Chris Hoffer was covering Hasbro's Investors meeting where Chris Cock mentioned this.
Christian Hoffer
@CHofferCBus
·
ALSO - D&D will be “increasing the cadence” of its releases. Looks like we might start getting more than 4 D&D books per year soon.
I'm not surprised. I remember the D&D Live Panel with Ray Winnger last year where he was talking about his plans for D&D, more casual products, anthologies to increase their freelancer pool, working on 3 Classic settings, future D&D MtG Crossovers, and I'm thinking that is going to require an increased rate of releases.
So I think we can expect a lot more books and other products from now on.
I think the key thing Winnger also included in that panel he was on was also "different" sort of products. So maybe more releases, but not necessarily 4 D&D books. The Strahd Revamped box was clearly an experiment in alternative format projects. I could see them doing that with other adventures and materials too. You could for instance get a hardback, and/or a "prestige " format. So Strahd would be an example. A boxed set for a monster book could include minis or monsters cards. I think Wizards doesn't want to lose its current consumer base but at the same time is impressed through Beedle and Grimms and other vendors just how much money some folks will pay for the game materials.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
If they tacked on an anthology of short modules every year to their publication schedule that would be fantastic by me. I will never buy one of those big campaigns, but an anthology of actually modular modules would be swell.
If they tacked on an anthology of short modules every year to their publication schedule that would be fantastic by me. I will never buy one of those big campaigns, but an anthology of actually modular modules would be swell.
That would be nice - I like using the adventures as hooks and ideas in my overarching campaign so having some smaller side quests would be good too!
I'd be thrilled to see some crossover board games where the box would include miniatures that were compatible with both D&D and the board game series. For example, a Curse of Strahd themed version of "Betrayal at House on the Hill". Start with Strahd and some humanoid PC miniatures, and then sell adventure booster packs for the other possible monster configurations.
Use it as a way to do micro-sales of miniatures, terrain packs, and other tabletop accessories.
Quality will always be more important than quantity. I hope WOTC doesn't lose sight of that. That being said, one thing I have hoped for a long time was that more attention be paid to the under utilized areas of Toril. Would be nice to not have differing settings interrupt content releases for other settings. Toril is, and will ever be the main setting for me. I want regular, and uninterrupted content for that setting. And more varied. There's more there than the Sword Coast.
Quality will always be more important than quantity. I hope WOTC doesn't lose sight of that. That being said, one thing I have hoped for a long time was that more attention be paid to the under utilized areas of Toril. Would be nice to not have differing settings interrupt content releases for other settings. Toril is, and will ever be the main setting for me. I want regular, and uninterrupted content for that setting. And more varied. There's more there than the Sword Coast.
Maybe you want that, and that's fine, but a lot of us are kinda hoping they finally focus on campaigns for a setting other than Toril, because that's all we've gotten for the entirety of 5e. Aside from Ghost's of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal, both of which aren't even really campaign books and are more modular collections of adventures, every single module has been in Toril, so I personally would like them to finally leave that behind, not forever, but for a little bit, to show some other settings some love.
Quality will always be more important than quantity. I hope WOTC doesn't lose sight of that. That being said, one thing I have hoped for a long time was that more attention be paid to the under utilized areas of Toril. Would be nice to not have differing settings interrupt content releases for other settings. Toril is, and will ever be the main setting for me. I want regular, and uninterrupted content for that setting. And more varied. There's more there than the Sword Coast.
You can be assured that the worse case outcome is assured. If they are pumping out more, that leads to far less game-testing before anything is released, resulting in garbage getting into the mainstream. We just witnessed that. I know that much of any "4 books per year" new material will never see the light of day at my table, if any.
Quality will always be more important than quantity. I hope WOTC doesn't lose sight of that. That being said, one thing I have hoped for a long time was that more attention be paid to the under utilized areas of Toril. Would be nice to not have differing settings interrupt content releases for other settings. Toril is, and will ever be the main setting for me. I want regular, and uninterrupted content for that setting. And more varied. There's more there than the Sword Coast.
Maybe you want that, and that's fine, but a lot of us are kinda hoping they finally focus on campaigns for a setting other than Toril, because that's all we've gotten for the entirety of 5e. Aside from Ghost's of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal, both of which aren't even really campaign books and are more modular collections of adventures, every single module has been in Toril, so I personally would like them to finally leave that behind, not forever, but for a little bit, to show some other settings some love.
Focusing on multiple settings up to this point would have made little sense. With a low cadence, releasing content for other settings would have detracted from the main setting. The setting that most people play in. But lets be clear about this, most of the releases have been Forgotten Realms focused, but certainly not all. There have been releases for other settings, though admittedly, just a hand full.
To be more clear, what I'd like to see is a dedicated release cadence. I'd like to see one source book per year, and 3 modules for Forgotten realms. I think that's the sweet spot. If they're going to up their cadence, I think that would be how they could branch into other settings without detracting from Forgotten Realms.
This could open up the possibility of other books dedicated to more specific content, like a Draconomicon and other creature type specific books, or books dedicated to different planes like the Feywilds, Shadow Fell, and the Outer Planes, or more books focusing on different places not yet explored in FR or other settings like Eberron, Wildemount and elsewhere for 5e.
This is definitely interesting.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
I forsee a lot of writers and content creators landing their dream job in the upcoming months... Love to see it.
As a tangent, I wonder how many people are involved with creating a book in the D&D setting. I am sure that a source book has a different amount than fiction. And yeah, I can look at the liner notes to get a list. But that hardly indicates how many hours by each person went into the finished product. I have had one of my players comment that my writing is as good as anything he reads in a module. I am certain thing can be said of a decent percentage of the people that post on this site.
So I guess the real question is "are there enough potential writers and content producers out there to fill the pipeline with quality work, or will there be a serious drop off?"
Quality will always be more important than quantity. I hope WOTC doesn't lose sight of that. That being said, one thing I have hoped for a long time was that more attention be paid to the under utilized areas of Toril. Would be nice to not have differing settings interrupt content releases for other settings. Toril is, and will ever be the main setting for me. I want regular, and uninterrupted content for that setting. And more varied. There's more there than the Sword Coast.
Maybe you want that, and that's fine, but a lot of us are kinda hoping they finally focus on campaigns for a setting other than Toril, because that's all we've gotten for the entirety of 5e. Aside from Ghost's of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal, both of which aren't even really campaign books and are more modular collections of adventures, every single module has been in Toril, so I personally would like them to finally leave that behind, not forever, but for a little bit, to show some other settings some love.
Eberron, Wildemount, Theros, Ravnica. Not to mention the upcoming Von Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and the stated 3 classic settings that are in the works.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Quality will always be more important than quantity. I hope WOTC doesn't lose sight of that. That being said, one thing I have hoped for a long time was that more attention be paid to the under utilized areas of Toril. Would be nice to not have differing settings interrupt content releases for other settings. Toril is, and will ever be the main setting for me. I want regular, and uninterrupted content for that setting. And more varied. There's more there than the Sword Coast.
Maybe you want that, and that's fine, but a lot of us are kinda hoping they finally focus on campaigns for a setting other than Toril, because that's all we've gotten for the entirety of 5e. Aside from Ghost's of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal, both of which aren't even really campaign books and are more modular collections of adventures, every single module has been in Toril, so I personally would like them to finally leave that behind, not forever, but for a little bit, to show some other settings some love.
Eberron, Wildemount, Theros, Ravnica. Not to mention the upcoming Von Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and the stated 3 classic settings that are in the works.
I think JoJoBeans07 is more referring to how nearly every major Campaigns/Adventure book/module has been set in or is connected to the Forgotten realms in some manner and how they would like adventure books to be set in other places like Eberron or Wildemount or elsewhere.
Quality will always be more important than quantity. I hope WOTC doesn't lose sight of that. That being said, one thing I have hoped for a long time was that more attention be paid to the under utilized areas of Toril. Would be nice to not have differing settings interrupt content releases for other settings. Toril is, and will ever be the main setting for me. I want regular, and uninterrupted content for that setting. And more varied. There's more there than the Sword Coast.
Maybe you want that, and that's fine, but a lot of us are kinda hoping they finally focus on campaigns for a setting other than Toril, because that's all we've gotten for the entirety of 5e. Aside from Ghost's of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal, both of which aren't even really campaign books and are more modular collections of adventures, every single module has been in Toril, so I personally would like them to finally leave that behind, not forever, but for a little bit, to show some other settings some love.
Eberron, Wildemount, Theros, Ravnica. Not to mention the upcoming Von Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and the stated 3 classic settings that are in the works.
I think JoJoBeans07 is more referring to how nearly every major Campaigns/Adventure book/module has been set in or is connected to the Forgotten realms in some manner and how they would like adventure books to be set in other places like Eberron or Wildemount or elsewhere.
I hear that, but it's usually easy as pie to transpose them to another setting. I get why WotC doesn't want to spend too much effort creating setting specific adventures, it might put off too many prospective buyers to see a campaign dealing with a setting-specific issue. I wouldn't mind more of that though, regardless of which setting it'd end up in.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Quality will always be more important than quantity. I hope WOTC doesn't lose sight of that. That being said, one thing I have hoped for a long time was that more attention be paid to the under utilized areas of Toril. Would be nice to not have differing settings interrupt content releases for other settings. Toril is, and will ever be the main setting for me. I want regular, and uninterrupted content for that setting. And more varied. There's more there than the Sword Coast.
Maybe you want that, and that's fine, but a lot of us are kinda hoping they finally focus on campaigns for a setting other than Toril, because that's all we've gotten for the entirety of 5e. Aside from Ghost's of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal, both of which aren't even really campaign books and are more modular collections of adventures, every single module has been in Toril, so I personally would like them to finally leave that behind, not forever, but for a little bit, to show some other settings some love.
Eberron, Wildemount, Theros, Ravnica. Not to mention the upcoming Von Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and the stated 3 classic settings that are in the works.
I think JoJoBeans07 is more referring to how nearly every major Campaigns/Adventure book/module has been set in or is connected to the Forgotten realms in some manner and how they would like adventure books to be set in other places like Eberron or Wildemount or elsewhere.
I hear that, but it's usually easy as pie to transpose them to another setting. I get why WotC doesn't want to spend too much effort creating setting specific adventures, it might put off too many prospective buyers to see a campaign dealing with a setting-specific issue. I wouldn't mind more of that though, regardless of which setting it'd end up in.
Same here and if they are planning on releasing more books more regularly, this might allow them to create some adventures for other settings while still being able to release adventure books for different parts of FR as well. They can experiment with adding more to other settings without ignoring FR in the process for those who want more for the main setting.
It's probably too early to really know what this new direction can mean in regards to potential new content but I can't help but be a little excited at the possibilities.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
I forsee a lot of writers and content creators landing their dream job in the upcoming months... Love to see it.
Makes me wonder if some of the people leaving DDB could be involved here with getting out more content. But I haven’t been following that closely so I’m probably wrong
I don't know about the rest but James Haeck already has WotC contributor credits. Todd as I understand it is doing something like what he used to do here but for the producers of League of Legends. Adam will let folks know where he's going when he's fully arrived at his new work. Not sure where OboeLauren has gone. FWIW the Ravensloft book press mentions one of the developers is now full time at WotC and formerly with Kobold Press.
Given elevated platform Hasbro granting WotC in its structure, and the increased production tempo, I presume that would also entail the division staffing up, maybe not with full time designers but product managers/editors to oversee a freelance pool. WotC also has brought on creatives for short term 1-3 year contracts too.
My guess is folks who get signed on to Wizards/Hasbro these days probably come with some commercially successful or award winning products on their resume, less professional development that way. I could also see folks being brought on who don't necessarily have professional experience but significant community presence/influence.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/CHofferCBus/status/1364968606405165066
Chris Hoffer was covering Hasbro's Investors meeting where Chris Cock mentioned this.
I'm not surprised. I remember the D&D Live Panel with Ray Winnger last year where he was talking about his plans for D&D, more casual products, anthologies to increase their freelancer pool, working on 3 Classic settings, future D&D MtG Crossovers, and I'm thinking that is going to require an increased rate of releases.
So I think we can expect a lot more books and other products from now on.
I think the key thing Winnger also included in that panel he was on was also "different" sort of products. So maybe more releases, but not necessarily 4 D&D books. The Strahd Revamped box was clearly an experiment in alternative format projects. I could see them doing that with other adventures and materials too. You could for instance get a hardback, and/or a "prestige " format. So Strahd would be an example. A boxed set for a monster book could include minis or monsters cards. I think Wizards doesn't want to lose its current consumer base but at the same time is impressed through Beedle and Grimms and other vendors just how much money some folks will pay for the game materials.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
If they tacked on an anthology of short modules every year to their publication schedule that would be fantastic by me. I will never buy one of those big campaigns, but an anthology of actually modular modules would be swell.
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
That would be nice - I like using the adventures as hooks and ideas in my overarching campaign so having some smaller side quests would be good too!
I'd be thrilled to see some crossover board games where the box would include miniatures that were compatible with both D&D and the board game series. For example, a Curse of Strahd themed version of "Betrayal at House on the Hill". Start with Strahd and some humanoid PC miniatures, and then sell adventure booster packs for the other possible monster configurations.
Use it as a way to do micro-sales of miniatures, terrain packs, and other tabletop accessories.
Quality will always be more important than quantity. I hope WOTC doesn't lose sight of that. That being said, one thing I have hoped for a long time was that more attention be paid to the under utilized areas of Toril. Would be nice to not have differing settings interrupt content releases for other settings. Toril is, and will ever be the main setting for me. I want regular, and uninterrupted content for that setting. And more varied. There's more there than the Sword Coast.
Eventually they may even add more magic items and 20th+ level content, hopefully
Maybe you want that, and that's fine, but a lot of us are kinda hoping they finally focus on campaigns for a setting other than Toril, because that's all we've gotten for the entirety of 5e. Aside from Ghost's of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal, both of which aren't even really campaign books and are more modular collections of adventures, every single module has been in Toril, so I personally would like them to finally leave that behind, not forever, but for a little bit, to show some other settings some love.
You can be assured that the worse case outcome is assured. If they are pumping out more, that leads to far less game-testing before anything is released, resulting in garbage getting into the mainstream. We just witnessed that. I know that much of any "4 books per year" new material will never see the light of day at my table, if any.
Focusing on multiple settings up to this point would have made little sense. With a low cadence, releasing content for other settings would have detracted from the main setting. The setting that most people play in. But lets be clear about this, most of the releases have been Forgotten Realms focused, but certainly not all. There have been releases for other settings, though admittedly, just a hand full.
To be more clear, what I'd like to see is a dedicated release cadence. I'd like to see one source book per year, and 3 modules for Forgotten realms. I think that's the sweet spot. If they're going to up their cadence, I think that would be how they could branch into other settings without detracting from Forgotten Realms.
This could open up the possibility of other books dedicated to more specific content, like a Draconomicon and other creature type specific books, or books dedicated to different planes like the Feywilds, Shadow Fell, and the Outer Planes, or more books focusing on different places not yet explored in FR or other settings like Eberron, Wildemount and elsewhere for 5e.
This is definitely interesting.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Homebrew - Circle of the Living Machines Druid, Path of the Dragon Soul Barbarian
My hombrew Great Wyrm Dragons
I forsee a lot of writers and content creators landing their dream job in the upcoming months... Love to see it.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
As a tangent, I wonder how many people are involved with creating a book in the D&D setting. I am sure that a source book has a different amount than fiction. And yeah, I can look at the liner notes to get a list. But that hardly indicates how many hours by each person went into the finished product. I have had one of my players comment that my writing is as good as anything he reads in a module. I am certain thing can be said of a decent percentage of the people that post on this site.
So I guess the real question is "are there enough potential writers and content producers out there to fill the pipeline with quality work, or will there be a serious drop off?"
Eberron, Wildemount, Theros, Ravnica. Not to mention the upcoming Von Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and the stated 3 classic settings that are in the works.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I think JoJoBeans07 is more referring to how nearly every major Campaigns/Adventure book/module has been set in or is connected to the Forgotten realms in some manner and how they would like adventure books to be set in other places like Eberron or Wildemount or elsewhere.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Homebrew - Circle of the Living Machines Druid, Path of the Dragon Soul Barbarian
My hombrew Great Wyrm Dragons
I hear that, but it's usually easy as pie to transpose them to another setting. I get why WotC doesn't want to spend too much effort creating setting specific adventures, it might put off too many prospective buyers to see a campaign dealing with a setting-specific issue. I wouldn't mind more of that though, regardless of which setting it'd end up in.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Same here and if they are planning on releasing more books more regularly, this might allow them to create some adventures for other settings while still being able to release adventure books for different parts of FR as well. They can experiment with adding more to other settings without ignoring FR in the process for those who want more for the main setting.
It's probably too early to really know what this new direction can mean in regards to potential new content but I can't help but be a little excited at the possibilities.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Homebrew - Circle of the Living Machines Druid, Path of the Dragon Soul Barbarian
My hombrew Great Wyrm Dragons
Makes me wonder if some of the people leaving DDB could be involved here with getting out more content. But I haven’t been following that closely so I’m probably wrong
I don't know about the rest but James Haeck already has WotC contributor credits. Todd as I understand it is doing something like what he used to do here but for the producers of League of Legends. Adam will let folks know where he's going when he's fully arrived at his new work. Not sure where OboeLauren has gone. FWIW the Ravensloft book press mentions one of the developers is now full time at WotC and formerly with Kobold Press.
Given elevated platform Hasbro granting WotC in its structure, and the increased production tempo, I presume that would also entail the division staffing up, maybe not with full time designers but product managers/editors to oversee a freelance pool. WotC also has brought on creatives for short term 1-3 year contracts too.
My guess is folks who get signed on to Wizards/Hasbro these days probably come with some commercially successful or award winning products on their resume, less professional development that way. I could also see folks being brought on who don't necessarily have professional experience but significant community presence/influence.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.