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It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to count HBO’s Game of Thrones as one of the most divisive TV series in recent memory. Everything from errant coffee cups left on set to poor lighting in fight scenes created weeks of debate and conversation for fans–and it was understandable, all things considered. What had started as a series adapting George R.R. Martin’s beloved, and notably unfinished, fantasy novel series had eventually outpaced the source material, leaving the show to travel without a finished roadmap to an ending all its own. And while Game of Thrones’ mixed results may give many fans pause at the thought of returning to Westeros all over again, the same cannot be said for the network. HBO is all in on Martin and the Game of Thrones universe, as evidenced by their latest prestige project, House of the Dragon. And, based on the first six episodes of the ten episode season provided for review, more Game of Thrones is currently the extent of the game plan.
Set hundreds of years before the events of Game of Thrones proper, House of the Dragon zeroes in on the Targaryens, the platinum blonde lineage of dragon-riding conquerors who were represented almost exclusively by fan-favorite Daenerys in the original series. Now, the Targaryens are out in full force, at the height of their power, galavanting all around Westeros with their dragons in tow–and, well, that’s about all there is to it. House of the Dragon is, by all accounts, just more Game of Thrones–sure, the Iron Throne might look different and the characters all have different names, but the stories are nearly identical to what we’ve already seen. There’s political drama revolving around the succession of a king, competing heirs, incest, secret affairs, plenty of backstabbing, tons of violence and gore–and absolutely no surprises.
Wizards of the Coast staged a live, post-San Diego Comic-Con level panel for fans earlier today, and it didn’t skimp on the announcements. A ton of new announcements, releases, and surprises concerning Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering were revealed today during “Wizards Presents”—enough that I’m pretty sure…
There will be more fire (yay, dragons!) and blood (those family feuds) when Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon arrives to dig into the history of House Targaryen. Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, the HBO Original drama will expand on Westeros’ past and the battle for the Iron Throne 200 years…
Over the past couple of years, software for playing tabletop roleplaying games remotely has become more popular than ever – for obvious reasons. Not content with people using third-party software such as Roll20, Wizards Of The Coast have announced today that they’re making their own Dungeons & Dragons virtual tabletop using Unreal Engine 5. It looks pretty swish.
Hot on the heels of the 5e reboot of Spelljammer, the team at Wizards of the Coast has revealed One D&D, which markes the beginning of “a new generation of Dungeons & Dragons.”
WotC has been working on “what’s next” for D&D since last year, but details have been sparse until now. The creative team appeared in a short video during the recent Wizards Presents digital showcase (alongside more info about the upcoming Dragonlance revival and several MTG crossover events) to explain their plan for the future of D&D.
Throughout the presentation, the team detailed the “three pillars” of this next phase of D&D, expected to launch in earnest in 2024. They include ongoing updates to the D&D rules – as we’ve seen in recent sourcebooks such as Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything – as well as an expansion of D&D Beyond, the popular digital compendium that Wizards recently purchased, and (eventually) a set of digital tabletop tools for players and GMs to use in their games at home or online.
The digital toolset, dubbed D&D Digital, is being designed in Unreal Engine 5 and appears to be an all-in-one hybrid of virtual tabletops like Roll20 and TaleSpire and custom mini makers like HeroForge or Eldritch Foundry. “Currently, players are cobbling together all kinds of different apps and websites to have a true integrated D&D experience,” says Kale Stutzman, Principle Game Designer for D&D Digital. “What we want to do is actually just provide all the tools that the players need to play themselves in one space.”
The pre-alpha footage shown during the broadcast showed several types and sizes of digitally-rendered tabletop minis, from heroes duking it out with Kobolds and skeletons to a massive Black Dragon looming over the dungeonscape. While these were likely not from a specific campaign or dungeon currently in a D&D adventure, that is one of the goals of the project – though the team is also working to give players the power to build their own worlds, too.
“We might give you a pre-made campaign from us that has an exciting castle or keep with a dungeon inside of it,” says Carlo Arellano, Principle Art Director on D&D Digital. “But then you’re going to be able to take this place, take it apart, and build your own. We’re going to have a really robust tool for you to be able to create your own dungeons.”
Despite having an early build of the toolset, it’s still a long way off from release. “Right now, we’re in early development of our digital experience,” Stutzman said. “We can play a game role some dice, see the miniatures moving around in a 3D play space, but that’s just the core of it.”
The biggest shift – and one that players can get their hands on much sooner – is how the tabletop D&D team is approaching the evolution of the game itself moving forward. “We did a smart thing with Fifth Edition, by listening to the fans,” says Chris Perkins, D&D’s Game Design Architect. “And what came out of that process was a system that is stable, that is well loved, that incorporates the best elements of earlier editions. Now that we have that, we are no longer in the position where we think of D&D as an edition – it’s just D&D.”
The next iteration of the core rules is already in its playtesting phase – you can check out the latest Unearthed Arcana on D&D Beyond for the first round of updates and additions. This first release introduces a new player race – the Celestial counterpart to the Tieflings, known as Ardlings – and there are already several noteworthy rules changes, even considering recent alterations to the system in TCoE or Monsters of the Multiverse. For example, characters currently receive additional Ability score points based on their lineage or species – however, these increases are now tied to their Backgrounds in the updated ruleset, and every Background now also provides a Feat. Soldiers receive +2 STR and +1 CON, for instance, along with the Savage Attacker feat, while characters with the Street Urchin background get a bonus to Dexterity/Wisdom and the Lucky feat.
“Backgrounds are something that we took apart, examined every piece of, and rebuilt with the goal of having [them] play an even larger role in your character’s identity,” says Jeremy Crawford, another of D&D’s Game Design Architects, during an extended presentation of the new playtesting rules. Other big departures from current 5e rules include certain Feats being tied to a character’s level, truncating the nine current spell lists for each class into just three based on the magic’s source (Arcane, Divine, and Primal), or codifying the notion that rolling a Natural 1 always means failure – on any check, no matter how skilled a character may be.
Crawford says that while not all the proposed changes will eventually become official rules, the testing will go on for some time, much like the D&D Next initiative that eventually became Fifth Edition. “The big difference this time is we’re giving feedback on the game we’re already playing,” Crawford says. “Rather than playtesting basically a brand new game bottom to top, instead now it’s like ‘all right, it’s the game we’re playing now’, but now let’s zoom in on this piece of it and think, ‘How might we get more fun, more speed, more options here?’ And then move on to another piece of the game until all of that coalesces in 2024 in the new books.”
One D&D is scheduled to launch officially in 2024. In the meantime, check out what’s on the horizon for D&D in 2023, including the revival of another classic setting.
JR is a Senior Producer at IGN, you can follow him on Twitter for more video games and tabletop RPG shenanigans.
Farlight Games, the publisher behind Dislyte, has announced a new medieval fantasy RTS mobile game: Call of Dragons. In Call of Dragons, players will lead an army of wyverns and dragons across what Farlight refers to as a “massive, infinitely zoomable battlefield.”
Along with real-time strategy mechanics, players will also be able to set up and fortify villages, raise an army, take over neighboring kingdoms, or work with other players to build alliances. The game rewards exploration along with combat prowess.
As players build their army, they will also get the chance to explore the Call of Dragon’s “infinitely zoomable” world, unlock mini-games, and take on various side quests. They can also scour the land for lost song fragments that reveal the history of this world, referred to as Tamaris.