D&D General 50 Years of D&D On a Single Chart

[Voadam]

I like the bar graph one better than the pie chart, it is easier to make sense of the fact that the basic editions overlap with AD&D and so the percentages of D&D history add up cumulatively to over 100% of the time period. The pie chart makes it look like each one is a smaller slice of D&D history because of the overlap period.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

An argument could be made that 4E had the shortest run (of just 2 years), because a lot of folks consider 4E and Essentials to be two separate product lines. I don't; so in my not-professional-opinion, I would say that 4E had the second shortest production run, at just 4 years including Essentials.

And a lot of people are wrong. "4e" and "Essentials" are precisely as different as "5e" and "Xanathar's." That is, two books that both offer options for the same damn game. Every part of Essentials can be used seamlessly with everything that preceded it in 4e, with specific rules for how certain things interact (e.g. Knights cannot multiclass as Battlemasters, because no class can multiclass to itself, and both of them are Fighters.)

This is just giving completely unnecessary credence and screen time to a genuinely, patently false claim. 4e is Essentials. Essentials is 4e. They are the same game.

5.5e is going to be more different from 5e than Essentials was from 4e. (I refuse to call it the name WotC calls it, because I recognize it for what it is, an edition revision, not a reprint.)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

More pie! Because pie is delicious!

Good idea!

I've whipped up a pie chart detailing the results of conversations about D&D I've had with people over the years.