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.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not really sure that D&D druids are or should count as shamans. According to Wikipedia:

The English historian Ronald Hutton noted that by the dawn of the 21st century, there were four separate definitions of the term which appeared to be in use:

1. The first of these uses the term to refer to "anybody who contacts a spirit world while in an altered state of consciousness."
2. The second definition limits the term to refer to those who contact a spirit world while in an altered state of consciousness at the behest of others.
3. The third definition attempts to distinguish shamans from other magico-religious specialists who are believed to contact spirits, such as "mediums", "witch doctors", "spiritual healers" or "prophets," by claiming that shamans undertake some particular technique not used by the others. (Problematically, scholars advocating the third view have failed to agree on what the defining technique should be.)
4. The fourth definition identified by Hutton uses "shamanism" to refer to the indigenous religions of Siberia and neighboring parts of Asia.[21] According to the Golomt Center for Shamanic Studies, a Mongolian organisation of shamans, the Evenk word shaman would more accurately be translated as "priest".[22]

Whereas the D&D druid focuses very firmly on animals, plants, and the elements. They aren't focused on spirits and don't even get speak with dead or etherealness, two spells kinda necessary to contact a spirit world while in any state of consciousness. The Wikipedia page also goes on to list a bunch of typical shaman abilities, all of which are firmly in the D&D cleric wheelhouse:

There are many variations of shamanism throughout the world, but several common beliefs are shared by all forms of shamanism. Common beliefs identified by Eliade (1972)[27] are the following:

• Spirits exist and they play important roles both in individual lives and in human society
• The shaman can communicate with the spirit world
• Spirits can be benevolent or malevolent
• The shaman can treat sickness caused by malevolent spirits
• The shaman can employ trances inducing techniques to incite visionary ecstasy and go on vision quests
• The shaman's spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for answers
• The shaman evokes animal images as spirit guides, omens, and message-bearers
• The shaman can perform other varied forms of divination, scry, throw bones or runes, and sometimes foretell of future events

As Alice Kehoe[4] notes, Eliade's conceptualization of shamans produces a universalist image of indigenous cultures, which perpetuates notions of the dead (or dying) Indian[43] as well as the noble savage.[44]

What really needs to be done here is (a) shamans need to be seen as a type of cleric, (b) the DM and player need to flavor some of the shaman's cleric spells as animal-spirit-guides or as happening during a vision quest, and (c) more illnesses in D&D need to be caused by demons and evil spirits. And (d) there need to be more drugs in D&D.

 

[overgeeked]

Since this whole sub- sub- sub-tangent of cultural classes and subclasses clearly isn’t going to die, maybe move it to its own thread?

 

[Charlaquin]

For me, discussions of hyper nuanced political correctness/sensitivity don't enhance my D&D experience. As long as the monks aren't buck teethed/squinting and the shamans don't have bone nose piercings I'm good.

I’m glad to hear you’re good. Kindly be good without getting in the middle of a discussion between people who do care about the subject quite a lot.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm not really sure that D&D druids are or should count as shamans. According to Wikipedia:


Whereas the D&D druid focuses very firmly on animals, plants, and the elements. They aren't focused on spirits and don't even get speak with dead or etherealness, two spells kinda necessary to contact a spirit world while in any state of consciousness. The Wikipedia page also goes on to list a bunch of typical shaman abilities, all of which are firmly in the D&D cleric wheelhouse:


What really needs to be done here is (a) shamans need to be seen as a type of cleric, (b) the DM and player need to flavor some of the shaman's cleric spells as animal-spirit-guides or as happening during a vision quest, and (c) more illnesses in D&D need to be caused by demons and evil spirits. And (d) there need to be more drugs in D&D.

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).

 

[Filthy Lucre]

If anything, we need more regressive and more culturally-referenced classes.

 

[Dire Bare]

Makes me think of Bumblebee from the Transformers movies. He can only communicate using snippets of radio broadcasts, re-mixed.

 

[Dire Bare]

I have literally never seen anyone complain about it before, here or anywhere else.

Really?!?! It's been discussed on these boards before.

I'd suggest listening to some AAPI (Asian and Pacific Islander) gamers, if you're a podcast listener, the "Asians Represent" podcast is pretty enlightening on how Asian Diaspora (Asian-American, Asian-Canadian) gamers view such "harmless" stereotypes and exoticization of Asian cultural tropes. Of course, not all AAPI gamers look at things the same way, and they sometimes look at things differently than Asian gamers do (gamers actually born, raised, still living in Asia) . . . . but complaints about the Monk and Samurai classes in D&D are pretty common.

EDIT: I just remembered a concept from the BECMI D&D setting, Red Steel (or Savage Coast) . . . there was an option called the "honorbound" which attempted to blend the knight, paladin, and samurai into one player option. It doesn't have the zing of "knight" or "samurai", but I think I prefer it to both.

 

[squibbles]

I think Shaman is more offensive and appropriating than Druid is, but what do I know. I agree that this is a red herring.

I was about to disagree with you by citing some shamanism definitions and the Wikipedia article, which treat the term shaman as a broad category, i.e. "Shamanism is a religion which is based on the belief that the world is controlled by good and evil spirits, and that these spirits can be directed by people with special powers."

That sounds like a reasonable brush to paint the Druid class with, while tolerating the overlap that it might also be a reasonable brush to paint some cleric characters with (but that's not a lot different from the redundancy of the words wizard, sorcerer, and warlock).

But I then went on to read section 1.3 of the Wikipedia article, "Criticisms of the term", which suggests that the word Shaman is a tad contentious. So, eh... that name change doesn't seem like it would be a grand improvement.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Really?!?! It's been discussed on these boards before.

I'd suggest listening to some AAPI (Asian and Pacific Islander) gamers, if you're a podcast listener, the "Asians Represent" podcast is pretty enlightening on how Asian Diaspora (Asian-American, Asian-Canadian) gamers view such "harmless" stereotypes and exoticization of Asian cultural tropes. Of course, not all AAPI gamers look at things the same way, and they sometimes look at things differently than Asian gamers do (gamers actually born, raised, still living in Asia) . . . . but complaints about the Monk and Samurai classes in D&D are pretty common.

I have listened, though, and I’ve seen plenty of discussion about the Monk, but not the Samurai. I mean there is a ton of traffic online, so it’s not exactly hard to miss something, but yeah this discussion is the first I can recall anyone claiming the samurai is problematic. Other complaints, sure, lots of times, but not that one.

 

[Dire Bare]

I have listened, though, and I’ve seen plenty of discussion about the Monk, but not the Samurai. I mean there is a ton of traffic online, so it’s not exactly hard to miss something, but yeah this discussion is the first I can recall anyone claiming the samurai is problematic. Other complaints, sure, lots of times, but not that one.

You seem to be implying that since you haven't encountered it before . . . . only a few truly find it problematic, and we don't really need to worry about it. I hope I'm misunderstanding.