Following this morning’s D&D Direct broadcast, Wizards of the Coast and Mojang have announced one of those brand partnerships that makes you “Yeah, ok, that just makes sense.”
Essentially, Minecraft is coming to the D&D tabletop game, and the D&D tabletop game is coming to Minecraft.
The Dungeons & Dragons DLC for Minecraft gives players a complete campaign to play through, constructed in a Miney version of the primary D&D setting, the Forgotten Realms. Places like Icewind Dale and Candlekeep will be recreated in Mojang’s blocky world, and players will battle back popular D&D monsters like Beholders, Mimics and Gelatinous Cubes. It looks cute! There’s no pricing yet, but the DLC is set to launch in Autumn 2023 for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere.
And then there’s the Minecraft Monstrous Compendium for 5th Edition D&D.
This is a free, short-and-sweet monster manual for the current version of D&D that includes five of the most famous Minecraft mobs (or baddies, if you don’t speak Minecraft). The five monsters included in the compendium are the Blaze, the Creeper, the Endermen, an Ender Dragon, and finally there are some Wolves from the Minecraft overworld. Each of these creatures serves a different purpose and can be used to help you build your own Minecraft-themed campaign in D&D. Or, maybe you want to throw a Creeper at your friends in an otherwise grounded and realistic campaign to see what happens. As WotC’s Chris Perkins describes in the video above, the Creeper makes an interesting and unique D&D monster — it has no repeatable attacks, nor does it have arms it can hit the player characters with. As Minecraft players well know, the Creeper simply runs up to you and explodes. This creates interesting opportunities for DMs that crave chaos. The explosion the Creeper creates doesn’t just damage people — it also damages its surrounds, including buildings, roads, items, vehicles, trees, and even the ground itself.
The Minecraft Monster Compendium for D&D 5e is available for free on D&D Beyond, the game’s digital toolset. Once you claim your copy, it’ll be bound to your account for good.
If you do throw one at your party, please email me and let me know how it went.
All of the monsters listed above have official stat blocks that you can play with to your heart’s content. The countdown to someone homebrewing an Enderman into a playable class is on.
Honestly though, this is going to be such a useful tool for DMs that run games for younger kids. Being able to drop them into a familiar world with familiar foes and make them feel like heroes is a surefire way to teach them the ropes. Just play it cool when they want to start crafting because 5e isn’t really built for that.
For more on D&D, you can check out our review of the new movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, in theatres this week.
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