D&D (2024) Jeremy Crawford: “We are releasing new editions of the books”

[Mirrorrorrim]

Ultimately the community is going to come up with a name for the 2024 edition/version/iteration. WotC is just missing out on the opportunity to choose the name itself by pretending that it is not actually a thing.

Wizards already has. It is simple. They have been referred to as the 2024 rulebooks of the fifth edition of D&D. They talk about it in almost every video when they reference potential differences between the 2014 rules and the playtest rules for the 2024 books.

Anyone saying otherwise either just doesn't like it, or are willfully trying to obfuscate the situation because they are upset at Wizards, or are not paying attention to Wizards' message and are instead listening to the confusion caused by the aformentioned groups.

I've said this before. The word "Edition" is failed marketing jargon that feeds the toxic Edition Wars, and needs to be left in the trash heap of history. People don't even agree what "Edition" means. It is 100% subjective. Some people say there have been 20+ editions of D&D. If Wizards were to continue to use the word Edition, they would be using an outdated, subjective concept that means different things to different people, and by its very nature cannot deliver a unified vision of what the 2024 ruleset is intended to achieve.

As for how the community could refer to the books and their differences, it's pretty simple. The "new books" or the "2024 books" or the "Anniversary printing" all would be fine and in tune with Wizards messaging as it is currently. In common parlance, the public can just use the one syllable word "New" rather than "Edition." I'm going to reuse an older example of mine below:

"We're using the "new" books for this 5E campaign, but if you want to use the "old" Druid from the 2014 PH, you're welcome to. Just remember that it works differently than Jenny's Druid in the last campaign and you may have to do a bunch of Monster Manual research (or look online for others who have done the work.). It's ok that they play different, just consider it like a different Circle/subclass variation. If there is a specific spell you want to use the old way, talk to me. Some I may be ok with, but some have gotten errata that works better for my campaign, and I'll be sticking with the new version."​

 

[Micah Sweet]

Part of me thinks that WOTC fears that calling OneD&D and expanson of 5e will confuse people and them not realizing that atleast 75%of d&D fans are gmers and understand the term "Expansion" 10x better than the words "Edition" or "Revision".

I mean I could beat money more D&D fans deeply read the latest changelog of a patch of their 3rd favorite game than the DMG.

They certainly underestimate the intelligence of their fans.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

They certainly underestimate the intelligence of their fans.

Would you mind providing specific examples of where Jeremy Crawford and/or Chris Perkins are clearly underestimating the intelligence of their fans? Because I see some design desicions based on balance and feedback (they call out the reasons why they try new things, for instance), and I see some clear business decsions like removing the reference to iterative editions that cause confusion, but I'm not seeing what you're seeing.

 

[Minigiant]

They certainly underestimate the intelligence of their fans.

It's less intelligence and more WOTC putting themselves and others in a box and being unable to step back an look.

WOTC doesn't think we are stupid. They just don't realize who d&D fans are until reality or collected survey data tells them.

WOTC is in a heavy D&D and MTG bubble. It's why they are always late to the innovations video games, boards, oreen other TTRPGs makes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's less intelligence and more WOTC putting themselves and others in a box and being unable to step back an look.

WOTC doesn't think we are stupid. They just don't realize who d&D fans are until reality or collected survey data tells them.

WOTC is in a heavy D&D and MTG bubble. It's why they are always late to the innovations video games, boards, oreen other TTRPGs makes.

Also, up until a relatively recent changing of the guard, the fandom was actively hostile toward anything that could even be tangently connected to video games or pop culture past 1980. So they actively couldn't adopt innovations.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

5.5 is a thing.

Please, no.

Yeah. 3.5e was also a new edition of the 3e books.

And don't I wish that they'd called it Revised 3e. But "point-x" was trendy at the time with software updates, and they just had to be "poindexter cool".

 

[Micah Sweet]

Please, no.


And don't I wish that they'd called it Revised 3e. But "point-x" was trendy at the time with software updates, and they just had to be "poindexter cool".

Point-x is still the way software updates. I'd be much happier with them if they just called it 5.5 and were done with it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

World of Warcraft and other MMO's have expansions, not editions. If WoTC said called One D&D an expansion of 5e, there might have been less confusion all around. Instead, they rolled a 1 several times and hoped no one would really notice.

Not that I'm arguing on their behalf, but they also had a TON of people willfully spreading misinformation that kept it all "confusing".

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Point-x is still the way software updates. I'd be much happier with them if they just called it 5.5 and were done with it.

I wouldn't. Software updates can keep their silly decimal points.

 

[mamba]

I wouldn't. Software updates can keep their silly decimal points.

Some software goes by years now too (Office, Photoshop)