D&D Direct shares many plans and a first look at the official VTT

Dungeons & Dragons recently held a D&D Direct. The event was an opportunity for the company to share news of new items coming from the franchise and there were many. I’ve included the entire video below and will do my best to summarize it before then. What were your results from the event and what excited you the most?

First, it was announced that Minecraft it’s getting new D&D DLCs. This will allow Minecraft players can choose a class such as barbarian and mage and then explore five Forgotten Realms locations such as Icewind Dale and Candlekeep. There, they’ll be able to battle classic monsters and even experience an original adventure that “allows players to customize their characters’ stats and roll 20-sided dice to determine how to proceed in full-voice dialogue.” In short, they seem to be working to make D&D inside of Minecraft.

Continuing with video games, the popular MMO Never winter has a new expansion. RASalvatore created the set titled Menzoberranzan which is 25 Never winter expansion. You can now enjoy the new expansion that brings the dangerous city to the game on PC, PlayStation and Xbox (affiliate link).

Moving on to physical products, the team teased some new toys from Hasbro, their parent company, that would be talked about during the Hasbro Pulse Fanstream. WizKids also shared some new items like the 20 inch mimic and 11 inch baby owl figures.

The show also included some details about Joe Manganiellothe next documentary of D&D will be released in 2024 to celebrate 50 years of the game. Some additional teases for upcoming products have been dropped Chris Perkins AND Jeremy Crawford Also. Magic: the gathering is also getting a D&D: Honor Among Thieves Secret Lair drops with six cards based on characters from the movie. Those pre-orders are live now. Finally, there was the thing that was most exciting to me and many others: a glimpse into the upcoming D&D virtual table.

This was very exciting. We’ve known for a while that an official VTT was on the way and it was nice to see some pre-alpha footage. It was also nice to hear that a playtest is currently planned for later this year. It will be available through D&D Beyond. The VTT looks great overall, and if you’re already using D&D Beyond, it looks like it’s going to be absolutely awesome. However, I disagree with a number of things indirectly related to this VTT.

First, Kale Stutzmann he was showing the new VTT to us and the D&D Direct hosts and that wasn’t a problem, but he said something that pissed me off. You said there are many ways to play D&D online, but then implied that those ways didn’t hit three key areas: fun, convenience, and authenticity. The implication is that this new VTT is the only way to have fun, affordable and authentic D&D, whatever that means. You can have fun D&D online with any tool and really VTT. Convenience is a matter of perspective and will be different for every table. What the hell is “authenticity” supposed to mean? It’s only authentic if I use the official D&D mini? Or maybe I have to use the official D&D adventures and campaigns to be authentic. That line is such marketing bullshit, I hate it!

My second issue is related to all the great features it has. The new VTT will feature great looking miniatures, animations for things like a creature popping out of the ground, built-in dice, etc. It’s all great. However, when D&D was in hot water over the OGL debacle, they tried to create a VTT policy that companies would have to accept that would not allow them to use animations and other various things. The idea was that those animations and features make VTT too much like a video game and D&D he wanted to make sure there was a distinction. Thankfully, they bounced back, but this footage also reveals the fact that their defense was completely bogus. The reason they wanted to say no animations and such was because they wanted to be the only ones doing it. The pre-alpha footage looks more like a video game than any other VTT I’ve seen. You roll the dice and then see fluctuating damage numbers and such. There are all kinds of deep and intentional animations. It’s cool, but it really paints a bad picture for D&D again in my opinion. From their now deleted VTT policy:

What’s not allowed are features that don’t replicate the narrative of the dining room table. If you replace your imagination with an animation of the Magic Missile hurtling across the board to hit your target, or your VTT integrates our content into an NFT, it’s not the tabletop experience. It’s more like a video game.

So VTT is a video game?

What do you think of D&D Direct?