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Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford on the 2024 Revised Player's Handbook For D&D
Join Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford in this insightful fireside chat about the upcoming 2024 Revised Player's Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons. They discuss the creative process, art integr...
Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford on the 2024 Revised Player's Handbook For D&D
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Hello everyone. Today we have a fireside chat with Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins about the new
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revised players' handbook. Also know that this is a check-in. We're in the middle of print reviews
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and we are just kind of checking in with the creative team about what this day of the book is
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and tease a little bit of stuff but we have a lot we will have a lot more videos to come very soon.
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So first off you had a couple of announcements that happened at Gary Conn while we were some of
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those announcements. You revealed some art that was really cool. Yeah we showed off a glorious piece
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of one of our class illustrations, the wizard. It's just emblematic of the fantastic art that we have
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all throughout all three books. And as you said right now we are looking at the printed out version of
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the revised players handbook making final tweaks looking under the hood, a number of the spells
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ensuring that everything is where it should be stepping outwards we don't need.
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Yes putting in words we do. Yeah it is coming along splendidly. And once we are done working
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through the players handbook then it's on to the Dungeon Master's Guide and then the Monster
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Manual. Is there any point that it hits you that the revised choral books are coming out?
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Is it like when the art starts coming in? Is it right now? Is it when the physical book is in your
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hands? For me I often don't really feel like the book is a real thing. Despite by this point having
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worked on more books than I know the number of at this point. It often is only when I have the
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physical book in my hands do I actually feel like it's a real thing. But the printout reviews are
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sort of the closest I get to that feeling before the fully printed book comes out. And part of that
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for me is because when we're in the printout review phase we're still doing so much work.
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And for me it is still the thing I'm pouring my heart and soul into and not something I can
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take off my designer hat and put on my fan hat and that's why I love getting the book itself
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because then I get to just be a D&D fan and take in what's being offered.
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Yeah. Similarly when I see the art next to the text for the first time that's when it feels
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most real to me. Yeah. I mean, so it's even the layout. Yeah. The art helps sort of contextualize
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every page and sort of ground everything. And you get to see the interactions between the text
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and the art which previously had only existed in your mind. It's interesting that you said contextualize
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because I don't know that I've ever seen D&D art before this give context to so many different
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things. Like we have spell art, for example. Yeah. You finally get to see some things. In some cases
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spells being cast by the spells originator. Yeah. Like this is Tasha casting her spell.
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If this is milk shooting the acid arrow. Yes. Yes. And that's not a theoretical example. That's
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a real example in the book of of milk casting his own iconic spell. Big B is there, Mordenkain and
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Larsie, Yoland and others. This is really the first of the player's handbooks that have been done
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at least, you know, the last few times where the art has been developed so closely with the text
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because we planned out what we were going to do with the art when we first kicked off the text
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work on the book. And normally in our process our work on the what's the art is going to be often
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comes a bit later and and is still very much an integrated process with the art and the text
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together communicating what the book has to offer. But this time art and text started on the
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journey together and that really comes through in the finished product where you can tell
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like when they were writing these words they had that specific piece of art in mind and that
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that art is speaking directly to the text that is on the page. It was important for these
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products particularly because these are the foundational books of our game. And so they had to be
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the outlines for them had to be incredibly detailed because you to get everything that
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everybody needs to play the game you have a and you only have a finite amount of space to do it
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every page every spread has to be planned well in advance. So we were thinking about the number
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of pieces of art in every chapter and where is the art going to appear in each chapter next to
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what sections is it going to be and that informs what the content of the art will be or there are
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key sections of a book that simply must be illustrated to get a key point across or an idea across
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in order to guarantee that the books would actually fit we had to know that information
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really early on even before we started pulling the books apart and putting them back together.
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Part of this too is that we knew all three of these books were going to be bigger
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and pages in these books are in many ways like the most valuable pages in the T&D book.
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Yes again these are the books that are the foundation for everything else and so we made sure in
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that early planning that what was going to go in here was going to essentially earn its keep
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and who really be delivering new fun or the fun you already experienced from the previous version
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but now enhanced and along with surprises because as we've discussed before in these videos all
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three books have new elements that we will be I think revealing in videos in the coming months.
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Someone from the R.T. actually took a photo of the player's handbook with all the rest of the books
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and you see how thick the player's handbook is. Yes it's quite alarming to see how much the rest of
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the books all on a bookshelf. It doesn't hit home until you see how idiot is there was like right
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of this process this moment right now you've got like the whole crew like it's also a look
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out of lockdown. I'm surprised I've even gotten the talk to you this week. So right now it is a cross
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section of the RPG team going through every page of the player's handbook and you know examining the
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words looking at the art looking at the layout again making sure that everything is where it should be
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you know discussing all right is this worded the best way it can be you know in a particular place
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or considering oh should we swap out the design of this spell for a slightly different version
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that kind of thing. So right now it's a mix of making sure the layout of the book is just right but
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it's also in the the coming weeks this is our our final chance to make sure the text is delivering
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what we wanted to deliver even though the core game is solid and compatible with the adventures
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people already have from the past 10 years every page of the book is different from you know the
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equivalent page of the 2014 players handbook and that's true for all three of the revised core
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core rule books that these are new books through and through there's a lot of UX improvements that
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have been baked into these books there's been some reorganization of the books so things just aren't
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in the same places that these to be the information's there it's just presented differently.
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There are also simply brand new things whether those are new spells new feeds new class features
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new whole subclasses new subsystems but even new general rules guidance so people are going to
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find for instance some guidance on illusions that wasn't there before yeah people are going to
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you know basic things like before if you were a player and you wanted to know well how do I break
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an object well in the past you kind of had to follow a trail that led somewhere in the wilds of
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the dungeon masters guide now player can look right in their players handbook in the rules glossary
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and find out how can I shatter that that mirror on on the wall it's very clear that like you know
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playtesting continued after you way and like and redesign continued and there were a lot of
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improvements so my favorite subclasses I saw things I'm like okay now this has like a two-pronged
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keystone moment that that that that improved the subclass class fantastically well and even some
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of the subclasses that migrated from Toshus Cauldron of everything into the new players handbook
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and some of those did not go out into the unerturkana process even those went through additional
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playtesting and development so people are going to find that some of the subclasses that got picked
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up have also been improved in a number of ways and in some cases even have new features just like
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the subclasses did that went through the unerturkana process and I think a few of those subclasses
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will even be a surprise because we we had during the UA process we had a subclass or two that
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didn't make it like the brawler for it didn't make it and I know the replacement it should I say
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what the replacement is I mean we can try so so the replacement in the fighter is the cy warrior
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and we decided that because aberrant sorcery had migrated into the players handbook from Toshus
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Cauldron that it would be good to give the psionic sorcerer along with the great old one warlock
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some more psionic friends and so the cy warrior is now in the players handbook along with the champion
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the eldrich knight and the battlemaster and if you like psychic powers I mean the soul the
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soul knife is in there as well right from Toshus well that's also a reveal because we didn't we
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had not shared that as a part of the UA process yes the soul knife from Toshus Cauldron is also
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in the players handbook was there anything that kind of surprising during playtest after UA
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that that came up for you nothing that was sort of a major surprise but a lot of really great insights
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about just how certain things could work better how certain things could be clearer we've also been
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identifying more unexpected multiclass combinations and yeah in some cases making changes to prevent
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the undesirable combinations but then in other cases protecting the combinations because there
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are a number of multiclass combinations that are tons of fun and we want to make sure they stay
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protected in the game and usually when we look at things like that we're all we we always have our
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eye on one is everything fun that's that's one of of course our top priorities and then we're
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also looking for is anything here slowing down play too much or is it over complicated or overpowered
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and if we discovered that it is one of those things then we look at how can we
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alter it so that it no longer is that thing while still being a good time to use yeah I think one
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of the great things about this book is that it's open the door to many more character concepts if
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you have a particular character in mind to play you have a better chance of being able to create
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that character with the options in this book then you may have had previously with any other D&D book
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yeah when you combine not only all of the subclasses but also the many more feats the new approach to
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backgrounds then throw multiclassing into the mix yeah you have so many ways to mix and match
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different character concepts yeah and promotion of a couple new species to the big time yes
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is a big book yeah also the species are amazing it gives you a great example of every species one
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of the fun things about that and Jeremy spearheaded this was making sure that each section of the
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player's handbook in terms of its art was kind of delivering on a different promise or or or
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highlighting what is interesting about what's going on in that chapter the species art being a
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great example where all of the illustrations of the species options available to player characters
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are done as these scenes involving multiple members in situations that you would probably find
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them very commonly yeah like the halflings are all sitting around a dinner table with each other
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you know the goliaths are doing you know their thing and the tieflings are doing their thing
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yes and the gnomes are definitely doing their thing the gnomes are definitely doing their thing and
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it gives you an idea of sort of the undercurrent of what unites
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these these these wonderful adventurous folk what is the team like right now because like
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is it is it is it fun seeing everyone during the print review right now it's great because during
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the printout review not only are we very focused on finishing this thing we've been
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passionately working on for several years but it's also an opportunity for us to
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confer with each other in person as we bring the books home and so it's a chance for us to
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talk through afters in some cases many weeks of mostly working at home talk through in person
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all right do we really mean it is this where we want to go next um and also just like playing a
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D&D game in person uh where you you really get to see through a person's body language and their
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facial expression if something is delighting them it's a chance uh for me always to see is this thing
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in the book delighting people here at the table as we look at it so to me it's immensely valuable
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almost as like the dungeon master of this particular book to see how the players around the
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table are enjoying this particular game yeah i like to sit at the table and just listen to Jeremy
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chuckle once in a while or he'll stumble upon a little bit of text that just you know tickles
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this fancy and it's it's such a delight to see that even among us who have read these pages
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multiple times and have rewritten pages multiple times that they're still fun yeah i know how tremendously
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busy you've been for like last 10 years but three years also making this book do you get a moment
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to stop and smell the flowers or like remind yourself this is actually happening it's hard when
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you're working that hard sense of smell you have no sense of smell is it delighting and something to do
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that yeah i had a sense of smell now it's gone so i don't smell the flowers anymore but the answer
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question no it's just you move on to the next thing at least i do yeah we are working so non-stop it
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is actually difficult to pause um but it's one reason why i love doing things like acquisitions
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incorporated because like the while well Chris was at gary con the only reason i wasn't there is
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because i was that same weekend i was at pax east and running the clown show yes and and running
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that game is actually one of my chances to just smell the flowers and just enjoy dnd uh and i find
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that is almost always the the way i get to smell the dnd flowers best is when i'm just
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DMing or playing it and in a non-play test context because we do a lot you know in our team we do a
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lot of play testing but that's why for me it's so vital uh to then go off and just play dnd and
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DM it as a fan and i think i've mentioned before in conversations with you in videos
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it's one of the reasons why when i'm running my home game my probably my only house role is that we
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play test nothing in my home game uh that we we just play we play the dnd that everyone else is playing
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not whatever we're currently working on in our laboratory here at work uh and so that we can
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just enjoy this game we love so much uh because at the end of the day even though this is our
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profession we are at heart just lifelong dnd fans was there anything uh surprising about gary con
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like you get to interact with fans you get a moment to talk to fans for me it was just it was a
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pleasure to be at such a wonderfully run show and one that had a very intimate atmosphere where
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you know you had no trouble running into the people you wanted to run into and you ran into a
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bunch of other people you never thought you would um but you're delighted having done so and uh it
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it's it's a it's a lovely facility in a town steeped in dnd's history so um going back to that you
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could feel it it's palpable that history um it pervades that con in particular because it's
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after one of dnd's grad fathers you see dnd in all of its forms you know from earliest day dnd
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being played to the fifth edition and um it it it's just a reminder to me that uh
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dnd has this amazing legacy which of course now we get to celebrate and it's 50th year
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but it there's a there's a power to this game and its ability to bring people together and make
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people happy and to build lifelong friendships and you see it on display at gary con and other shows
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like it um and so being a part of that legacy being being one of this one of the people who is
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fortunate enough to be a steward of dnd's dragons for a time um i carry that weight around with me
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at the show and beyond and it's like this is important to so many people uh it's very important
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that we we be faithful stewards of the brand and of the game and to make sure that we're setting it
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up for it's next 50 years the next time you see us we are going to be talking in depth about the
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