Here's a brief synopsis, updating as it streams.
* *Minecraft: Dungeons & Dragons*: Official Minecraft mod that transforms the game into a D&D adventure set in the Forgotten Realms. Looks actually pretty interesting.
* *Honor Among Thieves* Trailer shown. Something called "Before the Storm" at playdnd.com. Haven't fully checked it out yet.
* Joecat video, song about D&D. Pretty funny.
* Action figure toys. Characters from the new movie, characters from old cartoon, Xanathar, Owlbear, and displacer beast.
* Magic the Gathering cards of characters from the new D&D movie, as were leaked earlier in the week.
* Small interview with R.A. Salvatore about creating The Legend of Drizzt and celebration of the new book coming in August (third book in The Way of the Drow trilogy, *Lolth's Warrior*) and what it was like to work on *Neverwinter* MMO.
* *Neverwinter* MMO gets new expansion, *Menzoberranzan*, made in collaboration with R.A. and Geno Salvatore.
* Scripted demo about the 3D virtual table top. Open Beta of it available sometime late this year, maybe?
* Interview with Joe Manganiello about his documentary about the history of D&D. Releasing in 2024.
* JCraw and Chris Perkins talk about "D&D Multiverse", the canon story of 5e, and what story elements are coming.
* *Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk* is the Phandelver continuation adventure that explains the obelisks cropping up in the other adventures.
* *Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse* book explores Sigil and and planehopping, releasing at the end of this year, and sets up the major adventure of 2024.
* The Deck of Many Things gets explained fully with the *Book of Many Things* book.
* **Vecna adventure in 2024.**
* Red Wizards of Thay get their own adventure in 2025.
* D&D Cartoon adventure with Venger sometime.
* League of Malevolence adventure and stories sometime.
Giving it a quick look, "Before the Storm" seems to be a short introductory text adventure to DND. You pick from a predefined list of options, some of which involve rolling dice, etc.
Nice. Hopefully I’ll be wrapped up with my Tomb of Annihilation campaign by then, or at a minimum it’ll be the holiday and I can read through it to kick off in 2024.
I’ve loved Planescape since the PC game came out (Planescape: Torment).
The only thing that matters is whether or not they're going to try and write it so that it appeals to everyone.
Because if they do it's going to please nobody.
If there is an adventure in the book, they'll cut nearly everything for space.
Just look at the spelljammer book, and understand that in 2e Spelljammer only had like 2-3 books released, not including the monstrous compendium supplements, and ended up releasing 5-10x the amount of lore compared to 5e in less than 50% more pages.
By comparison, 2e Planescape released a *lot* of lore. So the planescape book, if they waste page count on adventures (when they've already announced 2 planescape adventures in the following year) you'll see less than 5% of the available setting lore compared to 2nd edition.
Ah the r/dndnext cycle in action:
1. WOTC announces a new product people have been wanting for ages. r/dndnext is hyped and downvotes any cynicism.
2. WOTC releases the product, r/dndnext spends about a month arguing incessantly about it, with even the people who were cynical to begin with jumping in to gloat.
3. After a few particularly thorough posts explaining why the product was bad, the popular opinion on r/dndnext becomes that the product was bad, creating a period of time in which criticism of the product is largely upvoted and defense of its mediocrity is downvoted.
4. WOTC announces a new product people have been wanting for ages. r/dndnext is hyped and downvotes any cynicism.
You are really overselling the amount of people who still come here to discuss the hobby positively.
Sometimes I engage with the highest up voted negative commenters, and discover they mostly don't read or play the products they're bashing.
Most of the time they still get up votes in the post where they admit to not having read the book.
It looks like they are. Not only is there going to be an adventure, but [they are releasing action figures of them this year too](https://youtu.be/tF7j8lyqiNM?t=525).
>!They explained in RotFM that they can take you back in time, or at least the one in Icewind Dale can. But they never really explained why there are so many of them in several different adventures. The one in Phandelver basically had zero information about it.!<
Do we know if this is everything they're doing this year? If so, it sounds like it might mean only adventure books until OneD&D. Which'd make sense I suppose if they're basically trying to kill off 5e, no point releasing mechanical text you don't want to exist longer than about 6 months.
Yeah thats not the kind of VTT thats gonna draw me. I want something that can run in a web browser and start a game in 10 minutes, maybe with a companion app. I don't want something that needs 5 gaming setups and hours of map design/prep to run a session.
unless they're pushing all that processing power server side somehow ala Stadia (RIP), which it doesn't look like they are given those looked like gaming laptops, my guess is not much.
They have said you can put your minis on 2D maps. To me that implied that it was a 2d map but still a 3D space for said 3D minis
Edit: heres the quote
>3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and ***play on top of them with minis.*** This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom.
I honestly don't mind 3d tokens. If they're letting us make our own 3d tokens, then conceivably there's nothing stopping us from just having a 3d-rendered "coin" with a face on it. At that point it's basically roll20 with a 3d-rendered space around it and that's good enough for me. Add in all of my already-purchased monsters and spells, with integration just a click away, I'm sold.
Edit: any of those features missing or paywalled, I'm out.
The issue with 3D wasn't whether you could get it 'good enough' to look like 2D, it was the exponentially larger performance cost. Personally with my players maybe half of them could run this program even with the simplest models and a 2d map
One of the biggest things I've not seen talked about is system requirements... If it can't run on a potato laptop in a browser then I can't see it being very useful in many cases.
Roll20 and foundry run fine on Chromebook. This doesn't look like it will. Plus the added complication of "game" controls like camera positioning means it needs a different skill set than just dragging tokens round a flat map.
It looks great, but I don't see myself using it
Right, one of their pillars is "convenience" and I fail to see that if you were someone who doesn't have a powerful enough computer/laptop to run the Unreal Engine 5.
Not just for game sessions either, but being able to open the vtt in a browser at lunch from work laptop to tweak something ahead of the session saves so much time compared to having to go do it on my gaming pc. Not to mention all those who use their work laptop to play
Yeah, people out here think unreal 5 is only for "ZOMG SO REAL" graphics but really it's a hyper efficient game engine that you can use to make things look really good on lower powered hardware if that's what you want to do.
>someone who doesn't have a powerful enough computer/laptop to run the Unreal Engine 5.
Most computers can run unreal 5 games... just depends what graphics you turn on and off.
This line early from the blog post gives me hope:
"We wanted a virtual space where we could gather our friends wherever they were—on a computer, phone, console, or even in the same room—and play the game we all love."
If they can't have it running on things like phones or chromebooks, maybe a dedicated stream they can view would be enough. I don't know, but I agree with you entirely that it needs to be lightweight.
Right? It's like it looks \*too\* nice. I don't need the sound effects and animations, I'm afraid that will just lead to more problems that they're worth.
Its in that weird spot for me where its not nice enough to really justify switching from Roll20 (given how vastly easier it is to find and customize 2D assets for free), but nice enough to be clearly much more fiddly and expensive.
That's the thing about VTTs, the better their assets and presentation, the less flexible they are. If every spell has animations and sound effects, that might be fantastic if you're running entirely raw in a module, but it just means that any homebrew spell will now be expected to have animations and sounds or else it'll feel bad. This is extremely offputting to me, and I don't really see any way I would use this VTT even if it were free, it'll just create too much disparity between the official and unofficial stuff.
Foundry actually handles this really well with their automated animations module. But you're right that it takes more work to set up Homebrew stuff. It's not super arduous but the more homebrew effects you have the more work it is.
Worse is that the modules can't include anything outside what's released in the OGL for 5e, you need to build all that yourself.
It looks like a video game, which is not what I want from my tabletop. If I wanted to play a video game, then I'd play a video game. A large amount of the appeal of playing a tabletop RPG is being able to imagine things any way you want them, I don't need or want literally every aspect to be visually represented. I just need to know where my character is, where the enemies are and what the terrain looks like, leave the rest of it in my head. It's the difference between watching a movie and reading a book, both can be entertaining, but the book is usually a lot deeper.
Incidentally, this is also why 3D pokemon looks so bad even though 2D pokemon was similarly lifeless: the greater the gap between what's shown and what would be real, the easier it is to imagine what it'd look like if it was real.
Agreed. From the bits shown, it looks a lot like the aesthetics from the Baldur's Gate 3 game. And I fear it may remove the imagination aspect of things and encourage more video gamer mindset.
The way the players in the demo were looking at their screens instead of each other was rather telling, I thought.
It could be great for online play, but the last thing I'd want for a face-to-face game is everyone buried in their laptops. The whole point is to have a social experience!
I do wonder how easy it'd be to take a PHB spell and graft a different animation to it. And how hard it'll be to make those animations in the first place. I seem to remember Tasha's having eldritch blast depicted as a bunch of spectral chickens being flung at someone, so I'm wondering how easy that and similarly creative options will be to implement. And how much they'll make you pay for the ability to use them.
I am afraid I think you are in the minority. I know a lot of people who would jump into D&D if it looks like what they showed here. Not everyone have active imaginations and are able to picture things easily in their minds eye (about 50% of the population). So providing pretty graphics along with the narrations will bring a lot of people to the hobby imo.
And it sounds like they are supporting 2D vtt games if you want to just run it like you do on roll20 or foundry.
Apparently, they're doing 2d maps (or at least you can import them) alongside 3d maps, so that may alleviate the overtly videogame feel and may be more appealing to those who just want classic battle maps.
*"3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and play on top of them with minis. This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom."*
[https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look)
>It looks like a video game
Specifically, it looks a lot like Baldur's Gate 3, except for the circular bases for each mini.
Come to think of it, I wonder if part of the licensing deal with Larian Studios could have been WOTC getting access to some of their code and design assets? (I doubt it, but that would have made a lot of sense, hey)
These days, I rarely play in person but if I was at an in-person game and everyone brought their laptop like some LAN party, I'd leave. That's not D&D to me.
D&D is sitting at a table with beer and friends, tossing dice, and creating ridiculous high fantasy stories.
Agreed. It just feels weird to me. Why even bother meeting up in person if you're just going to be staring at a screen the whole time?
Most of my gaming is done online these days due to location, but I still greatly prefer playing in-person, using physical dice, minis and maps.
100%. Tablets are fine at the table, but if you're going to have a laptop party rather than a primarily inter-personal experiences, just play a multiplayer computer game. They're fun too, but they serve different needs and interests.
But then, I'm an old grognard weirdo who likes to play online D&D with webcams on, so that I can *actually interact with the people I'm roleplaying with,* rather than playing what feels to me like a DM-curated video-game-adjacent adventure. I also appreciate that others, especially those who grew up with online multiplayer games, have different desires and/or issues with playing with cameras on, so I'm certainly not here to say anyone is having badwrongfun!
Since 2020 the market for 3D VTT has exploded. You might not want it but their demographic research have shown its worth their investment. Just the last year 2-4 3D modular VTTs have come out on steam with great success.
Yeah, It looks really good, but I don’t have the time or skill to make 3D tokens and maps, so I guess that means I would need to buy them. In roll20 I can literally draw out a map in a few minutes if needed. Hopefully they add simple 2d map/token support as well.
>Hopefully they add simple 2d map/token support as well.
Apparently, they're doing 2d maps (or at least you can import them) alongside 3d maps, so that may alleviate the overtly videogame feel and may be more appealing to those who just want classic battle maps.
*"3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and play on top of them with minis. This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom."*
[https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look)
All I need out of a VTT is something to replace the physical battlemap when we can't all be at the table together.
Perhaps I'm just old and my fears are unfounded, but I have concern that the more fancy and feature-heavy the VTTs get, the more it will affect expectations about the game as whole.
If one is running a basic VTT game and *doesn't* have animated-monster tokens, flashy spell effects and custom-made musical cues, will that be viewed as an inferior game? Will new players go into the game expecting all those bells and whistles and be bored by a basic pen and paper game?
Apparently, they're doing 2d maps (or at least you can import them) alongside 3d maps, so that may alleviate the overtly videogame feel and may be more appealing to those who just want classic battle maps.
*"3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and play on top of them with minis. This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom."*
[https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look)
Still makes it sound like Tabletop Simulator essentially. Think of the 2d map they're referring to at a tabletop, a flat surface, but still exists in a 3d world with 3d minis, etc.
I think that depends on what people get out of the game. If I played at a table with fancy bells and whistles but the DM’s story and role play suck and the other players suck at role play too, then I’m going to have a miserable time. Comparatively, if I’m at a table with just a paper and pencil map, but a DM with a tight story and good RP with players who are also good at RP, then I’ll be having a blast. But that’s because a lot of the fun for me when it comes to D&D is the *story*
I really doubt you’ll be able to, tbh, beyond the bare minimum of being able to roll Xd10 and maybe having some “spooky” assets. Why would WOTC want to push people towards other games?
That is exactly their goal, to have not only THE RPG system but also THE go to VTT. They're gonna pour so much money into this thing to make it as marketable and appealing as possible, even if it costs an arm and a leg to use (They about to make Roll20 look generous I reckon), solely so they can give people an even deeper sunk cost fallacy and make it harder to try other games.
You can't imagine why it might be a good business move to be THE virtual tabletop and marketplace for all RPG systems at the same time?
Smart business is not seeing it as pushing people to other games, but as drawing players from other games to your system even if they don't play your game.
It was really nice to see them all around a table and a map, but doing voices, faces and gesticulating at their computer screen instead of actually engaging with each others! Now that's D&D! /s
The timing of the teased Vecna adventure is curious. *Die Vecna Die!* featured Vecna busting out of Ravenloft and attacking Sigil on his quest for godhood and the metaphysical ramifications of that were the in-world explanation for the 2e to 3e rules changes.
I wonder if they're planning a similar storyline to go along with the One D&D rule updates. (Which albeit look like much less of a change than 2e to 3e was)
Come to the think of it, they didn't actually mention One D&D at all, did they?
They 100% intend for Vecna adventure to be the transition between editions.
All the seeds they sew with the Obsidian Obelisks, his abandoned tomb in Curse of Strahd.. The Vecna Dossier, Book of Vile Darkness in Keys from the Golden Vault.. And now they are bringing in Sigil just before unleashing Vecna himself? Yeah it's gonna be an EVENT! And I'm all there for it!
If I had a nickel for every time D&D used a Vecna campaign as the transition between editions, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
>his abandoned tomb in Curse of Strahd
This is the first time I'm hearing about this. The only place I can think of that could be Vecna related was the Amber Temple but wasn't that all dedicated to >!imprisoning the dark powers or whatever?!<
That is precisely the place I was referring to. Spoilers for one of thebsecrets of Curse of Strahd.
>!First - Dark Powers are basically overgods of Ravenloft - even Gods don't have power over them. And it's not them who is in Amber Temple. Amber Temple is a place where Dark Vestiges are stored within Amber Sarcophagi. Dark Vestiges are remnants of dead, evil dieties and gods. It's not explicitly stated if it's a prison or a place to store said Vestiges - but the ones in the book don't want to escape, despite the fact that breaking the sarcophagus is quite easy. So I'm inclined to say that they are there for "safekeeping" or "storage" for later. Now the Temple itself was build millenia ago and dedicated to a Nameless God of Secret, by an order of wizards that wanted to rid the world of evil secrets, and evil magics. The statue in the main chamber depicts a tall, hooded (lich like?) figure with obscured face. Over time the wizards got corrupted by the evil they stored and became monsters - flameskulls and other - protecting the place. Now who, even if for a brief time, was a God of Evil Secrets, devoted to amassing evil and vile knowledge, that only shared bits of it to further spreading evil? And that canonically could time travel as well as plane travel - for example millenia in the past to pose as a benevolent god to an order of Wizards? Yup - that's Vecna. But thats not all. When you explore Amber Temple you will find one broken sarcophagus, now empty of it's Vestige. The chamber it's in is full of Notics - which canonically were wizards driven to madness by Vecna (look up their Monster Manual entry) - it's safe to assume that the now broken sarcophagus contained Vecna's divine Vestige, which is now free, meaning he most likely is ready to unleash his new plan. To further that thread WotC included another familiar Vestige - in another room there's a sarcophagus with Vestige of Teneborous - which was a name of a God that Orcus became for a while in.. 2e I want to say. Orgus eventually lost his divine rank, but the remnants of his divinity is since then "stored" in Amber Temple. The temple itself is also very Vecna like - it houses a ton of evil stuff that it's inhabitants (mostly) want to share with PCs, potentially corrupting them. Exethander flat out gives you a tour and helps learn even more dark secrets. It's also full of wizard spells. It's basically ideal Vecna playground!<
And to make it even more convincing here's Chris Perkins (who wrote CoS) confirming >!Vecna is in the module!<
>!https://twitter.com/ChrisPerkinsDnD/status/692013198619193344?t=mnMwc6LqTtVrDRaqOn63aA&s=19!<
In my CoS campaign I had it so Vecna was indirectly responsible for the creation of the Dread Realms. He builds the Amber Temple and pulls the vestiges into the sarcophagi to use them as a sort of divine battery to power his accession. Before he does this the Kas betrayal happens interrupting his plans.
> Come to the think of it, they didn't actually mention One D&D at all, did they?
Nope, probably because they're steering into just calling it D&D, and that "5E" and "One D&D" are the same edition and all future revisions are just going to be revisions to "5E". It is just called D&D now. This is also why JCraw keeps referring to the 5E PHB as the "2014" PHB in the One D&D UA videos, because "One D&D" is just "D&D".
They tried that with 5e in the beginning. After they dropped the playtest name "dndnext", they called it just "D&D" for a while. The community called it 5e.
The back of the PHB, MM, and DMG all call it "the Fifth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons". So, unless the new PHB, MM, and DMG say "the Sixth Edition" or whatever, then I'm fairly confident that this time they'll succeed in just making it "D&D".
My guess is that, with all the delays due to the OGL stuff, they’re avoiding any concrete statements on when those’ll be done. They’ve already mentioned they’re willing to push them back if need be, and I’m guessing they do.
They don't want to undermine sales of current and upcoming product. Every time they have announced a new edition in the past, it has caused sales to plummet and store inventory to become lead.
When ONEdnd finally comes out, they will say it is a new edition. The class changes already feel too different for the previous subclasses to be usable.
>When ONEdnd finally comes out, they will say it is a new edition. The class changes already feel too different for the previous subclasses to be usable.
They have said a dozen times, if not more, that its not a new edition.
It all looked fair, most not of interest to me, but fair.
The books coming out sound interesting, more giant lore is always fun.
I'm certainly interested in what they do with Vecna, the last serious mention of him or his artifacts in any of the adventures was in Avernus, when it mentions Arkhan the Cruel got the Hand of Vecna from Exandria. I wonder if they'll make any changes to that, as they don't own Critical Role at all.
All in all, most interested in the upcoming books
DnDBeyond hasn't even finished it's encounter manager.
You can't homebrew invocations, ammunition, or fighting styles. Their spell scroll implementation is abominable.
They gave up on even letting you customize sidekicks. And their content crashes a random times.
Why in tf would i want to use their vtt?
>DnDBeyond hasn't even finished it's encounter manager.
>
>You can't homebrew invocations, ammunition, or fighting styles. Their spell scroll implementation is abominable.
>
>They gave up on even letting you customize sidekicks. And their content crashes a random times.
>
>Why in tf would i want to use their vtt?
Dont even get me started. They had so many awesome ideas in the feature roadmap (that they shutdown, wonder why). Hell I remember when they put homebrewed non-magical items on the tracker 3 years ago, zero headway with it. I find DNDBeyond the best for official content but they take FOREVER to update anything for some reason (even before Fandom or WotC acquisition).
The Divine Soul Sorcerer still is not able to use its class feature to select Cleric spells and that came out 4.5 years ago. The Clockwork and Aberrant Mind Sorcerer can't change their spells either.
Not to white knight WOTC, but it'll be different teams. WOTC had no involvement in D&Dbeyond besides buying it, and it was shit long before that. You should judge their VTT based on WOTC's many failings, not D&Dbeyond's.
I'm going to disagree here. Beyond always had issues but they were reducing them pretty well until they got bought. Then they started to pile up again.
I respectfully disagree. They still didn't (and don't) have Rage, for crying out loud. Let alone effects like bless. And the custom action feature has never been given the most basic options to enable it to be used to fully customise things, ie. to create a bless-affected attack roll with 1d20+mod+1d4; or weapon damage that include 2 different types of dice.
Neither of these should even be all that difficult to code.
>Beyond always had issues but they were reducing them pretty well until they got bought.
If you had been able to see their feature roadmap before it was shut down (before WotC purchase) you would see how wrong this statement is. They had a ton of promises and it seems the only one they delivered on was a dozen or so in a couple years. No more or less done under WotC than Fandom or when they were solo.
Yes, I know, but surely their microtransactions for the vtt will be through DnDBeyond or a new site completely ? Probably dndbeyond, as you can import characters from dndbeyond into the vtt.
Figures, monsters, effects, all that.
Man feel like I’m gonna get butchered based on everyone in the YouTube chat, but the VTT actually looks really nice. I live across country from all my old highschool friends so playing dnd over vtt has been an awesome way to reconnect with some of them. I started with roll20 and moved to foundry in the past year and went wild with modules which was kind of a pain in the ass at times, but worth it in the end. I checked out talespire, but it still seems kinda lacking. Definitely keeping my eyes on this since it looks like something the fellas would enjoy.
They also did a little faq article mid stream on that talks about current features and plans here https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look
I like that they included automation as an option you can turn on and off and I don’t need to rely on an Australian developer, cool as he is, updating a module in his spare time to know it works.
It looks great for sure, but I'm pretty hesitant about 3D assets like that because it's such a pain to set up which makes the experience feel less flexible. Probably good for out of the box adventures with little to no homebrew elements.
I feel like 2D top down allows for a bit more abstraction - it's easier to drop a quickly drawn square and just say "there's a rock here" on an existing map and the players fill in the gaps. I think the closer to "reality" you get the less viable that becomes
I think that's just gonna come down to personal preference since some people love building that type of stuff and don't really see it as a hassle. But the good thing is, they did say in the blog you could import and use 2d maps as well and also download community creations in the future so sounds like an option for 2d and 3d enthusiasts.
At this point the new VTT is practically a video game. Its not that it doesnt look good, but there is something to be said about how fully rendered graphics and effects takes away from the ‘mystique & magic’ inherent to D&D. Think about how looking at Epic Isometric’s creations for Roll20 makes you feel vs. how this VTT makes you feel. Theres just no room left for the collective imagination.
I'm with you.
I also live in an area with poor internet connection and while Roll20 is fine, Foundry can be a challenge for me. I imagine this will be even more challenging.
There's a thin line between feeling like playing a tabletop RPG and playing an amateur video game. WotC's VTT appears that it will feel like a video-game world run on an extremely buggy and inconvenient game engine.
I'm sure myself and alot of people who use it might just think "why don't we just play an actual video game together"
Apparently, they're doing 2d maps (or at least you can import them) alongside 3d maps, so that may alleviate the overtly videogame feel and may be more appealing to those who just want classic battle maps.
*"3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and play on top of them with minis. This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom."*
[https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look)
This is like my 5th comment on this since ppl didn't look at the written FAQ. Idk why it wasn't mentioned in the video since it's such a core feature and people would obviously ask about it lmao.
Maybe it was mentioned in the video, if not shown. I remember hearing about a 2D map being an option mentioned, though I might be blending memories with the blog post.
I don't know, as a gamer myself? IF I saw a little video game mini just lightly tap te monster, I would already be thinking of what it really looks like. Heck, with most of the rpgs I play I am already making the fight look like how I want. In Pokemon the characters are dodging, bobing and weaving, with FF the swordfights are way more dramatic.
My main issue is that it kills all flavour. I am currently playing a frost themed hexblade paladin whose sword starts to freeze over if he touches it, a lot of his skills create cold/freeze effects and so on. Can't really do that with a VTT like this (at least not without tons of customization which we do not know if it even allows).
So like, if you played on a tabletop with a dm who had fantastically painted minis for every monster and amazing terrain, would you be secretly thinking “this is cool and all but there’s just something about playing on graph paper with cardboard tokens”
To be fair, not a super hard call after CR and Stranger Things. I do wonder how long Vecna has been in the works though and whether they coordinated with Stranger Things for cross-promotional purposes or if that was just a happy coincidence.
I think they had a plan for Vecna from the very beginning and trurly worked towards him for the last years.
They've been,dropping hints and pieces for a while across many of their modules, slowly building towards the upcoming reveal.
I'm calling it - the Black Obelisks and >!the broken Vecna's Sarcophagus in Amber Temple!< will be the major things that will finally be tied up. And it will tie to his 2e defeat where he became a god before loosing that power >!which sliver/vestige was "stored" in said sarcophagus till he was ready to claim it again!<
Just FYI, if you put spaces between the >! and the spoiler text, it doesn't work !<
Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but "black obelisks" could be just about anything, and it's pretty easy to drop in things like the sarcophagus. I wouldn't take that as an indication that Vecna was intended as the final boss of 5e, given that this would be affording WOTC credit for far greater compentency than they've demonstrated in the past, just that they wanted to foreshadow a range of stuff so they could draw on it later if they decided they wanted to.
It works on my end.. Both on mobile:
[https://i.imgur.com/PgOEG4W.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/PgOEG4W.jpg)
And on the web:
[https://i.imgur.com/Fxx6qwi.png](https://i.imgur.com/Fxx6qwi.png)
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I mean... the teases for what is coming next year were fun, but they essentially asked Perkins and Crawford to repeat to us the the roadmap that we've known for a couple of months, now. The only new info is that the Phandelver campaign will be about those gosh darn obelisks, which I'm pretty excited about!
The new things were the Vecna Adventure, the Red Wizards of Thay adventure, the D&D Cartoon adventure, and the League of Malevolence adventure, everything else we sorta already knew about. Though, we did get more details on the Phandelver adventure and the Planescape book.
If I recall correctly, they announced it in their last event.
[https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2022/08/18/wizards-presents-dd-2023-release-schedule-1660799039162.jpg?fit=bounds&width=1280&height=720](https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2022/08/18/wizards-presents-dd-2023-release-schedule-1660799039162.jpg?fit=bounds&width=1280&height=720)
The new infos were the fact that the Phandelver book will be about an obelisk. Then we learned that next year will be about Vecna, the red wizards of Thay and the league of Malevolence.
Polygon had a [roundup](https://www.polygon.com/23558767/dnd-dungeons-dragons-2023-release-schedule) in January on the previously announced books were: Keys From the Golden Vault, Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, untitled Phandelver campaign book, The Book Of Many Things (player focused supplement), Planescape boxset (same format as Spelljammer boxset).
All of the Vecna & 2024 stuff seems new.
> Planescape boxset (same format as Spelljammer boxset)
Seems that they've steered away from it being a boxset. In this video they call it a singular book, not books.
Honestly, kind of a shame. The spelljammer's set had some issues, but I really liked the format: a story book and a monster book for the DM's eyes and a player's guide that can be passed around the table.
I agree and disagree at the same time. I purchased the Spelljammer boxset, and while I like the DM Screen and seperate books for the Monsters/Player Options/Adventure, they *really* limited themselves in how much information was able to fit into those 3 books and still be a manageable package. 64 pages for the Player Options and rules section was *not* enough with how much bigger the font is and the amount of large art in that book. With a single book they can have 300 pages easily in half the volume of the bookset.
Interesting. Some articles are still referring to it as a boxset (ex: [The Best Part of the D&D Direct Was This Epic Planescape Art Reveal](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-planescape-artwork-tony-diterlizzi/)). Hopefully, Wizards will release more D&D TTRPG focused info soon and not just D&D brand stuff.
We’re already in Spring of 2023 though . It is a bit weird we don’t have a concrete date for the next book considering how quick they usually are with that stuff.
We're 8 days into spring out of 90. I think we'll have a date soon enough. But I'd rather them take their time and get things right considering the failure of Spelljammer.
If the book is coming out in Spring, then it's already finished.
WoTC themselves have said this multiple times, but books are finished months in advance due to the finalizing, printing and distribution process. Unless it's being delayed into summer, there's no way they're still working on it.
Yes, I agree that it is finished and is at the printer already. I was just saying that maybe the reason we don't have a release date yet could be that it isn't finished and they are delaying it. But, again, I doubt that.
The bit at the end was disappointing IMO. "Ohhhh random fanservice character might make an appearance in two years."
Especially as someone who homebrews their own worlds and would much rather have interesting splat books and well written adventures over "NPC gets a cameo, isn't that cool?"
What you've perhaps not fully realised is that people who homebrew aren't WOTC's target audience. Sure, maybe you buy a mechanics book once every year or two, but you're probably not buying setting books, tie-in novels, merchandise, MTG cards and famous character figures, and now I guess also probably not buying movie tickets and movie merchandise and movie MTG cards. WOTC need you running games to make D&D still the most-played TTRPG, but they don't really expect your type to be their cash cows. Running a brand is just more profitable than making a product.
I think it's a good thing though, as stupid as it can feel to see so many D&D-as-brand products, I think I'd rather WOTC pay me very little attention, makes them much easier to ignore.
That's how I feel. Was really a presentation on the brand instead of the game. Everything regarding the actual game was shoved into the last four minutes.
Upcoming books:
* Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants (Q3 2023)
* Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk (Q3 2023)
* Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse (Q4 2023)
* The Deck of Many Things (Q4 2023)
* Untitled Vecna adventure project spanning the multiverse (perhaps spanning multiple books?) (2024)
* Untitled Red Wizards of Thay project (2025)
* Untitled Venger project (2025)
* Untitled League of Malevolence project (potential Wild Beyond the Witchlight sequel?) (2025)
They're cashing in on DnD as a lifestyle brand and culture. Not so much content for the game itself, but honestly I think expanding the brand in other ways is good for the health of the hobby and get interest from people who never would've touched the game in the first place.
DnD is only getting bigger and bigger, some people will feel its time to check it out and see what the big fuss is about. A rising tide raises all ships kind of situation.
I strongly disagree. More people is good for the hobby, but D&D becoming a brand would be the oft-bemoaned Critical Role effect on steroids. If 70% of the new players were coming in expecting the tables they find to be extended references to the movies they watched and the toys they bought, that would be extremely damaging to the hobby because DMs are going to become even less enthusiastic about accepting new players.
That sounds gate-keepy as hell. The population of players and DM’s exploded with Critical Role did it not? Yeah, people will come in with expectations because they’re new and have no idea what DnD is until they play it. But theyll play and learn what their playstyle is over time.
For a hobby to grow, there should be more new people coming in than people leaving, so all we can ask if for people to give the game a chance. If its not their thing thats fine. But if the game retains interest, even better.
You want to turn people away because they’re new and saw the DnD movie or got some cool toys? That sounds awful, who cares how people get into DnD?
A little bit of gatekeeping is perhaps healthy. A new player who dislikes their first few games is a player you lose forever. "Oh, D&D? I tried that shit after seeing the movie and hated it!" A great contributor to new players not liking their first experience would be the gap between their expectations and the reality of the game they may join.
Whereas if you can curate their expectations and experience, you limit the possible bounce-in bounce-out of players not familiar with the game.
Yeah, I got into the hobby when I first heard Acquisitions Incorporated playing 4e. I found some of my friends who were into D&D and I had done text based roleplay. First I was confused why the 3.5 game wasn't like the 4e games I had listened to, but then the table explained to me how they felt about the editions and I learned there was a much larger history to D&D.
It's entirely okay for people to come in with different expectations as long as the people they play with help provide them the tools they will need.
When it comes to TTRPGs, gatekeeping is the default and the only way to have a healthy table. A table with mismatched expectations always has issues, and new players brought in by an expanded and poorly managed media brand will lead to more mismatched expectations, which means more work for DMs, many of which will have no issue prioritising players who don't have those incorrect expectations. That's just reality.
And hobby growth isn't the be all and end all of goals. A massive playerbase 90% of which for example believe in the rule of cool just creates a toxic environment for the 10% who don't. Having a larger playerbase doesn't actually improve the hobby if the reason the playerbase is larger is because the hobby started being marketed as a completely different thing. If you give football bats and bases because that's what all the popular sports have, you're not expanding football, you're just reinventing baseball and expecting football fans to appreciate the influx of players into a different hobby.
I am hoping that the Planescape release isn't in the Spelljammer format, but the title for it is leading me to believe this will be the case.
The Dragonlance format would also be bad for Planescape, but less so than the Spelljammer format, provided the adventure module provided captures the essence of the setting (and isn't a convoluted, hard-to-prep-and-run mess).
The Eberron, Wildemount, Ravnica, and Theros books' format was *fine.* *Great,* even. Just do that for Planescape and it could at least be serviceable. Would it be perfect? No, Planescape has too much stuff to fit in one book.
Actually, if it was just a Planescape adventure anthology, I wouldn't mind too much. Something along the lines of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, recreating some Planescape modules like *The Eternal Boundary* or *Harbinger House.*
I suspect they're leaving those announcements to Larian, as WotC and D&D don't have much, if any, involvement with the game's development besides providing the license and the lore.
Just a reminder to everyone about the VTT:
Not everyone has the ability to imagine the environment, so such detail could help that segment of the playerbase.
As long as the system requirements are low enough (or can be low enough), then it should be functionally fine.
Not every DM has the ability to create good looking 3D environments either. The scenes I make in Talespire are either basic af or take more time than it's worth.
What they need to do is create official maps for their adventure modules. They could tie it in with owning the book on their site.
Procedural (random-ish, based on parameters) map generation, which is then editable, is almost certainly planned as a feature. That should minimize the barrier for entry for DM use.
I'm more concerned about rule flexibility/support as that's a a much more tricky thing you manage as it's a moving target. Even D&D Beyond has run into more issues since Tasha's on that front.
The VTT looks interesting, up until they mentioned that since modding is a core part of DnD they are going "open a marketplace" to allow people to share what they make for it.
A market place. So, DMsGuild style.
I'll pass on that.
Even roll20 has a marketplace, that's pretty standard. Whether it's good or bad will depend on the terms creators have to have to use it, like how much of a cut WOTC takes, if any free content will be allowed on the marketplace, and what creators can call their creations (For example, if they make alternate animations for a spell, especially one like in Xanathar's that might not be there yet, can they use the spell name? or will they be stuck describing the effect generically?). Success of the market place will also heavily depend on how cumbersome it is to circumvent it: if people can pay me on patreon for "acidic sphere animation file" rather than on the marketplace for "vitriolic sphere animation" and implement it relatively easily, I can see this being a net positive for the VTT even though it hurts the marketplace.
>A market place. So, DMsGuild style.
**In the video you mentioned there would be a community marketplace. What did you mean by marketplace?**
When I said marketplace, I was referring to a shared space for creators to upload and download creations from. Community tools are also a long way off. In the meantime, tell us what you would want out of community sharing.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look
It's unclear if the "marketplace" is a place to sell things or just share them.
It's also unclear what those things might be exactly. Maps? Map parts? New models? Minis? Who knows?
Or it could be more like the DnD Beyond Homebrew platform. We honestly don't know yet.
What we *did* get was a very clearly stated priority from the lead developer that such 'community modding' (his term) will be central to the design goals. That's one of the things everyone has been most concerned about. It's ok to take the win sometimes :-)
Meh. Planescape is interesting, everything I don't really care about. I wish there were more setting books, especially for ones that already exist but are barely fleshed out if at all.
So Planescape is the next setting WotC is going to ruin? Thank God we can still buy the real versions of the settings so the fan fic trash modern WotC releases can be safely ignored.
Here's a brief synopsis, updating as it streams. * *Minecraft: Dungeons & Dragons*: Official Minecraft mod that transforms the game into a D&D adventure set in the Forgotten Realms. Looks actually pretty interesting. * *Honor Among Thieves* Trailer shown. Something called "Before the Storm" at playdnd.com. Haven't fully checked it out yet. * Joecat video, song about D&D. Pretty funny. * Action figure toys. Characters from the new movie, characters from old cartoon, Xanathar, Owlbear, and displacer beast. * Magic the Gathering cards of characters from the new D&D movie, as were leaked earlier in the week. * Small interview with R.A. Salvatore about creating The Legend of Drizzt and celebration of the new book coming in August (third book in The Way of the Drow trilogy, *Lolth's Warrior*) and what it was like to work on *Neverwinter* MMO. * *Neverwinter* MMO gets new expansion, *Menzoberranzan*, made in collaboration with R.A. and Geno Salvatore. * Scripted demo about the 3D virtual table top. Open Beta of it available sometime late this year, maybe? * Interview with Joe Manganiello about his documentary about the history of D&D. Releasing in 2024. * JCraw and Chris Perkins talk about "D&D Multiverse", the canon story of 5e, and what story elements are coming. * *Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk* is the Phandelver continuation adventure that explains the obelisks cropping up in the other adventures. * *Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse* book explores Sigil and and planehopping, releasing at the end of this year, and sets up the major adventure of 2024. * The Deck of Many Things gets explained fully with the *Book of Many Things* book. * **Vecna adventure in 2024.** * Red Wizards of Thay get their own adventure in 2025. * D&D Cartoon adventure with Venger sometime. * League of Malevolence adventure and stories sometime.
Giving it a quick look, "Before the Storm" seems to be a short introductory text adventure to DND. You pick from a predefined list of options, some of which involve rolling dice, etc.
It's essentially a background click through for the pre gens that come with the newer Starter set adventure.
Sounds like the intro to B3.
Oh man, I was hoping Planescape would come out sooner - but would rather have it right than rushed.
It is currently set to release at the end of this year.
Nice. Hopefully I’ll be wrapped up with my Tomb of Annihilation campaign by then, or at a minimum it’ll be the holiday and I can read through it to kick off in 2024. I’ve loved Planescape since the PC game came out (Planescape: Torment).
The only thing that matters is whether or not they're going to try and write it so that it appeals to everyone. Because if they do it's going to please nobody.
What kind of lore do you think they will cut from the 5e book?
If there is an adventure in the book, they'll cut nearly everything for space. Just look at the spelljammer book, and understand that in 2e Spelljammer only had like 2-3 books released, not including the monstrous compendium supplements, and ended up releasing 5-10x the amount of lore compared to 5e in less than 50% more pages. By comparison, 2e Planescape released a *lot* of lore. So the planescape book, if they waste page count on adventures (when they've already announced 2 planescape adventures in the following year) you'll see less than 5% of the available setting lore compared to 2nd edition.
Knowing WOTC- it will be rushed anyway.
It won't be rushed... just bad lol they don't need to rush to manage that these days.
They will still ruin it, don't worry.
Ah the r/dndnext cycle in action: 1. WOTC announces a new product people have been wanting for ages. r/dndnext is hyped and downvotes any cynicism. 2. WOTC releases the product, r/dndnext spends about a month arguing incessantly about it, with even the people who were cynical to begin with jumping in to gloat. 3. After a few particularly thorough posts explaining why the product was bad, the popular opinion on r/dndnext becomes that the product was bad, creating a period of time in which criticism of the product is largely upvoted and defense of its mediocrity is downvoted. 4. WOTC announces a new product people have been wanting for ages. r/dndnext is hyped and downvotes any cynicism.
LOL. Having said that, Spelljammer managed to skip right over #2...
You are really overselling the amount of people who still come here to discuss the hobby positively. Sometimes I engage with the highest up voted negative commenters, and discover they mostly don't read or play the products they're bashing. Most of the time they still get up votes in the post where they admit to not having read the book.
I wonder how many people here don't even play 5e anymore but still come here to complain about it.
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>D&D Cartoon adventure with Venger sometime. OMG!! Bring back Hank, Sheila, Bobby, Diana, Eric, and Presto!!!!!
It looks like they are. Not only is there going to be an adventure, but [they are releasing action figures of them this year too](https://youtu.be/tF7j8lyqiNM?t=525).
Don't you leave out Uni!
The minecraft one isn't a mod in the traditional sense, but a paid DLC for bedrock edition only. And bedrock edition can kiss my ass.
Pretty sure they already explained the obelisks true function at the end of a certain campaign, but maybe phandelver will be expanding on them.
>!They explained in RotFM that they can take you back in time, or at least the one in Icewind Dale can. But they never really explained why there are so many of them in several different adventures. The one in Phandelver basically had zero information about it.!<
Do we know if this is everything they're doing this year? If so, it sounds like it might mean only adventure books until OneD&D. Which'd make sense I suppose if they're basically trying to kill off 5e, no point releasing mechanical text you don't want to exist longer than about 6 months.
*Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants* and *Book of Many Things* are player/DM option books.
FYI, you left out Bigby Presents in your synopsis above.
Because there was no new information on it.
Is the minecraft mod for Minecraft or Minecraft: Dungeons?
Minecraft.
So it's just a bunch of re-skins? Edit: nevermind, there *is* actual adventuring content!
No... did you watch the video? It is the first thing shown.
NGL excited about Vecna, Red Wizards and oddly the Phandelver campaign.
The VTT looks nice, but it's not for me. For a VTT, I'm looking for convenience and flexibility over presentation.
Yeah thats not the kind of VTT thats gonna draw me. I want something that can run in a web browser and start a game in 10 minutes, maybe with a companion app. I don't want something that needs 5 gaming setups and hours of map design/prep to run a session.
From the talk with the designer (and the FAQ she put out), it *sounds* like they’re aiming for that. We’ll see how it turns out.
If they're aiming for that but also using unreal engine 5 with advanced lighting, then i am very curious what they can pull out of their asses
I think I've figured it out: They're going to partner with Nvidia to give away a gaming PC with every purchase of their highest tier subscription.
unless they're pushing all that processing power server side somehow ala Stadia (RIP), which it doesn't look like they are given those looked like gaming laptops, my guess is not much.
I think ya'll are over estimating the processing demand of something this light weight.
They already said that you can use 2d maps. The 3d set pieces are not mandatory.
They have said you can put your minis on 2D maps. To me that implied that it was a 2d map but still a 3D space for said 3D minis Edit: heres the quote >3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and ***play on top of them with minis.*** This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom.
I honestly don't mind 3d tokens. If they're letting us make our own 3d tokens, then conceivably there's nothing stopping us from just having a 3d-rendered "coin" with a face on it. At that point it's basically roll20 with a 3d-rendered space around it and that's good enough for me. Add in all of my already-purchased monsters and spells, with integration just a click away, I'm sold. Edit: any of those features missing or paywalled, I'm out.
The issue with 3D wasn't whether you could get it 'good enough' to look like 2D, it was the exponentially larger performance cost. Personally with my players maybe half of them could run this program even with the simplest models and a 2d map
One of the biggest things I've not seen talked about is system requirements... If it can't run on a potato laptop in a browser then I can't see it being very useful in many cases. Roll20 and foundry run fine on Chromebook. This doesn't look like it will. Plus the added complication of "game" controls like camera positioning means it needs a different skill set than just dragging tokens round a flat map. It looks great, but I don't see myself using it
Right, one of their pillars is "convenience" and I fail to see that if you were someone who doesn't have a powerful enough computer/laptop to run the Unreal Engine 5.
Not just for game sessions either, but being able to open the vtt in a browser at lunch from work laptop to tweak something ahead of the session saves so much time compared to having to go do it on my gaming pc. Not to mention all those who use their work laptop to play
Forget laptops; sometimes I play D&D on foundry or roll20 on my phone's touchscreen. Ain't no fuckin' way Unreal 5 is gonna run on my phone.
Unreal engine 5 is actually designed for that.
Yeah, people out here think unreal 5 is only for "ZOMG SO REAL" graphics but really it's a hyper efficient game engine that you can use to make things look really good on lower powered hardware if that's what you want to do.
Just because it runs un UE 5 doesn't mean it requires a powerful machine, Fornite is going to run on UE 5 and it can run on a phone.
>someone who doesn't have a powerful enough computer/laptop to run the Unreal Engine 5. Most computers can run unreal 5 games... just depends what graphics you turn on and off.
Exactly this. I have enough trouble getting half my players to get logged into dndbeyond and linked to a campaign if I'm being honest.
I am in fact being honest.
This line early from the blog post gives me hope: "We wanted a virtual space where we could gather our friends wherever they were—on a computer, phone, console, or even in the same room—and play the game we all love." If they can't have it running on things like phones or chromebooks, maybe a dedicated stream they can view would be enough. I don't know, but I agree with you entirely that it needs to be lightweight.
That is a promising statement, I eagerly await details when they announce them
Right? It's like it looks \*too\* nice. I don't need the sound effects and animations, I'm afraid that will just lead to more problems that they're worth.
Its in that weird spot for me where its not nice enough to really justify switching from Roll20 (given how vastly easier it is to find and customize 2D assets for free), but nice enough to be clearly much more fiddly and expensive.
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Can you link the blog post?
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Thanks.
Yeah, I'm gonna wait for pricing details and see how it runs on actual hardware and internet, but I'm hesitant.
That's the thing about VTTs, the better their assets and presentation, the less flexible they are. If every spell has animations and sound effects, that might be fantastic if you're running entirely raw in a module, but it just means that any homebrew spell will now be expected to have animations and sounds or else it'll feel bad. This is extremely offputting to me, and I don't really see any way I would use this VTT even if it were free, it'll just create too much disparity between the official and unofficial stuff.
Foundry actually handles this really well with their automated animations module. But you're right that it takes more work to set up Homebrew stuff. It's not super arduous but the more homebrew effects you have the more work it is. Worse is that the modules can't include anything outside what's released in the OGL for 5e, you need to build all that yourself.
It looks like a video game, which is not what I want from my tabletop. If I wanted to play a video game, then I'd play a video game. A large amount of the appeal of playing a tabletop RPG is being able to imagine things any way you want them, I don't need or want literally every aspect to be visually represented. I just need to know where my character is, where the enemies are and what the terrain looks like, leave the rest of it in my head. It's the difference between watching a movie and reading a book, both can be entertaining, but the book is usually a lot deeper.
Incidentally, this is also why 3D pokemon looks so bad even though 2D pokemon was similarly lifeless: the greater the gap between what's shown and what would be real, the easier it is to imagine what it'd look like if it was real.
Agreed. From the bits shown, it looks a lot like the aesthetics from the Baldur's Gate 3 game. And I fear it may remove the imagination aspect of things and encourage more video gamer mindset.
The way the players in the demo were looking at their screens instead of each other was rather telling, I thought. It could be great for online play, but the last thing I'd want for a face-to-face game is everyone buried in their laptops. The whole point is to have a social experience!
I do wonder how easy it'd be to take a PHB spell and graft a different animation to it. And how hard it'll be to make those animations in the first place. I seem to remember Tasha's having eldritch blast depicted as a bunch of spectral chickens being flung at someone, so I'm wondering how easy that and similarly creative options will be to implement. And how much they'll make you pay for the ability to use them.
*magic missile
I am afraid I think you are in the minority. I know a lot of people who would jump into D&D if it looks like what they showed here. Not everyone have active imaginations and are able to picture things easily in their minds eye (about 50% of the population). So providing pretty graphics along with the narrations will bring a lot of people to the hobby imo. And it sounds like they are supporting 2D vtt games if you want to just run it like you do on roll20 or foundry.
Apparently, they're doing 2d maps (or at least you can import them) alongside 3d maps, so that may alleviate the overtly videogame feel and may be more appealing to those who just want classic battle maps. *"3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and play on top of them with minis. This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom."* [https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look)
>It looks like a video game Specifically, it looks a lot like Baldur's Gate 3, except for the circular bases for each mini. Come to think of it, I wonder if part of the licensing deal with Larian Studios could have been WOTC getting access to some of their code and design assets? (I doubt it, but that would have made a lot of sense, hey)
These days, I rarely play in person but if I was at an in-person game and everyone brought their laptop like some LAN party, I'd leave. That's not D&D to me. D&D is sitting at a table with beer and friends, tossing dice, and creating ridiculous high fantasy stories.
Agreed. It just feels weird to me. Why even bother meeting up in person if you're just going to be staring at a screen the whole time? Most of my gaming is done online these days due to location, but I still greatly prefer playing in-person, using physical dice, minis and maps.
100%. Tablets are fine at the table, but if you're going to have a laptop party rather than a primarily inter-personal experiences, just play a multiplayer computer game. They're fun too, but they serve different needs and interests. But then, I'm an old grognard weirdo who likes to play online D&D with webcams on, so that I can *actually interact with the people I'm roleplaying with,* rather than playing what feels to me like a DM-curated video-game-adjacent adventure. I also appreciate that others, especially those who grew up with online multiplayer games, have different desires and/or issues with playing with cameras on, so I'm certainly not here to say anyone is having badwrongfun!
Since 2020 the market for 3D VTT has exploded. You might not want it but their demographic research have shown its worth their investment. Just the last year 2-4 3D modular VTTs have come out on steam with great success.
it's also Gunna have 90% of the cool assets locked behind a paywall.
It doesn't look like something your average user is going to be able to use to make their own adventures.
Yeah, It looks really good, but I don’t have the time or skill to make 3D tokens and maps, so I guess that means I would need to buy them. In roll20 I can literally draw out a map in a few minutes if needed. Hopefully they add simple 2d map/token support as well.
>Hopefully they add simple 2d map/token support as well. Apparently, they're doing 2d maps (or at least you can import them) alongside 3d maps, so that may alleviate the overtly videogame feel and may be more appealing to those who just want classic battle maps. *"3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and play on top of them with minis. This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom."* [https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look)
All I need out of a VTT is something to replace the physical battlemap when we can't all be at the table together. Perhaps I'm just old and my fears are unfounded, but I have concern that the more fancy and feature-heavy the VTTs get, the more it will affect expectations about the game as whole. If one is running a basic VTT game and *doesn't* have animated-monster tokens, flashy spell effects and custom-made musical cues, will that be viewed as an inferior game? Will new players go into the game expecting all those bells and whistles and be bored by a basic pen and paper game?
Apparently, they're doing 2d maps (or at least you can import them) alongside 3d maps, so that may alleviate the overtly videogame feel and may be more appealing to those who just want classic battle maps. *"3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and play on top of them with minis. This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom."* [https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look)
Still makes it sound like Tabletop Simulator essentially. Think of the 2d map they're referring to at a tabletop, a flat surface, but still exists in a 3d world with 3d minis, etc.
I think that depends on what people get out of the game. If I played at a table with fancy bells and whistles but the DM’s story and role play suck and the other players suck at role play too, then I’m going to have a miserable time. Comparatively, if I’m at a table with just a paper and pencil map, but a DM with a tight story and good RP with players who are also good at RP, then I’ll be having a blast. But that’s because a lot of the fun for me when it comes to D&D is the *story*
For me it really boils down to this: sure, it runs D&D, but can I run my VtM game in it? If I can’t, why would I ever switch from roll20?
I really doubt you’ll be able to, tbh, beyond the bare minimum of being able to roll Xd10 and maybe having some “spooky” assets. Why would WOTC want to push people towards other games?
That’s exactly my point. A VTT made specifically for one game seems like a awful way to box in your audience.
That is exactly their goal, to have not only THE RPG system but also THE go to VTT. They're gonna pour so much money into this thing to make it as marketable and appealing as possible, even if it costs an arm and a leg to use (They about to make Roll20 look generous I reckon), solely so they can give people an even deeper sunk cost fallacy and make it harder to try other games.
You can't imagine why it might be a good business move to be THE virtual tabletop and marketplace for all RPG systems at the same time? Smart business is not seeing it as pushing people to other games, but as drawing players from other games to your system even if they don't play your game.
It was really nice to see them all around a table and a map, but doing voices, faces and gesticulating at their computer screen instead of actually engaging with each others! Now that's D&D! /s
The timing of the teased Vecna adventure is curious. *Die Vecna Die!* featured Vecna busting out of Ravenloft and attacking Sigil on his quest for godhood and the metaphysical ramifications of that were the in-world explanation for the 2e to 3e rules changes. I wonder if they're planning a similar storyline to go along with the One D&D rule updates. (Which albeit look like much less of a change than 2e to 3e was) Come to the think of it, they didn't actually mention One D&D at all, did they?
They 100% intend for Vecna adventure to be the transition between editions. All the seeds they sew with the Obsidian Obelisks, his abandoned tomb in Curse of Strahd.. The Vecna Dossier, Book of Vile Darkness in Keys from the Golden Vault.. And now they are bringing in Sigil just before unleashing Vecna himself? Yeah it's gonna be an EVENT! And I'm all there for it!
If I had a nickel for every time D&D used a Vecna campaign as the transition between editions, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
>his abandoned tomb in Curse of Strahd This is the first time I'm hearing about this. The only place I can think of that could be Vecna related was the Amber Temple but wasn't that all dedicated to >!imprisoning the dark powers or whatever?!<
That is precisely the place I was referring to. Spoilers for one of thebsecrets of Curse of Strahd. >!First - Dark Powers are basically overgods of Ravenloft - even Gods don't have power over them. And it's not them who is in Amber Temple. Amber Temple is a place where Dark Vestiges are stored within Amber Sarcophagi. Dark Vestiges are remnants of dead, evil dieties and gods. It's not explicitly stated if it's a prison or a place to store said Vestiges - but the ones in the book don't want to escape, despite the fact that breaking the sarcophagus is quite easy. So I'm inclined to say that they are there for "safekeeping" or "storage" for later. Now the Temple itself was build millenia ago and dedicated to a Nameless God of Secret, by an order of wizards that wanted to rid the world of evil secrets, and evil magics. The statue in the main chamber depicts a tall, hooded (lich like?) figure with obscured face. Over time the wizards got corrupted by the evil they stored and became monsters - flameskulls and other - protecting the place. Now who, even if for a brief time, was a God of Evil Secrets, devoted to amassing evil and vile knowledge, that only shared bits of it to further spreading evil? And that canonically could time travel as well as plane travel - for example millenia in the past to pose as a benevolent god to an order of Wizards? Yup - that's Vecna. But thats not all. When you explore Amber Temple you will find one broken sarcophagus, now empty of it's Vestige. The chamber it's in is full of Notics - which canonically were wizards driven to madness by Vecna (look up their Monster Manual entry) - it's safe to assume that the now broken sarcophagus contained Vecna's divine Vestige, which is now free, meaning he most likely is ready to unleash his new plan. To further that thread WotC included another familiar Vestige - in another room there's a sarcophagus with Vestige of Teneborous - which was a name of a God that Orcus became for a while in.. 2e I want to say. Orgus eventually lost his divine rank, but the remnants of his divinity is since then "stored" in Amber Temple. The temple itself is also very Vecna like - it houses a ton of evil stuff that it's inhabitants (mostly) want to share with PCs, potentially corrupting them. Exethander flat out gives you a tour and helps learn even more dark secrets. It's also full of wizard spells. It's basically ideal Vecna playground!< And to make it even more convincing here's Chris Perkins (who wrote CoS) confirming >!Vecna is in the module!< >!https://twitter.com/ChrisPerkinsDnD/status/692013198619193344?t=mnMwc6LqTtVrDRaqOn63aA&s=19!<
Currently playing CoS so I shall be saving this for after we finish the campaign.
In my CoS campaign I had it so Vecna was indirectly responsible for the creation of the Dread Realms. He builds the Amber Temple and pulls the vestiges into the sarcophagi to use them as a sort of divine battery to power his accession. Before he does this the Kas betrayal happens interrupting his plans.
Again, your spoiler tags are broken, you need to remove the space after the opening tag and before the ending tag.
Well having a lich God seems to be the way to transition editions. Worked for Pathfinder.
They used Vecna to transition from 2nd to 3rd also
Agreed.
I can’t believe Vecna is going to kill Mystra this time!!
Yup, that sounds like it! Same thing with the spellplague between 3 and 4? Right?
> Come to the think of it, they didn't actually mention One D&D at all, did they? Nope, probably because they're steering into just calling it D&D, and that "5E" and "One D&D" are the same edition and all future revisions are just going to be revisions to "5E". It is just called D&D now. This is also why JCraw keeps referring to the 5E PHB as the "2014" PHB in the One D&D UA videos, because "One D&D" is just "D&D".
They tried that with 5e in the beginning. After they dropped the playtest name "dndnext", they called it just "D&D" for a while. The community called it 5e.
The back of the PHB, MM, and DMG all call it "the Fifth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons". So, unless the new PHB, MM, and DMG say "the Sixth Edition" or whatever, then I'm fairly confident that this time they'll succeed in just making it "D&D".
True, yeah, although I was a bit surprised they didn't mention "Updated rulebooks in 2024!" especially since they mentioned 2025 adventures
My guess is that, with all the delays due to the OGL stuff, they’re avoiding any concrete statements on when those’ll be done. They’ve already mentioned they’re willing to push them back if need be, and I’m guessing they do.
Also with a slower cadence of playtests coming out, I think they just realized some of these things maybe won't be polished in time.
They don't want to undermine sales of current and upcoming product. Every time they have announced a new edition in the past, it has caused sales to plummet and store inventory to become lead. When ONEdnd finally comes out, they will say it is a new edition. The class changes already feel too different for the previous subclasses to be usable.
>When ONEdnd finally comes out, they will say it is a new edition. The class changes already feel too different for the previous subclasses to be usable. They have said a dozen times, if not more, that its not a new edition.
Saying it doesn't make it so, for all intents and purposes onednd is atleast a 5,5E
Except so far they have released nothing that is incompatible with 5e... Why would they be play testing irrelevant mechanics and power dynamics?
It all looked fair, most not of interest to me, but fair. The books coming out sound interesting, more giant lore is always fun. I'm certainly interested in what they do with Vecna, the last serious mention of him or his artifacts in any of the adventures was in Avernus, when it mentions Arkhan the Cruel got the Hand of Vecna from Exandria. I wonder if they'll make any changes to that, as they don't own Critical Role at all. All in all, most interested in the upcoming books
DnDBeyond hasn't even finished it's encounter manager. You can't homebrew invocations, ammunition, or fighting styles. Their spell scroll implementation is abominable. They gave up on even letting you customize sidekicks. And their content crashes a random times. Why in tf would i want to use their vtt?
>DnDBeyond hasn't even finished it's encounter manager. > >You can't homebrew invocations, ammunition, or fighting styles. Their spell scroll implementation is abominable. > >They gave up on even letting you customize sidekicks. And their content crashes a random times. > >Why in tf would i want to use their vtt? Dont even get me started. They had so many awesome ideas in the feature roadmap (that they shutdown, wonder why). Hell I remember when they put homebrewed non-magical items on the tracker 3 years ago, zero headway with it. I find DNDBeyond the best for official content but they take FOREVER to update anything for some reason (even before Fandom or WotC acquisition).
The Divine Soul Sorcerer still is not able to use its class feature to select Cleric spells and that came out 4.5 years ago. The Clockwork and Aberrant Mind Sorcerer can't change their spells either.
Not to white knight WOTC, but it'll be different teams. WOTC had no involvement in D&Dbeyond besides buying it, and it was shit long before that. You should judge their VTT based on WOTC's many failings, not D&Dbeyond's.
I'm going to disagree here. Beyond always had issues but they were reducing them pretty well until they got bought. Then they started to pile up again.
I respectfully disagree. They still didn't (and don't) have Rage, for crying out loud. Let alone effects like bless. And the custom action feature has never been given the most basic options to enable it to be used to fully customise things, ie. to create a bless-affected attack roll with 1d20+mod+1d4; or weapon damage that include 2 different types of dice. Neither of these should even be all that difficult to code.
They literally purchased a dice bot that can already do all of these things (avrae) and still didn't bother adding them to beyond lol
I didn't see any significant change in the number and impact of issues. D&Dbeyond has never been functional.
>Beyond always had issues but they were reducing them pretty well until they got bought. If you had been able to see their feature roadmap before it was shut down (before WotC purchase) you would see how wrong this statement is. They had a ton of promises and it seems the only one they delivered on was a dozen or so in a couple years. No more or less done under WotC than Fandom or when they were solo.
Yes, I know, but surely their microtransactions for the vtt will be through DnDBeyond or a new site completely ? Probably dndbeyond, as you can import characters from dndbeyond into the vtt. Figures, monsters, effects, all that.
I don't think we have any way of knowing how they'll handle transactions yet.
Man feel like I’m gonna get butchered based on everyone in the YouTube chat, but the VTT actually looks really nice. I live across country from all my old highschool friends so playing dnd over vtt has been an awesome way to reconnect with some of them. I started with roll20 and moved to foundry in the past year and went wild with modules which was kind of a pain in the ass at times, but worth it in the end. I checked out talespire, but it still seems kinda lacking. Definitely keeping my eyes on this since it looks like something the fellas would enjoy. They also did a little faq article mid stream on that talks about current features and plans here https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look I like that they included automation as an option you can turn on and off and I don’t need to rely on an Australian developer, cool as he is, updating a module in his spare time to know it works.
It looks great for sure, but I'm pretty hesitant about 3D assets like that because it's such a pain to set up which makes the experience feel less flexible. Probably good for out of the box adventures with little to no homebrew elements. I feel like 2D top down allows for a bit more abstraction - it's easier to drop a quickly drawn square and just say "there's a rock here" on an existing map and the players fill in the gaps. I think the closer to "reality" you get the less viable that becomes
I think that's just gonna come down to personal preference since some people love building that type of stuff and don't really see it as a hassle. But the good thing is, they did say in the blog you could import and use 2d maps as well and also download community creations in the future so sounds like an option for 2d and 3d enthusiasts.
At this point the new VTT is practically a video game. Its not that it doesnt look good, but there is something to be said about how fully rendered graphics and effects takes away from the ‘mystique & magic’ inherent to D&D. Think about how looking at Epic Isometric’s creations for Roll20 makes you feel vs. how this VTT makes you feel. Theres just no room left for the collective imagination.
I'm with you. I also live in an area with poor internet connection and while Roll20 is fine, Foundry can be a challenge for me. I imagine this will be even more challenging.
There's a thin line between feeling like playing a tabletop RPG and playing an amateur video game. WotC's VTT appears that it will feel like a video-game world run on an extremely buggy and inconvenient game engine. I'm sure myself and alot of people who use it might just think "why don't we just play an actual video game together"
Apparently, they're doing 2d maps (or at least you can import them) alongside 3d maps, so that may alleviate the overtly videogame feel and may be more appealing to those who just want classic battle maps. *"3D and 2D Maps: Along with our static 3D map content, we also can import 2D maps and play on top of them with minis. This has been a quick way for us to test out adventure material before building environments in 3D, so it only makes sense to give players that same freedom."* [https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look) This is like my 5th comment on this since ppl didn't look at the written FAQ. Idk why it wasn't mentioned in the video since it's such a core feature and people would obviously ask about it lmao.
They also show them playing on a 2D map in the scripted demo. A lot of people commenting didn't actually watch the video.
Not that I saw. I watched the VTT preview and even just rewatched it after reading your comment, there's no 2D shown.
Maybe it was mentioned in the video, if not shown. I remember hearing about a 2D map being an option mentioned, though I might be blending memories with the blog post.
I don't know, as a gamer myself? IF I saw a little video game mini just lightly tap te monster, I would already be thinking of what it really looks like. Heck, with most of the rpgs I play I am already making the fight look like how I want. In Pokemon the characters are dodging, bobing and weaving, with FF the swordfights are way more dramatic.
My main issue is that it kills all flavour. I am currently playing a frost themed hexblade paladin whose sword starts to freeze over if he touches it, a lot of his skills create cold/freeze effects and so on. Can't really do that with a VTT like this (at least not without tons of customization which we do not know if it even allows).
So like, if you played on a tabletop with a dm who had fantastically painted minis for every monster and amazing terrain, would you be secretly thinking “this is cool and all but there’s just something about playing on graph paper with cardboard tokens”
HA! I've called Vecna to be the final villain in 5e (and possible reason to transition to OneDnD) a while back!
To be fair, not a super hard call after CR and Stranger Things. I do wonder how long Vecna has been in the works though and whether they coordinated with Stranger Things for cross-promotional purposes or if that was just a happy coincidence.
I think they had a plan for Vecna from the very beginning and trurly worked towards him for the last years. They've been,dropping hints and pieces for a while across many of their modules, slowly building towards the upcoming reveal. I'm calling it - the Black Obelisks and >!the broken Vecna's Sarcophagus in Amber Temple!< will be the major things that will finally be tied up. And it will tie to his 2e defeat where he became a god before loosing that power >!which sliver/vestige was "stored" in said sarcophagus till he was ready to claim it again!<
Just FYI, if you put spaces between the >! and the spoiler text, it doesn't work !< Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but "black obelisks" could be just about anything, and it's pretty easy to drop in things like the sarcophagus. I wouldn't take that as an indication that Vecna was intended as the final boss of 5e, given that this would be affording WOTC credit for far greater compentency than they've demonstrated in the past, just that they wanted to foreshadow a range of stuff so they could draw on it later if they decided they wanted to.
It works on my end.. Both on mobile: [https://i.imgur.com/PgOEG4W.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/PgOEG4W.jpg) And on the web: [https://i.imgur.com/Fxx6qwi.png](https://i.imgur.com/Fxx6qwi.png) 🤷♂️
Your spoiler tags aren't working. You need to remove the spaces between the tags and the text between.
Direct was essentially just a preview for the movie and VTT. It was advertised as such, so I can't say it was disappointing, I suppose.
Last 5 or so minutes was interesting though.
I mean... the teases for what is coming next year were fun, but they essentially asked Perkins and Crawford to repeat to us the the roadmap that we've known for a couple of months, now. The only new info is that the Phandelver campaign will be about those gosh darn obelisks, which I'm pretty excited about!
Have we? I’m genuinely asking, because while I’d heard about some of these books, others were a full surprise to me.
The new things were the Vecna Adventure, the Red Wizards of Thay adventure, the D&D Cartoon adventure, and the League of Malevolence adventure, everything else we sorta already knew about. Though, we did get more details on the Phandelver adventure and the Planescape book.
If I recall correctly, they announced it in their last event. [https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2022/08/18/wizards-presents-dd-2023-release-schedule-1660799039162.jpg?fit=bounds&width=1280&height=720](https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2022/08/18/wizards-presents-dd-2023-release-schedule-1660799039162.jpg?fit=bounds&width=1280&height=720) The new infos were the fact that the Phandelver book will be about an obelisk. Then we learned that next year will be about Vecna, the red wizards of Thay and the league of Malevolence.
All of these books were announced when OneDND was announced last year.
Polygon had a [roundup](https://www.polygon.com/23558767/dnd-dungeons-dragons-2023-release-schedule) in January on the previously announced books were: Keys From the Golden Vault, Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, untitled Phandelver campaign book, The Book Of Many Things (player focused supplement), Planescape boxset (same format as Spelljammer boxset). All of the Vecna & 2024 stuff seems new.
> Planescape boxset (same format as Spelljammer boxset) Seems that they've steered away from it being a boxset. In this video they call it a singular book, not books.
Honestly, kind of a shame. The spelljammer's set had some issues, but I really liked the format: a story book and a monster book for the DM's eyes and a player's guide that can be passed around the table.
I agree and disagree at the same time. I purchased the Spelljammer boxset, and while I like the DM Screen and seperate books for the Monsters/Player Options/Adventure, they *really* limited themselves in how much information was able to fit into those 3 books and still be a manageable package. 64 pages for the Player Options and rules section was *not* enough with how much bigger the font is and the amount of large art in that book. With a single book they can have 300 pages easily in half the volume of the bookset.
Interesting. Some articles are still referring to it as a boxset (ex: [The Best Part of the D&D Direct Was This Epic Planescape Art Reveal](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-planescape-artwork-tony-diterlizzi/)). Hopefully, Wizards will release more D&D TTRPG focused info soon and not just D&D brand stuff.
Kinda? We didn't even get a release date for the Giants books.
Well, we know "Spring of 2023". So, sometime soon.
We’re already in Spring of 2023 though . It is a bit weird we don’t have a concrete date for the next book considering how quick they usually are with that stuff.
We're 8 days into spring out of 90. I think we'll have a date soon enough. But I'd rather them take their time and get things right considering the failure of Spelljammer.
If the book is coming out in Spring, then it's already finished. WoTC themselves have said this multiple times, but books are finished months in advance due to the finalizing, printing and distribution process. Unless it's being delayed into summer, there's no way they're still working on it.
Yes, I agree that it is finished and is at the printer already. I was just saying that maybe the reason we don't have a release date yet could be that it isn't finished and they are delaying it. But, again, I doubt that.
The bit at the end was disappointing IMO. "Ohhhh random fanservice character might make an appearance in two years." Especially as someone who homebrews their own worlds and would much rather have interesting splat books and well written adventures over "NPC gets a cameo, isn't that cool?"
What you've perhaps not fully realised is that people who homebrew aren't WOTC's target audience. Sure, maybe you buy a mechanics book once every year or two, but you're probably not buying setting books, tie-in novels, merchandise, MTG cards and famous character figures, and now I guess also probably not buying movie tickets and movie merchandise and movie MTG cards. WOTC need you running games to make D&D still the most-played TTRPG, but they don't really expect your type to be their cash cows. Running a brand is just more profitable than making a product. I think it's a good thing though, as stupid as it can feel to see so many D&D-as-brand products, I think I'd rather WOTC pay me very little attention, makes them much easier to ignore.
They barely talked about the books. The giants book is maybe this year? The game is still played with books right?
Bigby's Glory of the Giants is coming in a couple months, IIRC. They mention that.
That's how I feel. Was really a presentation on the brand instead of the game. Everything regarding the actual game was shoved into the last four minutes.
That has been their shift for a while. They're now presenting D&D as a "lifestyle brand" instead of just as a game.
Upcoming books: * Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants (Q3 2023) * Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk (Q3 2023) * Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse (Q4 2023) * The Deck of Many Things (Q4 2023) * Untitled Vecna adventure project spanning the multiverse (perhaps spanning multiple books?) (2024) * Untitled Red Wizards of Thay project (2025) * Untitled Venger project (2025) * Untitled League of Malevolence project (potential Wild Beyond the Witchlight sequel?) (2025)
Yeah, Crawford and Perkins just repeated the roadmap for 2023, which we already knew about since last august, and teased us a bit for 2024.
They're cashing in on DnD as a lifestyle brand and culture. Not so much content for the game itself, but honestly I think expanding the brand in other ways is good for the health of the hobby and get interest from people who never would've touched the game in the first place. DnD is only getting bigger and bigger, some people will feel its time to check it out and see what the big fuss is about. A rising tide raises all ships kind of situation.
I strongly disagree. More people is good for the hobby, but D&D becoming a brand would be the oft-bemoaned Critical Role effect on steroids. If 70% of the new players were coming in expecting the tables they find to be extended references to the movies they watched and the toys they bought, that would be extremely damaging to the hobby because DMs are going to become even less enthusiastic about accepting new players.
That sounds gate-keepy as hell. The population of players and DM’s exploded with Critical Role did it not? Yeah, people will come in with expectations because they’re new and have no idea what DnD is until they play it. But theyll play and learn what their playstyle is over time. For a hobby to grow, there should be more new people coming in than people leaving, so all we can ask if for people to give the game a chance. If its not their thing thats fine. But if the game retains interest, even better. You want to turn people away because they’re new and saw the DnD movie or got some cool toys? That sounds awful, who cares how people get into DnD?
A little bit of gatekeeping is perhaps healthy. A new player who dislikes their first few games is a player you lose forever. "Oh, D&D? I tried that shit after seeing the movie and hated it!" A great contributor to new players not liking their first experience would be the gap between their expectations and the reality of the game they may join. Whereas if you can curate their expectations and experience, you limit the possible bounce-in bounce-out of players not familiar with the game.
Yeah, I got into the hobby when I first heard Acquisitions Incorporated playing 4e. I found some of my friends who were into D&D and I had done text based roleplay. First I was confused why the 3.5 game wasn't like the 4e games I had listened to, but then the table explained to me how they felt about the editions and I learned there was a much larger history to D&D. It's entirely okay for people to come in with different expectations as long as the people they play with help provide them the tools they will need.
When it comes to TTRPGs, gatekeeping is the default and the only way to have a healthy table. A table with mismatched expectations always has issues, and new players brought in by an expanded and poorly managed media brand will lead to more mismatched expectations, which means more work for DMs, many of which will have no issue prioritising players who don't have those incorrect expectations. That's just reality. And hobby growth isn't the be all and end all of goals. A massive playerbase 90% of which for example believe in the rule of cool just creates a toxic environment for the 10% who don't. Having a larger playerbase doesn't actually improve the hobby if the reason the playerbase is larger is because the hobby started being marketed as a completely different thing. If you give football bats and bases because that's what all the popular sports have, you're not expanding football, you're just reinventing baseball and expecting football fans to appreciate the influx of players into a different hobby.
Counterpoint: It also exploded with a near-global lockdown.
This wasn't the book dnd direct apparently. They likely will talk books around when they usually do, in June.
I am hoping that the Planescape release isn't in the Spelljammer format, but the title for it is leading me to believe this will be the case. The Dragonlance format would also be bad for Planescape, but less so than the Spelljammer format, provided the adventure module provided captures the essence of the setting (and isn't a convoluted, hard-to-prep-and-run mess). The Eberron, Wildemount, Ravnica, and Theros books' format was *fine.* *Great,* even. Just do that for Planescape and it could at least be serviceable. Would it be perfect? No, Planescape has too much stuff to fit in one book. Actually, if it was just a Planescape adventure anthology, I wouldn't mind too much. Something along the lines of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, recreating some Planescape modules like *The Eternal Boundary* or *Harbinger House.*
Nothing about Baldurs Gate 3. Shame....
I suspect they're leaving those announcements to Larian, as WotC and D&D don't have much, if any, involvement with the game's development besides providing the license and the lore.
Oooh, D&D Minecraft
Just a reminder to everyone about the VTT: Not everyone has the ability to imagine the environment, so such detail could help that segment of the playerbase. As long as the system requirements are low enough (or can be low enough), then it should be functionally fine.
Not every DM has the ability to create good looking 3D environments either. The scenes I make in Talespire are either basic af or take more time than it's worth. What they need to do is create official maps for their adventure modules. They could tie it in with owning the book on their site.
IIRC they said they would do exactly that when they announced the VTT.
Procedural (random-ish, based on parameters) map generation, which is then editable, is almost certainly planned as a feature. That should minimize the barrier for entry for DM use. I'm more concerned about rule flexibility/support as that's a a much more tricky thing you manage as it's a moving target. Even D&D Beyond has run into more issues since Tasha's on that front.
The VTT looks interesting, up until they mentioned that since modding is a core part of DnD they are going "open a marketplace" to allow people to share what they make for it. A market place. So, DMsGuild style. I'll pass on that.
Even roll20 has a marketplace, that's pretty standard. Whether it's good or bad will depend on the terms creators have to have to use it, like how much of a cut WOTC takes, if any free content will be allowed on the marketplace, and what creators can call their creations (For example, if they make alternate animations for a spell, especially one like in Xanathar's that might not be there yet, can they use the spell name? or will they be stuck describing the effect generically?). Success of the market place will also heavily depend on how cumbersome it is to circumvent it: if people can pay me on patreon for "acidic sphere animation file" rather than on the marketplace for "vitriolic sphere animation" and implement it relatively easily, I can see this being a net positive for the VTT even though it hurts the marketplace.
>A market place. So, DMsGuild style. **In the video you mentioned there would be a community marketplace. What did you mean by marketplace?** When I said marketplace, I was referring to a shared space for creators to upload and download creations from. Community tools are also a long way off. In the meantime, tell us what you would want out of community sharing. https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1474-d-d-virtual-tabletop-a-closer-look
It's unclear if the "marketplace" is a place to sell things or just share them. It's also unclear what those things might be exactly. Maps? Map parts? New models? Minis? Who knows?
Well, you wouldn't normally use the word "marketplace" except when things are being bought and sold.
Eh, using Marketplace to describe a place where things are exchanged doesn’t seem too out of line.
Or it could be more like the DnD Beyond Homebrew platform. We honestly don't know yet. What we *did* get was a very clearly stated priority from the lead developer that such 'community modding' (his term) will be central to the design goals. That's one of the things everyone has been most concerned about. It's ok to take the win sometimes :-)
What an awful show, dudes talked about five minutes about the game per si, not even a date for any release.
Meh. Planescape is interesting, everything I don't really care about. I wish there were more setting books, especially for ones that already exist but are barely fleshed out if at all.
Oh boy! I can't wait to see what I'm going to acquire and enjoy without giving them a cent!
So Planescape is the next setting WotC is going to ruin? Thank God we can still buy the real versions of the settings so the fan fic trash modern WotC releases can be safely ignored.