Universes Beyond comes to Dungeons & Dragons | Design Club

[music] [music]
Good morning. Nope, that's the wrong intro. Good times on the internet. Hi, welcome to the site come live the only show on the internet where I'm totally not frazzled by tech problems so much that I forget my intro. I'm your humble host Will joined as always by my pal Jeff. Say hi to the people Jeff.
Hi to people Jeff. Hey everybody, I am Jeffrey Zeck in the studio director of extra credits long time game designer and more importantly for this episode long time player of D&D and pretty much all things TSR to WotC.
Okay, all right, that's good. Yeah. Uh
And other table tops old systems including Star Wars.
Right, yeah. Oh God, I well there have been which one? There have been many Star Wars table top systems including a role a D20 based one that was based in the like the

the core engine of D&D the dice system is not actually exclusive to D&D. It's its own system which you could put into many different settings. Just the most ubiquitous of those is D&D. The good ones you know which. Okay, great. Excellent. Love that. Um and that's incredibly relevant today because today we're going to be talking about the announcements that Wizards made at their D&D panel at Gen Con. Um for
For the reveal panel. They they at Gen Con having walked by it they took over a a movie an old theater I think multi-story and built a multi-story exhibition
Mhm.
which we didn't have tickets so we didn't get in but um
That's fine. You can read about it.
and busy and looked cool.
Yeah, absolutely. So for reference today is the 11th of August so this would have been uh 9 days ago.

Yeah, roughly a week.
Yeah, a week ago. Last week. Uh we didn't do it last week cuz we were fresh off of Gen Con and wanted to get some time to gather our bearings, and I needed to look up numbers because as part of that they announced a whole bunch of stuff as part of that. They announced upcoming supplements, they announced upcoming uh campaigns. All of that's great. We're not going to talk about any of that.
Oh, I thought we were going to go through all of it to end up with the thing.
I mean, I feel like the thing is the only thing that people want to talk about, but like
Actually, let's spend 10 minutes getting up there because I think that also contextualizes some of it.
Okay, cool. You start then.
Okay, hold on. I'm going to bring up here. So, bum bum bum, WotC, which makes mini games, but two names of note. Um Dungeons & Dragons and Magic the Gathering. Like, I know they do other stuff, but for right now

and what
And they're owned by Hasbro.
Right.
And comprise lots and lots of stuff.
But primarily in terms of profit makes two things, Dungeons & Dragons and Magic the Gathering. Um
Oh, Hasbro has other things of um
Yes.
Mhm. Th- But increasingly
Yes.
they have been interested in this subsidiary.
Yeah.
But Well, I mean, Hasbro makes a lot of toys.
They do, and yet
[laughter]
the numbers the num- the amount of money they make off of uh Dungeons & Dragons and specifically Magic the Gathering is mind-blowing.
Okay, hold on. Best-selling Hasbro toys and puzzles. Let's see, Nerf blasters,
Uh-huh.
Play-Doh,
Uh-huh.
Transformers,
Uh-huh.
Um Jenga, Connect 4, Trouble, Candy Land.
Mhm.
Actually, I'm curious. Best-selling trends, GI Joe.

Interesting market analysis. It's amazing what you can find online nowadays.
Mhm.
Mhm. But Yes, Wizards is one of their things, but we should not
[clears throat]
They have a lot that they sell.
They do. They They I'm not saying that they don't. I'm saying that they make a lot of their money off of these profits or off of these specific things.
Mhm.
What percent of Hasbro's revenue comes from Wizards?
Looking. I literally have their 2025 financials up. So, you keep going with what they announced, and I'll tell you when I get there.
So, D&D has had an interesting thing over the past couple years. Where um they came out with fifth edition about a decade ago. And 5.5, which is their updated edition, what is it, like a year and a half ago

now?
Something like that.
2 years? And it let's just say it came out to mixed reviews. It is a good system. It's a good update. But um there's also a lot of people who it isn't substantively different enough from fifth edition to kind of get people to do a swap.
Yeah.
And that is That was very intentional. They wanted this to be a system that works with fifth. Like fifth and 5.5 and five can be played together. Was designed um very much to do so. There we go. Thank you. 2014 and 2024, so it was a decade. Sometimes these numbers run together in my mind. Um but they were made to be can uh this is more of a let's work together system because they put out a lot of stuff over the past 10 years that they want to keep active and working.

And so WotC has been looking particularly because they are owned by Hasbro and I'm just going to say this very flat out to have D&D make more money.
Yes.
One of the hard parts for um the Dungeons and Dragons team is they don't get to release infinite amounts of small cardboard rectangles in the same way that their sister team Magic does and so they are internally constantly getting compared to that and like the amount of money for the development teams are very different because the amount of money that each product makes.
Yep.
And you know, you'll go buy a player's handbook once. You'll go buy you know, a a box to box of boosters possibly every time a new expansion comes out. So there's a big frequency difference and most players won't necessarily go by the Dungeon Master's Guide or don't need to go go by new campaign settings or other things cuz usually a Dungeon

Master does and you know, you play that for the group. So D&D has some interesting things with compared to Magic.
Yeah.
And so one of the things that the D&D team has been trying to figure out a little bit is honestly how to make themselves look a little better so that they don't necessarily continue to have more resources shoved towards Magic the Gathering and not just and be the you know, the tiny little group in Wizards of the Coast.
Yeah. I found my numbers. So uh there there are some numbers that I posted in chat uh the and and I'm finding other numbers elsewhere that tell the story a little better. So, uh for 2020 for 2025, so this is last year cuz we don't have all of this year's numbers yet.
Yep.
Last year, um Hasbro revenue increased 14% overall.
Okay.
Of that, 45%

the they attribute it to 45% growth in Wizards of the Coast and digital gaming. And they had a decline in both consumer products and entertainment licensing of 4% each. So, while it might not be true that like we're we're we're sort of in the in wild territory, right? Which is where wild turns out a lot of players, but wild is so big that that number isn't really as important, right? Like yes, they make a lot of money, but they are increasingly focused on driving the growth in this sector because it is it is materially impacting their overall growth.
Yeah, and it's a growing sector they don't want to show decline, but WotC is roughly a third look like of their revenue?
Uh yes, and growth. Yeah, it's about it's about a third and will probably be half I would say by the end of the decade. Which for a company
I'll be curious to see.
Yeah, I'll I'll be curious to see as well.
Because like it's funny, for all that we play Magic and D&D, like you go wander through a Target and a Walmart, the amount of Connect 4s games and Play-Doh

and all of the other stuff in there that just gets moved is a lot.
That's true, and that and that is it is one of the truly fascinating things about this is that like um And I think the the the myopicness of of people who are deeply invested in these IPs is a big part of the conversation that we'll be getting into, right? That like you have a relationship with these and feel as though um surely everyone knows to untap upkeep and then draw.
Mhm.
But the overwhelming majority of people don't. So when when we talk about Spider-Man coming to magic, lots of people are like, "Oh yeah, I know magic. I don't really care about Spider-Man." And I assure you that there is a demonstrably massive segment of the world that knows everything about Spider-Man and nothing about Magic the Gathering. [laughter] Right? And that that is that is just a

um a fact of it as well.
And just how things work.
Yeah.
But yeah, like I was in a Target actually over this weekend with my child well young young child well I'll just child like looking at things to buy because actually you'd like this. We've been watching Mark Rober videos and now he's interested in engineering things.
Sure.
So we were in there looking for engineering kits to pick up for things to build.
Mhm.
And wandered by their huge display of Legos including Pokémon Legos which um are very dangerous.
Mhm.
And their wall of board games and other things like it amazes me too like there is many more there are many more sets of Uno now than I remember.
Yeah, they're all licensed like different
many sets of Monopoly. I I mean I'd known that but like walking by and seeing the Pokémon Monopoly next to some of the others like a lot of these groups and sell a lot of stuff. Like Target clears out a lot of that inventory on a

weekly and monthly basis. Oh, just rows and rows worth of it.
And by the way we should know
Mhm.
[clears throat]
that when we talk about magic and we talk about D&D and we talk about how much money they make, they don't make nearly as much money as Pokémon. Well, we like that is the other thing that like Target and Walmart and everything else in the culture around card games and nerds
Actually, I think magic cards make more than Pokémon cards but Pokémon property makes way more than um
In in physical
location sales, I would be mind-boggled. If that is still the case. It It probably was at one point, but the volume of increasing Pokémon sales in public that have required like substantive changes in like Target and Walmart policies around Pokémon cards would indicate to me that they are rising in popularity meteorically.
Oh, I be Actually, I want to find some numbers cuz I know Pokémon's the single most profitable media franchise, but

that incorporates LEGOs, books, movies, TV shows, manga, like toys, plushies, like it is a coloring books, regular books, like backpacks.
Yep.
What was it I We like we have a back-to-school Pokémon backpack that um I feel like came from something like an L.L.Bean or something. Like it wasn't [clears throat] like knockoff thing. It was like Anyway, we don't need to get into
anyway.
[snorts]
Yep.
But so magic Actually, D&D has been looking for increasing their road map because one of the other things that they've shifted to because of part of what I talked about is they're trying to get things that can be bought by more people.
Yep.
And so one of the things they've stopped doing as much as making huge campaign settings because a lot of people make their own and also like a Dungeon Master buys a copy as opposed to all of the players buying a thing. This has had kind of a weird effect where

there's been some backlash against it like, "Why don't they publish these cool things anymore?" But they're also branching out into more first-party and second-party games. We have Warlock coming up and other things. But they're also constantly getting compared to Magic: The Gathering.
In terms of like in the You're talking about like in the boardroom. Yeah.
Well, in the boardroom, actually both in Hasbro level and in WotC level.
Yeah. I have heard from people that have worked there that there is a very different size on teams and resources available to both.
Yeah.
Which is not surprising considering that one of them probably 50 x's the revenue of the other.
That sounds correct.
As a guess. Like don't quote me on that, but
Yeah.
I'm thinking of volume of cards and frequency of purchase.
Sure.
So anyway, hey, 5.5's out. It's going They're They have a road map. They are in and they would like to do more things.

So they're doing a couple of interesting things. Number one, um John or Joe Manganiello, I can never say his name right.
Manganiello.
Who is both a famous athlete, no, excuse me, movie star. Athlete movie star?
Famous.
Famous.
[snorts]
Um and has been a very vocal D&D player in Hollywood for a long time. Um is now in the service there chief creative officer for their um icons.
Mhm.
Um which is one of the things they're doing is they're trying to bring back some of the most famous D&D creator names to make new content.
Yeah.
And this is a credibility thing as well as that those people made cool thing things. So part of their um icon series, they're getting Weis and Hickman back, the people who wrote Dragonlance, R.A. Salvatore of the Drizzt Do'Urden novels, um

Luke Gygax, son of Gary Gygax, is in to um do some of the stuff around Greyhawk, which was his father's campaign world.
I just want him to introduce himself in character as Luke, son of Gary. Anyway, go on.
Okay. I've actually [snorts] met him at an event or two. He's He seems really nice.
Yeah, no, he's really cool. I just have this image of like a paladin with like the hair and the shield standing atop the RAMPART IS I AM LUKE SON OF GARY. YOU WILL NOT PASS. ANYWAY, KEEP GOING.
YEAH, so one of their initiatives um that is that they're bringing back some famous people, a couple of other famous artists like to do stuff around um very established things that they've made in the past. Dragonlance, Greyhawk.
Yes. [clears throat]
And others. Cool. There's a lot of players who played for a long time that really like those settings.
Yes.
Um myself included. It's good to see them getting some love. And in a lot of cases from the original people who made

them or descendants of the original people who made them who have been heavily involved in making D&D and other things. Um one of the other things that I thought was really interesting um well, do you remember when we did the um D&D YouTube like the the 25-minute long Extra Credits episode talking about the litigious history of Dungeons and Dragons?
Yes.
Where it was basically every time WotC is more permissive with their licensing, things go well. And every time they pull back in and try and throttle everything, it goes poorly.
Yes.
They are leaning into the let's go wide, let's partner with people
Right.
again. They obviously saw our episode.
That's specifically
this is how we make more money and make it bigger because they are now uh working officially working with third-party studios to make official Dungeons and Dragons content and settings.
Yep.
And so some of the biggest names

actually in third-party D&D content are now coming in to be official. Um Ghostfire Gaming is going to be working on Ravenloft. Official like this will be published by WotC, go into stores. This isn't like oh yeah, we'll include it in D&D Beyond, as an extra thing.
Right.
This is we are handing off part of this um and so Ravenloft Horrors Within that just came out, they're going to be working on additional domains of dread. Um Kobold Press is let's see who runs them.
Oh, do you have that up in front of you where
Yeah. Uh they're they're going to be releasing new Forgotten Realms content from Kobold Press in 2028. Uh and uh
And Visionary Productions is going to be working on official Eberron material. And these aren't going to be small things. These are going to be like big source books, big campaign books,

Right.
classes, magic feats. So, they are heavily going with established third-party groups that honestly, some of which have old D&D like designers now working with them.
Yeah.
And are leaning into let's go make more cool stuff because the internal team can't make it all.
Right. And I think they figured out that that is one of the things that they need to do is well And this is part of the stuff that magic players hate, right? Um Wizards has seven s- seven sets releasing this year plus an eight plus an eighth ish set, which is the mystery booster commander thing that's coming out in um for for conventions. So, there's seven real sets and then a host of supplemental products. And just like if you if you bought one of everything, right? Let's say that you're a a consumer of Magic the Gathering and you bought one of everything, right? Just

one of everything. You went to one pre-release, what bought one play booster box, one collector booster box, you bought one um of each secret layer and everything else, you're out like many, many thousands of dollars compared to buying one of everything for D&D, right? Just in terms of volume of releases. So, I think this is them stepping up on the volume of releases where if someone now buys one of every D&D thing, right? And there's a Ravenloft thing and a Neverwinter thing and a Forgotten Realms thing and a whatever, they're going to get more money out of that consumer.
Right. And I also think they don't expect people to go buy everything.
Yep.
But and sometimes too, like there are people who just like some settings and there have been times where it's been like 10 or 15 years between an update to that setting.
Yeah.
So, by partnering with really established third-party groups, you can basically say if you like Greyhawk, there's going to be more Greyhawk material coming out.
Yeah.
So, I think that's great. Like
Yeah.

I think that's These are all good, great groups that put out really cool third-party stuff already. Now, they're officially working with WotC, which sounds honestly that feels like a win for everybody. Like if WotC doesn't have the resources to do it internally, get other great groups.
Yep, agreed.
Um D&D Beyond is seems like they're supposed to be getting some big updates. So, D&D Beyond is the digital companion, both web and mobile. And it sounds like
Yeah. Sounds like philosophically, they're trying to make it more fit in with tabletop play as well for the mobile variants. So, less stare at your phone all the time and more here's the thing you need right now. Um, so they've been looking to do updates for usability and um, behind-the-scenes mechanics to try and make it easier.
Right.
So, that feels like a win. Um, they're introducing though they haven't talked a lot about it yet, some

sort of looking for group, find a DM system. Um I suspect we'll hear more about that, but um that does feel one of the big needs that there was a lot of people who would like to play more in D&D than they currently have friends who want to play or time to play. And so if you're going to play online across Discord or other things, it looks like they're trying to help facilitate that. I will reserve judgment until execution, but in general, ways to help people find groups to play more Dungeons & Dragons, I'm a fan of.
Yep.
Um
There were two other three other big um first-party in-house IPs that also got updates, Arcana Unleashed and the There are two supplements coming for Arcana Unleashed. One of them uh
Oh yeah. Um so Arcana specifically references the old Unearthed Arcana book
Yes.
from I believe second
It's old.
First or second? Man, my mind is a bag

of cats today. I have it sitting on my bookshelf behind my green screen.
It's hella old.
Yeah.
Not fifth edition.
Yeah. Yeah. Um and again, everything they're talking about seems to be big beefy books. They're not little like supplements. Um
Uh and then we're also getting a very mature style return to Dark Sun.
Yeah. So Dark Sun is another very old setting which is is basically D&D's post-apocalyptic setting.
Right.
Um
It's Conan.
Yeah. It's actually Yeah. It's It is Conan as written, not Conan as sometimes portrayed in other
Yes.
places.
It Yes, it is classic Conan as written. Uh and then we're also getting Greyhawk stuff as well.
Yeah. Greyhawk Yeah. But Dark Sun is interesting, too, because WotC seems to be leaning I was reading a little bit about this. I guess they did enough focus groups that they're with uh the success of The Witcher and

Game of Thrones, there are more people now interested in darker, grittier fantasy as opposed to high fantasy.
Yep.
And so, I think they're leaning into that for a campaign setting.
Mhm.
Um we'll see what comes out.
Yep.
Uh like but again, a lot of people liked Dark Sun. If this is an opportunity for those people to get more official stuff, great.
Yeah.
Like none of these seem bad to me. Like I'm I'm actually very, very okay with WotC putting out more stuff aimed at because different groups want different things.
Yep. Everything we've talked about so far, most D&D fans are super excited for.
Yeah. We'll never be all.
Correct. We'll never be all. It's D&D. We've seen the forums. It's okay.
And um like I'm actually excited to see what they do with their Warlock video game.
Yeah, I think that'll be cool.
So, okay. All of that being said. So, as I said, most people were probably pretty happy

with
Yep.
all of that. I'm just skimming through this. If we missed anything, I'm actually curious to see Dark Sun. I'm curious to see Greyhawk.
Yep.
Like I like sourcebooks.
Right. But But then, they announced that D&D would be going to a new world. We'd be stepping through a portal into a mystical world that D&D has never visited before.
Mhm.
Azeroth.
For those unfamiliar, this is the official name of the lands in World of Warcraft.
Yeah. So, they have announced
there's basically will be a D&D
Yes.
World of Warcraft.
Correct. And they have announced what
official D&D role-playing game with the setting of World of Warcraft.
Correct.
Specifically matching the MMO.
Correct.
Mhm.
Yeah. Um So, okay. And then, there's a bunch of other interesting stuff. Uh number one,

that they have they have declared that this is officially entitled Universes Beyond.
Yes. So, our title was our thumbnail was not clickbait.
Yeah, no. It it it's it's actually um uh the It No, it's it's specifically World of Warcraft.
Yeah. In fifth edition. Because fourth edition D&D was interesting in that it was more of an attempt to make D&D play like an MMO.
Right. And then they didn't go all the way and people hated it and it was a travesty, but like they're actually really Like if you're ever looking to homebrew stuff and you want ideas, go snag a bunch of fourth ed books for really cheap cuz some people really don't like them and just crib a whole bunch of ideas out of them because they're really
fun ideas.
Yeah, they're really There's really good stuff in the fourth ed books. There is.
had been launched as a game that wasn't called D&D, I think that would have had a very popular um

response. But I think a lot of people who would play D&D said this is very different than the game I'm used to playing through editions one, two, and three.
Right.
And why fifth went back to the
Right.
be much closer to one, two, and three.
Right. And and yes, while it's true that there were OGL things for Warcraft before, to the to the best of my knowledge this is the first time it's in-house. I know there have been supplements before, but this is this feels substantively different than the previous
Especially with the branding of Universes Beyond. So, for those unfamiliar, OGL, the Open Gaming License, part of the Dungeons & Dragons rule set has been put into public domain. Meaning that anybody can use those parts of it to make any theoretically anything they want.
Yeah.
There's And
There's some legal weirdness here which we're going to alight as well. So, we're delete the comment. I see you see you we're going to alight it. Yes, you're right. No, we're not going to talk about

it. Keep going.
[laughter]
Getting ahead of the comments.
[snorts]
Yeah. But, um and so, a lot of the stuff when we were just saying, you know, there's a lot of groups who've been making third-party content. These groups have been using the open version of D&D to make that.
Yeah.
And they're now instead of just using the open version, which is this much but not this much of D&D.
Right.
They're getting brought in-house so they can use that full segment in. So, there had been some other stuff. Like, there had been a D20 Star Wars, they've been a D20 World of Warcraft, but none of that was official D&D because it was this part but not this full part of the rules.
Correct.
And a lot of that's also based on how some copyrighted other things work that certain things just can't be copyrighted.
Yeah.
And so, but all of that aside, okay, we'll
Yes.
So,
So, the there there's
Universes Beyond, they're like Where should we start talking about this?
So, I was going to we need to clarify a

thing because there the the naming convention is going to get weird here real quick. So, there are several things at play, all of which use the word beyond. Okay? And it kind of stinks for us in this conversation, and it kind of stinks for the branding, and I don't know why they did this, but they did. Okay. So, there is D&D Beyond, which is the Dungeons & Dragons digital platform, where you can buy books and do character sheets, and that that's where they've got the new LFG thing, and it's their online portal.
And I Wasn't that D Wasn't that Well, D&D Beyond got acquired. They didn't do a name change, right?
Correct. D&D Beyond has been D&D Beyond for a real long time. They just got bought.
Right. Officially bought. Initially, they were their own company. So, the Beyond part and the Universes Beyond I believe started as wholly separate like not even in the same company thing.
Correct. Well
And but the branding for D&D Beyond was so good for the D&D community that they

didn't want to change it.
Correct. And then there's Universes Beyond, but there are two different Wizards of the Coast properties that both use the name Wizard that both use the name Universes Beyond to refer to tie-ins with properties that are outside specifically Wizards of the Coast. And those are Magic and D&D and in both cases is referred to as Universes Beyond. So, there's Magic Universes Beyond and then there is Dungeons & Dragons Universes Beyond which is not to be confused with D&D Beyond.
Right.
And if the word Beyond still means anything to you, congratulations, you're doing better than I am with this conversation. Um
I I think it's from their roots well with the word level.
Yeah.
Hey, we leveled up. Wait, we're going down a level in Dungeons.
Right. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yes.
And
Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah.
And more.
The Fortnite of it all. Beyond. Correct. So,

let's talk about what's in the tie-in real quick. Um the the tie-in is that there is a supplemental book um that's now up for pre-order uh in English. It will be in French, Italian, German, and Spanish in 2027, but if you're watching this in English
let me make a quick note on that. So, specifically it is a supplemental book for D&D. They still This is not a new system. You still go buy the Player's Handbook etc. first. This is not a standalone thing. And I believe this is going to lay the groundwork for a lot of these well where they're not trying to say this is the standalone um you know and it is therefore could be substantively different. They're saying here is the corset that you add this on top of.
Yes.
Because for example, I'm reading like 13 World of Warcraft craft classes, new

rules for playing all 13 World of Warcraft classes featuring nine new and reimagined subclasses and over 40 specializations.
Yes.
So for example, they're we will have I'm pretty sure barbarians and fighters and you um clerics etc. from D&D paladins in with here is the additional things you need to make a paladin you know from D&D into a paladin from Azeroth.
Yeah. I think that's correct. That that reads as correct to me. It it's certainly much easier to do that I think from a player understanding point of view. They are also releasing 16 species including Dracthyr, Draenei, Earthen, Forsaken, Heritor, Mechagnome, Pandaren, Tauren, Troll, Vulpera, and Worgen, all of which are similar to but distinct from their D&D versions.
Right.
Um
And but this is also like we've had a

lot of different supplements and campaign books etc. that introduce new species.
Correct.
So like that's not a big surprise.
Yeah, we're still on par. Um
And I think well one of the reasons they're doing that is they want people to be able to bring a Warcraft paladin into a regular campaign game and other things. Like if these aren't compatible being a little cynical, if these aren't compatible less people are going to buy the product.
Right. That's very true. If you can't make your uh WoW character in D&D. They haven't done it. And I think that's probably one of their high concept uh pitches for this is when they're designing this, one of the first things is if you can make it in World of Warcraft, you need to be able to make it in D&D.
Mhm.
Like that's important, right?
Or the our rule set that we add will allow you to play equivalently a roughly similar powered

paladin in this this and this.
Right. I'm very interested personally in what they do with fistweaver monk. Um there is a monk specialization called mistweaver. It's a healer and it heals when you punch things. And I'm very Mhm.
There's a sub class called mercy monk that is already um somewhat similar in D&D.
There's a lot of uh elemental animal summoning and some other stuff. So it'll be interesting to see how they blend like the five elements monk and that and all of that. I just like fistweaver. I think it's fun.
Oh yeah. And a lot of this too is they don't have to have the exact same thing. It has to have the same feel. And that's a very important design concept is they don't need to replicate It doesn't need to replicate every level up and nuance of the Azeroth classes.
Right.
What you need to do is if you're playing, you know, a particular kind of paladin from Warcraft to get that same vibe when you play it tabletop.
Correct. And I think that that's yeah.

Just like you just like uh D&D paladins get to scream smite. Right? They might do.
But they'll have new spells, magic items, monsters, um and actually one of the things I think sounds the coolest seven iconic World of Warcraft dungeons reimagined for tabletop play. That's kind of cool. There's a lot of people who did a lot of play and rating and other things that I think it's going to be a trip to be like, let's go run whatever dungeons they put in. Let's go run it tabletop.
Yeah.
Like that sounds fun.
Yeah. I think it I think it is a really cool idea. Um I think the uh the um I think one of them is Icecrown Citadel, which I know a lot of Wild players were like super hyped about. Um I think it's you know, everything here, if you are a person who likes World of Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons you're probably pretty hyped for.

And if you're not about World of Warcraft and you are about Dungeons and Dragons it feels a little weird, although not super weird, right? So so let's
Let me tell you the reason I think it's not super weird, but then go back to you on the vibe.
Mhm.
I don't necessarily want to go play Dark Sun.
Sure.
But I'm happy they're putting out a source book for it. I may not want to move my campaign into Greyhawk. I'm happy they're putting out a source book for it.
Yeah.
I've actually not run a Ravenloft campaign since the original Ravenloft module was done. But I know Matt loves them and Arthur loves them. I'm glad they're out there. So in a lot of cases, for me at least, and I think a lot of the D&D community, we are used to lots of different settings coming out that we may look at and appreciate, but not necessarily go play.
Yes.
And so for me this partially feels like that.

But also in some ways it feels a little different because this is the first time they're incorporating somebody else's existing world IP into official Dungeons and Dragons that I can think of.
Well
I'm forgetting things.
I mean, didn't a lot of things start out that way? Eberron was, unless I'm mistaken, originally a world-building challenge? Like
Yeah, I believe the designer who won it then got hired to come in and be like one of the lead designers on it.
Right. So, like everything that is part of D&D right now was at one point non-existent and was created to be either was to created with being part of D&D in mind or was, you know, there's a there's an example in the
exception of Greyhawk.
Right. Yeah, with the exception of Greyhawk, which is the OG D&D. Um but but here's an example, right? There's an Exandria supplement from Critical Role

for that you can buy. The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount.
Yeah. Pretty good, actually.
Pretty Yeah, pretty good book. Doesn't feel like it's the same thing, though. Right? It it feels like it is substantively a unique, one-off world that has a bunch of ways that the world runs differently than we might expect from core Dungeons & Dragons.
Mhm.
But in this case was designed with D&D in mind, well, Pathfinder, but like we don't talk about that bit. The original Critical Role campaign one was in Pathfinder and then they moved to D&D when they went to the tabletop, which is why there was a bunch of holdover magic items that ended up being ridiculously busted. Anyway, not to get you to
Or there was a gunslinger character.
Right, or there was a gunslinger or whatever, right? And so, they they like made it work, right?
Mhm.
But that isn't the kind of weirdness we're talking about, right?
But it In some cases, it should be. Like

you know, what is the difference between you know, Critical Role's campaign setting and World of Warcraft's campaign setting?
Right. It feels different somehow. There's a It does. There there's a different
I don't know exactly why.
So, so let me let me push this ever so slightly further.
Okay. I'll wait. Hold on. One theory I'm going to throw it out before you push further. One was made explicitly for Dungeons and Dragons.
Okay. Let me push it a little further into something that wasn't explicitly made for Dungeons and Dragons. Let's talk about Strixhaven.
Okay.
If you want a weird, very gay, very inclusive school of wizardry that uses a house model to separate people out into different groups that have strong color themings and you want that, but you don't want the other one for whatever reason, may I interest you in Strixhaven, the Magic the Gathering world that was created to

be a wizard school set? Right? There's a wizard school that set on the plane of Strixhaven and it has all of these different um houses and spells and schools of magic and characters and species and everything. Okay? That's a thing that exists in Magic the Gathering. And then they wrote a supplement to bring it into Dungeons and Dragons. Does that feel the same?
It was a fun supplement.
Right, but does it feel like it's in the same category, right? Because your your previous your previous note was that the Xantars supplement doesn't feel the same because it's built with a tabletop game in mind. And here, Strixhaven is not. Strixhaven is built to be a Magic the Gathering lore setting, right? And then was ported into Dungeons and Dragons. So, does that feel the same?
To me, it felt fine.
Right. So, it there's something substantively different and maybe it's the age, right? Strixhaven is relatively

recent. Strixhaven is within the past six or so years. Um School for Mages was post pandemic and wow was old, right? Wow was as old as the hills at this point.
Some of it's interesting like both Magic and D&D have a multiverse aspect to it that made Strixhaven feel like it could easily exist
Okay.
within the same multiverse.
Sure. And we'll get and we're going to allied the the the following conversation about all the other magic supplements to do the same thing. There's a supplement for Ravnica. I believe there are supplements for several other books. The one that jumped to mind was Strixhaven because it's a fun one. I really like Strixhaven.
Right. But I mean when you in D&D lore or I shouldn't even quote air bar in D&D lore like Greyhawk is its own like multiversal plane in the same way that um Faerun not uh um

Forgotten Realms is or like Planescape Torment or Dark Sun or some of the Ravenloft like all of those with the right spells you could theoretically hop between them
Right.
if you want to. And we've seen that in stories and our role-playing and other things too.
And in Magic the Gathering one of the fundamental elements of the lore and the story is the Planeswalker spark which allows people to walk between different planes of existence. That's how they have a recurring cast of characters and that's been a story thing for oh
since the game was made.
Yeah, it it took us I would say it took a step up when they moved into modern like with Mirrodin uh but it's been a thing for as long as the game's been around, right? So like those things feel compatible.
Actually and one of the other things everybody makes to me lots of people make their own D&D settings.
Mhm.
And bring and like you play your game in that setting. I have made several myself. This is accepted like this is part of how D&D works. They tell you about it in

both the Player's Handbook and DMG. You can use an established setting or make one of your own.
Right.
And so when as they bring in other things it's also like and they'll all usually say and here are ways to incorporate this into your setting if you want."
Yes.
And so these are things that are made to kind of be And maybe so then it's the fact that Azeroth or World of Warcraft is a self-contained thing.
Yeah.
Like all of these other ones are kind of made to be brought together in some ways if you want to.
They feel like they have um enough here there be monsters at the edge of the map that if you went far enough off the edge of one of the maps, it would make perfect sense that you showed up on another one. Right? But that's because it feels like the maps are all roughly the same kind and sort of at the same scale and okay, those maps could go together, right? And then

we get to Azeroth and it feels like Azeroth has a different is like written in a different language. The map is in a different scale. It's in a different style. So when we do that, it's not quite the easy sell of ah, yes. This makes sense. These things go together. It feels like you step over a boundary and now there's something different. Right?
And in that case, I actually like the titling of Universes Beyond because we are going kind of beyond the further beyond than you would normally see for all of these different settings that even if they're their own things are still connected.
Yeah.
you're it's Spelljammer. It's you know, through the mists into Ravenloft. Like everybody arrives at Ravenloft from somewhere else.
Yeah.
Like or I'm not sure not everybody, but most characters don't start in Ravenloft. Like it's you've ended up in Ravenloft somehow.
Right. Because [laughter] you can't, yeah. And that's where your

character ends because no one leaves Ravenloft. Um uh So okay, so there's like this weirdness with the way that it feels. And I also think, if we're being really honest about this, I think the fact that it is transparently another IP reads to some extent as more nakedly being about the money. And I don't I I'm not begrudging a company doing new things to make more money. That's what companies do. That's the function of a company, right? And I can disagree with the way they do it. Right? But, um, and that's like a whole different thing, right? And I can say, "Yeah, I don't like this product." Or, "I don't like the way that you're doing it." But, the fact that they're trying new things to make money, okay, that makes sense. That's what companies do and exist for. This feels more transparently like that, right? Um, uh, the

because it's something that doesn't feel Maybe it's that it doesn't feel original. It doesn't feel organic. It feels forced for the sake of the money. That like that's the thing.
Is it in a weird way because it's also a kind of derivative? Like, D&D being the grandpa, like, arg- my old MMO, EverQuest, we were heavily influenced by D&D. Like, straight up. All of us Not all. Most of us had played it a lot. But, we also, I remember, influenced the D&D team back because I remember going up to WotC a couple years after it came out and hearing they were all EQ players and seeing aspects of what we did in their design.
Yep.
World of Warcraft was a generation after, and they also played a lot of EverQuest. I know this just from having talked to designers and them attempting to hire me away to come help build like, that one.

They did their own thing, though. Like, 100% it is a different game, but we were influenced by D&D and built our game. They were influenced by both our game and D&D and built their game like everything cascades.
Right.
But, it's also in some cases like them getting wrapped back in. Like, is it some of those extra But, then again, I can't even say that because every game builds off other games.
Right. I think that it's that there's not a ton of space in that loop.
Mhm.
At least for me. There's not a ton of extra extra space for like things to change and vary, I guess, right? If we include Warhammer in that loop, cuz Warhammer belongs in that loop, um there's not a lot else there, it feels like.
Tolkien.
Sure. If we're going I'm talking about like games specifically, but yeah.
And actually, there was an official

Tolkien supplement for D&D like a couple years ago.
I believe you. I don't remember this, but I believe you.
I don't think it actually ended up as big as anybody as the people planning it thought it was going to be. But, like I have the rules in my D&D Beyond for it.
Yeah.
But, I don't know. Like, there is still something that just feels different about this. And as I said, I think the universe is beyond is appropriate because this is this IP feels substantively different. But, it's also a really natural one. Like, if you were going to go out and say, "We're going to go partner with another fantasy brand to, you know, make a D&D version of that, you know, bring them into the D&D game." I'm trying to think of another big fantasy brand

that makes more sense than World of Warcraft is like the first one to do.
Well, really the only one I can think of is Warhammer, and that's kind of a non-starter in my mind.
Yeah.
Cuz they've got
see War- Warhammer would have been another one, actually, that I could see.
Warhammer's also done a lot of their own TTRPG stuff, and I think it's not so much the fantasy land as I imagine Wizards of the Coast and Games Workshop just constantly butting heads throughout the entire project.
Um
Yeah. And that's Yeah, that's um
Actually, two people also just said Final Fantasy.
Yeah, Final Fantasy might, but they did also just release their own TTRPG.
But actually, so W- While I would say is top, ones that wouldn't have surprised me, Warhammer, Final Fantasy, possibly Game of Thrones.
Sure.
Um possibly Witcher.

Yeah.
I'm just trying to think of like really big names. But actually, here's a weird one, Will. Which ones are coming in as let's just call it equal partners? Like Witcher wouldn't come in as an equal partner. As big as Witcher was,
Right.
it it isn't the same thing.
Yes.
Um Warhammer and uh 40 Warhammer and um World of Warcraft, I feel like would come in as equal partners. I would even say Final Fantasy would not quite come in as an equal partner.
So, it's interesting.
to say, but
Yeah. It's interesting, though, because uh not all, but many of the things you just mentioned already have existing IP relationships with Wizards of the Coast.

Yeah.
The Magic side. Because the Final Fantasy set was at the time the best-selling set ever
Yep.
for Magic the Gathering. And broke several formats and had a whole bunch of problems and made a million dollars in pre-sales in a day and like shattered records left, right, and center. So, there's already an existing relationship there, which makes me think that it was a specific choice not to.
Well, as you said, for the first one. Like
Yeah.
I think that this is them in some case like So, one of the other things that they said in their press release about this is that they were going to pick, you know, that this is not going to be the only Universes Beyond thing.
Yes.
And we can get more to that. But that they were going to pick prop basically properties that felt like it was a really strong match. And I actually

have an interesting thought like there's a YouTube channel that I occasionally watch that is very negative about let's just say everything WotC and Hasbro does. Like every thumbnail of theirs is like WotC has screwed up the for the final time and it like I don't know how many final times there can be.
Right. Mhm.
But on this one I kind of randomly clicked on it cuz the topic was similar to ours and I was curious on the person's take. Um they were basically pointing out that for Universes Beyond in Magic what was initially promised of we will do, you know, very close alignment has now kind of spiraled out of control.
Well, to
And that they were worried that that was going to come to D&D.
So, to let's let's talk Magic Universes Beyond and Wizards' track record just real quick, to get it all on the record because we cannot assume that people here know as much about Universes Beyond and Magic as I do or as we do. Um so, Universes Beyond and Magic started a while ago. Uh insert joke about how

Arabian Nights was the first Universes Beyond here. Everyone laughs. We move on. Um the Uh but they had a similar promise where they were going to and it it escalated kind of slowly. It escalated from Commander decks to supplemental products to things like The Lord of the Rings set to now every Universes Beyond set is standard legal and is everywhere. Um as exhibited by the fact that uh they just banned uh two cards. Yeah, two cards from Avatar: The Last Airbender yesterday. Badger Mole Cub and Gran Gran. Yes, they banned Gran Gran. Get them. Um So, there they've they've gone to all kinds of planes. One of the most frequent planes, however, that we have visited no fewer now than three distinct times is that most mystical of planes, that

most far-reaching of realms of possibility and imagination. That's right, I'm talking about New York City. We've been to New York.
We've been to New York City three distinct times for Magic: The Gathering in the past two years.
Oh, let's see. Hold on. Spider-Man?
Uh-huh.
Turtles?
Uh-huh.
I'm not up enough of my stuff.
Marvel Superheroes. There there's a bunch of like New York stuff for Marvel Superheroes, right?
I was initially thinking that it was going to be just Marvel Marvel, but I then I realized Turtles.
Right, yeah. Um so, that's that's sort of been a thing. And also, one of the other problems has been that at least in the case of Spider-Man for sure, I didn't play enough of the others, so I won't comment as heavily on them. In the case of Spider-Man for sure, there was not enough time given to the mechanical design of the set, but it was sold at a premium. So now we have a product that costs more and is worse.

And that doesn't feel good, right? So there's this tonal mismatch that's happened over the years of Universes Beyond in Magic the Gathering. There's been a price increase. It's an $80 supplement for just the book. I don't know what the going the current price is for books for D&D, but it's an $80 supplement for the World of Warcraft one. Um and it has begun to push things aside. This year there were seven releases. Four of them are Universes Beyond.
Seven Magic releases.
Seven Magic releases.
Since we're
Yeah, yeah. Four
these separate lanes.
Right. Four of them are Universes Beyond. The Hobbit, Star Trek, Marvel Super Heroes, and Ninja Turtles are all that were all this year or going to be this year. And we're only getting three Universes Within sets, Lorwyn, um I want to say Fate Reforged and that's wrong. Um

It's a three
The Fracture and um the other one. God, I can't proper announce. Someone in chat commented that this is proper announced.
Reality Fracture. Uh Lorwyn and Strixhaven. There we go.
Oh.
I can't words.
Um somebody asked for a comparison, how many releases were there say 8 years ago?
Two or three tops. Uh I can give you an exact number.
They've at least doubled it.
Uh yes. Uh let's see. So we can do uh let's do in 2020. In 2020, cuz that's like a nice easy place for me to find. We had one two three Uh three and a supplemental set. Three and two supplemental sets. Uh those three were Theros, Ikoria,

and uh Zendikar Rising with Double Masters, Commander Legends, and Jumpstart. Oh, I guess four. Sorry, four. Course at 2021 was also 2020. So, four.
So, the reason they're asking is, you know, they basically with Universes Beyond they have vastly accelerated the cadence at which they release sets.
Yes. We've almost doubled. And they're they are knocking it down. They have said they are aware that seven is unfeasible for both them and the consumer base, and it will be six next year. We just have to get through this year where there's seven.
Six is still a lot.
Six is still a lot, and the competitive formats have suffered as a result because the sets are now bigger. Sorry, there are more sets, and standard is bigger for other reasons which we don't need to get into, but many people assign blame for the degradation of the quality of standard as a gameplay format to Universes Beyond. Now, it is worth

really noting here that while Wizards of the Coast has a long history with Universes Beyond, and there's a lot of distrust associated with that game in the Magic community, one of the reasons that there's a lot of distrust in the Magic community does not apply to D&D, which is that in Magic, it is a competitive game. Up until yesterday, if you wanted to play a deck that contained green, the odds were incredibly high that you needed four badger mole cubs. A card from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Right? You needed those cards because they had an incredibly powerful effect in those decks, and if you wanted to play competitively, whether or not you liked Avatar,
Yep.
one of the most tactically correct choices that you could make would be to register four copies of badger mole cub. In D&D, that doesn't apply.
Right.
I I we've seen actually in all the time.

Like, people will be like when you're starting a campaign, they're like, "Hey DM, what books are we allowing? What setting is this?" Um
Right.
And you can very easily be like, "Ah, everything except Dark Sun." Or everything except or all official content, no third party. Or, you know, like, these are just phrases you can casually toss off.
Right.
And people are like, "Cool, I don't have to see any of that." Right. Or in Magic competitive, that is there is no option to say, "Hey, I would like to play regular competitive, but I don't want to see Avatar stuff."
Interestingly, by the way, the community has taken that challenge and has come up with their own format to solve what they perceive as the problems of Universes Beyond and the increased number of sets. There is now a I think it's called planar standard. I think it's planar standard. And it is standard, but you're not allowed to play any cards from Universes Beyond. Have fun. That's it. That's the whole thing. And there's like a community that's growing around building this

makeshift format to try and do that, but it's not official, and there aren't going to be sanctioned tournaments for it, and it's a pain. Like, cuz you have to like explain what that means to people, right? You don't get the the shorthand. So, while there is I don't want to say that there's no community response that's possible, there is a limited community response that is possible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And one of the things that going on around that that I think we had a particular problem with as second and third edition of D&D went on is that and especially when you get third-parties publishing that there's this version of power creep that happens the longer a set is out and the more books or supplements that get published. Um, and it's happens in almost everything. Like this isn't a D&D problem. This is a almost everything problem that you know, if you have the player's handbook, cool. It's balanced against itself and you know, you put out a

couple of other books and now there's two or three places you can get your classes and subclasses and maybe a background or a couple new feats. But the wider the pool of this gets the harder it is for anybody designing to balance it across to every other thing that's come out or possibly even think to check against that. And so what happens is you start getting the Pathfinder problem where suddenly you're pulling in 14 different books with one thing from each book to make a character whose power level is this compared to everybody else's power level that is this who hasn't done that. And D&D fifth edition has done a really good job up to this point. We'll have to see of maintaining a pretty decent balance with things that have come in. It's in no way perfect, but compared to previous sets or previous editions and to a lot of other games they've done a pretty good job on policing it. Like there is exceptions. Silver Barb is

one of a couple of other things you look at and you're like, "Oh, that was a little more than we'd had before."
Yeah, or uh Ranger rebalance or whatever. But Ranger is also
Ranger was underpowered to begin with
We've talked that to death literal years ago. So we'll just stipulate, yeah. Um it's just
So all and so that is one of the things that I think a lot of people are worrying about is you know, if and as much as I said it, most D&D people like, "Cool, hey, we're going to get Dark Sun. We're going to get Greyhawk. We're going to get more Forgotten Realms." The increased quantity of some of these is going to make people start to wonder, "Will I have to worry more about some of the balance coming in?" Not to mention suddenly, "Wait, World of Warcraft or some of the other things we might talk about like is something or a couple of somethings going to come in that make it when you just go play a pickup game of D&D somewhere bring in or you know, start a new campaign and the DM doesn't think to

say, "Oh, wait, we're excluding it." Whatever it is.
Right. I I do think that one of the things that happens and I think this happens
Sorry, keep going. I apologize.
Yeah, yeah. One of the things that happens and this has happened with magic is um uh you get this response that if that if that product isn't for you, it's an official release, right? Then simply ignore it, right? Don't buy it, don't participate in it, whatever. You don't like it's your money, you don't need to, right? Even if you're a competitive magic player, there are formats where you buy like one or two singles and then keep going, right? You can play Commander forever and never buy new cards if you don't want to. Um power creep notwithstanding. The more you check out or the more an individual checks out, the more or the more frequently they check out, the more likely it is they will never check back in, which is one of I think

the concerns that Wizards should be having more of and isn't is if there are people and they continue to release things like the World of Warcraft supplement and people's eyes like glaze over and they check out for that, there's a possibility that they won't come back in. Now, again, D&D has has a a a saving grace here that magic does not where if you're out of magic for several months and you're not playing competitively then you're probably out of a format at least. In D&D if you're out for several months you might not even have noticed because your campaign's ongoing and you play at Steve's dining room table and nothing that comes out influences what's going on in any way. Um so
Yeah, new content is gated in at a way way better easier rate.
Yes.
And also the DM can just be like, "Hey, that's too much."
Right, and I think that
way that doesn't happen in magic because magic isn't designed for that but tabletop role-playing games are.
Yeah, and I think that that is that is one of the reasons why I'm I'm actually

like the more we talk about this the more I'm kind of shocked that they didn't um they didn't do it the other way around. Right? I guess it like for for people who they want to pitch this idea to pitching, "Hey, you could have a set of magic cards that we can, you know, do um uh tie-ins, right?" Or like there was a tie-in with Avatar where if you went to BoxLunch and bought a bunch of Avatar merch you got a limited edition promo of Iroh of Uncle Iroh. Right? That's a thing that they could do there that they might have a hard time doing with D&D. Right? Um so I'm just curious cuz it does feel like a better fit here than it does with magic. Right? It feels like this is largely all upside. Right? More content is good. You can file the serial numbers off of literally anything in a tabletop RPG. Right? File all the

serial numbers off of WoW's Beast Master Hunter and turn it into a new alternate version of Ranger for your Greyhawk campaign is not difficult to do. Right. This feels like much more upside.
And it's funny. And one of the things I've also seen, too, is even if some of these combos end up being a little stronger or weaker, all it takes for the DM is to look at that one character is a little underpowered, and you know, they find that plus two longbow of accuracy, and suddenly they're back in.
Right.
Like, some of the things can be Let's just say easily fixed by a DM who recognizes there's a problem.
Yeah.
So, Bob's character Actually, I keep saying let's go with um Beth's character.
Yeah.
Who really wanted to be the stealthy one and didn't quite mechanically design it for that, finds the cloak of Elvenkind early.
Right.
Right. Like, there are things that you can do as a DM

that specifically address imbalances or problems, if you want to, that don't feel weird.
Right, because you don't have, again, the the the the buy-in, right? The design buy-in for those two games is so wildly different despite being the fact that they're designed down the hallway from each other, right? Like, it's it's so interesting because I think the only reason that we're talking about these at the same time is that they exist under the same company.
Yeah. Right? Well, and then it's actually it's also new.
Yeah.
Like, D&D for a very long time has been incorporating other properties loosely in.
Yeah.
Um or actually Hold on a sec. Well, having said that, let me grab a thing.
Yeah, sure.
Look at this. I just remembered.
I'm sure Jeff has like some incredible piece of artifact memorabilia. Chat, what's Jeff going to get? Wrong answers

only. I'm guessing it's a raccoon holding a core book. He's just going to bring back a live raccoon, two cats. This is very good. Yeah. A donut, also good. 10 pounds of gold bullion, also good. Glowing glasses, okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, I've read that. It's very good.
It's been a long time. I was just remembering this sitting down but like this is not D&D but awfully close.
Right.
I was trying to remember if this was officially made with the Roll 20 system.
Yeah. A fit By the way, the officially unofficially made with the Roll 20 system
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is weird. We could spend an entire episode talking about the weirdness with copyrighting gameplay mechanics in tabletop RPGs and other stuff with Eddie but we'll try and fit that in at some point. Um
Yeah. But like it So, it isn't weird to see other things get brought in. I think the

weirdness is it's official.
I also think that there is a um I I think that this is also interesting, too. Because D&D focuses so much on creating your own story.
Mhm.
There the there isn't as much of a base story underneath your story. Right? There's lore. Right? But um the um in Magic, there is a story. Right? There's a long story that's been told in novels and online stories. Like there is a story that people really actually care about quite a lot. There are characters that people care about quite a lot that have a long existing story through the sets and through the planes that people have been planes walking through over the years. And so, I think the opportunity cost in the story space is way lower for D&D

than it is for Magic, even though D&D is much more story focused ironically. Um because every time we go to New York we don't get to see Saheeli and Huatli being cute. Or we don't get to see Jason Vraska or we don't get to figure out what's up with loot whether or not you like loot that's a different concept. Um or you know um Phyrexians or The Brothers' War or right where is you know anything that relates back to it. Every time we go to a place that isn't that we lose out on an opportunity to tell more of that story and I feel like that opportunity cost just isn't present in D&D because you're telling your own story there.
No.
Yeah. [clears throat]
Well, okay. So Wow like
Wow Wow is like I mean I guess like I'm not going to I I don't I'm not worried. I'm not worried about D&D the way I've been

worried about magic because they're going down the Universes Beyond rabbit hole. I'm less worried I think as a result of our conversation
Yeah.
when we talk about wow.
And it's funny they're going all in because I think the next season of their D their live play the one Jasmine's running is going to be set in Azeroth using the wow the new wow stuff.
Yeah.
So like that's pretty like they're they're going to do it. Or excuse me it's not that they're like they're they're committed to it. They're not like here's a thing they're like here is a thing bud. But wow wasn't the only thing they announced. They teased a thing right at the end.
Yeah. So they
you seen our thumbnail you already know what it is.
They also teased Star Wars.
Mhm.

But why though? Like, okay, I'll be the first one online to say that that fits way better than some other stuff does because
Better than Star Trek, for example.
Well, better than Star Trek. Star Wars is science fantasy and that's fine and it's cool and you can have like a magical sword. Like it The story of Star Wars is
Yeah, right.
Star Wars is, you know, a young son gets handed a magic sword by a wizard to go invade invade a a castle
Right.
um and rescue a princess.
Yeah.
You know, aided by a rogue and like like
Right. Yeah, and a barbarian and like yeah.
arc- archetypical fantasy story. Oh, excuse me. Young young young man is handed his father's magic sword by an old wizard. Not just any sword, his father's magic sword.
Right. Yeah, yeah. So, like
to go invade, you know, rescue a princess from a castle.
Right. And then
Yeah. No, I'm I'm I'm 100% with Marathon this.
Mhm.
How do you solve the Jedi problem?

Because the Jedi problem is that the least interesting thing and I will fight people. We won't do it now because we've got a limited amount of time with Jeff, but tomorrow on Twitch, if you want to fight me about this, I'll fight anyone all day. Jedi are the least interesting part of Star Wars and the inclusion of Jedi in Star Wars stories often makes the story demonstrably worse. But it's the thing that everyone wants to play. And so
of it is just when you said it. So, for example, if they said Star Wars you know what was it? 2,000 years before Like there are different settings of in there where Jedi, for example, are and Sith are very commonplace.
Right.
And there's other time periods where there's very few of them.
Yeah. I think that's true.
And So, that that becomes But, also like it's weird. Like, how do you solve for Jedis? Like, powerful powerful wizards with magic swords, but like this is D&D.

It's like saying your 10th level characters wandering a town, you know, how do you solve for 10th level wizard or 10th level paladin and just deciding not to murder half the town?
Well, because
Because they can.
Well, right. But, like you also have to remember that surely no Dungeons and Dragons uh psionic supplement has ever been hideously overpowered and unbalanced an entire edition of the game before Oh, wait. Psionic supplements are notoriously broken because it turns out that removing most of the things that balance spell casting like the need to move your hands or speak from spell like abilities is incredibly powerful. Wow. Um So, yeah, I don't know. It also feels weird, right? Like, yeah, there have been sci-fi settings, but I guess Okay.
[snorts]
Here's where I'm at. My pandaren monk

might might have a chance at falling through a rift in space and time out of Azeroth and ending up in Eberron. And like we're straining credulity here, right? We are straining credulity I don't want to I don't want it to be like I asked this which is perfectly right. We're straining credulity at this point. And I could make that work, right? Like, as a DM. A really hard time with it being like an Imperial bounty hunter droid or a storm trooper or a Jedi falls into Ravenloft and does what? Like, I did I feel like it
I feel like a counterpoint.
Yeah. The um Dragonlance had one of their famous villains, Lord Soth, wander into Ravenloft and become a lord of one of the domains.
Sure.

Darth Vader getting sucked into Ravenloft to become a lord of a domain doesn't actually feel or maybe the emperor uh Vader's [clears throat] more interesting than Palpatine, but like
Yeah.
doesn't feel as weird as some of the other things. And I think part of Star Wars has always been large open expanses, yeah, like frontier towns, like it feels as I said it way more than Star Trek. So, sure from a horror standpoint it feels different, but
Yeah, Star Wars does here there be monsters very well, right? And by here there be monsters
feels like I could see the Mandalorian done
Yeah.
almost the whole thing as a Star Wars game.
Yeah. Um and so and then but see and so you're has a point, right? As a DM you wouldn't allow crossovers if
between those settings.
Cool. And valid and real. Weird though, right? I'm not trying to say it's good or bad. I'm just trying to say that this Star Wars thing feels weird as an inclusion. Like that feels

way more like we're going to the mythical plane of New York City again than Azeroth does, right? And like as and I guess this goes to uh Wizard's credibility, right? When they say, "We're going to take great care in choosing intellectual properties that are consistent and that makes sense in the world, but first up here's Star Wars." And you're like, "All right, right, sure." I I feel like this strains the credulity that we might have to like
Here's the weird thing though, Will. So, Star Wars feels better than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Yeah.
Like just from I'm to fit the settings together, It feels better than Star Trek. It feels better than Marvel superheroes, almost any variant or of DC superheroes. It feels better than Doctor Who. Like, there's a whole bunch of cool properties that because they're set in modern or other times

feel weirder to incorporate in than far future that's kind of fantasy.
I kind of agree. I feel like one of the things that helps with magic and doesn't help with D&D.
Mhm.
Magic gets helped by having a small cast of characters through a story. Hobbit's too big. We have too many legendary dwarves. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about like the Avatar set. Like, yeah, we had like one version of the gang at each rarity, but like much more consistency, much smaller, right? Weirdly, Final Fantasy managed to do it with a ragtag cast of characters across a bunch of things.
Hold on. I I stand corrected. But, carry on.
Yeah, sure. Um the

I don't know. It feels like because it's space fantasy and not science fiction, Star Wars feels ill-suited for D&D, but it would feel great for magic. Because then you could have like Luke and Rey and Vader and Han and Yoda and like whoever, right? Like, you would have cards for them. That feels better. I don't know. Like, I I don't have an objection to it. And if you're like all in on Star Wars being like absolutely the best thing to happen to D&D, I salute you. More power to you. I'm so excited for you. It feels weird, man. Like, it just I I don't even think I have a
That's the first one that doesn't feel like it's a Azeroth Warcraft characters I feel like could be incorporated into any campaign. D- Star Wars characters don't. It's weird. Actually, a Jedi feels like they could be incorporated into a D&D campaign.
Yeah.
Way more than say a smuggler with his starship.
Right. Or a Wookie. Well, Wookie's probably

fine.
[laughter]
That's That's what I keep saying like some of those don't feel that weird. Like I bit I played an artificer in my cur- current campaign. Like man, it wouldn't feel weird to see a Mandalorian bounty hunter show. Like my guy already has power armor and is shooting you know lightning out of his lightning launcher on his hand and
Sure.
like has an entangle attack.
Yeah.
Like
I I I think
for some of these.
Yeah, I think Ramian's got it, right? I think it depends on if it's trying to be its own thing with D&D rules or something that they want to try and integrate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If it's a stand-alone set built on the rules everybody understands, great.
Yeah. And I guess this is the And I I think also for me, the place that I'm coming from is from Magic where my standard deck that I have to retune now has an elf from Dominaria helping me cast a

badger mole cub to airbend a land from airbend the busted air temple from um from Avatar so I can cast either a Marvel superhero She-Hulk or a giant space worm or a Boroid ahead of curve. Right? Like we just kind of took the feel and just yeeted it like clean out, right? And like cool, that's like people feel different ways about it. I think my misgivings are coming from that place of like
Oh, the
It feels so weird to me that we're like just la la la la we're going to walk right into then then there's this, right? And it I I don't know. Like I have some apprehension and and I'll say I have some apprehension to someone who's not particularly enamored of D&D. I have no interest in playing D&D, engaging with a D&D IP, or um like doing anything with it. I don't

think it's bad. I just think it's not for me, right? Like I would rather There are many other systems that I would rather be playing in my free time and I'll have free time to play those.
It's interesting though. Actually, from part of what you just said makes me not worry as much because for example, my my current artificer is using a back is supposed to be university trained. So, I took one of the Strixhaven backgrounds.
Sure.
It's reskinned though. Like I'm not saying he's from Strixhaven. Almost everybody I meet who plays D&D, like if they're taking different things from different places, that's the mechanical thing that lets them express their creativity. You know, I was looking for a solution to university trained artificer.
Yeah.
So, I took Strixhaven.
Yeah.
And so, but I think I would bet that in general games, ones that aren't hey we're playing just World of Warcraft, but it's I'm taking rules from different places, I bet 95% of the people who use anything from the upcoming Wild set

won't be skinning it as I'm from Azeroth, it's for this kind of paladin I'm playing this mechanic suits the best so that I can make my own character.
This ice mage, this necromancer knight, this yeah. I think that that's fair. And I think that
That's one that like the setting for some people they want to go read about the setting, for some people they want to play in it, for others they're looking for an extra set of rules that let them express the thing that they want to build.
Yeah. And in a lot of cases, there is a there is a push called Universes Within that or omen paths, depending on who you're talking to, where the community is trying to make magic versions of a lot of the Universes Beyond cards, like in-universe cards, so that they have the option to play like with cards that aren't Magical Cub, Grain Grain. Did She-Hulk, whatever, right?
Yeah. So, it's it's going to be interesting. I I'm curious to see what

the response is to this. I don't think it's I don't think it's the YouTuber the sky is falling, this is the end of D&D.
I don't either. Like I I think it's weird, and I think it's interesting for us to talk about, but I don't think it's I I don't think it carries with it the attendant risk that a lot of people pointed out when they started rolling Universes Beyond into standard Magic sets. I think this is different. I think this feels different. I feel like it's a better fit for that. I think it's easier to take what you want and leave the rest. Um but yeah, tell us
that's because that's part of the inherent nature of how this game is played.
Yeah. I I agree. I very much agree. But that is all the time we've got for today. Come join us on Friday for breakfast. We've got a special guest. You're not going to want to miss it. Come join us for that. Um we'll be live at the normal time with uh special guest. In addition, Jeff is about to remind you that there's like a little over a week left on a Kickstarter that

we're running.
I think 9 days uh ish at this point. I Oh man, I haven't marked my notes for the day.
Yeah.
On our Extra History Calendar Kickstarter, um we are closing in on 80,000. We're about to add some extra stuff to anybody who pledges.
Yeah.
Um if you want a calendar, please consider ours. If you like playing cards, we have a really cool theme of extra history playing cards. We have some really neat art magnets for your refrigerator. We got some cool stuff this year. Got a nice pin. And all of it helps support the channel and us to continue making videos and live shows like this and other things throughout the year. So, it is a painless way to get a little extra history every day and support the cast that makes it. And as There it goes. Studio director hat back off. I've done my pitch.
[laughter]
I'm also just excited like we're going to get more than a more than a thousand people will at this point. We're going to get them some cool stuff

and even more after or before if you go pick it up in the shop. So,
It'll be It'll be really good time. Like I said, thank you so much for joining. We'll be back next week.
What's happening so Friday special guest and I was on extra breakfast.
Yes. And then tomorrow you can come fight me about Jedi and Star Wars or you can come help influence me to pick what game we're going to be playing next here on the channel. We're going to be doing some stats looking at things that chat doesn't normally get to see. So, we're going to we're going to dive into the stats that influence how I pick a game to play and why we're playing what we're playing and we'll we'll talk while we do it. So, until next time I think all that remains is to say bye to the people Jeff.
Bye to the people Jeff. Thanks everybody. Have a great week.
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