D&D (2024) 50th Anniversary: 6E in 2024?

[pming]

Hiya!

While it is true that there was no "C" for the "B/X" series, one Jonathan Becker created one ( B/X Companion - Running Beagle Games | DriveThruRPG.com ), which I bought (two dead-tree versions...or maybe three, would have to check) for myself and table. It's actually pretty well done and I have no problems including it with any B/X game I run.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Marc_C]

Yep, thanks. I was beginning to think I was crazy . . . .

That there's the "X" in B/X.

I started with the Elmore cover Basic Set, and never really looked backwards (closely, anyways) . . . . is this B/X Expert Set identical with the later BECMI Expert Set, other than the cover? I'm pretty sure they are different, but haven't read through the older one. Heck, it's been a while since I've read through any of those older rulesets, even the ones I owned as a kid.

They are not identical. Moldvay mentions using miniatures while Mentzer omits mentioning them. There are other small changes and corrections. The biggest difference is Mentzer introduced the solitary adventure to teach how to play - because TSR was receiving too many letters from buyers who didn't understand how to play D&D.

 

[Marc_C]

What? Who said that? When?

Agreed. I think they’re going to incorporate some of the changes from Tasha’s like having features that grant inherent spellcasting also allow you to cast them with your spell slots, racial ASIs being floating, etc. and maybe some small tweaks to bring some of the more maligned classes and subclasses up to par, but no major changes to subsystems.

I was also surprised. Can't recall when and where but it was at the beginning. Probably Mearls. Called it an evergreen edition. The inferred was that they wanted to refine rather than star from scratch ever 5-6 years.

 

[wicked cool]

Ancient history here but back in the day there was a point you could go to say toysrus and buy the basic/expert and Advanced books (all three were on the shelves at that moment) . i remember not having my own copies and purchasing all 3 (at the time i knew it was silly and my friend who introduced me to the game told me so ). Even scarier i can remember where in the store the D&d section was

My question is will we actually need these 5.1 books? If i go to pax or gencon or even local league play will i notice the edition change?

 

[Charlaquin]

I was also surprised. Can't recall when and where but it was at the beginning. Probably Mearls. Called it an evergreen edition. The inferred was that they wanted to refine rather than star from scratch ever 5-6 years.

Oh, ok. Yeah, I vaguely remember that. It was a naive idea then and we’re beginning to see why. While it’s probably not time for 6e yet, 5e is clearly starting to show its age and to strain under the weight of its own optional rules. The devs have recognized this and are planning a rules revision for 2024. It may not be a full new edition, but it’s going to bring some changes to the base game. And that kind of thing will always be necessary. No RPG can go unchanged forever, or at least not without falling out of the spotlight. Evergreen is an appealing idea for game companies, but it doesn’t work in the RPG space.

 

[Aldarc]

Oh, ok. Yeah, I vaguely remember that. It was a naive idea then and we’re beginning to see why. While it’s probably not time for 6e yet, 5e is clearly starting to show its age and to strain under the weight of its own optional rules. The devs have recognized this and are planning a rules revision for 2024. It may not be a full new edition, but it’s going to bring some changes to the base game. And that kind of thing will always be necessary. No RPG can go unchanged forever, or at least not without falling out of the spotlight. Evergreen is an appealing idea for game companies, but it doesn’t work in the RPG space.

A bit like the idea of an “evergreen MMORPG.”

 

[doctorbadwolf]

E+ was definitely less tightly balanced than pre-E+, so I suppose it might have been a bit of an issue for highly optimized groups. But really, it wasn’t such a big disparity as to cause issues for the vast majority.

Exactly.

Oh, absolutely!

YES! I agree 100%.

My own game has no treadmill, partly because I got tired of having to rework NPCs math because what I want doesn’t have a tier appropriate iteration, and other treadmill problems.

Back on topic, one thing I like about pbta games in general is that they rarely have this forced “0 to hero” aspect of traditional games. Even Monster of The Week just kinda allows you to become more durable individually and you get better at succeeding at things, but it doesn’t feel at all like the progression of D&D and It’s derivatives.

 

[CleverNickName]

Thread-Necromancer: "Arise, ye departed thread! Shake the dust from your bones, and return to the world of the living!"

Almost three and a half years ago, folks posted a lot of their wishes and predictions for the 50-year anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. And now that the 50th Anniversary of D&D is officially upon us*, I thought it would be fun to pop open this time capsule and see how it holds up.


*The very first edition of D&D was published in late January, 1974. (Source)

 

[CleverNickName]

Yeah, I don’t think the changes are going to be nearly as significant as a lot of people are hoping for. Bringing some stuff up to date with Tasha’s, yes. Some minor tweaks to improve classes/subclasses that perform poorly in player satisfaction, probably. Rebalancing, probably not. Changes to core systems, definitely not.

They did say, a while back, 5e was the last edition of D&D. Considering what was said yesterday the changes are more like 5.1 than 5.5 and not at all a 6e. Minor tweaks and no sweeping changes to the system.

These fine folks were pretty darned accurate, I'd say.

 

[MockingBird]

Some very close predictions! Fun to look back on this. I was on a deployment during this threads creation and completely missed it.