Tag Archives: R. A. Salvatore

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.

How I learned to care (a little) less about what PCs have in hand

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Until the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons, players hardly worried about what their characters had in hand during battle. Since then, the game’s designers have tried and failed to free players from needing to keep track. What your character held only started to matter when a expanding number of options met a much shorter combat round.

Expanding options

When Dungeons & Dragons appeared in 1974, no one worried about what characters had in their hands. Two-handed weapons dealt the same 1d6 damage as lighter arms, so you may as well carry a shield if you could. The rules presented no options for wielding two weapons. No one needed to worry about how their elves managed to cast spells while wielding a sword and shield, because elves could only switch from fighting man to magic user “from adventure to adventure, but not during the course of a single game.” Besides, the requirement to speak and gesture would not enter the game for three more years.

In 1975, the Greyhawk supplement distinguished weapons with different damage dice. Now fighters could opt to use a two-handed sword for greater damage or to keep their shield and wield a regular sword. Gary Gygax presumes his audience of grognards will know that a halberd, for example, requires two hands. Even today, the rules do not mention that you cannot equip a shield and wield a two-handed weapon, because the designers assume everyone knows. (Although, they mention that you can only benefit from one shield at a time.)

In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Gary introduced the option to fight with a weapon in each hand, but with penalties to each attack. Then in 1985, Unearthed Arcana opened the way for drow player characters. “Dark elves…may fight with two weapons without penalty provided each weapon may be easily wielded in one hand.” In the wake of Unearthed Arcana, author R. A. Salvatore created the ranger Drizzt, who could wield two blades due to his drow heritage.

The Crystal ShardI’m convinced that between Drizzt’s first appearance in The Crystal Shard (1988) and the introduction of second-edition AD&D in 1989, the two-weapon fighting ability jumped from drow to rangers, with Drizzt as the carrier. Second-edition author David “Zeb” Cook disagrees, “I’m not sure where the ranger took shape, though I know it wasn’t an imposition because of Drizzt. It was more to make them distinct and it fit with the style and image.”

But while Zeb led the second-edition design, many others contributed. A two-weapon ranger lacks any fictional inspiration other than Drizzt. Most likely, someone introduced the two-weapon style to rangers to put Drizzt within the rules, without realizing that his ability sprang from the drow race. Or perhaps, some designer simply liked how Drizzt’s scimitars fit the ranger class’s “style and image.”

The 6-second round

In AD&D, no one paid attention to how a spellcasting, two-weapon ranger managed to free a hand to cast, or how much time he needed to sheath both swords and draw a bow. Combat rounds lasted a full minute, and offered plenty of time to exchange gear. On page 61 of 1979 Dungeon Master’s Guide, Gary wrote, “One-minute rounds are devised to offer the maximum of play choice with the minimum of complication. The system assumes much activity during the course of each round.”

The Adventures of Robin HoodGary modeled the round after the feints, maneuvering, and unsuccessful attacks seen in the climactic sword fight in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Still, players imagined rounds as a simple exchange of blows. One minute seemed far too long for that, and no one could explain why a bowman could only fire once per minute. In response, Gary devoted half of page 61 to defending the minute-long round.

Nonetheless, Basic D&D always held to 10-second rounds, and then third-edition D&D shrunk the round to 6 seconds. This fitted what players imagined, but it offered far less time to maneuver. As a product of the shorter round, drawing or sheathing a weapon became a move action.

In actual play, few players paid much attention to what their characters held. For example, they typically ignored the two move actions required to swap a bow for a sword. The actions may have better simulated the activity of a 6-second round, but the accounting added no fun.

Making the rules match play

Surely, the fifth-edition designers noticed that few players bothered tracking the
actions required to switch weaponry, spell components, and so on. They noticed that players who performed the accounting found no fun in it. So the designers attempted make the rules match the way players obviously wanted to play—with little concern for time spent swapping weapons and gear. In addition to your move and action, “You can also interact with one object of feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action.

“If you want to interact with a second object, you need to use your action.”

The “free” action to manipulate one object may seem the same as fourth edition’s minor action, but if offers one important advantage: it plays faster. In fourth edition, players learned to tick off their actions as they used them. When they reached the end of their turn, they often realized that they still had a minor action to spend. Somehow, that unspent minor action seemed precious. It’s an action and I only get one! So they would pause to think of some way to spend it. I will never get back the hours I wasted watching players try to find dream up uses for their minor actions. Turning a minor action into something “free” makes it something players can ignore without angst.

But the one, free action fails to offer enough latitude to let players do things like sling a bow, draw a sword, and then make an attack, all in one turn. On September 9, designer Jeremy Crawford tweeted, “Without a special feature or feat, an Attack action could include sheathing or drawing a weapon, not both.” I understand the need for such a strict interpretation. I never want to hear, “Every turn, after I fire an arrow, I draw my sword in case I have a chance to make an opportunity attack.”

In practice, most players will switch weapons without a thought to the actions required, and without trying to pull any shenanigans. As a dungeon master, you have two choices: You can attempt to enforce a strict action economy, and tolerate the eye-rolling of players who dislike pedantic lectures on the rules. Or you can grant players some latitude and assume that perhaps the ranger saw the approaching goblins and slung her bow on her last turn, before drawing her blades on the current turn. We all know that turns exist to make the continuous action of the round playable. Perhaps the activity of the last turn blurs a bit with the next. However, when rules lawyers want to use a reaction, they have the same weapons in hand as when they ended their turn.

Related: Sky Roy at Bright Cape Gamer follows up on this subject and suggests a bit of “cinematic flexibility.”