Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Books
As Wizards of the Coast learned their lessons with the 3.5 and 4th editions of Dungeons and Dragons, the release rate of books for the fifth edition has been substantially slower. This has had three benefits and one drawback of concern to the players who aren't obsessives who hoover up every single product of their favorite flavor of RPG like an air recirculator on a nuclear submarine.
The first benefit is that Wizards' senior editorial staff and game designers, namely Mike Mearls, Christopher Perkins, Jeremy Crawford, and the editorial core of the Seattle office of Wizards of the Coast, write every major publication themselves after the mess of Princes of the Apocalypse. That, in turn, means that the people who wrote each and every rule have final veto on whether or not material enters the canon of tabletop rulings and stats, and so it doesn't feel like it was designed by committee like later 3.5 materials clearly were. The second is that the financial cost of keeping current on the adventures, splats, rules, and optional setting material is far lower than with 3.5's torrent of material. The third is that the rules of the core game do not change, and that therefore there are rarely, if ever, causes for DMs and players to argue over the contents and design of the rules, since the rules aren't spread over a dozen books and fifty errata articles (looking at you, 4th edition).
The obvious drawback is that groups that chew through official material have got a LONG time to wait between modules. The release schedule of official 5e adventures, especially Adventurers' League canon adventure paths, is easily outpaced by a brisk group. There are a few exceptions, like how Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage can easily run a campaign for well over a year even with rapid levelling, given the sheer SIZE of Undermountain, but that is scarce. There are alternatives, of course, like homebrew material, and of course the expansions to the official modules sold on DM's Guild, but the near-total lack of replaybility on every 5e hardback except the aforementioned Dragon Heist (thanks to having four mutually-exclusive villains you can plug into the campaign to compete with the party) means that homebrewing filler adventures is all but mandatory for parties.
Here is a list of all hard-copy publications of Fifth Edition. There are well over a hundred smaller adventure bundles on DM's Guild, plus the CCC-x modules that are only runnable at conventions, which we're not going to even try listing here.
| Title | Date | Pages | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set | July 15, 2014 | 32 / 64 | Starter Set (Lost Mine of Phandelver, Levels 1-5) |
| Player's Handbook | August 19, 2014 | 316 | Core Rulebook |
| Hoard of the Dragon Queen | August 19, 2014 | 96 | Adventure Module (Levels 1-7) |
| Monster Manual | September 17, 2014 | 352 | Core Rulebook |
| The Rise of Tiamat | October 21, 2014 | 94 | Adventure Module (Levels 8-15) |
| Dungeon Master's Guide | December 9, 2014 | 320 | Core Rulebook |
| Elemental Evil Player's Companion | March 10, 2015 | 24 | Free PDF only Splatbook |
| Princes of the Apocalypse | April 7, 2015 | 256 | Adventure Module (Levels 1-15) |
| Out of the Abyss | September 15, 2015 | 254 | Adventure Module (Levels 1-15) |
| Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide | November 3, 2015 | 159 | Splatbook/Setting Guide |
| Curse of Strahd | March 15, 2016 | 256 | Adventure module (Levels 1-10) |
| Storm King's Thunder | September 6, 2016 | 256 | Adventure module (Levels 1-11) |
| Volo's Guide to Monsters | November 15, 2016 | 224 | Splatbook related to monsters |
| Tales From the Yawning Portal | April 4, 2017 | 248 | Adventure Module (Levels 1-11+) |
| Tomb of Annihilation | September 19, 2017 | 256 | Adventure Module (Levels 1-11) |
| Xanathar's Guide to Everything | November 21, 2017 | 192 | Splatbook related to characters and DM tactics |
| Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes | May 29, 2018 | 256 | Splatbook related to villains |
| Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron | July 23, 2018 | 175 | Splatbook/Setting Guide |
| Waterdeep: Dragon Heist | September 18, 2018 | 256 | Adventure Module (Levels 1-5) |
| Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage | November 20, 2018 | 320 | Adventure Module (Levels 5-20) |
| Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica | November 20, 2018 | 256 | Splatbook/Setting Guide |
| Stranger Things Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set | May 1, 2019 | 44 / 32 | Boxed Set (Hunt For The Thessalhydra, Levels 1-3) |
| Ghosts of Saltmarsh | May 21, 2019 | 256 | Adventure Module (Levels 1-12) |
| Acquisitions Incorporated | June 16, 2019 | 224 | Splatbook related to setting up an AI franchise/Adventure Module (Levels 1-6) |
| Essentials Kit | September 17, 2019 | 64 / 64 | Boxed Set (Dragon of Icespire Peak, Levels 1-6) |
| Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus | September 17, 2019 | 256 | Adventure Module (Levels 1-13) |
| Dungeons & Dragons vs Rick and Morty | November 19, 2019 | 64 / 44 | Boxed Set (The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness: Big Rick Energy, Levels 1-3) |
| Eberron: Rising from the Last War | November 19, 2019 | 320 | Splatbook/Setting Guide |
| Mordenkainen's Fiendish Folio, Volume 1: Monsters Malevolent and Benign | December 03, 2019 | 21 | Splatbook related to monsters |
| Explorer's Guide to Wildemount | March 17, 2020 | 304 | Splatbook/Setting Guide |
| Mythic Odysseys of Theros | June 2, 2020 | 180 | Splatbook/Setting Guide |