GenCon Key Note

So we’ve now got most of the road map or the next year, what did everyone think? Key announcements:

1) Dark Sun in 2027 with setting book and campaign,  along with a Greyhawk campaign 

2) World of Warcraft is our Season of Champions release

3) Lots of stuff being out sourced (think that’s called 2nd party publishing) with the likes of Ghostfire Gaming doing a Ravenloft book and Keith Baker doing an Eberron Campaign

4) Universes Beyond, similar to Magic the Gathering it’s an excuse to to cross over with other franchises with WoW and Star Wars already announced 

Im fairly excited all in all. I’m not sure about Universes Beyond but they did stress this was in addition to their normal schedule not instead of. Would have like announcements of third party releases for DDB but excited for another Eberron campaign 

My roommate had a panic attack at Universes Beyond, he's cooling off now.

But Magus makes us both so VERY happy!

As an MtG fan, i was terrified for a second. Then i heard it was a seperate team. Then I groaned with Star Wars 

i would have been excited for dark sun and Grayhawk but i got planescape and spelljammer. so my expectations are very very low. And as a related aside i have not liked anything i have seen in playtests for psionics i liked 2e and 3e/3.5 psionics and nothing since.  

There's a few more you didn't cover:

1) D&D Icons: Luke Gygax will be working on something for Greyhawk, Hickman and Weis for Dragonlance, and RA Salvatore will be doing something FR-related.

2) Adding to the licensed third party (I have a pet peeve about calling it second-party - you the consumer are the second party!) we have Kobold Press doing something for FR.

3) D&D Beyond itself had several announcements - a planned in-person game finder for select FLGS, a partnership with StartPlaying for online play, and what looks to be a revamped mobile experience designed for cellphones.

4) Theo Solomon aka Wyll Ravengard is joining the cast of Dungeon Masters and they'll be playing through the Warcraft book

5) Maggie Robertson aka Orin the Red will be voicing Tasha in the upcoming Warlock video game. (Presumably she'll be our snarky patron.)

6) You mentioned Dark Sun but just to add, it will be D&D's first Mature-rated release, with the books shrink-wrapped in stores. Presumably this is how they'll distance the less savory themes from their normal brand. (I say first, but technically, Book of Vile Darkness/Exalted Deeds in 3e had a similar situation.)

Overall there's definitely a lot I find interesting, and with Dark Sun having been confirmed we're 99.99% likely to get a Psion class so I'm excited about that!

Frick, it's the Kobold Press Magus

Oh well.

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

There's a few more you didn't cover:

1) D&D Icons: Luke Gygax will be working on something for Greyhawk, Hickman and Weis for Dragonlance, and RA Salvatore will be doing something FR-related.

2) Adding to the licensed third party (I have a pet peeve about calling it second-party - you the consumer are the second party!) we have Kobold Press doing something for FR.

3) D&D Beyond itself had several announcements - a planned in-person game finder for select FLGS, a partnership with StartPlaying for online play, and what looks to be a revamped mobile experience designed for cellphones.

4) Theo Solomon aka Wyll Ravengard is joining the cast of Dungeon Masters and they'll be playing through the Warcraft book

5) Maggie Robertson aka Orin the Red will be voicing Tasha in the upcoming Warlock video game. (Presumably she'll be our snarky patron.)

6) You mentioned Dark Sun but just to add, it will be D&D's first Mature-rated release, with the books shrink-wrapped in stores. Presumably this is how they'll distance the less savory themes from their normal brand. (I say first, but technically, Book of Vile Darkness/Exalted Deeds in 3e had a similar situation.)

Overall there's definitely a lot I find interesting, and with Dark Sun having been confirmed we're 99.99% likely to get a Psion class so I'm excited about that!

 Psions were shown in the animated trailer. Metamorph, Psykinetic and Psi Warper were all visible.

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

There's a few more you didn't cover:

1) D&D Icons: Luke Gygax will be working on something for Greyhawk, Hickman and Weis for Dragonlance, and RA Salvatore will be doing something FR-related.

2) Adding to the licensed third party (I have a pet peeve about calling it second-party - you the consumer are the second party!) we have Kobold Press doing something for FR.

3) D&D Beyond itself had several announcements - a planned in-person game finder for select FLGS, a partnership with StartPlaying for online play, and what looks to be a revamped mobile experience designed for cellphones.

4) Theo Solomon aka Wyll Ravengard is joining the cast of Dungeon Masters and they'll be playing through the Warcraft book

5) Maggie Robertson aka Orin the Red will be voicing Tasha in the upcoming Warlock video game. (Presumably she'll be our snarky patron.)

6) You mentioned Dark Sun but just to add, it will be D&D's first Mature-rated release, with the books shrink-wrapped in stores. Presumably this is how they'll distance the less savory themes from their normal brand. (I say first, but technically, Book of Vile Darkness/Exalted Deeds in 3e had a similar situation.)

Overall there's definitely a lot I find interesting, and with Dark Sun having been confirmed we're 99.99% likely to get a Psion class so I'm excited about that!

 Thanks for adding the ones I missed, I was putting this together in a hurry. However one that I deliberately left off was the Icons, very exciting for people with a history with those creators but I just found that part incredibly light on any details besides the Greyhawk book which they  already previously announce. We’ve no idea whether this is new novels, new campaigns or adventures, or just giving these creators some long over due royalties so they’ll stop saying bad things about WotC 

I have no idea what they'll be writing (or more likely, simply endorsing) either, but I'm willing to let Joe cook, he's earned it. Poor guy has spent nearly his entire life fighting to get us a Dragonlance show 😢

My roommate & I think FINAL FANTASY would be a PERFECT Universe Beyondto "come home" to DND.

I'd love to have a boss fight against Sephiroth or Kefka while on the back of my Chocobo & summoning Bahamut, in DND.

The "Universes Beyond" thing is really disappointing to me, and I hope they reconsider tying D&D to other brands.

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

The "Universes Beyond" thing is really disappointing to me, and I hope they reconsider tying D&D to other brands.

 We're still getting PLENTY of 1st-party stuff.

WoW is already up for pre-order, too.

I'm excited to see what they'll do with dark sun. I'll need to see a bit more of the witch crown book before I can make a decision.

The rest is kinda meh. Like Star Wars? Really?

I'm also irrationally annoyed that the only official Barbarian subclasses are in a God forsaken WoW crossover!!

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

The "Universes Beyond" thing is really disappointing to me, and I hope they reconsider tying D&D to other brands.

 May I ask why? I'd say it's actually a much better fit here than it is in MTG, which is hard-locked to the whole "I am a planeswalker casting spells and summoning armies to duel another planeswalker" framing device. Whereas in D&D you can much more credibly get a Jedi, a Necrolyte, and a Bard rubbing elbows.

Quote from ArodGem >>

I'm also irrationally annoyed that the only official Barbarian subclasses are in a God forsaken WoW crossover!!

 They're working on more 1st-party ones, like that Banshee barb from the villain UA, and updating Ancestral Guardian etc.

Unlike others I’m very excited for the Warcraft product (and it has a lot of interesting things in it imo) and can’t wait to meld whatever comes for Star Wars with the existing fan-made Star Wars 5E mega project that is out there. I couldn’t care less about Rebellion era and beyond “stuff” but the bones for building an Old Republic era campaign will be fantastic for me.

Dark Sun is the thing I have no interest in, but clearly lots of other people feel differently, so happy for them.

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

The "Universes Beyond" thing is really disappointing to me, and I hope they reconsider tying D&D to other brands.

 May I ask why? I'd say it's actually a much better fit here than it is in MTG, which is hard-locked to the whole "I am a planeswalker casting spells and summoning armies to duel another planeswalker" framing device. Whereas in D&D you can much more credibly get a Jedi, a Necrolyte, and a Bard rubbing elbows.

I don't know anything about MTG, so I can't really speak to that. I just have zero interest in combining D&D with other unrelated franchises (especially ones like Star Wars that already have great TTRPGs associated with them) and I would rather WotC spend their time and money giving us stuff that's more in line with traditional D&D.

If you knew more about MTG you might see why they're doing this, but fair enough. It doesn't look like this will be negatively impacting the first-party slate in any event.

One thing worth noting - “Universes Beyond” has been part of D&D for three years longer than the Forgotten Realms have.  And D&D + Blizzard happened before 3e was released. While I have seen some folks a bit concerned, the fact that (a) each table controls its own content so can exclude things it does not like, (b) Wizards confirmed they increased staff so it won’t be messing with regular releases, and (c) the fact that we’ve survived this before all should alleviate any real fears.

Overall, everything here looks great.  Really excited about all the folks they’re working with, glad to see they seem committed to delivering Dark Sun in its full form for those who want it, and just overall happy the new development team seems much more prone to taking risks than the old, which I felt was a bit risk adverse.  Really looking forward to seeing what is in store next.

If anyone is interested the WoW folks posted a Article on what's in the WoW book.

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24293053/craft-new-adventures-with-dd-world-of-warcraft 

Highlight include

Rules for playing all 13 World of Warcraft subclasses:
6 new subclasses: Oath of the Ebon Blade and Oath of the Holy (Paladin), Demon Hunter (Ranger), Shadow Domain and Discipline Domain (Cleric), and Path of the Elements (Barbarian)
3 updated subclasses: Swashbuckler (Rogue), Path of the Spiritual Guardian (Barbarian), and Warrior of Mystic Brews (Monk)
Over 40 specializations
16 species
11 New: Dracthyr, Draenei, Earthen, Forsaken, Haranir, Mechagnome, Pandaren, Tauren, Troll, Vulpera, and Worgen
5 Revised: Dwarf, Elf, Goblin, Human, Orc
60+ new spells
30+ new magic items, including popular mounts and companion creatures
10+ profession

Also side note here looks like we're getting some Tasha's Cauldron of Everything style Class options:

Each class builds on a foundation from the Player's Handbook, then layers on alterations, new options, and guidance inspired by their World of Warcraft specializations.