Sean Merwin

Yeah, yeah, very true. So thank you to those very keen and insightful questions. Now let's get into our news segment. We just missed D&D Direct last week, so now we can actually talk about it. What was D&D Direct, you asked? Well, it was a video presentation of staff and gamers sharing what they like about D&D. D&D is imagination, endless possibility, finding your tribe.

And so there were really some nice things in that opening. It's very markety, but it spoke to me directly as somebody who says the things they were saying, right? Most of my friends come from playing D&D. And it has meant the world to me, not just as a game, but as a life thing. And so all of that was wonderful.

Yeah. And so what did they say about the Player's Handbook? They said, we have rewritten the Player's Handbook from beginning to end. So if someone asks us what's new, we say, yes. They emphasize that the book starts now by teaching new players. And we're gonna get to that in a little bit later in this show. And then they talked about the art.

A little bit of it has been reused, but for the most part, it is brand new. What did they cover about the DMG?

That is. Then we get to the monster manual where all they really, you know, they give sort of brief hints. I don't even think the monster manual is done yet. So but Jeremy does his superlative thing. This is the most monster packed ever. And they show a lot of art and they talk to the artists, I think, more than the designers, you know, talking about we love dragons. And, you know, it's sort of a.

An updated art style, let's say. A little more fantastical, which, as we've talked about with tone, is moving a little bit more in the direction of the tone that we've talked about for the Monster Manual on the Dungeon Master's Guide.

They talked about translations, and that's something that you've been a big advocate of, Teos. So what's the news there?

We saw a lot of Jess Lanzillo in this. We've already talked about her background with Magic, and she mentioned her two loves being Magic and D&D and how she gets to bring them together. So she did mention about the importance of game stores and getting the books to them early.

She hints at a new store play program discussing the importance of community and how it can stimulate events at game stores, which then leads players to learn the game, become part of the community, more likely to then buy the books and run at home, et cetera, et cetera. She talks about the Lego minifigs. We saw the dungeon dudes. I was happy to see them discussing.

Yep, yep. So Monty and Kelly got to talk about their love of D&D and what it has meant to them to be able to put their stuff on D&D Beyond. So we also saw that Wizards of the Coast would be partnering with folks to get more content out there on D&D Beyond, including Ghostfire Gaming, Cobalt Press, MCDM, Hit Point Press, The Dungeon Dudes, Griffin Saddlebag, Loot Tavern, and Free League.

And we're like, Free League, what? Oh, that's right. They do make a 5e product. What product is that, Teos?

And we've already seen the Lord of the Rings magic set. So it's not surprising, but it's also surprising to see that, especially with the history of the Lord of the Rings and the Tolkien estate and TSR slash D&D. So all that good stuff. And then we get into the future releases, right? We already knew some of this. The Dungeon Master's Guide we'll be seeing in November, November 12th.

The Monster Manual in February, hopefully February 18th of 2025. And then they get into the things that we weren't quite sure about, including a dragon anthology in the summer of 2025, which will be an adventure anthology of 10 short adventures, all featuring dragons, wait for it, in dungeons. Boom. So what did you think when you saw that?

We were wondering about a starter set or a learn to play set. Well, in fall of 2025, we will be getting a starter set. Where will that starter set take us? It will take us to the Keep on the Borderlands. So for those old school folks who remember that, it wasn't even an AD&D, right? It was a D&D basic set adventure taking place way out there on the Keep with the Borderlands.

that abutted the caves of chaos where adventure could take place. So this will be there. It's going to be an expanded or revised version of that with sort of three different sections. There's the keep itself. There's the wilderness that surrounds the keep on those borderlands. And then the Caves of Chaos, the dungeon-type area for that.

And we learned that each book has a short tutorial to help new and returning players learn as they go. And as with the Stormwreck Isle Starter Set, there will be a how-to-play video provided later.

And then we get the big release in late 2025, drum roll please, the Forgotten Realms setting books. So as with 4E, there will be a book for players with the player facing content, and then a book for DMs. They bragged about all the player options that would be there, new subclasses, new spells, new types of spells, said Jason Tondreau with a twinkle in his eye.

They're going to go and introduce factions. Now we've already seen factions in the Forgotten Realms, but they're going to, I think they said, promote a few factions. Some will be the same, some will be different. And then a book, the DM's book will flesh out areas. So they mentioned Baldur's Gate. They mentioned Icewind Dale. They mentioned the Dale Ants and Myth Draenor.

They mentioned the Moonshade Isles, which caught my attention. They mentioned Kalimshan for a different world or biome. So it'll be interesting to see, because when they sent a new book and it'll flesh out areas, I was like, please not the Sword Coast. Please not the Sword Coast. And they started naming off places on the Sword Coast are places we've already seen.

And then they started saying, okay, Kalimshan, Dalelands, Mithgenar. I'm like, all right, we're getting there. It's not quite the full scope, but at least it's a start.