Critical Role Wildemount: Most Pre-orders Since D&D Core Rulebooks

It seems that the most popular D&D setting in the 5E era is... Wildemount! Talking about the upcoming Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, WotC's Greg Tito said on a Twitch stream recently that "we're pretty sure that this book has seen the most pre-orders and pre-release excitement since any of the core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition were released".

Here's the quote in full:

"...It was number 1, ranked number 1, for all books on Amazon. How many of you out there remember when Amazon was just selling books? Raise your hands. Yeah, that's me. So it's really cool, even though obviously I do a lot more other fun stuff right now, there is a ton out there that are excited for this book, and it isn't even out yet.

"We have little bit of an internal metrics, but we're pretty sure that this book has seen the most pre-orders and pre-release excitement since any of the core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition were released, and if you've been following along at home, Dungeons & Dragons has been selling like hotcakes since 5th Edition released in 2014."

It sounds like the Critical Role setting is proving more popular (at least right now) than traditional D&D settings like Ravenloft or Eberron, newer ones like Ravnica, or adventures set in the Forgotten Realms.

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount will hit game stores on March 17th.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yup, it's very popular, which is very cool. Seems like those CR fans buy books after all. I'm excited to browse though my copy when I get it.

 

[pedr]

I’m not surprised. I expect there’ll be a significant group for whom this is the first D&D book they buy, and many others who will own this and the PHB.

I think it’d probably beat a hypothetical Forgotten Realms Campaign guide, even though that would also attract people who aren’t regularly buying the adventures or rulebooks.

 

[akr71]

This is great news, but not really surprising - CR fans show up in droves.

I am still undecided if I want this book. More spells and class options are cool, but not required.

 

[Maestrino]

I pre-ordered a hard copy and digital on D&D Beyond...

 

[Morrus]

Assuming the sales keep up, it's interesting that this might be the first time WotC hasn't owned the most popular D&D campaign setting.

 

[Fenris-77]

Assuming the sales keep up, it's interesting that this might be the first time WotC hasn't owned the most popular D&D campaign setting.

I don't know about you, but I see that as a positive, not a negative.

 

[Morrus]

I don't know about you, but I see that as a positive, not a negative.

It's just a thing, not good or bad. Interesting. Doesn't affect me either way, but it piques my curiosity.

 

[Oofta]

Also indicates that prioritizing this product over old school Greyhawk/Darksun/Spelljammer settings was probably the right call. There's only so much room for new settings, I'd rather have a more-or-less clean slate than yet another FR publication myself.

As far as not being "owned" by WOTC, I'm not sure how that works. I mean, Eberron was the result of a contest and the idea wasn't initially developed in-house. Is this really that much different?

 

[Ringtail]

I'm quite excited for this setting. I am a fan of Critical Role certainly, but having followed the show Matt's world of Exandria fills most of the standard D&D tropes.

He has his own flair of course, but it could be a great alternative to Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, delivering the 'classic' D&D experience.

I know he uses the Dawn War Pantheon. In the Green Ronin book the skipped the names in favor of generic titles, like the Archheart for Corellon or the Storm Lord for Kord. I'm curious if we will see the original names make it into this book since it has WoTC's blessing. The one exception being Sarenrae, from Pathfinder, which will certainly need a new name.