D&D (2024) Wizards Presents Live Coverage

Hello, Darryl here standing in for Morrus with live coverage of the Wizards Presents live stream! This post will be updated throughout the presentation with news updates for Dungeons & Dragons. The event hosted by Jimmy Wong, Sydnee Goodman, and Ginny Dee starts at 9:00 AM Pacific and, while live-streamed, was pre-recorded and expected to last about an hour.

Over the weekend in advance of the stream, this placeholder pre-order page popped up on Amazon for a “Dungeons & Dragons 2022 Release Hardcover" with a retail price of $49.95 and release date of December 6, 2022. It’s highly likely this is Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon hardcover sourcebook that, along with the large-scale battle game Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn, was announced back in April for a release this year.

The stream is now archived on the D&D YouTube channel for those who missed the stream.

The pre-show featured a comedy sketch about working in the Wizards of the Coast offices with Magic: The Gathering characters terrorizing their co-workers.

The show starts proper with Magic: The Gathering news with the Middle Earth crossover in Universes Beyond.

The Dungeons & Dragons news starts with Jeremy Crawford introducing the new initiative called "One D&D". Chris Perkins reiterated what was said back during "D&D Next" playtests in 2013/2014 that there won't be any new "editions" of D&D but that the 2024 version will refine 5th Edition by building on that rules framework. All three core rulebooks will get a refresh, with Chris Perkins saying he's restructuring the DMG to be more friendly to new players. The "three pillars" of One D&D will be:

• D&D Rules. This takes what we love about fifth edition and updates the rules of the game to reflect the feedback we have heard from players and where the game is today.
• D&D Beyond. This will be the platform for your digital D&D collection, content, and tools.
• D&D Digital Play Experience. In early development, D&D Digital will offer an immersive player experience, rich creation tools for Dungeon Masters, and a connected space for DMs and players to get together and play D&D.

The new VTT will be in Unreal Engine 5 using 3D models of...well, models. All the footage is of the pre-alpha build, but the tabletop looks like a tabletop with minis and terrain thanks to tilt shift camera technology. The idea is to sell adventures with pre-built dungeons that you can play as-is or disassemble into parts for use your own games.

Playtesting begins today on the new rules system with a FAQ already live on the D&D Beyond website covering all three pillars and announces that the first digital/physical bundle will be Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon.

Not mentioned on the stream, a full one-hour video about the playtest for the Character Origins popped up on the official D&D YouTube channel:

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More Magic: The Gathering news about tournaments and the 30th anniversary celebration including in-person events. So a chance for the D&D fans to catch their breath.

The 35th anniversary of Drizzt Do'urden will see reprints of all 39 books in the series with new covers both in print and digital format. There will also be a new "visual dictionary" released on March 7, 2023 (pre-order link on Amazon). From the product description:

A visually stunning exploration of a legendary fantasy world

The Forgotten Realms offer D&D players an endless array of secrets to uncover, foes to fight, and treasures to be taken. But there is one name that has always stood out from the rest: Drizzt. Drizzt Do’urden.

This legendary drow elf ranger has been adventuring across the Forgotten Realms for decades, whether through New York Times bestselling fantasy novels or award-winning video games. Now Drizzt will take readers on a spectacular journey through his world.

This book showcases Drizzt and his travels through the Forgotten Realms in never-before-seen detail, with the glorious artwork produced by Wizards of the Coast put center stage. From the glaciers of Icewind Dale to the teeming cities of the Sword Coast, and the sinister shadows of the Underdark to the chambers of Mithral Hall, fans can explore the Realms through Drizzt’s eyes as never before with this immersive, extraordinary guide to their favorite fantasy setting.

Finally, there will be a new Legend of Drizzt webcomic on Webtoons featuring Briennelle Zaharina, Drizzt and Catti-brie's daughter, who will take her father's sword Twinkle and go out to prove she's just as much of a hero as her parents.

Back to M:TG with more tie-ins...it was previously announced one of them would be Warhammer 40000 but there will be a live stream on September 12th announcing details. The big announcement: Doctor Who for Commander formats.

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The stream reminds us of this week's release of Spelljammer: Adventures in Space with an animated commercial. The cartoon features a Spelljammer space hamster mother telling a scary story to her child of a frightening "hooman", who she says is too strange to be real before drawing a dagger and doing battle with a beholder.

Now, Dragonlance! "This is D&D telling a war story." Lots of art previews from Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon, which will be set in the War of the Lance telling side-stories outside the events of the novels. Kender confirmed as a playable race, along with the Knights of Solamnia and Tower of High Sorcery plus many new feats. Pictured above, Lord Soth will be on the alternate cover. The setting is built to work alongside the Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn board game as a mass combat optional rules set you can play on its own or add into Shadow of the Dragon Queen as a rules expansion.

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We got a trailer for a new starter set for Japan that seems to lean heavily on isekai tropes with three normal people hauling a cart before they're surrounded by magical flames and attacked by zombies. They transform into their characters and defeat the zombies just as a large dragon shows up...moving back to the table to show everyone playing at the table. The set is coming this winter.

Now for the entire year of 2023 Dungeons & Dragons releases (well, almost the entire year as Jeremy Crawford clarified in Twitter this was just "some of the products" coming):

• Keys from the Golden Vault, a heist anthology adventure collection coming in Winter 2023
• Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants, a collection of lore about giants set to be the "definitive" book on giants coming Spring 2023
• Phandelver Campaign will expand the setting of Phandelver from the original Starter Set into a full campaign coming Summer 2023
• Book of Many Things draws from the iconic magic item coming in Fall 2023
• Finally...Planescape (!!!) coming in Fall 2023

And the stream closes out on Magic: The Gathering news for Dominaria United and other big releases for 2023.

PS. Thanks to @darjr for grabbing screenshots of the presentation while I was frantically typing to keep up.

 

[Baumi]

If you have Proficiency in a Tool and Skill that combines, than you have advantage. But where does this happen? Intruments are their own category and they have nothing like that written (which would easily combine with Performe).

Edit: Ups I was wrong, Music Instruments still counts as tools, so you do get Advantage if you are trained in Perform and the Instrument you use 8D

 

[Baumi]

Short Rest still lives on. I had hoped that the two kind of different Rests would fade since it's a very common source of trouble for GMs.

 

[JEB]

This edition has published books for Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Spelljammer, and Planescape. And people think that they aren't catering to grognards?

Pre-Tasha 5E was catering to grognards, as shown by the Realms and Eberron. Post-Tasha definitely isn't, as shown by Ravenloft and Spelljammer (and likely Dragonlance as well). What's happening now is not catering, but simply reuse of old IP to tap into name recognition and nostalgia - pretty standard practice in the entertainment industry at this point. If they were catering, they wouldn't reboot and reimagine, they'd just update.

Dragonlance will be a good example for how the 5th ed version of Planescape will be "updated".

I think Ravenloft and Spelljammer already gave us a pretty good idea.

Listening to the play test video gives an indication of how they're going to talk about D&D moving forward. Jeremy Crawford isn't talking about the "5th edition Player's Handbook" he's talking about the "2014 Player's Handbook".

Thaumaturge.

Ha, so my "2014 5E" and "2024 5E" distinctions weren't far off the mark...

BTW, "fifth edition" and "One D&D" are clearly being thought of as different things, if compatible. Pay attention to the way they talk about them in the General FAQ here. One D&D is a 6E in all but name.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I know I can't swear, but that was flippin' awesome

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Thanks to @Abstruse and @darjr for documenting all the sweet sweet goodness coming down the pike.

Some of the items I'll be skipping, and others I'm all in.

I've been looking for an excuse to get off Roll20 for a while. If D&DB equally buggy or better, I'm def going to switch.

Am I the only one who's mind was blown that there have been 39 Drizzt books! I assume more pages than Wheel of Time?

I keep pronouncing OneD&D as wundy andy...

 

[RFB Dan]

Thanks to @Abstruse and @darjr for documenting all the sweet sweet goodness coming down the pike.

Some of the items I'll be skipping, and others I'm all in.

I've been looking for an excuse to get off Roll20 for a while. If D&DB equally buggy or better, I'm def going to switch.

Am I the only one who's mind was blown that there have been 39 Drizzt books! I assume more pages than Wheel of Time?

I keep pronouncing OneD&D as wundy andy...

Anyone with the first name Andrew: you now have your new screen name! Wundy Andy! love it.

 

[Nikosandros]

People like spell attacks because they are rolling, not the DM. I'd like more. A miss could do half damage, for example, like a successful save.

I must say that I dislike that some spells have a save and others an attack rolls, because of the way this interacts with other elements. For example, magic resistance only applies to saves, while exhaustion only to attack rolls.

 

[Nikosandros]

No sign of dear old Eldritch Blast, so it could be getting reinvented as a class feature?

We can hope...

 

[Nikosandros]

I have a comment on the presentation itself. Why didn't they put the names of the speakers, at least when they first appeared on screen? They only did that for Schneider and Irwin during the Dragonlance segment.

 

[glass]

So, it looks like the 2024 revision will likely be all about this integration and probably minimal rule changes.

Why do "minimal rule changes" require a length public playtest.

"Reimagining" of Dragonlance confirmed.

If they can make the gods of capital-G-Good a bit less evil, that will be an improvement.

(this is a clear part of the Rules in the DMG).

What DMG? This was about the 2024 revision, for which the DMG does not exist yet.

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Anyway, the art is amazing. It is disappointing but not surprising that you need to go through D&D Beyond to get the playtest. "One D&D" is a silly and slightly unsettling name. Auto success on saves is good (especially given 5e's lack of save scaling is unlikely to change), but auto-success on skill checks is ridiculous.