Roll for Excitement: Wizards Presents

August 18th: Wizards of the Coast premiered new content for Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering

A reaction to the latest offerings coming in the next couple of years.

Wizards of the Coast shared news about products and changes coming to Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering during a streamed event. The event was co-hosted by Sydnee Goodman; a long-time video game journalist and content creator, Ginny Di; professional co-player and host of a popular D&D advice YouTube channel, and Jimmy Wong; an actor, musician, and obvious fan of Magic.

Disclaimer: My Magic: The Gathering experience consists of a handful of matches playing against my younger brother in the 90's. As such, I will not be offering advice or opinions outside of saying that the new cards, art, and designs look amazing.

Dungeons & Dragons has grown year after year as a direct results of the popularity and proliferation of Fifth Edition since its inception in 2014. This fact has led them to call it quits to creating brand new rule sets or introducing widespread changes to the world's greatest roleplaying game. Instead they introduced the concept of One D&D.

One D&D: Three Pillars

Jeremy Crawford kicked off the news by announcing the One D&D initiative. There are three pillars of focus that will all see updates and additions.

The first pillar is the rule set. The three core rule books: The Player's Handbook, The Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual will all receive revisions. It should be noted that nothing currently existing will be removed, instead the goal is to provide more choices and options to continue to build on the game as it is today. All of the adventures and supplements that currently exist in Fifth Edition will remain viable and compatible with the updated core rule books.

Secondly, D&D Beyond, recently acquired by WotC, will receive some much needed attention. As someone that has played pen and paper D&D almost exclusively because of the limitations of D&D Beyond (I'm looking at you extra $30 for another copy of a book I already own), this was exciting news. Physical/Digital bundles will begin to be available beginning with the forth-coming Dragonlance adventure, The Shadow of the Dragon Queen (more on that later).

The last pillar mentioned is called D&D Digital. While still in development, the pre-alpha footage shown was enough to garner excitement over the final version, whenever that may become available. The ability to have a 3D map environment that can be manipulated while playing is what many digital DM's have wanted for a long time, even if they didn't know they wanted it.

ROLL FOR EXCITEMENT: 15. A lot to be excited about here.

Spelljammer: Animated Introduction

A mother tells her mini giant space hamster baby a bedtime story and reminds us all how truly odd hoomans are. Since the Spelljammer three book/poster map/DM screen box set had just come out there wasn't really anything new offered here but the wait for Spelljammer is finally over. I, for one, cannot wait to create my first Plasmoid character so they can go to sleep and slosh back and forth inside a bucket on the deck of a Living Ship. Also, space clowns. And murder comets.

ROLL FOR EXCITEMENT: 10. Nothing new was offered.

Dragonlance: An Integrated Experience

As a child of the 90's that grew up reading The Chronicles and Twins Trilogies multiple times, I couldn't be more excited to visit Krynn. As previously stated, this will be the first product offered as a physical/digital bundle. It is also accompanied by a skirmish style board game complete with miniatures. While not essential to the adventure, there is interesting long term potential to include something like this with future adventures. The cost of miniatures individually can be prohibitive for some players and anything that provides a way of getting a set for a reasonable price is a win. The adventure itself has so much potential since it is taking place during the War of the Lance. Kender will be a playable race and the new backgrounds available (Knights of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery) will help to create characters entrenched in the war torn world.

ROLL FOR EXCITEMENT: Nat 20. No reason needed. The wait for Krynn will soon be over.

Sneak Peak: New Releases for 2023

Five new books were announced for release in 2023. I will list them in the order they were announced.

Keys From The Golden Vault - Winter 2023 - Heist themed anthology adventure book in the vein of Candlekeep Mysteries and Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel.

ROLL FOR EXCITEMENT: 12.

Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants - Spring 2023 - The Giant themed Unearthed Arcana from a few months ago make a lot more sense now.

ROLL FOR EXCITEMENT: 10.

Phandelver Campaign - Summer 2023 - A fleshed out continuation and expansion of the original Starter Set adventure.

ROLL FOR EXCITEMENT: 16.

The Book of Many Things - Fall 2023 - A lot of questions about what this book will include. Close your eyes and draw a card.

ROLL FOR EXCITEMENT: Nat 20.

Planescape - Fall 2023 - Campaign collection for the world of Planescape. Appears to hint at a Spelljammer type set of books.

ROLL FOR EXCITEMENT: 16.

There is so much to be excited about for the future of One D&D. They continue to listen to the fans and players around the world by making it more inclusive and more accessible to people that may have not considered this a game for them in the past.

As each release comes out and change comes to the game keep checking here.

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