Wizards of the Coast is producing lots of copies of the new one Player’s Handbook (2024). How many are those exactly? According to vice president of franchise and product Jess Lanzillo, this is just enough to meet current demand – which is quite high.
“The English version of the 2024 Player’s Handbook achieved in just one month alone what took almost two years for the 2014 edition, in all language versions available in that time frame,” she said in a recent video interview. Suffice it to say, then, that the new rules are so popular that Wizards has already ordered a second printing.
“This is a huge, unprecedented run for us,” she added. “I felt like we planned aggressively for player demand, and player demand exceeded it.”
Nevertheless, the stock remains plentiful. Polygon called a dozen retailers in Illinois, Wisconsin, Arizona, California, Georgia and Washington. All reported that they had the new book in decent quantities for their customers on Tuesday. Only two stores in one state, hurricane-ravaged Florida, said they were currently out of stock.
But while that first run has kept the shelves at local retailers (and on Amazon) stocked, major stores like Walmart and Target won’t see their copies until later this year or early 2025. Player’s Handbook (2024) will also begin to reach those markets in the same time frame, with copies in French, Italian, German and Spanish all currently in production.
Lanzillo said that based on demand for the Player’s Handbook (2024), her team at Wizards has already made a second batch of the Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024) as well. That book won’t hit shelves until October 29, when a special collector’s edition will first be available at local stores.
“We know there is a lag between when we can restock, print and replenish inventory at all of our retailers,” Lanzillo said. “So we want to make sure that there isn’t a huge window where we can’t meet that demand. We’re working on it now, so we feel like we’re going to time that perfectly and we’re really excited about it.
Getting the right number of books into the distribution channel was a challenge, especially with the new “press controls” that Lanzillo said it had implemented after quality issues with some products in 2023. But, she said, the production team – and the United States – based printing partners for this first wave of products took advantage of this opportunity. Digital adoption of the new rules is also progressing as expected, Lanzillo said.
“People are still creating characters under the 2014 rules (online),” Lanzillo said. “We want to make sure everyone can play within whatever rules they want, but we’re seeing the 2024 (rules) surpass the 2014 character creation (rules for) – not quite twice as much, but close to it. And it’s increasing week by week as people become more accustomed to it.”
Lanzillo said it is a good sign that the order of rollout of the core rules – with the Monster manual which remains behind at the beginning of 2025 – is progressing as expected.
“We see the pattern going exactly the way we think it would go,” Lanzillo said, “where (in the beginning) you’re a little bit solo-curious, (and) now that you get Dungeon Masters going, ‘Hey, we ‘We’re going to do the whole new campaign within (the) 2024 (ruleset), let’s all start rolling up (characters with those) rules.’ So it’s a continuous spectrum of adoption, which is quite good.”
The next hurdle for the brand will be bridging what seems to be a bit of a content gap over the holidays and summer 2025. The next big release after the Monster manual (2025) will be an untitled dragon anthology, which Lanzillo said will feature encounters in the style of previous anthologies such as Candle mysteries And Traveling through the shining citadel.
“They’re capsule dungeons with dragons in them that you can use in your campaign,” Lanzillo said. “We really want to give players the opportunity to experience not only the previous great campaign stuff and adventure stuff that we’ve already published with the new rules and going, Oh my god, this is amazing! But also to show them, Hey, here are some ways adventures and campaigns can go even further with these drop-in dungeons.”
Lanzillo said fans should look out for additional details on how to make older campaigns backwards compatible with the new rules – especially as those rules apply to high-level monsters with revised versions on the way. It’s hoped that third-party digital content, including fan-made content in the Greyhawk setting (which was recently unlocked by Wizards for Dungeon Masters Guild monetization), will also help fill that gap.
Above all, Lanzillo said she was pleased with the sense of continuity that this year’s revision of the rules has given to the global community.
“We want to reward rather than punish people for their knowledge and the investment they have made,” Lanzillo said. Therefore, the original 2014 Fifth Edition rules are still available and relevant. “We want to make sure (fans) feel like the last decade they invested in wasn’t pointless.
“We’re super, super grateful for how successful the fifth edition has been,” Lanzillo added, “and it’s all because of the fans, and the last thing we would want to do is destroy all the love they have for the game. have learned and that they have taught others.”
The Dungeons Master’s Guide (2024) will be widely available on November 12.