D&D (2024) Does anyone else think that 1D&D will create a significant divide in the community?

[Bill Zebub]

But calling it a marketing ploy is most probably... just forget it. Won't convince anyone.

I'm with you.

Some years ago a book came out claiming that dogs don't actually love us, rather they have just evolved to exhibit behaviors that we anthropomorphize as "love", because those behaviors resulted in us taking care of them.

I thought that was a silly argument for two reasons:
1) If those behaviors really are the result of evolutionary pressure, which I agree is probably the case, it seems to me more likely that dogs would evolve to actually love us, rather than independently evolve all these separate behaviors that are indistinguishable from love.
2) In any event, it's impossible to tell the difference between genuine love and strategic love. So what's the point in trying to make that distinction?

The answer to #2 is, of course, if you have an ulterior motive of pushing a narrative that only humans have emotions.

It feels like there's something similar going on here. In the absence of incriminating emails, how does one distinguish between a desire to deliver a great product to the largest possible audience, and a shameless money grab? You can't. Either way the external evidence is going to be identical. Or, at least, in this case the external evidence is identical. The distinction is entirely a matter of how we choose to interpret the behavior.

And for the life of me I can't understand why anybody would voluntarily choose the cynical, bitter interpretation. Seems like a miserable story to keep telling oneself.

 

[Clint_L]

What this thread is revealing to me is how much difficulty a lot of players are having letting go of the old editions paradigm, rather than Wizards of the Coast. It's one thing to be healthily skeptical, and another to just dig your heels in and say "it has always been thus, and so it must always be thus."

What if, just for a moment, we allow for the thought experiment: imagine that WotC actually means what they say, are basically happy with the 5e rules set, and want to abandon the old editions model that created schisms in their player base by expecting players to abandon their old stuff whole sale and purchase a new version of the game. Is that an impossibility? Because a lot of folks seem to be assuming that it is.

Edit: WotC has good reasons, as they have explained at length, to want to get away from the old editions paradigm, which basically arose as a short term mechanism to save TSR from impending bankruptcy back in the 80s rather than from any genius, long term strategy. And though they haven't stated so directly, WotC has good financial reasons to junk the "editions" cycle for D&D. A lot of them! It makes sense for them to want to get out of it! So I really don't understand why so many folks find the concept so utterly unbelievable. Grognards gotta grognard, I suppose.

 

[payn]

What this thread is revealing to me is how much difficulty a lot of players are having letting go of the old editions paradigm, rather than Wizards of the Coast. It's one thing to be healthily skeptical, and another to just dig your heels in and say "it has always been thus, and so it must always be thus."

What if, just for a moment, we allow for the thought experiment: imagine that WotC actually means what they say, are basically happy with the 5e rules set, and want to abandon the old editions model that created schisms in their player base by expecting players to abandon their old stuff whole sale and purchase a new version of the game. Is that an impossibility? Because a lot of folks seem to be assuming that it is.

So, if subclasses were moved from level 3 to 1, thats just D&D? If they brought back alignment mechanics, thats just D&D? If they brought back AEDU, that's just D&D? If they add a new subsystem to allow a more narrative approach, thats just D&D? No matter the changes in the future, its just D&D with no way to differentiate mechanics at any point in its history since 2014?

 

[Marandahir]

So, if subclasses were moved from level 3 to 1, thats just D&D? If they brought back alignment mechanics, thats just D&D? If they brought back AEDU, that's just D&D? If they add a new subsystem to allow a more narrative approach, thats just D&D? No matter the changes in the future, its just D&D with no way to differentiate mechanics at any point in its history since 2014?

They have no financial incentive to bring back 4e or 2e as a parallel product to 5e.

The want everyone to play the same D&D. The alternative is to prop up a rival like Pathfinder.

So it's just 5e with some errata (some extensive, others less so) built into a fresh new PHB. The DMG will have new content that is perhaps more useful to DM's - something I'm super looking forward to. They don't want to use edition labels for it because they don't want to create a schism as all. They want us to be playing the same game we're always playing. But for a lot of us, having those rules updates in a single fresh new version of the Core Rules that can realign some ideas that were broken makes sense. Having the revised Ranger in the PHB rather than having to find it in Tasha's makes sense. Having a Monk of the Four Elements in the PHB that works makes sense. Having actual narrative differences to the Fighter subclasses in the PHB makes sense. These are all things they've wanted for 5e but it hasn't made sense previously because they weren't re-doing the Core Rules. But they're ultimately cleaning up the game to make it all fit a bit better with the most recent books they've issued.

The biggest audience for these books are new players. But if you're using the old books, that's fine too. The Power level shouldn't be too off, and I would definitely expect the DMG and/or free columns on D&D Beyond to discuss how to balance the power of 2014 and 2024 PCs with each other (perhaps by granting a bonus feat or some sort to the older book characters).

It's not a new edition, it's a revised version reprint. Perhaps this is because editions and versions are confused to many D&D players (and were confused by WotC when they started calling the revisions to 3rd Edition "D&D v3.5". Yeah, you could place it as the v1.5 take on 3rd Edition, but it's not like it's halfway between the design of 3e and 4e. It's 3e v1.5; not D&D v3.5 to be supplanted by D&D v4.0. This is a v1.5 revision of 5e, in a sense, but 5e & One D&D ≠ 4e & Essentials ≠ 3e & 3.5e ≠ Basic & AD&D ≠ B/X, BECMI, & RC ≠ Original. They're different games, essentially, with shared heritage and some linearity, but really more like development forks. Pathfinder 1e, for example, is a fork off of 3e, while 4e was a separate fork building off of Bo9S and the 3.5e PHB2, among other influences. One could argue that Basic and Advanced were intended as the same game, and A1e and A2e and A2e Player's Option were just iterations on the same idea, but B/X was a separate fork off of Basic and developed into BECMI and then RC. Original D&D of course inspired all of it, and Chainmail in some ways, alongside Braunstein, was like the v0.01 versions of Original.

 

[payn]

They have no financial incentive to bring back 4e or 2e as a parallel product to 5e.

The want everyone to play the same D&D. The alternative is to prop up a rival like Pathfinder.

So it's just 5e with some errata (some extensive, others less so) built into a fresh new PHB. The DMG will have new content that is perhaps more useful to DM's - something I'm super looking forward to. They don't want to use edition labels for it because they don't want to create a schism as all. They want us to be playing the same game we're always playing. But for a lot of us, having those rules updates in a single fresh new version of the Core Rules that can realign some ideas that were broken makes sense. Having the revised Ranger in the PHB rather than having to find it in Tasha's makes sense. Having a Monk of the Four Elements in the PHB that works makes sense. Having actual narrative differences to the Fighter subclasses in the PHB makes sense. These are all things they've wanted for 5e but it hasn't made sense previously because they weren't re-doing the Core Rules. But they're ultimately cleaning up the game to make it all fit a bit better with the most recent books they've issued.

The biggest audience for these books are new players. But if you're using the old books, that's fine too. The Power level shouldn't be too off, and I would definitely expect the DMG and/or free columns on D&D Beyond to discuss how to balance the power of 2014 and 2024 PCs with each other (perhaps by granting a bonus feat or some sort to the older book characters).

It's not a new edition, it's a revised version reprint. Perhaps this is because editions and versions are confused to many D&D players (and were confused by WotC when they started calling the revisions to 3rd Edition "D&D v3.5". Yeah, you could place it as the v1.5 take on 3rd Edition, but it's not like it's halfway between the design of 3e and 4e. It's 3e v1.5; not D&D v3.5 to be supplanted by D&D v4.0. This is a v1.5 revision of 5e, in a sense, but 5e & One D&D ≠ 4e & Essentials ≠ 3e & 3.5e ≠ Basic & AD&D ≠ B/X, BECMI, & RC ≠ Original. They're different games, essentially, with shared heritage and some linearity, but really more like development forks. Pathfinder 1e, for example, is a fork off of 3e, while 4e was a separate fork building off of Bo9S and the 3.5e PHB2, among other influences. One could argue that Basic and Advanced were intended as the same game, and A1e and A2e and A2e Player's Option were just iterations on the same idea, but B/X was a separate fork off of Basic and developed into BECMI and then RC. Original D&D of course inspired all of it, and Chainmail in some ways, alongside Braunstein, was like the v0.01 versions of Original.

I get that, but eventually these small changes will become big ones. Perhaps thats way down the road, but the rules cant just get .01 updates in perpetuity. When that time comes, you need a way to differentiate it. Folks are not hung up on the word edition, but the concept behind it. You cant eliminate it, so what will it be called? WotC doesnt need to worry about that at the moment, so im sure they will deliver a new conceptual name when the time comes. Some folks are just not patient.

 

[Marandahir]

I get that, but eventually these small changes will become big ones. Perhaps thats way down the road, but the rules cant just get .01 updates in perpetuity. When that time comes, you need a way to differentiate it. Folks are not hung up on the word edition, but the concept behind it. You cant eliminate it, so what will it be called? WotC doesnt need to worry about that at the moment, so im sure they will deliver a new conceptual name when the time comes. Some folks are just not patient.

We don't need to worry about what might happen in the future, just about the shift right now. This is incrementalism. Sure in 2054, will the game look very different from 2014? Absolutely - 40 years of incremental developement alongside a completely changing demographic would do that. But it's kinda like biological or philological evolution: there's no clear cut off between the different boxes, just fuzzy boundaries of when something became something else. To the Spanish, they were always still speaking Latin, it's just that the French and the Italians were speaking it WRONG!

English 500 years from now will look and sound completely different from our English, just as our English is not mutually intelligible with Middle English or Old English (Anglo-Saxon). But there's a continuity of speech, and no one generation "decided" to speak differently than the last; they all had incremental tweaks to the language. Sure, you'll have wholecloth language replacement as well, and you'll have injections of whole lexicons due to merging populations, but the language lineage is possible to trace and nobody believed they were suddenly speaking Middle English and not Old English (though perhaps Ye Olde English was believed to exist as people compared their English to the old English written by their ancestors).

My point is that the game will certainly change. It already has in many ways. It makes sense to publish a new encyclopedia of rules based on those changes and based on a few more changes WotC have wanted to make (or are testing if they should make) but hadn't previously made because they didn't want to "invalidate" the 2014 books. But these changes are no bigger than the ones introduced in the Rules Expansions. They're all incremental. So One D&D is to say, D&D = English. We're not going to call it Old D&D or New D&D or Middle D&D, but just D&D. It's going to change over time. That's fine for everyone save the systematic D&Dologists amongst us to feel like they have to categorize everything into neat little boxes.

 

[payn]

We don't need to worry about what might happen in the future, just about the shift right now. This is incrementalism. Sure in 2054, will the game look very different from 2014? Absolutely - 40 years of incremental developement alongside a completely changing demographic would do that. But it's kinda like biological or philological evolution: there's no clear cut off between the different boxes, just fuzzy boundaries of when something became something else. To the Spanish, they were always still speaking Latin, it's just that the French and the Italians were speaking it WRONG!

English 500 years from now will look and sound completely different from our English, just as our English is not mutually intelligible with Middle English or Old English (Anglo-Saxon). But there's a continuity of speech, and no one generation "decided" to speak differently than the last; they all had incremental tweaks to the language. Sure, you'll have wholecloth language replacement as well, and you'll have injections of whole lexicons due to merging populations, but the language lineage is possible to trace and nobody believed they were suddenly speaking Middle English and not Old English (though perhaps Ye Olde English was believed to exist as people compared their English to the old English written by their ancestors).

My point is that the game will certainly change. It already has in many ways. It makes sense to publish a new encyclopedia of rules based on those changes and based on a few more changes WotC have wanted to make (or are testing if they should make) but hadn't previously made because they didn't want to "invalidate" the 2014 books. But these changes are no bigger than the ones introduced in the Rules Expansions. They're all incremental. So One D&D is to say, D&D = English. We're not going to call it Old D&D or New D&D or Middle D&D, but just D&D. It's going to change over time. That's fine for everyone save the systematic D&Dologists amongst us to feel like they have to categorize everything into neat little boxes.

Problem is folks already consider 2014 as old English and what is coming as new English. They want a way to differentiate them which will be helpful when finding players. Just saying D&D is already not working.

 

[tetrasodium]

Problem is folks already consider 2014 as old English and what is coming as new English. They want a way to differentiate them which will be helpful when finding players. Just saying D&D is already not working.

Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Millemium, Whistler, Harmony, Longhorn, Blue, Redstone, Sun Valley... Those are all codenames used for extremely well known & widespread products but none of them were confusing when those products eventually came into the hands of most computer users on some level. Differentiation will come about when things approach a finalized ruleset but the current playtest is nowhere near that. If it turns out to be that the codename is great by then then the codename will be good enough. If it turns out that it's divisive in a problematic way then wotc can easily do what was often said would have helped 4e & just release it as a parallel d&d like but not d&d product that gets more of the market to buy their 5e HC adventures for years longer.

There's a second interpretation different from the old English one though. In a lot of areas the 2014 5e chases player facing streamlining & simplicity with the ejection & omission of rules to a point analogous to

Spoiler: Ithkuil

Ithkuil is designed to be maximally precise while using the fewest letters possible. While the language succeeds at the goal it results in a silly gain of little value at the cost of huge overhead in writing & reading it... Great if your only concern is the person carrying the written text but awful if you need to be the one who reads or writes it. The 2014 ruleset often results in a similar gain where the players see simple clear rules with guaranteed success in a game that's to some degree already fixed by the GM. Things get messy for the GM however with the rules that seemed so simple to players managing to fail at providing supportwith rules & guidance for supporting the gm while simultaneously set the GM up as the badguy trying to subvert the perfection this it was thus it must always be people have commented on in the last several posts. oned&d/6e seems to be targeting some of that & has pledged to do better on the dmg side.

 

[Fifth Element]

So, if subclasses were moved from level 3 to 1, thats just D&D? If they brought back alignment mechanics, thats just D&D? If they brought back AEDU, that's just D&D? If they add a new subsystem to allow a more narrative approach, thats just D&D? No matter the changes in the future, its just D&D with no way to differentiate mechanics at any point in its history since 2014?

If your DM doesn't allow Tasha's, you're playing D&D. If your DM does allow Tasha's, you're playing D&D.

So....yes. I think we can handle it.

 

[payn]

If your DM doesn't allow Tasha's, you're playing D&D. If your DM does allow Tasha's, you're playing D&D.

So....yes. I think we can handle it.

Tasha's is a supplement. You can say D&D; no Tasha's. I suppose you can say D&D 2014, not D&D 2024. Point is its the same as saying edition, its a needed concept.