PAX Unplugged 2023 — 50 Years Of Adventure D&D Panel

Welcome to the table,

These are some impressions from the PAX Unplugged: 50 Years of Adventure Dungeons & Dragons Panel. Watch the complete presentation at this link and check out my thoughts below.

Senior designer Amanda Hamon, Senior designer James Wyatt, Game Design Architect and go-to guy for final rulings on all things D&D Chris Perkins, and the name that gets brought up at our weekly game in the same way someone speaks the name of Mordenkainen, Senior designer Jeremy Crawford.

Dungeon magazine, adventure models, short adventures, story adventures, and more were part of the opening speaking points of the team. Journey through the Radiant Citadel and campaign books came up, as the panelists spoke about all the ways one can experience firsthand what is special for both players and storytellers. They also stressed that D&D is not exactly always “the norm” flavors of fantasy. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks even got a shout out, making me smile, as I have an ongoing war with froghemoth images with one of my best friends.

All of this talk of story leads us to talk about what is upcoming in 2024

Descent Into the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth will see us return to Tsojcanth in fun one shot adventures that are said to have a tournament element that can be applied. This seems to harken back to the RPGA style convention play I use to get into when I would go to shows bringing a fresh character to sit at a table with strangers and run through an adventure in the hopes we survived and scored well to move forward and do it again.

Vecna: Eve of Ruin will be a long form adventure book that will see the party reaching 20th level and coming face to face with not only Vecna but other known characters from the D&D mythos. My hope is we see more Warduke… because I love Warduke.

Quests from the Infinite Staircase will be an anthology of classic adventures that have been updated to 5e and are bound together by a cosmic being. That being is totally new to the canon, but links all the elements together along with the infinite staircase.

The Making of Dungeons & Dragons: 1970 – 1976 is going to be a retrospective with classic art that lends insight into the ways the original game came out, a historical telling of how D&D came to be. With over 500 pages this book has letters, historical context, and page replication of the original game.

A revised D&D Player’s Handbook is coming in 2024, with a revised Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual to follow. More subclasses are incoming, new spells, new feats, new weapon rules, and weapon mastery. There is a ton of content here, including the mention of 48 subclasses in the players handbook, each with its own dedicated art to showcase the subclass. There are more backgrounds. ‘Revised species’ was used, and this brings me so much joy as the turn of phrase is not race, but species now.

The revised Dungeon Master’s Guide is not only revised, but has a complete campaign setting it and many adventures in it. There are new magic items, including all the items that the kids from the D&D Saturday Morning Cartoon use in the series, so this increases the value purchasing this book. It sounds like they really want to make the DMG something people want to own and use.

The revised Monster Manual is apparently the largest monster manual to date, with over 500 monsters, including new higher CR threats. New threats like “the blob of annihilation,” a CR20 ooze. It will also come with new art and new non-player characters, and each monster has been revisited with a tune up.

2024 is going to be a HUGE year for D&D and I’m excited to see what all is coming.

Until next time, hopefully more Warduke.