Tag Archives: Eberron

Wizards of the Coast Announces More D&D for Everyone, but Not All of It’s for You

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At Gen Con, Dungeons & Dragons franchise head Dan Ayoub joined various D&D team members and stars connected with D&D to reveal future plans for the game and franchise. They announced more D&D for everyone, but not all of it’s for you.On stage in 2026, D&D Franchise Head Dan Ayob announces the release schedule for the year ahead

D&D Icons

Even though the D&D Icons program looks 40-some years back rather than ahead, it led the announcements. Surely, the presence of Joe Manganiello at the presentation vaulted his program to the top. Joe rates as one of the biggest stars who flaunt a passion for D&D. He serves as chief creative officer of the Icons initiative. The Icons initiative links upcoming, and mostly unspecified, D&D products to creative titans from D&D’s past.

The D&D Icons program starts with four creators :

  • Luke Gygax, son of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax and, of his six children, the biggest contributor to their father’s D&D legacy.
  • Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, authors of the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy of novels, the fiction which introduced D&D’s Dragonlance setting to readers in 1984.
  • R.A. Salvatore, creator of Drizzt Do’Urden, the Forgotten Realms setting’s most popular character. He has written more than 40 books set in the Realms.

If you needed to read those descriptions to identify any of the icons, then the program isn’t for you. Icons aims for the demographic of Dan Ayoub and Joe Manganiello, men who grew up reading Drizzt and Dragonlance books between D&D games. Guys in this generation—guys like me—grew up with every bit of popular culture aimed at us, so now, some of our peers feel confused and threatened when other demographics get attention. When Dan says D&D “lost its way,” and later brings these creators to stage, he hopes to excite gamers who feel puzzled because their 80s favorites seem sidelined. When Wizards of the Coast announced the third edition back in 1999, I watched Gary Gygax brought to the stage and I felt thrilled, so I understand the appeal of the icons. Gygax and the icons serve a similar purpose: They soothe long-time fans of D&D by showing them that the game still includes things they loved.

Despite the consulting contract that Gary signed in 1999, he just gave the third-edition team his blessing and wished them success. Perhaps the creators working as icons will have more input on the projects linked to their names, but except for the novels, newer designers will surely do the heavy lifting on the icons projects. That approach may create better releases. While the team that created the third edition stood on Dave and Gary’s shoulders, the new edition brought design innovations that the original creators could not have matched.

Oddly, the Icons project promises a return to settings that have all appeared recently in major D&D releases. Drizzt’s territory of the Icewind Dale rates as one of the most visited locations in fifth-edition products. Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk from Luke Gygax will appear in the wake of the Greyhawk coverage in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide. The Dragonlance setting gained a hardcover release in 2022.

Universes Beyond

The D&D team announced Universes Beyond, a series of crossovers starting with one between World of Warcraft and D&D, and one between Star Wars and D&D.

Universes Beyond comes from the Magic the Gathering game. In 2025, the Final Fantasy set of Magic cards became the game’s highest-selling release, pushing the game’s Lord of the Rings and Avatar: The Last Airbender sets to second and third place. Such crossovers earn record sales by appealing to fans who don’t play Magic. The pairing works because so many collectors find trading cards irresistible even if they opt not to play the game.

Still, when fans of something like Final Fantasy collect the cards, many feel inspired to try playing Magic, and some become hooked. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks called the crossover sets “probably the most successful new player adoption program that we’ve ever done.” Fat D&D game books lack the same collectable appeal as cards, so Dungeons & Dragons/Star Wars will never bring more than a fraction of the collectors attracted to a fan-favorite property crossed with Magic the Gathering. Still, D&D’s Universes Beyond crossovers aim to bring new players to D&D rather than to simply coax existing players to spend more.

Partnerships with outside studios

For existing fans of D&D, Wizards announced partnerships that will publish official content for Ravenloft, Eberron, and the Forgotten Realms, all written by outside studios.

The partners all boast experience making quality D&D content, and each brings an affinity for their chosen setting. The Ghostfire Gaming setting of Grim Hollow matches the dark horror tone of Ravenloft. Visionary Production & Design already produces Eberron books stewarded by the setting’s creator, Keith Baker. Starting with Hoard of the Dragon Queen in 2014, Kobold Press wrote the first two hardcover adventures released for fifth edition. Both featured the Forgotten Realms.

Adding so many setting-specific releases to D&D’s publishing schedule shows a daring change to the D&D’s team’s market strategy—a break from a lesson learned when D&D’s original publisher went to the brink of bankruptcy. In the 90s, TSR released a flood of settings and setting-specific products that split fans’ attention and spending. Fans of a setting tended to skip releases for as many as eight other settings, and so many products failed to recoup costs. Former D&D brand manager Jim Butler said, “TSR had too many product lines chasing too few customers.”

In the decades since, Wizards has avoided dividing customers with a flood of products that compete with each other. When they revisited a campaign setting, they published just a book or two for the setting, and they also avoided scheduling other releases that might battle for attention.

Now, the D&D team sees a customer base large enough for four or more settings to fight for fans’ budgets and time. “Players shouldn’t have to wait decades for D&D to return to a setting. We should be making it easier to adventure in those worlds,” D&D Executive Producer Greg Bilsland said. “The problem is, of course, we only have so many people on the D&D team and supporting all of our settings wasn’t feasible.”

Dark Sun

When I started playing D&D, the demons and occasional nudity in the advanced game flattered me by making me feel mature and by making playing seem like a delicious little rebellion. Now, with a new Dark Sun release scheduled for release as two books with a mature rating, I wonder how the rating will enhance the setting. The animated trailer revels in blood splatters and costumes that could fit in a catalog for fetish wear.

I suspect the D&D team opted for the mature rating for two reasons:

  • The Heavy Metal style adds spice and contrasts with the other fifth-edition settings.
  • The setting includes elements that now fit uncomfortably in a typical D&D game.

In early D&D, scenes where characters tortured their foes for information and slaughtered their foes’ babies seemed common. Now virtually all D&D games steer clear of such horrors and I welcome the change. The Dark Sun setting includes some of its own horrors that many gamers choose to avoid in a fun pastime. One example stands out. Dark Sun included slavery in the foundation of its world building. Chris S. Sims, one of the designers who worked on the setting for fourth edition, writes, “Slavery in Dark Sun isn’t like it is in the A series [of adventures], where it’s clearly villainy. In Dark Sun, it’s a cultural norm with a (spoiler) horrid, secret reason for keeping it. It can be an evil you fight, but presenting it as a cultural norm, baking it into some mechanics, implies it’s acceptable.”

D&D players enjoy battling evil, and many players see slavers as a good target for heroes. Other players find the subject of slavery too troubling for game sessions that should provide a fun escape. Either outlook is fine. The Dark Sun designers face the challenge of deciding how to accommodate the different perspectives. Perhaps, the mature rating helps.

Greyhawk: Crown of the Witch Queen

Of all the products announced for the coming year, Greyhawk: Crown of the Witch Queen seems like the one for me. Wizards touts the book as a full-length adventure, which suggests that the campaign starts at first level. The last campaign hardcover to start at level 1, Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk, released three years ago and revisited content from 2014. The upcoming adventure comes from the design team of Will Doyle, Stacey Allan, and Justice Arman. All three have worked on favorite adventures. The prospect of a new full-length campaign to play or run excites me.

My first impression of inspiration proved wrong

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In an earlier post, I leveled criticism toward the inspiration mechanic based on Mike Mearls’s preview in “Roleplaying in D&D Next.” I listed two gripes:

  • Awarding inspiration seemed to put the dungeon master in an uncomfortable role. Mearls wrote about awarding inspiration for “describing your action in an interesting way, acting out your character’s dialogue, or otherwise helping to bring the game to life by adding some panache to your play.” All this made inspiration seem like an award for showmanship. As a DM, I have enough to do without adopting the role of some sort of competition judge who rates players’ panache.
  • Inspiration seemed like a distracting, metagame intrusion. The preview suggested  inspiration would be awarded frequently, and said it faded quickly (no longer true). This painted inspiration as a common distraction. You could spend inspiration, bank for later, or pass on to another player (still true). This painted inspiration as a gamey resource that represented nothing in the game world. Such dissociated mechanics force attention away from the characters’ world and prevent players from making choices while immersed in character.

When I read the actual rules, I realized that the inspiration mechanic revives action points, a mechanic I have enjoyed. My harsh judgements were wrong. The preview mislead me, and the sun got in my eyes.

Inspiration is exactly like action points, except (1) with a different name, (2) with a different purpose, and (3) without points. Perhaps I should explain.

The action point entered the D&D game in the Eberron Campaign Setting as a bit of genre emulation. According to the campaign guide, “The setting combines traditional medieval D&D fantasy with swashbuckling action and dark adventure.

“To help capture the cinematic nature of the swordplay and spellcasting, we’re added action points to the rules mix. This spendable, limited resource allows players to alter the outcome of dramatic situations and have their characters accomplish the seemingly impossible.” (p.9)

Characters in Eberron started with a bank of 5 action point that they could spend to kick d20 rolls with an extra d6. In theory, this meager bonus enables characters to accomplish the impossible. In practice, it adds a resource that forces players out of character.

The fourth-edition designers chose to keep action points, but they no longer needed to emulate Indiana Jones in D&D. In 4E, action points became an incentive aimed at discouraging the 15-minute adventuring day. Presumably, players would look ahead to a fresh action points and decide to press on to their next encounter, rather than resting to regain powers, hit points, and, well, action points. To sweeten the incentive, and to keep “action” in the name, action points now granted an extra action.

While action points failed to quash the 15-minute day, they proved fun for players. The additional action provides a more precious benefit than a mere d6 boost. They remain a gamey resource that you cannot manage while immersed in character. But with a mechanic as innocuous as action points, the drawback seems light enough. You need not step out of character for long.

Many aspects of the fourth edition design brought unintended consequences. For example, the fourth-edition design suffered from the unintended consequence of costing most of its designers and planners their jobs at Wizards of the Coast. (Too soon?)

Fourth-edition action points often turned climactic encounters into one turn of nova attacks followed by slow grinds against crippled enemies. This came because action points allowed characters to double their opening salvos of daily and encounter powers, multiplying the potency of their first turns. By the time a guy like Juiblex, demon lord of slimes and oozes, gets a chance to act, he’s prone, immobilized, dazed, suffering -4 to all attacks, and has his pants around his ankles. (In fourth edition, even oozes are subject to the pants-round-ankles condition.) See “As a player, I enjoy action points, so why do I dislike them as a dungeon master?”

So fifth edition scrapped action points.

Meanwhile, the 5E designers worked to improve the role-playing pillar of D&D. They started by inviting players to flesh out characters with a bond and a flaw. “Your bonds are your character’s ties to the world, people, places, or things that are meaningful to your character in some way,” Mearls previewed. “Your flaws are your character’s weaknesses.”

Neither bonds nor flaws count as new to role playing. In games like Champions (1981) and GURPS (1986), you can give your characters flaws and bonds too. Adopting such disadvantages buys points that you can use to strengthen your character in other ways.

The 5E designers may have considered character-creation rewards for bonds and flaws, but once you reap any character-creation benefits, nothing in play encourages you to hold to your liabilities. So instead of adding incentives to character creation, they added an incentive to bring bonds and flaws into play.

In a Ready, Set, Play seminar, Designer Rodney Thompson explained, “Whenever you allow your flaw or your bond to impact your character negatively, maybe by making a decision that isn’t so great for the party but totally is in keeping with your characters flaw, the dungeon master can award you inspiration. And basically this is a reward that the DM can give you to say, hey, you have roleplayed out your character’s flaw even though it may not have been the best and most optimal decision. Here’s your reward in the form of inspiration.”

Although Mike Mearls may award inspiration for panache, I feel more comfortable for Rodney Thompson’s more objective standard. If following your character’s weaknesses drives you into a worse situation, then you gain inspiration. I can spot those situations and feel good about rewarding them.

Accolade by Edmund Blair Leighton

Inspiration shares a lot with action points. Like the Eberron points, players trade inspiration to boost a die roll. Like the 4E points, inspiration bribes players to do things that improve play. Since inspiration neither supports “swashbuckling action” nor grants additional actions, the “action” had to go.

The term “points” goes too. Unlike action points, inspiration doesn’t come in points. Inspiration works more like a status; your character can have the inspired status or not. Once you spend your inspiration, you have to earn it again. The terminology helps show that your character cannot have more than one inspiration to spend.

As a status, inspiration even gains a gloss of game-world association. Mearls wrote, “By demonstrating that the events in the game are critical to your character’s goals and beliefs, you can allow your character to tap into reserves of energy and determination to carry the day.” By acting true to themselves, characters become inspired without a word from the bard. Mearls even explained how a transfer of inspiration could work in the game world. “In this case, your character’s determination serves as an inspiration for the other party members.”

Only one problem remains. When a character’s flaws drive a player to make suboptimal decisions, the player gains inspiration. But D&D works as a game of teamwork. Often the rest of the party suffers for one character’s bad choice. Sometimes, only the rest of the party suffers. See “Why second-edition Dungeons & Dragons dropped thieves and assassins.”

I’ve seen no end to problems created by players who make choices that cause grief for the other players. “Because that’s what my character would do,” they explain. I hate hearing “that’s what my character would do” as a form of apology. No one explains what their character would do when they don’t screw the party. As a game master, I feel no urge to reward grief with an incentive.

The D&D designers thought of this aspect too. Rodney Thompson explains, “Maybe you did something that the other players at the table weren’t super thrilled about, but you can give them that inspiration as a way of saying sorry.”

The next time I reward inspiration for a choice that caused trouble for the party, I will ask the player to pass the inspiration to another player for a key roll.

As a player, how can you gain the most from inspiration? I suggest saving inspiration for critical saving throws against things like the dragon’s breath or the lich’s disintegrate spell. Also, remember that a single advantage from inspiration can cancel any number of disadvantages, so use inspiration when the odds are stacked against you.