D&D World of Warcraft

 

Wizards of the Coast is making a big push to make sure its first Gameplay Expansion for Dungeons and Dragons sell successfully (See “Wizards of the Coast Reveals Product Line Details for Dungeons and Dragons:  World of Warcraft”) offering stores incentives tied to the quantity of books purchased. For the first time, a D&D book will release with three covers:  Standard cover, Alternate/WPN Store cover and a Collector Edition cover with an MSRP of $99.99.  Ordering 6 copies of any cover gets a store a metal display rack similar to the one given out with the release of the 2024 updates for the Dungeons and Dragons core rulebooks. Order 12 copies of any cover in any combination and the store receives the metal display rack and a free copy of the Standard cover book.  To encourage stores to really push their orders, a store ordering 24 copies of any combination of covers will receive a large display holding 12 to 15 books and a free copy of the Collector’s Edition cover.

Star Wars D&D

 

Choosing to publish a Star Wars version of Dungeons and Dragons is an interesting choice to put it mildly. Although WotC had significant success with its d20 Star Wars RPG and later the Saga Edition, both have been out of print for well over a decade, with the gap filled by Edge Studio’s set of Star Wars RPGs. Star Wars in the table top gaming field, with the exception of the Star Wars Unlimited trading card game, has seen a marked decline in interest over the past 5 or so years. Going up against an already existing product line using a brand that has seen a significant drop in engagement in recent years does not make a lot of sense so I hope WotC has done its research on this.  I do have high hopes for the announced Dark Sun and Greyhawk launches in 2027 though.

Season of Magic

 Wizards of the Coast has provided details on what stores and players for the upcoming Season of Magic organized play program, designed to promote the Arcana Unleashed and Arcana Unleashed:  Deadfall books (See “Wizards of the Coast Offers New Deets on D&D ‘Season of Magic’ Organized Play”) Much like the Season of Horror, this one comes with a scenario taking players through 6 weeks of play as well as premiums for participating players.  Unfortunately, what it lacks, at least as far as I can tell from what I have read and based on what the Season of Horror kits contained, are any in store promotional materials for the event, signup sheets et cetera.  I know we can create these but it seems a missed opportunity for Wizards to send out materials promoting Arcana Unleased and encouraging customers to pre-order it from stores  in order to have it in hand before the start of the Season of Magic. 

D&D and Microtransactions

 Wizards of the Coast is at it again, trying to figure out how to wring more money out of Dungeons and Dragons. Now, it appears the company plans to roll out microtransactions for new D&D products, something the company tried back in 2024 but ended pretty quickly due to the negative response from players (See “More MAP”). It looks as if WotC is revisiting the idea with D&D Beyond Drops. The company plans to release assorted new spells, feats, encounters, maps, etc. to D&D Beyond subscribers with a paid subscription. Subscribers can use this content with their characters and campaigns for as long as they have a paid subscription and lose access to their character additions if they end their subscription.  It does not appear that WotC will charge for each character addition as they will be included with the weekly drops of new content players will be able to access.  However, it also appears WotC wants to move Dungeons and Dragons to a "live service” wherein players subscribing to D&D Beyond will get access to all of the new feats, spells, etc. with WotC determining through the response on the platform which should be incorporated into physical books for later release.  I was bemused to see in one interview, Chris Cooks, CEO of Hasbro, referring to books as “a special totem you can collect” as if they were now cultural artifacts, rather than useful items in the game.  He also pointed out that it can take up to 18 months to move a book from concept to publication so players wanting more material for their game will get a steady diet of it, providing they keep their subscription up to date, rather than waiting for WotC to publish another book.

Customer

We had a couple of reminders this week regarding how long the store has been in business.  One customer brought his grandson in to buy Pokemon cards and told us he remembered bringing his son into the store 25 years or so ago to buy Pokemon here.

Another customer in his early 20s told us he remembered coming into the University Avenue location with his parents and falling asleep in a chair while they played D&D in one of the game rooms at the old location.

Deck of Many Morsels

 The Deck of Many Morsels is a deck of 50 recipe cards containing recipies from the Heroes Feast cookbook with 10 new recipies and 25 new photographs, this is a convenient way to assist you in preparing recipies from the Heroes Feast cookbook.

Melf's Guide to Greyhawk

 Announced at Garycon is the upcoming release of Melf's Guide to Greyhawk, written by Luke Gygax, son of Gary Gygax and Melf's player in the original Greyhawk campaign in the 1970s,  Maybe releasing this December since there is an unannounced D&D release scheduled for then but more likely 2027

Artificer

 Due to  problems with cover warping, the Eberron Artificer book has been delayed until late November.

We want to share an important update about Eberron: Forge of the Artificer. 

A few weeks ago, we received the first printed copies of the book. At first, everything looked great and met our production standards. But over time, a serious issue emerged: the covers began to warp. This was a defect that developed after production and wasn’t visible during initial inspection. 

After reviewing the full scope of the issue, we made the tough decision to recall and reprint the entire physical run. No copies with this defect will be shipped to customers. This is a complete reprint, not a patch job, and we believe it’s the right call. 

We know many players expected digital access earlier, but to preserve the integrity of the experience and ensure a unified release, we’ve aligned both physical and digital editions to a single timeline. Both versions will now officially launch on December 9, 2025. 

Key Dates for WPN Release 

November 25, 2025 – Early Access Begins [North America Only] 

Customers purchasing through participating WPN stores will be eligible to pick up their corrected physical copies starting this date two weeks ahead of global release. 

December 9, 2025 – Global Release 

All remaining physical copies and digital editions go live. 

D&D Pins

 

Sirius Dice has acquired a license for the 1980s D&D cartoon and is producing a line of pins featuring the characters from the show. The one we received featured Hank the Ranger but I assume they will make pins featuring the entire cast.

Monster Manual 2024

 the last of the 3 updated core rulebooks came in this week and will go on sale Feb. 4. If you pre-ordered a copy, we have it on hold for you and you can pay for it and pick it up at your convenience.

D&D Slate

 Here is the slate of scheduled Dungeons and Dragons releases for 2025. Let us know if you want to pre-order any or all of them.

Monster Manual: February 18, 2025

Dragon Delves: July 8, 2025

Eberron: Forge of the Artificer: August 19, 2025

Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set: September 16, 2025

Untitled D&D Book: October 2025

Forgotten Realms Player's Guide: November 11, 2025

Forgotten Realms Adventure Guide: November 11, 2025.

Making of Original Dungeons and Dragons

 

the Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons, which came out last summer, is a woefully overlooked book that came out this pas summer. It contains reprints of the original D&D booklets, copies of correspondence between Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and notes by Arneson on his original Blackmoor campaign. 

One Piece

 Well, we have had people asking for the One Piece Trading card game for months and finally our suppliers managed to get us some. Hope the local demand is still out there. We also received a large restock of D&D Player character miniatures.

Vecna Eve of Ruin.

 Vecna Eve of Ruin goes on sale tomorrow. If you pre-ordered a copy, we have it on hold for you, otherwise stop by and pick one up.

Early Release for D&D

 Wotc Announced this week that it would restart early release for D&D books, beginning with Vecna:  Eve of Ruin. Vecna releases officially on May 21 but WPN stores, such as us, will have the book on sale on May 7th.

D&D Releases for 2024

 We finally received details on the D&D releases for this year.

Vecna:  Eve of  Ruin releases May 21. It is a adventure taking players across the entire D&D multiverse

The Making of Original Dungeons and Dragons releases June 18 and covers the history of the devlopment of original D&D during the 1970s

Quests from the Infinite Staircase, a collection of original A&D 1st edition adventures updated for 5 the edition. The adventures range from levels 1 through 3.

Player's Handbook 2024, a revised version of the 5E Players Handbook releases Sept. 17, although I would bet we will see copies for sale at GenCon

Dungeon Master's Guide 2024 will release November 12th. 

The updated Monster Manual will release Feb 18 of 2025.

Alternate covers will be available for Quests from the Infinite Staircase and Vecna:  Eve of Ruin.  No word on the others yet.

D&D at WalMart

Dungeons and Dragons may seem mainstream today but it was also suprisingly widely accepted in the early 1980s. When I worked for Wal-Mart in the early 1980s, I had played D&D and AD&D in college but got rid of all my materials when I relocated. That didn't last very long of course and within a year after going to work at Wal-mart, I started playing again. However, was mildly sprised to find Wal-mart stocking the basic D&D boxed sets in the toy department. Never saw any books or modules, likely because the buyers could not figure out what they were but boxed sets were close enough to board games that the buyer could at least approximate them.

Player Materials

 I really hope WotC decides to publish more player focused materials for D&D this year. Of the four releases in 2023, only Glory of the Giants and Planescape had any player character materials. Players still bought the books but it seems a shame to shell out the $60 for a book with only a fraction of the book aimed at players, which make up the far larger segment of the market

Amy Dallen

 sorry to see Amy Dallen was fired from WOTC. She was a producer and host on D&D Beyond, which likely mean they are 1 cutting back on the platform or 2. shopping around for less expensive talent.

WotC Layoffs

 Here is a list of a very few of the 1200 layoffs at Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast this week. According to what I can see from the list, a lot of people in their art department got axed. It also looks as if most of the tose cut came from the Dungeons and Dragons side of the company.  I hope this does not mean we will see a lot of AI gnerated art in future D&D releases.