Future of D&D Panel Recap

During this weekend's D&D Celebration, the most exciting panel that closed it out was "The Future of D&D." We got some announcements and some very cryptic hints. Let's break it down:

Settings:

While we didn't get any specifics, and some of this has already been hinted at, we are going to be getting two returns to classic settings in 2022 (likely with setting sourcebooks) and one smaller reference to another classic setting (not sure if this is going to be an adventure book like Ghosts of Saltmarsh giving us a bit of Greyhawk, or what). There's also a third classic setting that will be getting published in 2023.

What will these be? Well, given the settlements made with the Hickmans, it seems possible that one could be the popular Dragonlance setting. There's also been a strong emphasis on the Multiverse in this panel, so I think Planescape is a strong possibility.

The final hint, which came at the end of the panel, is that there's a sketch from Hydro74 (the artist behind the limited edition covers for myriad 5th Edition books like Xanathar's Guide to Everything, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and Volo's Guide to Monsters) depicting Boo, the famous miniature giant space hamster from the Baldur's Gate games (companion to Minsc.) While a miniature giant space hamster is just... a hamster, giant space hamsters do play a big role in the science fantasy Spelljammer setting, where their running in wheels powers gnomish ships.

In addition, Chris Perkins reiterated that there are two brand-new settings in development. While these are not guaranteed to see release, they'll be the first brand-new settings (that didn't premiere in a stream like Exandria) for the game since Eberron in 2004. My fingers are crossed for a modern, Urban Fantasy-style setting, but we'll see.

New Books:

Coming out in January, there's going to be a Rules Expansion box set that includes Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and a new book called Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. MPMoM will take monsters that are setting-agnostic (likely those found in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Volo's Guide to Monsters, but also from some other sources, like perhaps the Elemental Evil's Player's Companion,) as well as playable races that are similarly setting-agnostic.

MPMoM will contain 250 monsters and 30 playable races. But this isn't just a reprint - the statblocks on monsters are getting reworked. We were shown various NPC stat blocks, including the Warlock of the Great Old One and the War Priest, and these creatures have been thoroughly re-worked to be easier to run. For one thing, spellcasting is now in the actions section, but on top of that, spellcasting is now more built around utility, while casting characters now have special damage abilities that are built to be their primary action. Rather than using spell slots, they can simply cast a shorter list of spells a certain number of times a day. This is all to make the NPCs and monsters easier for a DM to run, which I really welcome (tracking spell slots on NPCs is a huge pain.)

Also, they're now just putting all monsters in alphabetical order - a Glabrezu will be under G rather than D for Demon.

Now, these changes are a preview of the biggest announcement:

In 2024, for the 50th anniversary of D&D, they'll be releasing new versions of the Core Rulebooks. This is not going to be a full 6th Edition, but will instead be a revision based on feedback from what will at that point be 10 years of 5E. They're designed to be compatible with all the old books, so I don't think we'll be seeing any profound re-workings of the basic rules, but probably tweaks to the classes and the monsters in the Monster Manual.

It's a lot to take in. I'm particularly excited to see if Spelljammer and/or Planescape are coming back.

Obviously, there are a lot of details yet to be revealed, but it's definitely some exciting news.