On Friday at GenCon, we attended the 4e Extravaganza, which was where the new setting was announced (which I’m sure everyone has heard by now is Dark Sun).
However, there were a number of other products showcased, some new, some already known, and a few big surprises. I used Twitter to report the announcements as they came, but I thought I’d post the pictures that Bartoneus took alongside the updates (cleaned up for readability).
I will add the caveat that we didn’t cover everything, especially the announcements about the novels at the beginning. There were video cameras set up at the back, so if you want to see the presentation in full, you probably will be able to later. Here’s the easily skimmable version for the stuff I found most interesting.
Dungeon Master’s Guide 2
This was the year of the “2” series. DMG2 has chapters on adding story to the game, more about skill challenges, the paragon tier, and a writeup of the city of Sigil, as well as an adventure. (We’ll have more on DMG2 when we post our interview with James Wyatt).
Dungeon Magazine Annual
Didn’t really hear much about the Dungeon Annual, but presumably it will be similar to the Dragon Annual (review coming soon). Bill did talk about D&D Insider, and how it will debut additional content, including more races in addition to the Revenant.
Revenge of the Giants
Revenge of the Giants is the mega-adventure coming soon, which is “inspired by” the classic Against the Giants, but not a remake.
Dungeon Tiles
Sinister Woods dungeon tiles is released in October, which supplements the previous forest-themed set. Harrowing Halls releases in March, and will contain 3D elements. For instance, Bill specifically talked about a set of stairs you can build and put your minis on.
Dungeon Tiles Master Set
The Master Set will contain tiles reprinted from previous sets and form a core set of dungeon tiles. The set will stay in print unlike other DT sets, and will be the “go-to” set for published adventures.
Primal Power
Coming in October.
Draconomicon 2: Metallic Dragons
Coming in November. There was some talk about metallic dragons in roles as both antagonists and helpers.
Martial Power 2
Coming in February. While not explicitly mentioned, it does open the door to regular “____ Power” updates.
Prince of Undeath
The culmination of the first adventure path, leading up to a confrontation against Orcus. The statblock used in the adventure will not be the same as what appeared in the MM.
The Plane Below and Underdark
Plane Below (Dec) is secrets of the Elemental Chaos, Underdark (Jan) is fairly self-explanatory, and Plane Above (April, not pictured) is about the Astral Sea. All of them will divide them up into regions and contain sample encounters, focusing on a “DM Toolbox” approach. Later in the Q&A, they mentioned that just because a book about a specific plane wasn’t on the schedule didn’t mean it wasn’t coming.
Three Dragon Ante: Emperor’s Gambit
Releases in February, and serve as a standalone game in addition to an expansion for the original.
Heroscape: D&D
The popular board/minis game Heroscape receives a D&D expansion that also serves as a master set to play by itself. This is interesting both for the Heroscape brand (also owned by Hasbro, of course), especially because there were plenty of fan conversions of D&D minis already for use in the game.
They had samples of the game in the booth behind glass: it looks as though they took the existing sculpts of D&D minis and attached Heroscape bases to them.
By the way, this does now mean that you can have D&D characters fight the Incredible Hulk.
Player’s Handbook Races
One for Dragonborn in January, the other for Tieflings in June (the two new races, you’ll note). Each one is 32 pages, softcover, for $10. They’ll draw on and expand from Dragon articles on those races but they’re not just reprints.
Player’s Handbook 3
PHB3 will premiere next March, and will also have a game day to coincide. Roughly 1/3-1/2 of the content will be debuted to D&D Insider subscribers beforehand.
Monster Manual 3
Monster Manual 3 will feature Lolth, it seems. (Guess they couldn’t save her for Monster Manual 8).
Dungeon Master’s Guide 3
Not the actual cover. Will discuss epic-level play.
Hammerfast and Vor Rukoth
Both are location books, 32 pages, and will contain a poster map each, and filled with quests for PCs. Hammerfast is a Dwarven city, and Vor Rukoth is the ruins of a Tiefling city left from Bael Turath.
Player’s Strategy Guide
With cover by Gabe of Penny Arcade. A book of advice for players. Almost sounded like a guide to min-maxing.
Demonomicon
A book of demons, of similar form to Open Grave.
Tomb of Horrors
A mega-adventure. Ari Marmell clarifies that the 10th to 22nd level listed on it doesn’t mean an adventure that spans all those levels in the traditional sense, but instead has a storyline that uses the Tomb in and out throughout those levels.
Castle Ravenloft Board Game
A stand-alone cooperative board game based on the classic module. 1-5 players, “filled with dice and plastic.”
Dark Sun Campaign Guide
Bill said, based on who now works at WotC, that Dark Sun was “obvious.” (The announcement elicited a cheer from the room). Heavy preview roll-out begins immediately. They did not answer the question of whether it would follow the same setting model of only using three books. Brom is very busy but wants to contribute to Dark Sun. The timeline goes back to the original boxed set. They’re going to try and have some dungeon tile support for it. “We are going to try very hard not to shoehorn 4e conceits into Dark Sun” said Bill, to which Andy added that they’re going to examine how things have evolved on other D&D worlds, then seeing how that same thing would evolve on Dark Sun.
Complete Schedule
Q&A
Not covered already:
- They’re working on bringing PDFs back, but no announcements yet.
- Minis sets will alternate Large/Huge during the year.
- The online game table has been pushed back, and they’re planning on releasing some unannounced tools first.
- All of the books focusing on other planes won’t just solely focus on the Paragon tier and will have opportunities for Heroic and Epic play as well.
- D&D video game announcement from Atari coming within a year, but nothing yet.
- There was a lot of discussion about making adventures for children and contributing to DDI.
And that was that. Start working on your Dark Sun theories now.
Awesome, I’m very glad the pictures turned out because my hands were a bit shakey and ruined a few of them. Also the batteries died and I had to change them when Plane Above was up, so I’m working on getting a picture of that. 🙂
You know, I’ve always been able to avoid the supplements, only owning the three core books (the fact that I barely ever get to game help with that but still).
But now, starting with DMG2, seeing them all lined up like that……… I really, really want a lot of those.
Particularly, though – DMG2, the two location books, the Tiles Master set (and I’ve NEVER been interested in tiles), and the DMG3.
.-= Aaron´s last blog ..Battle of the Pre Apps: Tweed and Twee =-.
Awesome more books to “waste” my cash on. 🙂
I was kinda hoping for another Forgotten Realms supplement as the campaign guide was a little short in my opinion.
Looks like I got into 4th ed at a good point in the products life cycle, but I’m already dreading converting to 5th ed in 2012. 🙁
.-= Triptych´s last blog ..Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition =-.
I wonder what happened to the HS1 adventure “Reavers of Harkenwold”.
Does anybody know if it´s still coming or has it been canceled?
HS1 is in the WotC Spring Catalogue, so it’s not canceled. HS2 is titled “Raiders of the Stonemarch”.
http://www.ps-games.nl/images/downloads/Wotc%20Catalogus%202010%20Spring.pdf
Btw, the Hammerfast cover looks like a placeholder.
@Triptych: There are still 3 power sources to go (that we know of) at a rate of one per year, so we’ll have 4E until 2012 at the very least. 🙂
Even though I don’t play 4e, a handful of times does not count as playing in my book, I’ll still be getting my grubby mits on the Dark Sun when it comes out to see what they’ve done to it.
.-= Bob´s last blog ..Building The Walls =-.
I like spending my hard earned cash on my hobbies, but I don’t like spending a lot of my hard earned cash on my hobbies. I love all the choices though. DMG2, PHB3, the Tiles Master set are the must haves from that. I’m happy getting access to the Powers books through DDI and the Compendium. The location books are interesting and not too expensive, so I’ll probably grab those as well. Thanks for the detailed presentation, guys.
Dang it! I can feel my wallet emptying as I read this.
Thanks for the report.
I’m strangely excited at the upcoming Dark Sun content, though I probably won’t be playing in that setting. It seems logical to make Dragon-Kings and Avangions epic destinies, but I want to see how they’re gonna treat Templars and arcane magic.
.-= Cedric´s last blog ..Evil is Ugly =-.
*sigh* Why didn’t they do ALL of this with 3rd Edition? Why didn’t they put all this work and resource into the best edition D&D has ever made? No, they waste it on this crap 4E.
Instead they brainwash these morons into playing 4E and then convince them to mind-numbingly purchase “expansion sets” year after year. I can’t wait till 5E is announced and all the 4E people start to throw a fit, and maybe cut themselves for being so stupid to fall for WotC’s lies once again.
One reason I can’t go to GenCon—I’d knock out the first WotC employee that was a major contribution to 4E that I bump into.
I wondered where you’d ended up after abandoning Paizo, Razz. It’s good to see you haven’t changed. 😛
it’ll be awesome to see dark sun for 4e. it was one of my favorite settings in 2e, and i often drew from it for my 3e campaigns.
not so excited about the soft-cover race splats, but we’ll see.
i’ll end up buying them anyway, just to fill the collection.
Right Razz, I was brainwashed into liking 4E. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that after my interest in D&D diminished greatly during the 3E and 3.5 era, I found the game increasingly more frustrating and broken, fewer of my friends were playing D&D anymore for similar reasons as myself. It certainly has nothing to do with the fact that I have found 4E to be the most fun version of D&D I’ve ever played, and the first version that actually inspires me to DM.
You are entitled to your opinion and preferences, but when you claim people are brainwashed into liking something that you don’t like, you aren’t being objective or open-minded at all. It makes you sound like an anti-fanboy.
Razz has regularly threatened violence against people because they worked on a game he doesn’t like, and certainly doesn’t listen to any kind of reason. I’ve tolerated it in the past, but any further threatening comments will be deleted, and depending on how extreme they are, sent to the authorities.
Sounds like Razz is the one who is brain washed. (Mind Flayer perhaps?)
Ranting about D&D editions to me is a bad as ranting about what console is the best or what band/music is better.
Everyone has an opinion and we all don’t like the same thing, I never quiet get why people have to go out of their way to try and discredit something another person likes because they don’t like it them self.
Also @The Game. Do you check for comments on older posts much? I made a comment on a post from last year and would love a response when you get a chance. 🙂
.-= Triptych´s last blog ..Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition =-.
Let see,
Dark Sun
New Races: Muls and Thri-Kreen
New Classes: Templar
Feats: Empower spells by flipping off the EPA.
Epic Destinies: Dragons and Avangions
These are my guesses anyhow. I can’t wait. Now if they only release Spelljammer and Birthright I’d be thrilled.
Thanks for sharing. Great pics and some really awesome info.
Like some of you, I was ready to find another game as the group I was playing in was very frustrated with 3.5. At first I was really pissed off as I had just spent money on two 3.5 books for bdays. But once I started looking into I became very excited and thus far(other than the VTT) I have not been disappointed.
Thank you for all the pics 🙂
I love most of the covers (even the missing one, but it’s on the spring catalogue: Plane Above)
already ordered most of them
.-= Fabio Milito Pagliara´s last blog ..MASSARENTI Armando; Il lancio del nano =-.
Am VERY curious as to what was said about contributing to D&Di. I’m assuming they talked about submissions a bit.
It seems like they are moving away from just crunch books for players and into more guides and fluff. Possibly because the crunch goes up on the Character Builder anyway, less incentive to buy the books. Doesn’t matter to me though, I enjoy reading through physical books much more.
.-= Nicholas´s last blog ..The 10 Freakiest Facts You Never Knew about Gelatinous Cubes =-.
Had seen bits and pieces of this during GenCon coverage, thanks for this great expansion/summary of the information.
.-= pjstoneson´s last blog ..Virtual GenCon Pt 3 =-.
I see in the complete years schedule that Players Handbook Heroes series 2 minis are being released in Sept of 2009. I thought that series 2 was already released back in July? Am I missing something? Or is this a Wotc typo?
What the… Is that a Minotaur I see on Player Handbook 3?! Are they seriously letting us play as minotaurs?! Man I can’t wait for that book!
@Grandore –
Yes it is. But there have been minotaur player stats since launch (Monster Manual), and there was an article on playing minotaurs (with updated stats) on Dragon not too long ago.
.-= Graham´s last blog ..Damn you, Dave! You and your… logic… =-.