As any Dungeons & Dragons fan knows, no campaign ever goes quite to plan. Despite the intricacies of the adventures themselves, many longtime players are quite comfortable with the D&D 5e ruleset and lore as created in this most recent addition. While the 2024 rules refresh mixed things up a bit, switching over is far from a requirement at this point. However, the revised 5e rules aren’t the only new and different thing that D&D players and their DMs can expect from Wizards of the Coast going forward. For 2025 and beyond, innovation and new ways to play are the theme of what’s to come.
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In a recent press event, ComicBook had the opportunity to hear from several key players on the Dungeons & Dragons team including VP of Franchise and Product Jess Lanzillo and Lead Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford. During their presentation about the 2025 roadmap, the team laid out their philosophy behind these new products and the future of D&D as a franchise. As Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Baldur’s Gate 3 expanded the potential audience for the game, the team behind it is working to honor the 50-year legacy of the TTRPG while reshaping it to reach a wider audience. This is no easy feat, and it’s clear that experimentation and giving the fanbase plenty of options will be the key factors moving forward.
For those who’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons for many of those last 50 years, innovation and new modes of play can be concerning words to hear. However, Jess Lanzillo believes this is an opportunity to honor what’s come before while still keeping the game fresh. New ways to play such as the reimagined Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set and virtual environments like D&D Beyond‘s Maps and the upcoming Project Sigil will “move towards play diversity.” In other words, the goal is to give players options between a traditional physical, in-person tabletop setup or virtual environments suited to long-distance, remote play. However, variety isn’t just coming from D&D Beyond and the virtual space. The entire 2025 roadmap mixes new angles into familiar print products, as well.
D&D Tests Out New Take on Adventure Books and More
As Jess outlined the 2025 roadmap and as Jeremy expanded upon it, one thing became clear. Every product coming out this year will put some kind of twist on what’s come before. As the 2024 Monster Manual completes the core books for the 2024 rules revision, the focus will shift to building out the world and giving fans more material to work with in their adventures.
After the Monster Manual introduces fans to new Legendary foes and more, the familiar shape of what a new D&D book looks like will fall away. The next new release in 2025 is something of a new concept. Dragon Delves is billed as an “adventure anthology.” It brings together information about the classic types of dragons that make up half of the iconic TTRPG’s name. Alongside the deep dive into the unique personality (and art style) for each dragon, there will be several short adventures that DMs can run alone or work into a longer campaign. This anthology style, coupled with a deep look at a specific type of D&D creature, isn’t quite what longtime fans have come to expect from new entries to the franchise. While it offers DMs more flexibility to build their own story by stringing together the mini-adventures, it will be interesting to see what the various in-person and virtual tables make of it.
After Dragon Delves, fans will see a new type of Starter Set, which once again puts a twist on the familiar. Instead of the usual supplies and pre-written characters, the Heroes of the Borderland set incorporates a new tile-based character creation system and cards and tokens to track game elements. Here again, D&D gets a slightly different take, with an aim to help ease new fans into the TTRPG elements of the franchise. Whether this new starter set will cohesively bridge the gap into more traditional modes of play remains to be seen, but it’s certainly an interesting new concept for introducing people to D&D for the first time.
The roadmap for the year ahead continues in this mode, with unique takes on what it looks like to expand the options for players and DMs to engage with D&D. While we don’t yet know what that mysterious October release will bring, the Forgotten Realms set is again a different take on an adventure path. Rather than one book geared towards letting the DM run an adventure, there will be two – one focused on the player and one more geared towards helping the DM set a campaign in any of the five regions within the Forgotten Realms setting. While this seems closest to a traditional adventure book, it isn’t quite that. Instead, it offers deep looks at each campaign setting, with short adventure examples to help them guide their players through the chosen region.
While it may be tempting to assume these experiments will become tradition if successful, the creative team suggested that further innovation is the way forward. What’s coming in 2026 and beyond may look different again as Dungeons & Dragons tries to maintain its footing in an increasingly digital world. Diversity of play seems to mean making it easier for players to get connected with D&D while giving DMs more tools and wider reign to craft their own stories rather than running pre-written ones. As we head into a year of new angles on D&D, the primary question seems to be whether these changes manage to balance the creativity and lore that built the 50-year legacy and a fresh approach that will capture new fans without alienating existing ones.
