D&D Celebration 2021 releases some future spoilers

Saturday, Sept 25: Discussed Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, a new 5e hardcover book releasing soon. They provided a preview of the Metallic Dragonborn, the Drakewarden Ranger subclass, and the Moonstone Dragon monster.

I like the new way the Dragonborn's breath weapon works, and the Drakewarden looks like a fun class to play.

I've always felt inclined to take the energy breath away from metallic dragons, make their nonlethal/special effect breath weapon more defining features of them. Nice to see those abilities manifesting in dragonborn.

Sunday, Sept 26: Ray Winninger, head of WotC, announces D&D 5.5 (YouTube) coming in 2024. He doesn't call it 5.5, but it basically sounds like it. Promises to be backwards compatible with existing 5e material.

Not going to lie, I thought that would have more information. It sounds intriguing, though I have to wonder what kind of changes they plan on making that would both change the game so much they're announcing it this far ahead but is still backwards compatible with 5e. Hmm.

When 3.5 came out, they said the same things. They ended up putting or a conversion guide that was 30 pages or so. Changes to some spells, a revamping of damage reduction, things like that. The core mechanics remained true, but there was some converting to do with older content that was relatively easy.

Here's the transcript from Ray Winninger's interview: "I can actually reveal today that we have earlier this year - we began work on the next evolution of Dungeons and Dragons - new versions of the Core Rule Books, which will be coming out in 2024 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons ... with the surveys we have been giving out ... the next evolution of the game ... we are doing the best to give you the version of the game that you really want; so we can't really say much more yet about what our plans are, as we are still making them; but you are gonna see more surveys like that .... next year - the timing is next year, so next year we will have plenty more to say about those books and what they mean for D&D .... one thing by the way I can assure you these new versions of the books are gonna be completley compatible with all those 5th Edition products that you already own and love and all those products that we will release between now and then .... so next year we will have more to say."

I also remember their broken promise that 3.5 wasn't the halfway point towards a 4th edition, and that a 4th edition wouldn't be coming out in 2008... Needless to say, I have become extremely cynical when it comes to WotC.

anybody read Fizban's? It's been out over a month, and I haven't heard a word.

Yep, I read it. Pretty good. Mostly solid mechanics as far as I can see, and lots of story hooks and support for dragon-themed adventures. My kids are really into it, and read it all the time.

I bought it on dndbeyonds cyberweek sale

Its mostly for GM's and dragon fanboys (yep that is me)

I've made a dragon based nation off of it in my homebrew world.

I've been reading it to my kids as a bedtime story 😅 They are both dragon fanboys born in the year of the dragon.