Wizards of the Coast has revealed details and dates for its Dungeons & Dragons releases in 2024, the game’s 50th anniversary year
Descent into the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth March 2024
Vecna: Eve of Ruin – May 21, 2024
The Making of Original Dungeons and Dragons: 1970-1976 – June 18, 2024
Quests from the Infinite Staircase – July 16, 2024
2024 Player’s Handbook – September 17, 2024
2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide – November 12, 2024
2024 Monster Manual – February 18, 2025
Descent into the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
Release date: March 2024
Descent into the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth revives the classic first-edition adventure, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. It’s a single-session dungeon-crawl that’ll evoke the feeling of an adventure module from 50 years ago – complete with a tournament scoring system to see how well you fared.
We don’t know if the story beats will be the same, but we expect Wizards will include more than a few nods to the original adventure. Given how many different combat scenarios it featured, we’re expecting to see plenty of Giants, Umberhulks – and maybe a DnD vampire or two.
Wizards of the Coast says this will be one of “multiple events that celebrate play”, with sessions being run in stores and conventions as part of the anniversary celebration. That word ‘multiple’ seems to hint we’ll be getting more of these at some point. For now, we’ll have to see how the whole thing plays out in March 2024.
Vecna: Eve of Ruin
Release date: May 21, 2024
The campaign takes heroes from the Forgotten Realms to Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk. It will ship with two covers.
The Making of Original Dungeons and Dragons: 1970-1976
Release date: June 18, 2024
The Making of Original Dungeons and Dragons: 1970-1976 is a piece of history rather than a sourcebook. Wizards calls it a “retrospective historical book” which, thanks to the help of gaming historian Jon Peterson, retells D&D’s origin stories.
It’s over 500 pages long, and it promises all sorts of original art, plus “never-before-seen correspondence between the original creators of D&D”. Oh, and it has a “page-by-page” recreation of Dungeons and Dragons in its original form.
Quests from the Infinite Staircase
Release date: July 16, 2024
Quests from the Infinite Staircase, an anthology of six classic D&D adventures for character levels 1 to 13 updated for the current edition, will be released on July 16, 2024. It features the noble genie Nafas, who hears wishes made throughout the multiverse and recruits heroes to fulfill them,
2024 Player’s Handbook
Release date: September 17, 2024
2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide
Release date: November 12, 2024
- Chapter 1: The Basics: This section will cover important information for new DMs. This will include discussions of what makes a good DM as well as looking at fundamentals that weren’t covered in the current DMG. For example, why and how to use a DM screen.
- Chapter 2: Play Walkthrough: This new chapter will walk DMs through common issues that occur in play, including challenges related to scheduling, player conflict, as well as how to better improvise adventures and encounters.
- Chapter 3: Rules Compendium: This section will will include an alphabetized rules compendium and also cover additional rules that are not included in the 5e Player’s Handbook (which notably is also being updated as part of the One D&D program).
- Chapter 4: Adventure Building: This section will offer advice for how DMs can create their own adventures (either as one shots or as part of an ongoing campaign). The book will also include specific examples and step-by-step guidance, as well as breaking out the various adventure types and elements.
- Chapter 5: Campaign building: This chapter will include advice on how to build out amazing DnD 5e campaigns, using an existing campaign as an example (which DMs can use or repurpose for their own grounds.). The section will also include advice on world building, plotting and campaign resolution.
- Chapter 6: Cosmology: This section will break out more details on the D&D multiverse, including the various planes of existence and the powerful gods and entities that inhabit the known realms.
- Chapter 7: Magic Items: This chapter will include details on various magic items, including both powerful artifacts as well as more common magic items, such as those that were featured in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.
- Chapter 8: A Surprise: Currently, it’s not clear what will be included in this chapter. Wizards of the Coast has said only that it will be a “surprise” for fans.
- Appendices: This final section of the book will include a number of new maps, as well as a glossary and an index. These chapters will also feature more information on the lore of D&D including, powerful entities such as Vecna and classic adventures like the Temple of Elemental Evil, both of which are examples of game history that are often referenced, but which new players may not be familiar with.
2024 Monster Manual
Release date: February 18, 2025
The new Monster Manual will have over 500 monsters. This is a significant increase over the 300 monsters featured in the 2014 Monster Manual. It’s unclear, however, how many of these are completely new monsters and how many are taken from existing DnD 5e materials. Wizards of the Coast has also indicated that the book will be much larger in length than the previous edition, with more tables for random encounters and more in-depth details on the monsters’ ecology and background to accompany their stat blocks.
Changes to Challenge Ratings
According to Wizards of the Coast, much of the new Monster Manual will focus on creatures of Challenge Rating (CR) of 10 and above. This essentially means more monsters to face high-level parties and fewer monsters that can be easily defeated by overpowered characters. In fact, Jeremy Crawford has noted in recent interviews that “the CR Calculation Guide in the DMG is wrong and does not match our internal CR calculation method.” So this means that new calculations will be corrected and players can expected to see updated monsters.
New Lore & Backgrounds
The new Monster Manual will also look beyond just stat blocks to include more updated lore and background information on various monsters. Additionally, there will be an inclusion of more information on the ecology and lairs of various creatures.
New Artwork
Wizards of the Coast has indicated that the book will feature a wide range of new illustrations from several different artists. Notably, Wizard of the Coast has come under fire recently after it was reported that one of their artists had – unbeknownst to WotC – used AI to touch up in an illustration Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. The company has since released an official policy that bans any AI-generated artwork in their products.
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