After an eventful 2024 of Dungeons & Dragons, “The World’s Largest Role-Playing Game” has come to Gen Con with new leadership, new partnerships and, most importantly, new books. It was announced at The Con and was set to be released later this year. Adventures at Faerun and Faerun’s Heroes It probably represents the most extensive investigation of a single configuration in the fifth edition, and the first major configuration release of the updated ruleset. Ed Greenwood’s nearly sixty years of setting was all the major locations in the fifth edition, and perhaps more importantly, the setting for both megahits. Gate 3 of Baldur and Honor among thieves A feature film. Dan and Chris sat down with executive producer Greg Billsland, one of the architects of the new edition, to learn what came into the new book and what? D&D It looks like 2025.
Dan Arndt: So I’m interested when it was like being part of this new “Face” in the fifth edition of this new “Face”;
Gregvilles Land: One thing I say is that I couldn’t imagine an event like this that all of these publishers were on the slides, and there were all of these third party exhibitors. When I was here in 2015, we started collaborating with Kobold Press and Green Ronin, and the transformation that allowed D&D to go beyond that and regain its partner…it’s truly amazing to see it. There are many opportunities to explore genres and explore themes that we may never do as a product, but we have all of these in the past.
DA: I’d like to know where I decided to give my forgotten territory something like a “facelift” along with rules updates. Is it something you’re cooking or did you really want to do it, what was the idea behind it?
GB: Over the past five years, there has always been a desire to invest more deeply in our world, along the entire edition. Recently, we find that they are offering Greyhawks a dungeon master guide that will provide this mini gazette. I saw it in Spelljammer on Planescape. And as we move forward, we will continue to invest them. For forgotten territory, the only reason I think it really wasn’t done before is that it’s a big, hard project. It’s our most popular setting, so there are very high expectations for it, so we can dedicate many pages as much as we do. Adventures at Faerun It’s like 288 pages and is one of the longest books in the fifth edition. Between books it’s like 400 pages of content. It’s almost a two-core rulebook.
DA: These settings have so much history, whether spell jammer, plainscape or forgotten territory. How can I go back to this and keep it fresh? Add new ones and improve the old ones. How do you approach it?
GB: Especially for something like forgotten realms, it’s a much more like a curation exercise than a rethinking exercise. And I will immediately reimagined it. Over the past 15 years I have been writing novels that have advanced my timeline and changed what happened in forgotten realms. We had to understand what the parts that resonated most were and how to move them forward.
I’m always thinking about the fact that tens of millions of people have played Gate 3 of Baldur And it seems to be their experience D&D. You can see what happened in it, incorporate it and bring that element to make it relevant to those people. It’s a gardening exercise. What seeds are you planted with watering and which hedges are you trimmed? That being said, there is always a place for deep dives like we talked about in Netheril PDF. This is a time travel yarn where Netheril is a bit niche and is ingrained in more lore. Just because there’s content covered in this book from popular settings like Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale, for example, doesn’t mean you won’t be able to find an opportunity to go deeper into the corners of your territory.
DA: It’s a common joke that forgotten territory has been forgotten. “These are forgotten parts of the forgotten realm.” So it’s very cool to see these deep dives seen in some places. How did you know how you chose which one you like?
GB: Baldur’s Gate and Icewood Dale We know they are really well known, they really resonate and they are staple foods to make sure something resonates with people who only play the game (I’ve played the game)The Gate of Baldur). But then they have things like Moonshae Isles and Calimshan. These are places that provide a real theme delta from the rest of that content. And I definitely want to see products coming out that focus on, for example, Kolmir, but that area still resembles Dale’s land in terms of the types of adventures you might tell. So it’s about telling you that you’re really making sure there’s a real theme difference. Where you have the land of Dale, it’s really classic and grounded D&D Adventures, exploring the abandoned ins, the wilderness of Icewinddale. We know that people love Faywild, and although we won’t go there any time soon, Moonsha Island offers a way to support it. Yeah. And you know, there was an idea…
DA: Is there a way for the adventures of an existing forgotten realm to fit within this new book? Like if you want to tie your previous Feywild work to Moonshaes?
If you want to connect Wild beyond the Witchlight For Moonshae Isles, it is thematically connected. This is a good event. And we’re not going to rule out going back to some of those adventures and finding ways to give them a way to lead them to a more recent environment and more recent books we’re doing.
DA: The DM Guide has shifted some of its storytelling approaches with simple adventures. Is that something you want to do even further with these books and their microadventures? Is that how you are changing how you approach storytelling?
GB: The adventure of ready play is really acknowledged by many people on how to play D&D recently. We are trying to provide a way to feel like you’re sitting down and doing one session and getting something done, while minimizing your preparation.
What got me excited was that I said that on the panel. After seeing all of Karimshan’s one-page adventures, it seems I don’t need the entire Karimshan product to support the setup of the campaigns I want to run there. I have started some adventures, and I can connect the dots between those adventures and reskin other adventures to fit it. So, the fact that there are 50 of them makes me think there is a pretty good chance that players will tie them together into the campaign.
DA: It sounds like you’re looking at something very long-term for players, from early levels to late stages. Is that something you really want to make sure everyone has a little?
GB: We are looking at ways to support higher level plays with something like the epic Boone feat that Makenzie mentioned, despite knowing that the majority of players play at level 10, but we want to make sure we know there are a lot of campaigns that have taken years.
Chris Hutton: One thing that really really interested me is how saturated the gated content of Baldur is. Baldur’s Gate 3 content is featured in a new book.
GB: One of the advantages of video games is that you know which characters are very popular, and which settings are very popular. In this book, the gate of Baldur itself is between pages 30 and 40. You can see the characters appearing in a bunch of art. And of course, Astalion’s Hungry Book. We have millions of people playing The Gate of Baldur And we want to make sure we create an attractive environment for those who take part in our hobbies. Some of this makes sure they’re picking up this book or checking that they feel they have something they recognize.
But that’s the balance we want to attack. We want to welcome it for people who love that game, but we don’t want to push that agenda that hard. So, for example, Icewind Dale has many things depicted. Frostmaiden’s Lime. I nodded to what had happened before. So, when you play it, you can actually feel that this is a world that needs to be enhanced. All players own part of their experiences in their forgotten realms, and part of our challenge is how they do not alienate the decisions you try to make in a world that feels like it is your forgotten realm.
Images via the coastal wizard
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