So a month ago, the new head of D&D had this to say:
More details to come, but we are also developing a creator spotlighting program that will highlight third-party creations across our official channels. If you’re making something incredible, the world should see it.
Since then, WotC has only given the spotlight to the same type of creators, making the same type of content. It's content that's not only wholly incompatible with players running a non-horror game, but incompatible with players who want balanced content—these books are filled with overpowered and blatantly game-breaking classes, subclasses, spells, and the like. Books made predominantly by a certain type of person, depicting primarily people like themselves in their covers and art.
It proves that no matter what WotC might say, their interest is only in a certain type of third-party creator. Third-party content geared for players who want to be better than everyone else using core content. Third-party content that predominately depicts only certain people getting to be heroes, and others being victimized or dehumanized as per the themes and tropes of these releases and their inspirations. Third-party content that, rather than exploring a variety of ideas and empowering players who want different things out of the game, is only for a table of people just like the people in charge of D&D.
While I am not overly fond of the quality of third party content, and I recognize there has been a string of horror content recently, your post seems to be ascribing motivations that reality does not really bear out.
For starters, D&D’s official content is hardly universally horror themed. Sure, there’s some horror books, and some books with horror elements, but there are also plenty of lighter official content. Radiant Citadel, a product helmed by one of the two current design leads at D&D, has plenty of lighthearted, cute little adventures, and is explicitly designed to showcase other cultures. The idea that D&D creators are all horror fans who only want of see a certain type of hero clearly has no basis in reality - when they are creating books, they do very, very different things.
Second, there is a pretty easy, much more obvious explanation for the third party horror content - this is all content that sells well on Kickstarter and other platforms and fills a niche that D&D’s official content really does not delve into. It is far more likely that Wizards - who, again, clearly employs designers who enjoy making non-horror content - are trying to capitalize on a current popular trend that also does not really compete in the same niche with their first party content.
Finally, let us actually look at the third party content released. Sure, there’s Drakenheim, Cthulhu, and Grim Hollow on the horror side of things… there’s also Humblewood, Tales of Obojima, Critical Role’s Exandria (which is typical D&D fantasy), Lord of the Rings, and plenty of setting neutral books with collections of monsters, items, etc. The idea that they only “spotlight the same type of creators” is factually incorrect.
There are a few other things to consider here, and I don't speak for Dan or for anyone else on the team when I say this, but this does highlight the fact that the general community member has no idea what goes on behind the scenes. (Author note: is that partially our responsibility? Absolutely; we could be more transparent than we are, but that's not my call to make.)
Firstly, release schedules are often set out months, even years, in advance. The products that will be coming out for the rest of 2025 were in place before Dan put on his new hat, and that schedule doesn't change just because there's a new person in charge.
Secondly, multiple things can be true: Dan can have said what he said and meant it, but related to the first point, we can still put out content from established third-party creators to see if forward movement is viable and we have both the community interest and internal ability to support smaller creators. We're very aware of the other creators that you want to see represented here, but it's not as simple as seeing them and going "YES", and I know y'all know that.
Thirdly, and I'm injecting a bit of personal opinion here: it hasn't even been a month since he said those things, and two of those weeks were spent at a multi-day convention and on a company break respectively. And as one of the people on the teams actively trying to put those initiatives in place, two weeks is literally no time at all when you're juggling multiple things in addition to that.
All that said, what I'm not saying here is to stop bringing it up. When y'all continue to bring this stuff up, it shows folks like Dan that you really do want to see the things he talked about, and you're not gonna forget what he said. It lets me go to them and be like "hey, they're still asking about XYZ; where's our movement on that? Can we give them any updates?" So thank you for holding us to it.
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While I am not overly fond of the quality of third party content, and I recognize there has been a string of horror content recently, your post seems to be ascribing motivations that reality does not really bear out.
For starters, D&D’s official content is hardly universally horror themed. Sure, there’s some horror books, and some books with horror elements, but there are also plenty of lighter official content. Radiant Citadel, a product helmed by one of the two current design leads at D&D, has plenty of lighthearted, cute little adventures, and is explicitly designed to showcase other cultures. The idea that D&D creators are all horror fans who only want of see a certain type of hero clearly has no basis in reality - when they are creating books, they do very, very different things.
Second, there is a pretty easy, much more obvious explanation for the third party horror content - this is all content that sells well on Kickstarter and other platforms and fills a niche that D&D’s official content really does not delve into. It is far more likely that Wizards - who, again, clearly employs designers who enjoy making non-horror content - are trying to capitalize on a current popular trend that also does not really compete in the same niche with their first party content.
Finally, let us actually look at the third party content released. Sure, there’s Drakenheim, Cthulhu, and Grim Hollow on the horror side of things… there’s also Humblewood, Tales of Obojima, Critical Role’s Exandria (which is typical D&D fantasy), Lord of the Rings, and plenty of setting neutral books with collections of monsters, items, etc. The idea that they only “spotlight the same type of creators” is factually incorrect.
D&D has plenty of horror content. Van Richtofen, Curse of Strahd, for example. They've also teased two releases with such content via the Horror and Apocalyptic UAs.
Popularity on Kickstarter is not the only metric that matters. All that's saying is that only material popular with people who have the disposable income to gamble on crowdfunded books should be released on DDB.
And as for that third party content... Critical Role leans into it with blood-themed subclasses and the Blood Hunter. There's Grim Hollow, Drakkenheim, Ebon Tides, Illrigger, Heliana's, Symbaroum, Crooked Moon, Cthulhu by Torchlight...all horror-themed content, and much of which is horribly (pun intended) balanced in comparison to core content. Humblewood and Obojima aren't perfect in that regard but are a far better effort at making balanced content.
There's also the fact that you get repeated releases from these third-party groups, rather than a variety of content. Grim Hollow? There's three books already. Three Drakkenheim books. MCDM has tons of their stuff on DDB. We just had FORTY subclasses and a whole new class get dumped by one single third-party publisher. Other third-party creators are lucky to get a second release on DDB, let alone one.
It's baffling from a business perspective as well, because I cannot believe repeatedly releasing content geared around a specific genre is a good business model at all.
This very much looks like you are fishing for a problem that does not exist, ignoring large swaths of evidence because it is inconvenient to your message. You mention the D&D horror content and ignore the large body that is not - including the most recent releases (new core books, Dragon adventures), and much of the upcoming releases, like FR, Eberron, and large parts of Lorwyn. You focus on the darker elements of CR content, while ignoring the fact it is not any darker than things like Great Old One Warlock or Necromancer Wizard, as well as the fact there’s plenty of completely non-Dark content in the CR books. You mention horror books getting multiple releases, and ignore the fact Humblewood has as well.
If you do not like the content, you do not have to buy it. I know I am not going to buy purely player-facing third party content because of the balance issues. This is a legitimate complaint, and one I have made multiple times (including in my first post on this thread).
However, the point you are hanging your hat on - your perception that D&D’s creators are too obsessed with horror - is disproven by an overwhelming number of different data points. Do they like darker things? Sure - do so many players, and those players deserve content also. But the idea they are exclusively focused on horror is simply not supported by the totality of evidence.
Popularity on Kickstarter is not the only metric that matters.
While sure, you want a more general measure of popularity than just kickstarter, most of the things that got moved to D&D Beyond are long past their kickstarter phase (and thus presumably have proven their ongoing value). While most of the 3PP stuff on D&D Beyond doesn't interest me, I wouldn't be surprised if the type of person who funds kickstarters isn't all that different from the kind of person who picks up random 3PP stuff.
There's also the fact that you get repeated releases from these third-party groups, rather than a variety of content. Grim Hollow? There's three books already. Three Drakkenheim books. MCDM has tons of their stuff on DDB. We just had FORTY subclasses and a whole new class get dumped by one single third-party publisher. Other third-party creators are lucky to get a second release on DDB, let alone one.
There are several reasons for getting more products from the same source, rather than new sources:
You have existing sales information about their prior product, thus giving you a better basis for guessing at demand (and if the prior product was a dud... guess no second book).
You have a pre-existing business relationship, and it's generally less work (and thus cheaper) to extend an existing relationship than create a new one.
Other than contract negotiations, the major cost of a new book on D&D Beyond is layout, and with a pre-existing relationship both sides should have a better idea of how to work together to streamline that process. And again, a 3PP who proved totally inept at handling that side of things is less likely to get repeat business.
I expect a spotlight program would actually be entirely different from the existing D&D Beyond collabs (probably more in common with DM's Guild).
To me it's just that the most popular stuff get put on Beyond first. That is all.
Crooked Moon is Avantris, one of the most popular actual play people next to Critical Role these days that had a promise in their kickstarter to be on Beyond.
Grim Hollow has been popular and talked about for a long long while, that also had a promise in their kickstarter to be on Beyond for the new edition.
Cthulhu is a popular and well known licence and had the bonus of having Mearls on the design team.
Sure it's "horror", but that's more of a coincidence than anything. Grim is mostly just dark fantasy, Crooked is Folk Tales, and Cthulhu is Cthulhu, it's still different flavors. And there's still other 3rd party stuff that aren't horror on here.
As for balance, official content isn't that balanced to begin with, then it's up to the DM to determine what they allow or not. A player buying a supplement to play an OP subclass doesn't mean they'll get to play that OP subclass at the table. And then, is it truly that important ? Just tailor the fights to the subclasses of your players.
I'm definitely in the "Not another horror setting" camp, but at the same time, this is also what seems to be popular.
WotC has to go through a lot of contract negotiations for these sorts of things, so once a creator is 'onboarded' it's a lot easier to add new products. Mage Hand Press and MCDM are examples of non-horror publishers who have done multiple releases. Humblewood by Hit Point Press and Obojima by 1985 Games are more examples. Ghostfire Gaming and Avantris are examples of repeat providers for horror content... because that's their setting.
The more established publishers that WotC can onboard, the wider the various offerings.
It proves that no matter what WotC might say, their interest is only in a certain type of third-party creator. Third-party content geared for players who want to be better than everyone else using core content.
All that's proved in this post, is that you're choosing a certain point of view based on your own experiences that has no evidence in reality, to demonize someone else's motives.
This very much looks like you are fishing for a problem that does not exist, ignoring large swaths of evidence because it is inconvenient to your message. You mention the D&D horror content and ignore the large body that is not - including the most recent releases (new core books, Dragon adventures), and much of the upcoming releases, like FR, Eberron, and large parts of Lorwyn. You focus on the darker elements of CR content, while ignoring the fact it is not any darker than things like Great Old One Warlock or Necromancer Wizard, as well as the fact there’s plenty of completely non-Dark content in the CR books. You mention horror books getting multiple releases, and ignore the fact Humblewood has as well.
If you do not like the content, you do not have to buy it. I know I am not going to buy purely player-facing third party content because of the balance issues. This is a legitimate complaint, and one I have made multiple times (including in my first post on this thread).
However, the point you are hanging your hat on - your perception that D&D’s creators are too obsessed with horror - is disproven by an overwhelming number of different data points. Do they like darker things? Sure - do so many players, and those players deserve content also. But the idea they are exclusively focused on horror is simply not supported by the totality of evidence.
With all due respect, you keep citing first-party content as a response to trends in third-party content, and citing the rare few outliers, most of which came out before the deluge of horror content, as a counter to a current trend.
LokiShade mentioning promises on Kickstarter to be on DDB are proving the point: WotC is providing a massive benefit to these creators by letting them advertise DDB support for their product. It's a definite benefit to their crowdfunding. How many other third-party creators would see the same benefit from an approach from WotC?
Even better: How many worthwhile, passionate creators would see their work and effort reach new audiences if WotC was willing to give their creations the same exposure as they're happy to give third-party publishers who already have an audience for their content? Or is it simply that WotC's only concern is presumed financial gain, rather than fostering a long-term and diverse playerbase?
Given that it's easier to add content when a publisher is already on board, let's look back at the recent new publishers (ignoring ones who are adding more content).
Paizo - They put their most popular Adventure Path on D&D and the D&D conversion was created years ago. It was probably done to help a fellow company stay afloat given that they're being taken to the cleaners by Diamond Distributing stealing all their content. While there are some horror elements to it, it's not a horror setting, and it is literally their most popular path.
Chaosium Inc - Cthulu is a classic game style that it's a big coup that WotC managed to get them on the platform.
Avantris Entertainment - One of the biggest actual play series brought their setting to the D&D platform so that their viewers can play the setting. It's an extremely popular show with a lot of baked in sales.
Roll & Play Press - Not Horror themed, just a bunch of easy pick up and play sheets.
Czpeku - Map makers. Not horror.
Road to Ithaka - A not-horror adventure by a popular actress involved in a lot of actual play. Baked in sales from popularity of the author.
1985 Games - Not horror.
And that's all of 2025.
You're completely ignoring the concept that once a publisher is on board, they're going to want to get their popular titles that are already written, onto the platform. So Kobold Press, Ghostfire Gaming, MCDM etc are going to present multiple titles. So will Hit Point Press with Humblewood, and then maybe they'll put Heckna! on here, or Hexbound, or add the Griffon's Saddlebag Book One.
It proves that no matter what WotC might say, their interest is only in a certain type of third-party creator. Third-party content geared for players who want to be better than everyone else using core content. Third-party content that predominately depicts only certain people getting to be heroes, and others being victimized or dehumanized as per the themes and tropes of these releases and their inspirations. Third-party content that, rather than exploring a variety of ideas and empowering players who want different things out of the game, is only for a table of people just like the people in charge of D&D.
This seems to be a very thinly veiled accusation that WotC is "propping up" third party content that promotes anti-inclusive, oppressive, discriminatory content, which is a bold (verging on conspiratorial) claim. So let's do a breakdown of all the partnered content on DDB by broad theme:
Tal'Dorei Reborn - Setting guide for a very inclusive setting that explicitly includes notes on safety tools, customising character origins to represent diverse backgrounds, and doesn't categories enemies by species, but instead by their allegiances. Features some subclasses that might be triggering, but includes a sidebar on session zeros, trigger warnings, and respecting your players. Genre - Generic fantasy
Grim Hollow
Lairs of Etharis - A collection of monster lairs for various big boss monsters. No player content, not humanoid enemies that represent or resemble certain groups of peoples. Genre - Generic Fantasy
Player Pack - A selection of horror based player options. Thematically biased towards the grim horror of the setting. Genre - Horror (gothic)
Player's Guide - A selection of horror based player options and setting information. Thematically biased towards the grim horror of the setting. Genre - Horror (gothic)
Dungeons of Drakkenheim - A megadungeon exploring a corrupted city where you fight various mutants and monsters. Some potentially ableist subtext in the form of "disability = disfigurement = disgust" but that doesn't read as intentional or overt. The setting does engender certain character archetypes, but those can be subverted. Genre - Horror (Eldritch)
In Search of the Smugglers Secrets - Expansion on the above mega dungeon setting. Same themes. Genre - Horror (Eldritch)
Monsters of Drakkenheim - a monster book, potentially some of the same issues mentioned above, but no player options. Genre - Horror (Eldritch)
Tome of Beasts 1 - Literally just a monster book. Genre - Generic fantasy
Flee Mortals - Another monster book. Genre - Generic fantasy
Where Evil Lives - Boss monster/lair book. See Lairs of Etharis. Genre - Generic fantasy
Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting - A gameplay book of big monsters, their lairs, and mechanics for hunting and harvesting them. 4 subclasses and 5 species, some of which are horror adjacent slightly. Genre - generic fantasy
Obojima - A cost setting based around a fusion of ghibli-esque aesthetic and some modern world touches. Very inclusive thematically and aesthetically. Genre - modern fantasy (cost)
The Malady of Minarrh - An adventure inspired by the authors culture. Genre - generic fantasy
Valda's Spire
Player Pack - a bunch of comical and unserious player options. Genre - modern fantasy (comedy)
The Gunslinger - a gunslinger based class with no specific leanings. Genre - modern fantasy
Ruins of Symbaroum - A pure setting guide for a generic fantasy world, no player options. Genre - generic fantasy
One shot wonders - a bunch of encounters using the SRD. Genre - generic fantasy
Cthulhu by Torchlight - A Lovecraft inspired D&D book. Comes with all the baggage that Lovecrafts work naturally comes with and tbh I'd agree this could be the most problematic out of the bunch. Genre - Horror (eldritch/cosmic)
Pathfinder - Abomination Vaults - Just a megadungeon with some themes of body horror and eldritch horror. Does include content warnings from what I recall. Genre - horror (eldritch)
The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying - Just LotR for D&D. Comes with all the baggage the source material does. It's own system almost. Genre - generic fantasy (classic)
Now obviously I haven't read all these books cover to cover thoroughly, a lot of this is going off the one or two times I've flipped through them so feel free to amend my assessment with whatever you feel "depicts only certain people getting to be heroes" or shows others "victimized or dehumanized as per the themes and tropes of these releases and their inspirations". The only things I can see meeting that criteria is maybe the ones I called out; CBT and LotR RP.
But as for "Third-party content that, rather than exploring a variety of ideas and empowering players who want different things out of the game, is only for a table of people just like the people in charge of D&D." I'm not seeing it. It's all pretty much standard generic fantasy with a little bit of horror thrown in.
It might be more constructive to discussion that you be explicit about your complaints rather than gesturing vaguely in some direction of "this is bad"
Edit: Heliana's does contain player options, as pointed out by LokiSkade so I've updated that
Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting - A gameplay book of big monsters, their lairs, and mechanics for hunting and harvesting them. No player options. Genre - generic fantasy
Just a correction : For Heliana, there is player options. The Beyond version adds 4 subclasses (some being a bit horror themed) and 5 species. And there's more of those options in the actual Book/PDF.
Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting - A gameplay book of big monsters, their lairs, and mechanics for hunting and harvesting them. No player options. Genre - generic fantasy
Just a correction : For Heliana, there is player options. The Beyond version adds 4 subclasses (some being a bit horror themed) and 5 species. And there's more of those options in the actual Book/PDF.
Thanks, I've edited my post (and will continue to do so if anyone else points out any errors)
It proves that no matter what WotC might say, their interest is only in a certain type of third-party creator. Third-party content geared for players who want to be better than everyone else using core content. Third-party content that predominately depicts only certain people getting to be heroes, and others being victimized or dehumanized as per the themes and tropes of these releases and their inspirations. Third-party content that, rather than exploring a variety of ideas and empowering players who want different things out of the game, is only for a table of people just like the people in charge of D&D.
This seems to be a very thinly veiled accusation that WotC is "propping up" third party content that promotes anti-inclusive, oppressive, discriminatory content, which is a bold (verging on conspiratorial) claim.
As some one who has been running both Drakkenheim and Grim Hollow campaigns for over a year each using their pre-written adventures can I also point out that noticeably both of them are very inclusive of different races and the LGBTQA+ community in their NPC design (often much more so than first party campaigns) so much so that my players have commented on it. It's far from depicting a world where "only certain people can be heroes". I can't speak for the others as I've neither played in or run any of them but it's worth remembering not to judge something based on the stereotypes you think apply to it
It proves that no matter what WotC might say, their interest is only in a certain type of third-party creator. Third-party content geared for players who want to be better than everyone else using core content. Third-party content that predominately depicts only certain people getting to be heroes, and others being victimized or dehumanized as per the themes and tropes of these releases and their inspirations. Third-party content that, rather than exploring a variety of ideas and empowering players who want different things out of the game, is only for a table of people just like the people in charge of D&D.
This seems to be a very thinly veiled accusation that WotC is "propping up" third party content that promotes anti-inclusive, oppressive, discriminatory content, which is a bold (verging on conspiratorial) claim.
As some one who has been running both Drakkenheim and Grim Hollow campaigns for over a year each using their pre-written adventures can I also point out that noticeably both of them are very inclusive of different races and the LGBTQA+ community in their NPC design (often much more so than first party campaigns) so much so that my players have commented on it. It's far from depicting a world where "only certain people can be heroes". I can't speak for the others as I've neither played in or run any of them but it's worth remembering not to judge something based on the stereotypes you think apply to it
That was my first blush response—a load of these third party products are really good are diverse representation. Hence my confusion (well, "confusion") at the OPs comments. Based on their previous posts that seem to express ample disdain for third party products in general, I would maybe assume they're trying to dress up their subjective opinion in the guise of a moral concern. I could very well be wrong about that and there's something I've missed, but that's how it appears without any further elaboration on their part—vague allusions rather than specific critiques do not assuage concerns of disingenuousness
This very much looks like you are fishing for a problem that does not exist, ignoring large swaths of evidence because it is inconvenient to your message. You mention the D&D horror content and ignore the large body that is not - including the most recent releases (new core books, Dragon adventures), and much of the upcoming releases, like FR, Eberron, and large parts of Lorwyn. You focus on the darker elements of CR content, while ignoring the fact it is not any darker than things like Great Old One Warlock or Necromancer Wizard, as well as the fact there’s plenty of completely non-Dark content in the CR books. You mention horror books getting multiple releases, and ignore the fact Humblewood has as well.
If you do not like the content, you do not have to buy it. I know I am not going to buy purely player-facing third party content because of the balance issues. This is a legitimate complaint, and one I have made multiple times (including in my first post on this thread).
However, the point you are hanging your hat on - your perception that D&D’s creators are too obsessed with horror - is disproven by an overwhelming number of different data points. Do they like darker things? Sure - do so many players, and those players deserve content also. But the idea they are exclusively focused on horror is simply not supported by the totality of evidence.
With all due respect, you keep citing first-party content as a response to trends in third-party content, and citing the rare few outliers, most of which came out before the deluge of horror content, as a counter to a current trend.
LokiShade mentioning promises on Kickstarter to be on DDB are proving the point: WotC is providing a massive benefit to these creators by letting them advertise DDB support for their product. It's a definite benefit to their crowdfunding. How many other third-party creators would see the same benefit from an approach from WotC?
Even better: How many worthwhile, passionate creators would see their work and effort reach new audiences if WotC was willing to give their creations the same exposure as they're happy to give third-party publishers who already have an audience for their content? Or is it simply that WotC's only concern is presumed financial gain, rather than fostering a long-term and diverse playerbase?
These are all points that have been responded to already, and the fact you are ignoring existing comments to double down on a pretty groundless theory makes me suspect of the utility in further discussion. Plenty of folks have given you plenty of reasons why you do not need to be angry, scared, or whatever other emotion is driving your concern about the game’s future - at this point, maintaining that emotion seems to be a willful choice, based in a very, very self-limited view of fact. I implore you to try and reread the posts here with an open mind, since you might find that there is plenty of good reason to not be upset.
To respond to each of your points in turn:
1. Your fundamental allegation is that the D&D designers only support the type of game they want to play, which you allege is horror. You also allege that the designers do not respect cultural viewpoints other than their own. First party content disproves this because it shows what the game’s developers produce when they get the choice to design content. Furthermore, they clearly respect other viewpoints - one of the current head designers was acclaimed for this when he spearheaded Radiant Citadel, and they have talked about how they are bringing in individuals from other cultures to assist with the non-European portions of the upcoming Forgotten Realms book.
Looking at their actions, “the people in charge of D&D” (to use your phrase and the target of your ire) very, very clearly love and support non-horror games. Their own actions with first party content disprove the entire narrative you are trying to spin about their interests.
2. Two things can exist at the same time. Big producers can be supported and use that support to further build their brand; D&D can platform smaller producers. I am not sure what point you were trying to make here, but “Wizards will work with people they already had good experiences working with” is not exactly a weird situation or indicative of anything sinister.
3. You already had a WotC staff member respond to this point. You ignored them, despite the fact they are in the best position to respond. To repeat what they have said and build on it (with information others have already stated, so, once again, something you should have known before you raised this argument again), it has been a month since that comment and a month is not enough time to show anything happening.
Wizards has a lot to do to add third party content. They have to identify what content to add - something that is harder to do with smaller developers, since there are a lot more of them and the content must all be vetted (including content beyond what is to be added - don’t want to add one thing, only to find out that content creator did something bad also). Licensing deals must be drafted, negotiated, and reached - all of which takes a lot of time. The content must be programmed and ported into Beyond. All of that takes time, and can be occurring simultaneously with the relatively easy process of working with more sophisticated (in terms of business infrastructure, understanding of licensing deals), known, and established contacts.
Your complaint is premature. If you want to raise it when ripe, revisit the matter in a year - a month is an objectively unrealistic expectation.
So, once again, I think you are ignoring the evidence that overwhelmingly show’s your fears on content are groundless. I would highly recommend you take the time to reread all the comments here giving some cause for optimism and adapting a “wait and see” stance, as that is the only sensible position to take when looking at the totality of evidence.
OP, It should also be considered, that there may be Third Party Publishers that just won't deal with WoTC. Some of the the wonderful variety that you so crave could have been approached and rebuffed said approach. Next time you want to complain that your preferred content hasn't come to beyond, you should consider if the creator would have even said yes to the prospect.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
Seems to me like the logic could actually work in the opposite direction, as far as what WotC wants to make. They’d rather be making more things like strixhaven and witchlight. So they let the 3rd party folks make the horror stuff, and throw those fans a bone by hosting it here without any intention of doing much with the genre internally.
It proves that no matter what WotC might say, their interest is only in a certain type of third-party creator. Third-party content geared for players who want to be better than everyone else using core content. Third-party content that predominately depicts only certain people getting to be heroes, and others being victimized or dehumanized as per the themes and tropes of these releases and their inspirations. Third-party content that, rather than exploring a variety of ideas and empowering players who want different things out of the game, is only for a table of people just like the people in charge of D&D.
This seems to be a very thinly veiled accusation that WotC is "propping up" third party content that promotes anti-inclusive, oppressive, discriminatory content, which is a bold (verging on conspiratorial) claim. So let's do a breakdown of all the partnered content on DDB by broad theme:
(I removed the extremely long list of partnered content in Davyd's quote to save space, but holy heck was it long)
Not for nothing, but seeing it all listed like that makes me realize how much we've added. Wow.
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It proves that no matter what WotC might say, their interest is only in a certain type of third-party creator. Third-party content geared for players who want to be better than everyone else using core content. Third-party content that predominately depicts only certain people getting to be heroes, and others being victimized or dehumanized as per the themes and tropes of these releases and their inspirations. Third-party content that, rather than exploring a variety of ideas and empowering players who want different things out of the game, is only for a table of people just like the people in charge of D&D.
This seems to be a very thinly veiled accusation that WotC is "propping up" third party content that promotes anti-inclusive, oppressive, discriminatory content, which is a bold (verging on conspiratorial) claim. So let's do a breakdown of all the partnered content on DDB by broad theme:
(I removed the extremely long list of partnered content in Davyd's quote to save space, but holy heck was it long)
Not for nothing, but seeing it all listed like that makes me realize how much we've added. Wow.
I know, right? Seems like only yesterday the first third party book was announced. Tal'Dorei wasn't it? Two years ago. And now there's this massive library of pretty diverse offerings.
So a month ago, the new head of D&D had this to say:
Since then, WotC has only given the spotlight to the same type of creators, making the same type of content. It's content that's not only wholly incompatible with players running a non-horror game, but incompatible with players who want balanced content—these books are filled with overpowered and blatantly game-breaking classes, subclasses, spells, and the like. Books made predominantly by a certain type of person, depicting primarily people like themselves in their covers and art.
It proves that no matter what WotC might say, their interest is only in a certain type of third-party creator. Third-party content geared for players who want to be better than everyone else using core content. Third-party content that predominately depicts only certain people getting to be heroes, and others being victimized or dehumanized as per the themes and tropes of these releases and their inspirations. Third-party content that, rather than exploring a variety of ideas and empowering players who want different things out of the game, is only for a table of people just like the people in charge of D&D.
While I am not overly fond of the quality of third party content, and I recognize there has been a string of horror content recently, your post seems to be ascribing motivations that reality does not really bear out.
For starters, D&D’s official content is hardly universally horror themed. Sure, there’s some horror books, and some books with horror elements, but there are also plenty of lighter official content. Radiant Citadel, a product helmed by one of the two current design leads at D&D, has plenty of lighthearted, cute little adventures, and is explicitly designed to showcase other cultures. The idea that D&D creators are all horror fans who only want of see a certain type of hero clearly has no basis in reality - when they are creating books, they do very, very different things.
Second, there is a pretty easy, much more obvious explanation for the third party horror content - this is all content that sells well on Kickstarter and other platforms and fills a niche that D&D’s official content really does not delve into. It is far more likely that Wizards - who, again, clearly employs designers who enjoy making non-horror content - are trying to capitalize on a current popular trend that also does not really compete in the same niche with their first party content.
Finally, let us actually look at the third party content released. Sure, there’s Drakenheim, Cthulhu, and Grim Hollow on the horror side of things… there’s also Humblewood, Tales of Obojima, Critical Role’s Exandria (which is typical D&D fantasy), Lord of the Rings, and plenty of setting neutral books with collections of monsters, items, etc. The idea that they only “spotlight the same type of creators” is factually incorrect.
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D&D StaffThere are a few other things to consider here, and I don't speak for Dan or for anyone else on the team when I say this, but this does highlight the fact that the general community member has no idea what goes on behind the scenes. (Author note: is that partially our responsibility? Absolutely; we could be more transparent than we are, but that's not my call to make.)
Firstly, release schedules are often set out months, even years, in advance. The products that will be coming out for the rest of 2025 were in place before Dan put on his new hat, and that schedule doesn't change just because there's a new person in charge.
Secondly, multiple things can be true: Dan can have said what he said and meant it, but related to the first point, we can still put out content from established third-party creators to see if forward movement is viable and we have both the community interest and internal ability to support smaller creators. We're very aware of the other creators that you want to see represented here, but it's not as simple as seeing them and going "YES", and I know y'all know that.
Thirdly, and I'm injecting a bit of personal opinion here: it hasn't even been a month since he said those things, and two of those weeks were spent at a multi-day convention and on a company break respectively. And as one of the people on the teams actively trying to put those initiatives in place, two weeks is literally no time at all when you're juggling multiple things in addition to that.
All that said, what I'm not saying here is to stop bringing it up. When y'all continue to bring this stuff up, it shows folks like Dan that you really do want to see the things he talked about, and you're not gonna forget what he said. It lets me go to them and be like "hey, they're still asking about XYZ; where's our movement on that? Can we give them any updates?" So thank you for holding us to it.
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D&D has plenty of horror content. Van Richtofen, Curse of Strahd, for example. They've also teased two releases with such content via the Horror and Apocalyptic UAs.
Popularity on Kickstarter is not the only metric that matters. All that's saying is that only material popular with people who have the disposable income to gamble on crowdfunded books should be released on DDB.
And as for that third party content... Critical Role leans into it with blood-themed subclasses and the Blood Hunter. There's Grim Hollow, Drakkenheim, Ebon Tides, Illrigger, Heliana's, Symbaroum, Crooked Moon, Cthulhu by Torchlight...all horror-themed content, and much of which is horribly (pun intended) balanced in comparison to core content. Humblewood and Obojima aren't perfect in that regard but are a far better effort at making balanced content.
There's also the fact that you get repeated releases from these third-party groups, rather than a variety of content. Grim Hollow? There's three books already. Three Drakkenheim books. MCDM has tons of their stuff on DDB. We just had FORTY subclasses and a whole new class get dumped by one single third-party publisher. Other third-party creators are lucky to get a second release on DDB, let alone one.
It's baffling from a business perspective as well, because I cannot believe repeatedly releasing content geared around a specific genre is a good business model at all.
This very much looks like you are fishing for a problem that does not exist, ignoring large swaths of evidence because it is inconvenient to your message. You mention the D&D horror content and ignore the large body that is not - including the most recent releases (new core books, Dragon adventures), and much of the upcoming releases, like FR, Eberron, and large parts of Lorwyn. You focus on the darker elements of CR content, while ignoring the fact it is not any darker than things like Great Old One Warlock or Necromancer Wizard, as well as the fact there’s plenty of completely non-Dark content in the CR books. You mention horror books getting multiple releases, and ignore the fact Humblewood has as well.
If you do not like the content, you do not have to buy it. I know I am not going to buy purely player-facing third party content because of the balance issues. This is a legitimate complaint, and one I have made multiple times (including in my first post on this thread).
However, the point you are hanging your hat on - your perception that D&D’s creators are too obsessed with horror - is disproven by an overwhelming number of different data points. Do they like darker things? Sure - do so many players, and those players deserve content also. But the idea they are exclusively focused on horror is simply not supported by the totality of evidence.
While sure, you want a more general measure of popularity than just kickstarter, most of the things that got moved to D&D Beyond are long past their kickstarter phase (and thus presumably have proven their ongoing value). While most of the 3PP stuff on D&D Beyond doesn't interest me, I wouldn't be surprised if the type of person who funds kickstarters isn't all that different from the kind of person who picks up random 3PP stuff.
There are several reasons for getting more products from the same source, rather than new sources:
I expect a spotlight program would actually be entirely different from the existing D&D Beyond collabs (probably more in common with DM's Guild).
To me it's just that the most popular stuff get put on Beyond first. That is all.
Sure it's "horror", but that's more of a coincidence than anything. Grim is mostly just dark fantasy, Crooked is Folk Tales, and Cthulhu is Cthulhu, it's still different flavors. And there's still other 3rd party stuff that aren't horror on here.
As for balance, official content isn't that balanced to begin with, then it's up to the DM to determine what they allow or not. A player buying a supplement to play an OP subclass doesn't mean they'll get to play that OP subclass at the table. And then, is it truly that important ? Just tailor the fights to the subclasses of your players.
I'm definitely in the "Not another horror setting" camp, but at the same time, this is also what seems to be popular.
WotC has to go through a lot of contract negotiations for these sorts of things, so once a creator is 'onboarded' it's a lot easier to add new products. Mage Hand Press and MCDM are examples of non-horror publishers who have done multiple releases. Humblewood by Hit Point Press and Obojima by 1985 Games are more examples. Ghostfire Gaming and Avantris are examples of repeat providers for horror content... because that's their setting.
The more established publishers that WotC can onboard, the wider the various offerings.
All that's proved in this post, is that you're choosing a certain point of view based on your own experiences that has no evidence in reality, to demonize someone else's motives.
With all due respect, you keep citing first-party content as a response to trends in third-party content, and citing the rare few outliers, most of which came out before the deluge of horror content, as a counter to a current trend.
LokiShade mentioning promises on Kickstarter to be on DDB are proving the point: WotC is providing a massive benefit to these creators by letting them advertise DDB support for their product. It's a definite benefit to their crowdfunding. How many other third-party creators would see the same benefit from an approach from WotC?
Even better: How many worthwhile, passionate creators would see their work and effort reach new audiences if WotC was willing to give their creations the same exposure as they're happy to give third-party publishers who already have an audience for their content? Or is it simply that WotC's only concern is presumed financial gain, rather than fostering a long-term and diverse playerbase?
Given that it's easier to add content when a publisher is already on board, let's look back at the recent new publishers (ignoring ones who are adding more content).
Paizo - They put their most popular Adventure Path on D&D and the D&D conversion was created years ago. It was probably done to help a fellow company stay afloat given that they're being taken to the cleaners by Diamond Distributing stealing all their content. While there are some horror elements to it, it's not a horror setting, and it is literally their most popular path.
Chaosium Inc - Cthulu is a classic game style that it's a big coup that WotC managed to get them on the platform.
Avantris Entertainment - One of the biggest actual play series brought their setting to the D&D platform so that their viewers can play the setting. It's an extremely popular show with a lot of baked in sales.
Roll & Play Press - Not Horror themed, just a bunch of easy pick up and play sheets.
Czpeku - Map makers. Not horror.
Road to Ithaka - A not-horror adventure by a popular actress involved in a lot of actual play. Baked in sales from popularity of the author.
1985 Games - Not horror.
And that's all of 2025.
You're completely ignoring the concept that once a publisher is on board, they're going to want to get their popular titles that are already written, onto the platform. So Kobold Press, Ghostfire Gaming, MCDM etc are going to present multiple titles. So will Hit Point Press with Humblewood, and then maybe they'll put Heckna! on here, or Hexbound, or add the Griffon's Saddlebag Book One.
This seems to be a very thinly veiled accusation that WotC is "propping up" third party content that promotes anti-inclusive, oppressive, discriminatory content, which is a bold (verging on conspiratorial) claim. So let's do a breakdown of all the partnered content on DDB by broad theme:
Now obviously I haven't read all these books cover to cover thoroughly, a lot of this is going off the one or two times I've flipped through them so feel free to amend my assessment with whatever you feel "depicts only certain people getting to be heroes" or shows others "victimized or dehumanized as per the themes and tropes of these releases and their inspirations". The only things I can see meeting that criteria is maybe the ones I called out; CBT and LotR RP.
But as for "Third-party content that, rather than exploring a variety of ideas and empowering players who want different things out of the game, is only for a table of people just like the people in charge of D&D." I'm not seeing it. It's all pretty much standard generic fantasy with a little bit of horror thrown in.
It might be more constructive to discussion that you be explicit about your complaints rather than gesturing vaguely in some direction of "this is bad"
Edit: Heliana's does contain player options, as pointed out by LokiSkade so I've updated that
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Just a correction : For Heliana, there is player options. The Beyond version adds 4 subclasses (some being a bit horror themed) and 5 species. And there's more of those options in the actual Book/PDF.
Thanks, I've edited my post (and will continue to do so if anyone else points out any errors)
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
As some one who has been running both Drakkenheim and Grim Hollow campaigns for over a year each using their pre-written adventures can I also point out that noticeably both of them are very inclusive of different races and the LGBTQA+ community in their NPC design (often much more so than first party campaigns) so much so that my players have commented on it. It's far from depicting a world where "only certain people can be heroes". I can't speak for the others as I've neither played in or run any of them but it's worth remembering not to judge something based on the stereotypes you think apply to it
That was my first blush response—a load of these third party products are really good are diverse representation. Hence my confusion (well, "confusion") at the OPs comments. Based on their previous posts that seem to express ample disdain for third party products in general, I would maybe assume they're trying to dress up their subjective opinion in the guise of a moral concern. I could very well be wrong about that and there's something I've missed, but that's how it appears without any further elaboration on their part—vague allusions rather than specific critiques do not assuage concerns of disingenuousness
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
These are all points that have been responded to already, and the fact you are ignoring existing comments to double down on a pretty groundless theory makes me suspect of the utility in further discussion. Plenty of folks have given you plenty of reasons why you do not need to be angry, scared, or whatever other emotion is driving your concern about the game’s future - at this point, maintaining that emotion seems to be a willful choice, based in a very, very self-limited view of fact. I implore you to try and reread the posts here with an open mind, since you might find that there is plenty of good reason to not be upset.
To respond to each of your points in turn:
1. Your fundamental allegation is that the D&D designers only support the type of game they want to play, which you allege is horror. You also allege that the designers do not respect cultural viewpoints other than their own. First party content disproves this because it shows what the game’s developers produce when they get the choice to design content. Furthermore, they clearly respect other viewpoints - one of the current head designers was acclaimed for this when he spearheaded Radiant Citadel, and they have talked about how they are bringing in individuals from other cultures to assist with the non-European portions of the upcoming Forgotten Realms book.
Looking at their actions, “the people in charge of D&D” (to use your phrase and the target of your ire) very, very clearly love and support non-horror games. Their own actions with first party content disprove the entire narrative you are trying to spin about their interests.
2. Two things can exist at the same time. Big producers can be supported and use that support to further build their brand; D&D can platform smaller producers. I am not sure what point you were trying to make here, but “Wizards will work with people they already had good experiences working with” is not exactly a weird situation or indicative of anything sinister.
3. You already had a WotC staff member respond to this point. You ignored them, despite the fact they are in the best position to respond. To repeat what they have said and build on it (with information others have already stated, so, once again, something you should have known before you raised this argument again), it has been a month since that comment and a month is not enough time to show anything happening.
Wizards has a lot to do to add third party content. They have to identify what content to add - something that is harder to do with smaller developers, since there are a lot more of them and the content must all be vetted (including content beyond what is to be added - don’t want to add one thing, only to find out that content creator did something bad also). Licensing deals must be drafted, negotiated, and reached - all of which takes a lot of time. The content must be programmed and ported into Beyond. All of that takes time, and can be occurring simultaneously with the relatively easy process of working with more sophisticated (in terms of business infrastructure, understanding of licensing deals), known, and established contacts.
Your complaint is premature. If you want to raise it when ripe, revisit the matter in a year - a month is an objectively unrealistic expectation.
So, once again, I think you are ignoring the evidence that overwhelmingly show’s your fears on content are groundless. I would highly recommend you take the time to reread all the comments here giving some cause for optimism and adapting a “wait and see” stance, as that is the only sensible position to take when looking at the totality of evidence.
OP, It should also be considered, that there may be Third Party Publishers that just won't deal with WoTC. Some of the the wonderful variety that you so crave could have been approached and rebuffed said approach. Next time you want to complain that your preferred content hasn't come to beyond, you should consider if the creator would have even said yes to the prospect.
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Seems to me like the logic could actually work in the opposite direction, as far as what WotC wants to make. They’d rather be making more things like strixhaven and witchlight. So they let the 3rd party folks make the horror stuff, and throw those fans a bone by hosting it here without any intention of doing much with the genre internally.
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D&D StaffNot for nothing, but seeing it all listed like that makes me realize how much we've added. Wow.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her)
You can call me LT. :)
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Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5].
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I know, right? Seems like only yesterday the first third party book was announced. Tal'Dorei wasn't it? Two years ago. And now there's this massive library of pretty diverse offerings.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here