D&D 5E The March D&D Book Will Be Announced Next Tuesday

As has become standard these days, the upcoming D&D book has appeared -- in an anonymous, secretive guise -- on various bookstores in advance of an announcement. In this case, Amazon, Penguin Random House, and Barnes & Noble, all of whom confirm that the book will be announced next Tuesday on January 12th, and released on March 16th.

The book will cost $49.99. B&N has its dimensions as being 6.5 x 9.5 inches, which is smaller than a standard D&D hardcover (but that information could just be a placeholder). B&N also indicates that the authors are Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson, but they also say that for Tasha's Cauldron and other WotC books, so that also looks like it's just their boilerplate for WotC. There's also an ISBN number: 978-0786967223.

This is almost an exact mirror of this time last year, almost down to the dates (last year it appeared on stores on Jan 6th, was announced as Explorer's Guide to Wildemount on Jan 9th, and released March 17th).

There's been plenty of speculation recently. Last year WotC said that three classic settings were getting active attention, and that the coming years would have a greater emphasis on settings, as well as more anthologies and Magic: The Gathering collaborations. And, of course, WotC has recently been involved in a Dragonlance lawsuit, which was voluntarily dismissed in December with Margaret Weis tweeting that there was exciting news in the weeks to come.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Perhaps this is a new format specifically designed to be used to run as one shots in 3-5 hours each? Seems like that is one thing that is really missing from the 5e lineup and would be helpful for bringing in both new players and new DMs to help expand the player base.

That would be nice. I've always wanted to do an actual adventure-type one-shot, but have never had a good idea for it. If that's what they're doing, I could use this book.

 

[tetrasodium]

WotC's insistence on shoehorning Greyhawk content into the Forgotten Realms isn't necessarily a precedent that suggests a lot of efforts to make this content work elsewhere. It'd be nice if they put some energy into making it work in Eberron, at least, as that's a setting where mysteries are a natural sort of adventure (and one where you're a lot less likely to just get a mystery solved by waiting for a phenomenally powerful archmage to wander by on their lunch break).

Tasha's reprinted the artificer with eberron stuff stripped and replaced with an extremely thin layer of poorly fitting* fr/planescape lore so I highly doubt that "it would be nice" has a prayer

*apparently Lantan is back from being destroyed again

 

[Faolyn]

This is 5E we're talking about here: It was too much to hope and expect it would've been something like that.

They did say that they were putting out several worldbooks in 21-22. So my hope wasn't entirely unfounded. Just... premature.

 

[Faolyn]

WotC's insistence on shoehorning Greyhawk content into the Forgotten Realms isn't necessarily a precedent that suggests a lot of efforts to make this content work elsewhere.

Maybe they should just give up and say that Oerth is hemisphere of the planet and Toril is the other one.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

They did say that they were putting out several worldbooks in 21-22. So my hope wasn't entirely unfounded. Just... premature.

You mean Setting Books? World Books sound like those big "only lore nothing else" books some folks want for Forgotten Realms.

 

[tetrasodium]

You mean Setting Books? World Books sound like those big "only lore nothing else" books some folks want for Forgotten Realms.

Probably more of a mix like rising from the last war.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Perhaps this is a new format specifically designed to be used to run as one shots in 3-5 hours each? Seems like that is one thing that is really missing from the 5e lineup and would be helpful for bringing in both new players and new DMs to help expand the player base.

The DMs Guild is stuffed to the gills with these, for the record.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Probably more of a mix like rising from the last war.

I've gone over this multiple times (in other threads), but that already exists; the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

And before the inevitable "But that's only the Sword Coast!" I'll add the 95% of the Eberron book is for Khorvaire, nothing else. There are only like 4 pages of details for other regions.

 

[tetrasodium]

I've gone over this multiple times, but that already exists; the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

And before the inevitable "But that's only the Sword Coast!" I'll add the 95% of the Eberron book is for Khorvaire, nothing else. There are only like 4 pages of details for other regions.

I think the critical difference is that only one of those books had great sales
edit: Personally I'd rather see FR be tossed in the bin & lit on fire, but collapsing shrodinger's setting into something cohesive is a good start

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I think the key to promote those lines is producing a right videogame, and maybe any titles will not return until being adapted into videogame previously, for example Birthright.