D&D 5E What's after Tomb of Annihilation? (Ridiculously premature speculation on 2018 releases)

[guachi]

I also expect that we'll see a "Tales From The Yawning Portal 2" sooner rather than later- I get the impression that it sold really well, and it seems like it gives the behind the scenes crew a bit of a break in terms of effort expended putting it together.

I don't know if this would be good or bad for a TftYP, but classic adventures all from the same setting packaged in a reprint form could introduce new players to other settings without WotC devoting an entire adventure to it. D&D has a great history so a lightly modified reprint with a blurb about the adventure to provide context and background (like the Shannon Applecline write-ups on dndclassics. I use those to influence my purchases of products I'm marginally interested in)

For example, include 6-7 adventures from al-Qadim. Maybe update some of the DL series adventures to 5e (D&D's first AP!). 5e seems like enough of a success they could do a standard FR AP and then a "something else" for the other hard back adventure. There's so much history with D&D I think you could develop a lot of hype (hopefully positive!) by teasing the "something else" adventure for a few months.

Oh, heck. What I want is an adventure set in Karameikos where you get to kill Bargle. It'd definitely be an "inspired by" adventure rather than a remake.

 

[guachi]

Genies. Likely to Al-Qadim. But I'm gagging for a big adventure that goes to the City of Brass, which has always been a criminally underused part of D&D, despite once being featured on the cover of the freakin' DMG.

Snipped lots of good suggestions to highlight this suggestion. One, al-Qadim is awesome. Two, the City of Brass adventure idea is even better. The problem with CoS is that it's a remake of sorts that one can compare with I6 Castle Ravenloft. But a City of Brass adventure is simultaneously old school D&D history (on the DMG cover, like you said!) while also not being a remake (or feel like a remake) You could invent all new villains to become D&D classics.

It's like the difference between yet another Batman or Superman or Spiderman movie and giving us a superhero who had no mass exposure, like Iron Man, or Wonder Woman who had limited exposure.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is an odd choice for an adventure. Going spaceship and sci-fi is cool, but it's a little soon in the life of the game. Build a larger staple of traditional fantasy stuff first, and then get. I'm not saying it's impossible… just that it's a little more of a stretch and they might try for something a little safer first. After all, every storyline is someone's first, and you don't want to start with aliens and lasers.

Looking at big villain types that haven't been featured:
[*] Githyanki. Iconic to D&D, having been featured on the cover of the Fiend Folio. And invasion of the material plane ending in a planar jaunt to the Astral Plane and siege of a Githyanki city would be cool. But… it's not evoking a classic adventure, so WotC likely won't do it… (Although, Chris Perkins did write the high level Lich Queen's Beloved for Dungeon Magazine.)

Spring 2019
Time to get weird. Expanded Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

Summer 2019
Summer of aberrations Gates of Firestorm Peak mashed with invading Githyanki versus Mind Flayers.

Fall 2019
Psionics and the Mystic. Maybe something on the planes. Planar gazetteer, like the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

You don't really need to split Barrier Peaks away from Githyanki and the like. Seems to me the easiest way to pay homage to EttBP is via Spelljammer. If the intention is to do a planar adventure, at that point invoking EttBP as the catalyst by having folks in the Realms find a Spelljammer ship in the mountains, get it working, and then use it to traverse the planes, you can have them encounter both races of gith and/or touch upon any of the other campaign settings.

Whether 2018 is too early or not for something like that... that's debateable I guess. But the autumn 2018 adventure book would be the 9th one, so I dunno if I would call that "early".

 

[Jester David]

You don't really need to split Barrier Peaks away from Githyanki and the like. Seems to me the easiest way to pay homage to EttBP is via Spelljammer. If the intention is to do a planar adventure, at that point invoking EttBP as the catalyst by having folks in the Realms find a Spelljammer ship in the mountains, get it working, and then use it to traverse the planes, you can have them encounter both races of gith and/or touch upon any of the other campaign settings.

Whether 2018 is too early or not for something like that... that's debateable I guess. But the autumn 2018 adventure book would be the 9th one, so I dunno if I would call that "early".

Spelljammer's crystal spheres are pretty different from the Barrier Peaks' spaceship .
Making the crashed ship a Spelljammer vessel is a pretty big departure, and makes it harder to add things like laser pistols and the like (since Spelljammers used early black powder pistols at best...)

 

[DEFCON 1]

Spelljammer's crystal spheres are pretty different from the Barrier Peaks' spaceship .
Making the crashed ship a Spelljammer vessel is a pretty big departure, and makes it harder to add things like laser pistols and the like (since Spelljammers used early black powder pistols at best...)

I wasn't thinking literal recreation, I was thinking more the same sort of "thematic" adaptation that PotA had to Temple of Elemental Evil, and ToA has to ToH. If you wanted to do a thematic reinterpretation of Barrier Peaks to go along with planar space travel, a Spelljammer ship does that. You can recreate the essence of the Barrier Peaks exploration while simultaneously set yourself up for crossing the planes later in the adventure path book.

I'm in no way saying that's what is going to happen... but if WotC wanted a way to introduce cross planar travel (in connection to a second book filled with info about the planes, other campaign settings, and character building stuff), then a Spelljammer ship would possibly fit the bill.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'd be curious as to that separate topic. Why Barrier Peaks in particular, as opposed to all the other 70s modules?

So if they do Barrier Peaks I would like it redone enough to be fresh. Fantasy/Sci-Fi mash-ups are a great way to give a feel for late '70s RPGs (and American culture, but that's a separate topic)

 

[gyor]

"Looking at classic adventuresesert of Desolation is a good choice. Combining three adventures, it should be pretty large. (128-pages apparently. So they only need to expand it by 100 or so. Which is easily done by having some more setting description and low level adventuring.) Plus, deserts, mummies, and ancient tombs (that are actual tombs) haven't been done yet, and are classical but slightly different."

Given it occurred in the Old Empires Region, a sandbox overview, similar to what Chult and the Sword Coast/North have gotten, would be awesome.

 

[Li Shenron]

So my hope is that a "Manual of the Planes" styled book is still on the docket and will now come out in the fall of 2018, and will include rules for the Mystic (and the other stuff needed to run Dark Sun) and the Artificer (and the other stuff needed to run Eberron.) Plus additional rules (like Backgrounds and stuff) for running games in Greyhawk, Mystara, Dragonlance, Birthright .

I had a different though, that postponing the Mystic and the Artificer might mean they will each be published in a different book, the first in a Dark Sun adventure and the second in an Eberron adventure.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I had a different though, that postponing the Mystic and the Artificer might mean they will each be published in a different book, the first in a Dark Sun adventure and the second in an Eberron adventure.

Eh, I dunno if they would have started work on the Artificer so early if they were going to have a full year in between Dark Sun and Eberron adventures. I mean, maybe you could be right... but I just don't see them doing a Dark Sun AP one year and then an Eberron AP the next year (or vice versa). I'd more likely expect a single tome that talks about the various planes and settings at the same time to be a more likely course. But who knows really?

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

Wel if they are planing long ahead like they said they are, there might be hints in already published books.
One book you could look at is the Volos guide to Monsters The Focus on the yuan-ti and the inclusion of the Grungs might be becouse they already knew they would be usefull in Chults Jungels.

There is also a largse section on mind flayers and they haven't been that heavely focused in story lines that already been published, and the section has the sub-header Scourge of Worlds and mentions flying vessels called nautiloids.
It also includes the Neogi, as far as i know this wasen't a very frequently used monster, and it does say "They invaded the world long ago from a remote location
on the Material Plane".

Both races had a big role in the spelljammer campaign setting, but I don't think they would do a full spelljammer setting.
But there might be a story line where more Mindflayer and Neogi shiops arive, kind of a alien invasion story.

Maybe suported by unearthend arcana articles bringing some more spelljammer stuff.