the remastered Core Rules that come out two years later.

Here’s the list of potentials:
01. Aasimar
02. Aarakocra
03. Genasi
04. Goliath
05. Firbolg
06. Kenku
07. Lizardfolk
08. Tabaxi
09. Triton
10. Bugbear
11. Goblin
12. Hobgoblin
13. Kobold
14. Orc
15. Yuan-ti
16. Tortle
17. Grung
18. Changeling*
19. Kalashtar*
20. Shifter
21. Warforged
22. Centaur
23. Loxodon
24. Minotaur
25. Vedalken*
26. Simic Hybrid*
27. Locathah
28. Verdan*
29. Leonin
30. Dhampir
31. Hexblood
32. Reborn
33. Fairy
34. Harengon
35. Owlin

Clearly, 5 of these lineages aren’t going to make it. And I’ve put 5 asterisks above - 5 lineages that don’t really exist outside of their respective campaign settings. For example, 4e showed us what Warforged and Shifters are like in Nerath and the Realms, so they could be reprinted here, but Kalashtar and Changelings are really specific to Eberron. Verdan are a very specific Goblinoid from Acquisitions, Incorporated campaigns. Vedalken and Simic Hybrids are very much exclusive to Ravnica, save for a few Planeswalkers in other MtG worlds (though I’ve argued in the past that Vedalken are at least highly applicable to represent people the Chiss from Star Wars or the Vulcans from Star Trek).

As for Leonin and Owlins, these are MtG people but are very popular to represent types of characters on other worlds. So they’re not counted out.

Two issues with your train of thought:

They used the term setting agnostic when describing these races. That means, they could appear in Faerun, Oerth, Eberron or other D&D worlds with minimal fuss. So a race like Warforged isn't agnostic as it's story is tightly tied to Eberron. Similarly, I still feel WotC doesn't want to cross the streams too much for MtG races, so I don't expect any race that didn't already have a D&D version before will appear.

Also, I completely believe several subraces will be redone as separate races, inflating the count. Snirfneblin and duergar could easily be redone as a full race sharing patent race traits but but using the subrace system, and the four genasi and two gith races shared nothing in common but ASI and languages anyway (both of which are flexible post Tasha), so making them separate is trivial.

 

[Marandahir]

I've never encountered this before. What about the Samurai is culturally insensitive?

It was a cultural stereotype of the Japanese Knightly class as if it was a specific thing and not just another Battle Master, Champion, Paladin, etc.

By making it its own thing it makes it seem like all Japanese-inspired Fighters “have to be” Samurai. Its part of the same problems that the game has to grapple with regarding the Monk.

How do we make the classes big hat and inclusive without creating pigeonholed culturally insensitive subclasses while also capturing important tropes that are more prominent in genres like Anime, Jidai Geki, Wuxia, martial arts films, etc?

I think we do them by making more generic subclass names that are applicable but not pigeonholed. It’s why we have Assassins and Way of Shadow Monks, but no Ninja. It’s why we have Harengon and Pallid Elves but not Soratami.

 

[Scribe]

Here’s the list of potentials:
01. Aasimar
02. Aarakocra
03. Genasi
04. Goliath
05. Firbolg
06. Kenku
07. Lizardfolk
08. Tabaxi
09. Triton
10. Bugbear
11. Goblin
12. Hobgoblin
13. Kobold
14. Orc
15. Yuan-ti
16. Tortle
17. Grung
18. Changeling*
19. Kalashtar*
20. Shifter
21. Warforged
22. Centaur
23. Loxodon
24. Minotaur
25. Vedalken*
26. Simic Hybrid*
27. Locathah
28. Verdan*
29. Leonin
30. Dhampir
31. Hexblood
32. Reborn
33. Fairy
34. Harengon
35. Owlin

Isnt this including the Core as well? To bring them up to the new format? If it does, and it includes subraces, you can easily remove a large number of the setting/MTG specific ones.

 

[Marandahir]

Isnt this including the Core as well? To bring them up to the new format? If it does, and it includes subraces, you can easily remove a large number of the setting/MTG specific ones.

No, in the announcement video, they said specifically that the lineages that will appear in “Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse” will be the lineages that aren’t in the PHB. Their wording did not suggest that lineage variations like Eladrin or Svirfneblin or Feral Tiefling would be in this book - just the wholescale new lineages that do not use any features from the core rulebook.

And they in the same breath said it wouldn’t be lineages that are specific to a given campaign setting but rather the ones you could find throughout various parts of the multiverse. So something like Kalashtar, Verdan, or Simic Hybrid are really excluded - and I’d argue the other 2 exclusions are probably Vedalken and Changelings.

 

[Scribe]

I find myself looking forward to this book less and less then.

 

[Helldritch]

I find myself looking forward to this book less and less then.

Count me in on that sentiment too.
I already own each book... twice. I don't need a third copy to get one book.

 

[TheSword]

Because...of reasons lol

The characters are too powerful and don’t stay in their respective lanes anymore...every class is awesome at just about everything with Wizards with higher attack bonuses than Fighters and every class wizpopadoodling spells left right and centre... every race/species/ancestry (whatever they are currently calling them) is flawless with no negatives. Like I said....everybody is awesome....and that to me...is boring. Groups full of Mary Sue, fantasy superheroes...

You do get that players and DMs get to make those choices. You don’t have to make wizard who’s better at fighting than a fighter, you don’t have to pick subclasses that grant spells. They’re options but hardly compulsory.

If you don’t like that way of playing 5e, stick to rolling your d6’s and don’t pick options that don’t fit your style of play. Just because you don’t like these things, doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t be allowed them.

 

[Bolares]

I find myself looking forward to this book less and less then.

Yeah, from what you've been saying, I don't know you will like the direction D&D is going...