I hate press releases — really. Engine Publishing doesn’t do press releases, period, and I rarely read the ones put out by other companies. But this draft press release, which was leaked to Gnome Stew by an anonymous party whose name definitely doesn’t rhyme with Shmyan Shmancey, was too juicy to pass up:
RENTON, Washington, April 15. Wizards of the Coast, the leader in hobby games, is pleased to announce the first preview of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (TM) 5th Edition. This preview, an “alpha” version of the new rules, will be included in our most essential release for D&D players since 2002..
2002’s The Book of Vile Darkness and its companion product, The Book of Exalted Deeds, both oriented towards mature audiences, were the most successful and critically praised products in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS history. Coupled with the runaway success of the third-party Book of Erotic Fantasy (2006), we saw a real opportunity to go back to that well and revitalize the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS property with another flagship product.
Wizards of the Coast is proud to announce the May 2011 release of The Book of Erotic Flatulence, which will feature a preview of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 5th Edition rules.
Brand Manager K. Siemdieba says, “This is the product Dungeon Masters and D&D players have been clamoring for in person at conventions and in our online forums. Without the Book of Erotic Flatulence, your game is just plain incomplete — and if you haven’t been including the bodily functions of D&D’s most iconic creatures in your games since 1997, like all of us here at Wizards, then man are you missing out. From reesty orc beefs to wispy little mind flayer squeakers, the Book of Erotic Flatulence has it all. You do not want to miss this.”
The Book of Erotic Flatulence will be a full-color 32-page hardcover with a retail price of $49.95, and is expected in retail stores in May 2011.
The press release was accompanied by a PDF, which I can only assume is some kind of internal production copy of The Book of Erotic Flatulence. The cover is below, and you can download the PDF if you enjoy pain (NSFW).
It’s an April Fool’s Joke…they do it every year.
@Templar Mortis – And I just realized this might be a joke by GS. Eh, oops.
Haha, poop jokes, the epitome of comedy.
Nice try, Martin. Good thing none of us have any idea who “K. Siembieda” is, not to mention his centuries of service to WOTC.
Seriously, Martin, next time you want to do an April Fool’s article, call me. I am seriously disappointed in you, we have all come to expect better of you.
This is fantastic news! Thirty-two pages on fantasy flatulence, and only for $49.95. That’s a price that can’t be beat! And I hope that if a PDF is ever released, I can pay more for that, too! I’m glad the the company has finally realized I want a new edition as soon as possible, before I realize how many older books I already have.
(Thanks to Martin for being my first April Fool’s story this morning 🙂 )
Martin, this is pathetic. Purely pathetic. What happened to our sense of standards around here?
I mean, not even one mention of how Pathfinder is by far the superior product for the verisimilitude of all bodily functions?
I’m heading over to http://www.halflingsoup.com where the edition wars still matter!
I don’t think it’s a joke, guys. It seem like a legit product that would improve the gaming experience for many people.
Haterz.
So is this inferior-to-Pathfinder crapfest going to be included in this new release as well?
http://dnd5.com/
Not that it matters. Only morons would play a WotC product when Paizo has clearly made the best stuff ever!!! You want to grapple? Only Pathfinder let’s you do it! ONLY PATHFINDER BEEEEETCHES!!!!
@Patrick- Oh, please. Pathfinder just keeps that dead unbalanced horse kicking. WOTC made a good move by balancing the classes, but it’s too little too late. I’ve had great, balanced fantasy campaigns for two decades now with GURPS (a far superior alternative to the D&D crapfest that is any edition).
But yeah, Martin’s “joke” today is just tired and unfunny. I think it’s time to jump this sinking ship and sign on to Halfling Soup with you.
@Walt Ciechanowski – First – you can’t come to Halfling Soup with me because you are an asshole.
Second – you are an asshole because you play GURPS and not Pathfinder.
Those are facts, Walt! MOFO’ng FACTS!!!
@Patrick – And here I thought assholes stick together.
And please. If I want to play an Arcane Archer as a starting character and still be balanced against the Barbarian and Rogue, I can. I also don’t have to wait 7 levels (or more, if I screwed up multiclassing) to play a duelist either.
If you want MOFO’ng FACTS, I can create any character that you could conceive of in Pathfinder, and I don’t need 3 or 4 MOFO’ng phone book-sized rulebooks to do it!
Gygax wrote DnD, and if DnD tells me I have a raging boner for farts, then I have a raging boner for farts. I’d rather listen to DnD than UofM.
@Matthew J. Neagley – But Gygax didn’t write for WotC. In fact, I have it on good authority (a friend of a friend of an enemy) that Gary Gygax helped to develop Pathfinder, and that Paizo contacts him regularly to discuss new rules from beyond the grave!
I mean, it is obvious that 4e and this pathetic 5e is nothing like Gygax would have wanted. Gygax would have pissed on this crap and then dropped a “rust monster” (if you know what I mean) right on top of it all.
Did you ever even play the original blue box? Probably not. n00b!
@Walt Ciechanowski – THE REASON PATHFINDER BOOKS ARE AS THICK AS PHONEBOOKS IS BECAUSE THEY ARE FULL OF NOTHING BUT PURE FUCKING AWESOMENESS!!!
UNLIKE GURPS WHICH HAS TO RELEASE A LITTLE BOOK OF LIMITED EXPECTATIONS! OH LOOK! GURPS 6th EDITION BOOK OF RANDOM CHARTS OF GURPS MERCHANDISE FOR SUCKERS!!!
GO PLAY A LARP WALT!!!
Please. Gygax isn’t dead. He’s hanging out listening to Elvis perform live while he personally pens 5e. Get your facts straight!
@Matthew J. Neagley – That is what WotC wants you to believe, but as anyone who actually does research can tell you WotC is a part of the globe controlling Illuminati!
At first the Illuminati tried to destroy DnD by associating it with Satanic rituals, but when that failed because Gary Gygax smited them with a brilliant Tomb of Horrors media trap they re-grouped and caused TSR to go bankrupt through their control of the world’s banking industry.
Then the Illuminati bought WotC so that they could buy TSR. Now they use DnD to keep the masses under control, and that is why Paizo and Pathfinder are the only hope for mankind!
@Patrick- Then I guess I’ll be thrilled next week when I do my taxes since the tax code must be filled with awesomeness.
Any game that takes 2 hours to run a combat is a mountain of pure dreck in my book.
Oh, and all this talk about Gygax must have Arneson glaring at you from the outer planes.
@Walt Ciechanowski – See? That is why you are an idiot! The proof is right there! Just look at what you said, you F’n troll! All of the evidence as to why you shouldn’t even have an opinion is right there in your pathetic excuse for a comment!
@Patrick- Could you explain that last comment? I’m having difficulty understanding it as I don’t speak Prick.
@Walt Ciechanowski – Sure. Loosely translated it says:
“You are an ass hat with hemorrhoids that Steve Jackson wears while boinking your mother.”
kthxbye
If you grognards had been reading the Anvil forums instead of re-hashing this old argument, you’d understand that why we game is more important than how we game. I don’t want to get into the sematics and sophistry of terms that grognards like you couldn’t even begin to fathom, but once again, you’ve got it all wrong.
This preview of 5e is a whiff of fresh air from the guts of the best designers on the planet. They’ve digested all of the best gaming minutiae and passed this on to us. We should be thankful.
@Kurt “Telas” Schneider – I’m sorry, but because you didn’t deliver your opinion in a 35 page rant that redefines common terms to mean whatever you need them to mean at the moment I doubt that you have ever visited the forums over at the Anvil.
In other words – suck my big model!
PATHFINDER RULEZ!!!
Oh, great, an Anvilite showed up to the party. You can’t reason with an Anvil; the only thing you can do is take a hammer to it.
Ooooh…I rolled a 4, an automatic critical. Unlike SOME people in these comments (like P’rick), I don’t need a second roll to confirm it.
It’s attitudes like this which keep gaming In The Dark. A Retread Won’t Balance The Tyre, as we Anvillains say. It’s time to take gaming to The Next Level. The Big Model is so yesteryear. The Next Level is the new mode of thinking. Because wherever you are, you can always take it to The Next Level.
Is your gaming at The Next Level? Of course not. Gygax, limited though he was, saw that there was always The Next Level. Don’t call it Epic; there’s nothing epic about 21st level. Labels are whatever we want them to be. Otherwise, the players would know all the rules, and hasn’t D&D proven that as UnFun? Isn’t Bunnies & Burrows epic? Yes, but even that can be taken to The Next Level.
The Next Level. Repeat it enough, and you’ll understand.
@Walt Ciechanowski – I see that you are using the GURPS Pretentious A-Hole edition and are playing a Sarcastic Dickhead character today. Figures that even with the ability to play “anything-once-you-buy-the-book-for-it” of your favorite system that you would pick that.
@Kurt “Telas” Schneider – Last night I took your sister to “The Next Level”. Can I be cool like you now? Can I? Can I please?
Oh wait, I actually know that words have defined meanings. So let me put it in terms that you can understand:
“The enjoyment of a game comes from the collective participation of the hipster designers rolling up the rules and inserting them into their mental, social, and physical rectums. Only then will the magic unicorn bless their re-hashing of stuff known since the 70s.”
@Patrick Benson – I don’t have a sister. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
@Kurt “Telas” Schneider – We are all so grateful that your parents decided to stop after seeing how you turned out. Anvilites prove the need for birth control.
Awesome stuff, Martin! I laughed when I saw the update appear on facebook while out for pints with friends.
@AnvilKurt- I’d have more respect for your opinion if you actually played RPGs.
@Walt Ciechanowski – Anvillains don’t need to play games to talk about them at a deeper level than any mere player or game ‘master’. Distance gives us perspective that those actually playing the game cannot achieve.
I hope folks enjoyed our April Fool’s joke — both parts, the article (and PDF) and the fake flame war between Gnome Stew authors. 🙂
Seeing the latter portion play out, I’m reminded why I like running this site so much: Because shit like that just plain doesn’t happen here outside of a joke thread. We have awesome readers and commenters, and it shows.
The thing I found most entertaining, is the fact that the press release is dated April 15th. The OP must either be a time traveler, or an awesome precog lol.
@kalanijasmine – It’s supposed to be a draft press release (mentioned up top). 😉
*thumbs up*
Mostly just wanted to say that this is basically my first time back online in about a week. What a welcome! 😉
@Martin Ralya – April Fool’s joke? Fake flame war? Oh crap…
😉
Thanks to Kurt, Matt, and Walt for the witty comments! I hope our readers were amused by the “flame war”.
I’m a little late to the April Fools game, but I have to say that you guys had me laughing out loud. Pathfinder RULEZ!!
http://thegirlygeekblog.typepad.com/the-girly-geek/