WotC Keeps Moving Towards Digital, Baldur's Gate 3 Releases Early, Dungeons & Drag Queens - TTRPG News 6/28/23

June comes to a close with some exciting announcements and discussion-worthy glimpses at the future. Specifically, the question of an all-digital future for Dungeons & Dragons reared its head again. In other news, Dimension 20 gives us one last celebration of Pride. Let’s take a deeper dive and see what it’s all about. 

Wizards Of The Coast Axes Direct Sales Of Physical Books By Themselves

If you’re looking to pick up the upcoming Bigby’s Presents: Glory of the Giants or Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk, you better be looking for digital or heading to your local game store. Wizards of the Coast currently has pre-orders up for both books on its online store, but a caveat was noticed. The only way to buy directly from WotC is to get a digital D&D Beyond version or a physical/digital bundle consisting of the book and D&D Beyond code. There’s no option to buy a physical book alone unless you buy from other retailers. 

This news comes amidst an increasing move to digital for WotC. The in-house virtual tabletop is being built up for its supposed ease of use and D&D Beyond integration. Meanwhile, a recent price increase also sees physical books costing $10 more, making digital copies the cheaper option. 

Latest D&D Playtest Gives Rogues And Bards Fun New Toys, Restores Druid

The Unearthed Arcana Playtest 6 released today, spanning seven classes with two subclasses for each. There’s a lot to go over in the document, but the big hits seem to be the bard, rogue, and druid. The bard can now steal spells from all spell lists using their Magical Secrets ability. The rogue now gets a Cunning Strike that allows them to spend Sneak Attack die for utility effects like tripping or poisoning foes. The druid returns to using monster stat blocks instead of templates after a hotly contested first playtest. As always there’s tons of discussion, but these changes seem fairly well received. 

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Going Big With Early Launch

Larian studios had some exciting news for Baldur’s Gate 3 fans: the game’s release date is moving forward to August 6 for PC players. Unfortunately, this means that the PlayStation 5 release is delayed until September 6. Still, the update revealed a lot of new content to make the wait worth it, enough to form the basis for a truly epic D&D adventure. 

The monk, dragonborn, and half-orc will be in the base launch, as well as several more feats, spells, and backgrounds. Finally, Larian revealed that the scope of the game will now go to level 12 and that there are 174 hours of cinematics, “more than twice the length of every season of Game of Thrones combined.” 

Dungeons & Drag Queens First Episode Releases 

Dimension 20 just dropped its first episode of Dungeons and Drag Queens, which sees DM Brennan Lee Mulligan guide players Monét X Change, Alaska Thunderfuck, Bob the Drag Queen, and Jujubee through a four-episode quest. The first 2-hour long episode sees the party head to the underworld, with Mulligan himself sporting makeup alongside the cast. The series will be available to subscribers of the Dropout service. 

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And that brings this week’s stories to a close. Enjoy the weekend, and may your dice be kind!