Wizards CAN'T Publish This D&D Book — Rob Conley LIVE on the Northern Marches

Wizards of the Coast cannot publish a sandbox. Joe has been saying it for months. Rob Conley just proved it — releasing Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: The Northern Marches, a 200-page hexcrawl guidebook with five 12" by 18" referee maps covering over 100,000 square miles of original sandbox terrain. The Kickstarter funded in under 20 minutes, blew past its $2,000 goal to $42,921, and pulled in 815 backers. It is exactly the kind of book WotC's publishing model can never produce — too detailed, too referee-facing, too committed to actual sandbox play. Rob joins Joe LIVE to talk about how the book got made, why hexcrawls scare modern publishers, and what 45 years of designing sandbox campaigns has taught him about why the official D&D adventures fail at the only thing they're supposed to do. Rob Conley is the author of How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox (DriveThruRPG platinum bestseller), Blackmarsh (his most-downloaded free setting), Points of Light (Goodman Games), and the Majestic Wilderlands. He runs Bat in the Attic Games out of Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he has been DMing the same Majestic Wilderlands campaign since the late 1970s. He started D&D with the Holmes Box Set on Christmas 1977, played AD&D the day the DMG dropped in 1979, ran 20 years of GURPS before returning to OSR play, and co-hosts the Random Party Generator livestream with Erik Tenkar, Tim Shorts, Matt Jackson, and Greg Christopher. He's also the guy who broke off all business with Judges Guild over the Bob Bledsaw II situation when it mattered — a stand that cost him money. The Northern Marches expands his existing Blackmarsh, Wild North (Fight On! issue 3), and Points of Light material into a single coherent setting compatible with Swords & Wizardry, the Open Game License via SRD 5.1, and any old-school D&D ruleset you want to bring to the table. This interview covers the book itself, Rob's design process, why sandboxes are mathematically impossible for big publishers to print, what it takes to actually run a sandbox at the table, and 45 years of stories from one of the OSR's most-respected world-builders. The book is available now via DriveThruRPG and his blog at batintheattic.blogspot.com — links below. ROB CONLEY — BAT IN THE ATTIC GAMES: 📍 Blog: https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/ 📍 DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publi... Rob is also launching his YouTube channel with this interview! Here's the link: 📍    / @batintheatticgames   My FREE Patreon has all the work-in-progress on the 5e Old School D&D Hack that I'm building: 📍   / joethelawyer   My FREE Substack has essays about TTRPG/D&D games and the hobby: 📍 https://analogmancave.substack.com/ Channel membership for early access and members-only updates on the game: 📍    / @joethelawyer   Follow me on Twitter/X: 📍 https://x.com/analogmancave Discord is where the fans of the channel, the "Cavemen", hang out: 📍   / discord   You can find me everywhere else! 📍 Podcast (Spotify, Apple, Rumble — all platforms): search "Joethelawyer's Analog Mancave" On the channel I cover D&D 5e, OSR, old-school D&D, tabletop RPG advice, classic dungeon design, and what makes great sessions actually feel great. #DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #OSR #OldSchoolDnD #BatInTheAttic #RobConley #HexCrawl #DnDSandbox #FantasySandbox #TabletopRPG