Wizards of the Coast launches official Dungeons & Dragons Actual Play show

Wizards of the Coast is getting back into the Actual Play game. Today, Wizards announced via Variety that they are launching a new Actual Play show called Dungeon Masters, starring Jasmine Bhullar as the Dungeon Master along with players Mayanna Berrin, Christian Navarro, Neil Newbon and Devora Wilde. Wilde and Newbon are veterans of Baldur's Gate 3, a smash hit for the Dungeons & Dragons IP. However, both actors will be playing new characters and not their Baldur's Gate 3 characters.

Of note is that the show will feature "official, unreleased D&D content" which will be put up for sale on D&D Beyond following every episode. The first arc takes place in Ravenloft and will feature content from Ravenloft: The Horrors Within. New episodes will be released weekly on YouTube, starting on April 22nd.

Wizards of the Coast previously produced several official D&D Actual Play series, including Dice, Camera, Action and Force Grey. Dice, Camera, Action was their flagship D&D program for years until it unceremoniously ended due to a scandal involving two of its players.

 

[SothFan]

Dragonlance and Ravenloft was work for hire

That is also true for Dan Frazier and Fay Dalton right?

Yet people all day yesterday were complaining about how he plagiarised the original One Ring card.

WotC owns the original, so now they own 2.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dragonlance [] was work for hire,

And was not the sole creation of Weis and (Tracy) Hickman. The Krynn worldbuilding was a collective effort of TSR staffers, with Dug Niles and Laura Hickman amongst others playing a major part and penning modules in the series. I assume the modules and novels used a shared story bible so they could be worked on simultaneously.

 

[Dire Bare]

Dug Niles

Doug.

Sorry . . .

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Doug.

Sorry . . .

What do you call a man without a spade?

 

[Azzy]

Grrrrr. I know you are being a bit snarky, but . . . this is one of my pet peeves.

TSR and WotC didn't publish literally hundreds of D&D novels because they were all terrible quality.

Like all fiction, some of them were terrible, some of them were great, and most were . . . okay. Fun, but okay.

Absolutely fair. Some of them were fun.

 

[Selas]

Again, I do not care about the game or how it works

Then you shouldn't care either about a change to a game handbook that is separate from the novels since it shouldn't affect your source material.
But you come to a gaming forum, complaining about the inclusion of something you care about on a show based on a change to a gaming handbook...and you don't care to gain some understanding of the game that everyone here is discussing in context to the show. It's this dismissive attitude that is getting on people's nerves. Your complaints are based partially on a lack of understanding of the gaming side and a refusal to do so...yet you continue to try and impose your view while downplaying ours because it's from a different medium you don't care--and expect us to agree with you. That's not how things work. This is the equivalent to someone running against a brick wall and expecting to go through as if it wasn't there.

Some folks here may know the lore from the novels, but most here know the lore from the game manuals. Those are fundamentally different, and people have explained this to you but you're unwilling to accept it. You cannot have any meaningful discussion until you accept that fact...then you will be able to discuss the merits of both

 

[SothFan]

But you come to a gaming forum, complaining about the inclusion of something you care about on a show based on a change to a gaming handbook

So I am just like everyone else here.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I assume the modules and novels used a shared story bible so they could be worked on simultaneously.

Yes, and this is documented in one of the first looks behind the scenes, in DRAGON #91:

All of this data [on Krynn's backstory] was compiled in a reference work that we call 'The Source.' Some of the background material from The Source will be found in module DL 5, Dragons of Mystery. However, much materialstill remains hidden beneath the covers of The Source's black binder."--Tracy Hickman

That article also discusses some of the original ideas behind the relationship between the games, the novels, and the home campaigns:

Though the trilogy will parallel most of the action and events in the modules, certain differences will be found between them. Margaret Weis comments below on these changes:
"The purpose of The Dragonlance Chronicles, as far as gamers are concerned, is to provide insight into the characters and their world of Krynn. The novel's plot was written in such a way that people would 'play the novel' if they wanted to. However, we worked very hard to keep certain aspects of the modules a secret, such as traps and secret doors. In places where we used them, we sometimes altered details about the means of opening the doors or what sort of trap would be found. This frees Dungeon Masters from the worry that the players only need read the books to get through the modules without harm to their characters. In some cases we invented new encounters or cut existing ones from the modules for the sake of the story. I can think of one room that appears in the book that is pretty bad, and I'm sure no one will want to go there in the module--but the same room in the module is harmless!
"The DRAGONLANCE novels present one possible 'reality.' We hope that game players and Dungeon Masters will develop other 'realities' in their Krynn campaigns. Ours is certainly not the only way, nor the 'right' way, to play through the DRAGONLANCE adventure. We were, of course, extremely limited in our choice of where we could take our characters. There are large areas of Krynn that our characters will never see, monsters they will never fight, and encounters they will never have, simply because we decided the characters would, for example, travel north on their adventure instead of east."

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Then you shouldn't care either about a change to a game handbook that is separate from the novels since it shouldn't affect your source material.
But you come to a gaming forum, complaining about the inclusion of something you care about on a show based on a change to a gaming handbook...and you don't care to gain some understanding of the game that everyone here is discussing in context to the show. It's this dismissive attitude that is getting on people's nerves. Your complaints are based partially on a lack of understanding of the gaming side and a refusal to do so, yet you continue to try and impose your view and downplay ours because it's from a different medium you don't care, and expect us to agree with you. That's not how things work. This is the equivalent to someone running against a brick wall and expecting to go through as if it wasn't there.

Some folks here may know the lore from the novels, but most here know the lore from the game manuals. Those are fundamentally different, and people have explained this to you but you're unwilling to accept it. You cannot have any meaningful discussion until you accept that fact...then you will be able to discuss the merits of both

It has produced a heart-warming level of consensus though.

 

[JLowder]

If memory serves, James Lowder did approach Weis & Hickman about getting their input on Knight of the Black Rose, although I don't know many of the details. I do know that Lowder was originally only the editor of the book, and took over when the original author's manuscript was judged unacceptable. He has made it clear that he intended to leave room for Soth to eventually return to Krynn without his Ravenloft presence ever having much impact on Dragonlance, since the Mists play with time and he could have arrived shortly after he left.

The not-so-abbreviated version:

• When the Ravenloft fiction line was added to the schedule, management/marketing dictated the first book had to involve Strahd and cross over with the Realms. The second book would cross over with Dragonlance by showing Soth becoming a darklord, as the character had been all but abandoned in the DL fiction. Soth becoming a darklord was also part of the planned RPG boxed set.
• I was brought on very early as series editor for the RL fiction line, working with the game design team closely. (That's how I was asked to contribute to Darklords, for example.) From the start, I was not a fan of moving Soth to Ravenloft, as I was pushing for the fiction I was editing to feature more creator-driven characters and plots. (For Vampire, some existing Realms characters were floated by management as potential foils for Strahd, but I got them to agree to a new character, so long as Strahd was there. Christie's creation, Jander Sunstar, showed that was the right move.) I could not get management to budge on Soth.
• As series editor, I first offered Knight of the Black Rose to Margaret and Tracy, as a team or individually if Tracy wanted it, through a phone call with Margaret. It was the first time we had ever spoken, I think. Margaret said no for them both, for reasons I certainly supported.
• I then ran open auditions for Vampire of the Mists and Knight of the Black Rose. First-time author Christie Golden got the contract for Vampire. A first-time author named Mike Cullen got the assignment for Knight. (I only mention the name because the book was originally solicited to the public with his name attached, so it's still out there as public info.) I was acquiring and developmental editor for both projects.
• The original author for Knight left the project during the first draft stage, fairly early on. When that happened, I tried again to get the book killed or at least Soth replaced as the main character, to no avail.
• I ran a second, emergency round of auditions for a replacement author for Knight. Most of the authors invited were people with published fiction credits, some through literary agencies, because of the short time frame. None of the submissions worked. There was some good writing, but every proposal messed with Soth's character and changed him significantly. Everyone was trying to put their stamp on him, which is understandable but not what I wanted to see. Since we had no clear frontrunner option from the new auditions, I tried once again to shift the novel's focus, but by then we had the very cool Caldwell cover art and the book had been solicited to the book trade as focused on Soth (to a lot of enthusiasm). While I had not convinced management to replace Soth as a protagonist, I had convinced my boss Soth should remain essentially unchanged in the novel so that he could be reclaimed for DL, intact, by Tracy and Margaret if they came back as writers and wanted him.
• So the book had been announced, and we were running out of scheduled time. Mary Kirchoff, who ran the Book Department and had edited my first novel, called me into her office and suggested I write Knight, as I was the best option at hand for someone who got Soth and Ravenloft, and most importantly someone who had a clear idea of how to do the book in a way that did not undermine the character. I very reluctantly agreed.
• My editor on Knight was Pat McGilligan, who was the primary DL editor at the time. Margaret and Tracy could have reviewed the draft if they wanted, but, again, they said no for reasons I absolutely supported. (I did eventually pass along all my continuity notes about Soth to Margaret, as the existing DL material, even in 1990/1991, had inconsistencies.)
• I wrote the book so it focuses on Soth's interaction with his existing story, like showing his perspective of the fight with Tanis at the gates from the core DL novels. I also built in the mechanism tied to him correctly remembering and affirming his story so he could escape the domain, should Margaret and Tracy come back. That was there from my first plot outline on, explicitly. Margaret and Tracy did not force that. It was my idea from the start, to be used or not as needed.

Other notes:

• For newer RL fans who think WotC is being "woke" for pushing back on the tropes of Vistani as inherently villainous, that was happening in official products as far back as 1991, as with the heroic Vistani character Kulchek the Wanderer I created for Knight. Magda was supposed to be the center of reader sympathy in Knight, too. She is not evil.
• I was the original contracted author for the Soth-centered game product When Black Roses Bloom. The memory mirrors thing, with its focus on Krynn's history, is from my initial pitch and plot. It helps maintain the focus on exploring Soth's history not changing his character. But I ended up parting ways with TSR and was on pretty bad terms with the company by 1994/1995. (Lawyers were involved, though it never made it to court.) Lisa Smedman did a terrific job with the module.
• I agreed to write Spectre of the Black Rose because Peter Adkison settled the problems that had dragged on from 1994. It also helped that they brought Mary Kirchoff back to run the book lines. I was originally supposed to write Spectre solo, but partway through the first draft I found out my father was dying of cancer, so I was traveling a lot between Wisconsin and my parents' place in Massachusetts. The company could not move the deadlines. The book was already partially done in draft and fully plotted when I brought in a co-writer, Voronica Whitney-Robinson, to write the remaining Inza sections from my outline to get it in on time. (It was Voronica's first pro fiction work, and she went on to write a bunch of Realms material for the company as well as other stuff, so it was a win for everyone.)
• I pitched a third Sithicus RL novel, Wake of the Black Rose, which would have dealt with the domain in the wake of Soth's departure and the way his story still impacted the setting and characters. Had WotC not cancelled the RL fiction line as part of their shift in focus away from fiction, it would have gone on the schedule in the early 2000s, as Spectre had sold pretty well. Not Knight levels, but well.
• White Wolf almost got the rights to do RL fiction back when they had the game license, but WotC decided they did not want WW to do RL fiction for corporate PR reasons. I would have edited the WW RL fiction, with one goal to have Christie write a sequel to Vampire of the Mists as the first book in the new line. Wake would have been a possibility as book two, as well. I did get to write a lot of the Sithicus material for the WW 3E books. I wrote material for Dragon #351 updating the domain, too.