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The New D&D Adventure Storyline Will Be Announced On June 2nd-3rd

WotC is holding an event, which they're calling the Stream of Annihilation, on June 2nd and 3rd to announce the new D&D storyline. Various D&D Twitch steamers have been invited to participate in the upcoming campaign, which will be live streamed along with interviews, and so on. "We’ll have folks from Misscliks, Maze Arcana, Critical Role, and Dice, Camera, Action! with Chris Perkins, not to mention international gaming groups like Yogscast's HighRollers (U.K.) and Dragon Friends (Australia)." You'll be able to watch it all live on Twitch at the time. Is this where we'll discover the identity of the mysterious Dust and Midway? Speculate away!

WotC is holding an event, which they're calling the Stream of Annihilation, on June 2nd and 3rd to announce the new D&D storyline. Various D&D Twitch steamers have been invited to participate in the upcoming campaign, which will be live streamed along with interviews, and so on. "We’ll have folks from Misscliks, Maze Arcana, Critical Role, and Dice, Camera, Action! with Chris Perkins, not to mention international gaming groups like Yogscast's HighRollers (U.K.) and Dragon Friends (Australia)." You'll be able to watch it all live on Twitch at the time. Is this where we'll discover the identity of the mysterious Dust and Midway? Speculate away!





Here's the announcement in full. There's more info about the hosts and the guests here.

Dungeons & Dragons loves the amazing video streams produced by our fans. This community-generated live-play highlights what’s fantastic about D&D—sitting down together with your friends to tell a grand story!


To celebrate, we’ve invited a bunch of D&D streamers and luminaries to Seattle, Washington to hang out and roll some dice on June 2nd and 3rd! This two-day event is called the Stream of Annihilation and it’s two full days of streaming that D&D fans won’t want to miss. We’ll have folks from Misscliks, Maze Arcana, Critical Role, and Dice, Camera, Action! with Chris Perkins, not to mention international gaming groups like Yogscast's HighRollers (U.K.) and Dragon Friends (Australia).
[h=3]PROGRAMMING[/h]Kicking off at 10am on both June 2nd and 3rd, hosts Anna Prosser Robinson and Kelly Link will talk to the Wizards of the Coast D&D team and learn all about our next exciting storyline coming in September. Then each group of streamers will play or share a sample of what to expect from the campaigns they’ll be running over the summer that preview the new D&D story. There will be multiple live games, interviews, new product unveils and improvised hilarity each day, starting at 10am PT and ending at 10pm each night. You’ll get introduced to the High Rollers crew delving into uncharted territory DMed by Mark Hulmes, a new Misscliks show investigating rumors called Risen, two weekly groups from our friends Satine Phoenix and Ruty Rutenberg at Maze Arcana, a new group of L.A. actors called Girls Guts Glory, and more!


Throughout the Stream of Annihilation, we’ll drop details on our expanded D&D Twitch programming, new accessories fans have been clamoring for coming later this year, and amazing board games and products from our partners. You’ll hear from Cryptic Studios about plans for Neverwinter, Curse Media for D&D Beyond, as well as WizKids, Gale Force 9, Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, and more. Plus, like any Dungeon Master worth their salt, we have a few exciting surprises to pull from our bags of holding!
[h=3]FURTHER DETAILS[/h]You’ll have to watch the Stream of Annihilation to catch it all live! Follow twitch.tv/DnD to get all the updates, then mark your calendars for Friday, June 2nd and Saturday, June 3rd to make sure you don’t miss a thing!


A full schedule, group bios and some more of the celebrities attending the Stream of Annihilation will be announced over the next few weeks. We’ll also be talking about the event on our official Twitter account (@Wizards_DnD) as well as interviewing some of the groups this month on Dragon Talk, the official D&D podcast.
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Remathilis

Legend
Couldn't be better said, I love this idea and wish WotC would listen. D&D was always meant to be a GENERIC fantasy adventure game, not a showcase for any particular novel series or writer/creator.
If it's meant to be generic fantasy, it has failed for 40 years.

D&D is not generic. It's a kitchen-sink amalgam of a lot of fantasy tropes, but it's not generic. The alignment system, the arcane/divine split, the specific lore of monsters from chromatic and metallic dragons, demons and devils, giants, the hierarchy of undead, and countless unique monsters like beholders and mind-flayers. None of that is generic in execution.

What changed is D&D's relationship with setting. In the old days, D&D demanded a DM homebrew to fill in the blanks, meaning the setting was incomplete (but not non-existent, as most DMs ended up severely tinkering with the rules to match their world). 2e tried to sell you a menu of settings; from the traditional to the exotic. 3e set a default (weakly) and gave a few alts. 4e doubled down on it, but did so by making a "best of D&D" setting and only giving 2 books of support per setting. 5e has (so far) just tried to merge it all with their most known and well trodden setting, while giving some acknowledgement of the other settings.

All 5e did was give a generic map and names to DM who doesn't want to homebrew his own setting, like what Nerath did in 4e or Greyhawk did in 3e and somewhat in 1e. But the game itself never was generic, just incomplete.
 

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Iosue

Legend
Perhaps but that seems a bit of a stretch :) FFG's Star Wars RPG doesn't seem to be benefitting much from mega movie tie-ins, despite excellent production values and a large effort to maximize revenue via multiple books. I really don't understand why WotC think it'll work the other way?!

The idea is not that movies and other media tie-ins will increase revenue for the RPG, but rather that that's revenue that directly benefits the brand. FFG doesn't benefit from Star Wars merchandising; their RPG is Star Wars merchandise. Whereas if D&D can get movies, toys, video games, etc, that's money that goes directly to WotC, and thus benefits the brand. The benefit to the RPG itself is indirect. Better brand performance as a whole leads to more corporate resources that can go to the RPG.

That said, I'm not sure all the various Star Wars media hasn't been quite good for FFG. WEG Star Wars was a quite popular RPG back in the day, during the lean years when there weren't any prequels or sequels or series. But FFG's Star Wars has been pretty consistently around #3 after D&D and Pathfinder, and I don't think WEG Star Wars was ever that popular...
 


Perhaps but that seems a bit of a stretch :) FFG's Star Wars RPG doesn't seem to be benefitting much from mega movie tie-ins, despite excellent production values and a large effort to maximize revenue via multiple books. I really don't understand why WotC think it'll work the other way?!

Arguably, the reason FFG's Star Wars game is in the top 5 RPGs sold is because of the Star Wars name. Few other RPGs are selling that well...
 


Agreed but with the massive fan base/brand awareness you'd imagine it would be #1!

I think the difference between this and a D&D movie is that people who see a Star Wars film don't go looking for an RPG, and RPG fans already have games they like and don't always have interest in Star Wars. The pool of RPG fans doesn't grow when Star Wars is introduced.

But people who watch a D&D movie might get curious about the source material and look into the game. There's a direct line between the movie and the RPG.

The source material/ adaptation relationship is reversed.

(I still don't think they'll be much of an increase in sales for the RPG though...)
 

darjr

I crit!
Of coarse the FFG star wars is benefitting from the movies. The counter claim is so bizarre to me that you'll have to prove it to me.
 

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
FFG benefits in a slightly different way than D&D would. For FFG, existing gamers will watch the new Star Wars movie, get a desire to do some Star Wars RPGing, and look to see what the current RPG is (if they don't already know). I don't think anybody who isn't a roleplayer would watch the movies and then suddenly become a roleplayer.

For D&D, movies increase overall brand awareness, with spillover benefit to the tabletop RPG. Because D&D is a tabletop RPG with a movie (whereas Star Wars is a movie with a tabletop RPG) the effects are somewhat different.
 

robus

Lowcountry Low Roller
Supporter
Of coarse the FFG star wars is benefitting from the movies. The counter claim is so bizarre to me that you'll have to prove it to me.

I never said it wasn't :) I just don't think it's benefitting as much as one might imagine given the enormous popularity of the franchise.
 

darjr

I crit!
OK.

Anecdotally, I do know several folks who discovered the FFG rpg, and roleplaying, and tabletop gaming, via star wars fandom.

Funny thing is many of them have also found D&D and play mostly that, rpg wise.
 

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