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

[codo]

They don’t? How do?

I am not quite sure what you are saying here, but I think you are asking how Tasha's don't work seamlessly. It isn't seamless in the same way 1D&D isn't. You seem to think that having 2 different option for the same class available isn't seamless, because it could cause confusion, but how is that any different than the 5e ranger and Tasha's alternate ranger?

I remember them stating it as a goal, early on.

They stated that at the start of a large public playtest. They entire point of the public playtest is to see if players like your design goals and rules. Changing your goals and rules is the entire point of the playtest. If they talk about something at the start of the playtest and don't end up including it in the final game, it is probably something that most players didn't want.

I also think you are reading way to much into the original statement. I can play a simple champion fighter with no feats, where you just do a basic attack every round, or I can play a battlemaster fighter with lots of feats and have a character with lots of tactical options. They seem like a rules-lite OSR character and a 4e style character to me.

It's not like they gave a lot of detail when they first talked about it. It was litterally a couple of sentences in an interview before the playtest even started.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, but do we actually see incompatibility with old adventures with 1D&D? Do we see likely incompatibility with new adventures with old 5E? The way I see things, I don't see WotC's class designs changing how the game functions at a base level as much as balancing things out across the classes. Whether you see it as a success or not might vary, but that definitely seems like the intent. So why would we assume that, if this is all they are doing with 1D&D, that calling it a new edition would make new adventures not work with the old rules and the old adventures not work with the new rules?

It could get very wonky, though. If my 2014 PC is rolling a 1 on the die and succeeding at a roll that your 2024 character is failing with his 1, because the 2024 rules include auto failure on a 1, that's going to be very weird. Same with you gaining inspiration on a roll of 20 and me not gaining it on a 20. Mixing the 2014 rules with the 2024 rules is going to be very weird.

 

[codo]

Subclasses are one of the major factors. The changes to Backgrounds are another.

PF1e was, by intent, almost precisely the same. Thus far, "One D&D" is not "almost precisely the same." The differences are not some earth-shattering gulf...as I have explicitly said...but they are more than almost nothing.

How was pathfinder "precisely the same"? They made changes to literally every class, and added several more. They also heavily changed a lot of feats and spells.

 

[Justice and Rule]

It could get very wonky, though. If my 2014 PC is rolling a 1 on the die and succeeding at a roll that your 2024 character is failing with his 1, because the 2024 rules include auto failure on a 1, that's going to be very weird. Same with you gaining inspiration on a roll of 20 and me not gaining it on a 20. Mixing the 2014 rules with the 2024 rules is going to be very weird.

Oh, sure, mixing the rules would absolutely get wonky. But the adventures are not really the rules, and they generally don't have ultra-specific interactions with the rules like that. At least, not to my knowledge.

 

[Micah Sweet]

yes, so? No one claims editions were handled consistently under D&D, and a case can certainly be made that they should be (that they are not was marketing)

Yup. Just as much marketing now as it was then.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If D&D had kept using the normal definition of edition, like they did from 1e to 2e, I wouldn't have a problem with it. The problem is that they didn't keep using it, and instead switch the edition to mean a completely new game that isn't compatible with the older "edition", and they have been using that definition for over twenty years.

The alternate class rules in Tasha's don't work perfectly seamlessly either. Does that make Tasha's a new edition too? Because it looks like 1d&d works just as seamless as Tasha's does.

Tasha's was certainly the beginning of what I see as a new edition. In many ways, it 5e's Book of Nine Swords.

 

[codo]

It could get very wonky, though. If my 2014 PC is rolling a 1 on the die and succeeding at a roll that your 2024 character is failing with his 1, because the 2024 rules include auto failure on a 1, that's going to be very weird. Same with you gaining inspiration on a roll of 20 and me not gaining it on a 20. Mixing the 2014 rules with the 2024 rules is going to be very weird.

It could be weird, if a group never discuss how they are going to do it. Again, this can all be cleared up with a simple conversation during session 0. It is only confusing and a problem if you refuse to talk about it. No two D&D groups ever play with exactly the same rules in the first place. There are almost always different house rules that you should be discussing in the first place. 1d&d just adds a couple of more things you will need to discuss. (If your group wants to use both sets of rules, if they don't want to combine both, then there is no problem.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Also it is not just about printing and selling more copies in the future. It is also about the millions of adventures they have already sold. A lot of of them are currently sitting for sale on game stores shelves. It is a great way to kill local game stores by sticking them with tons of books for on old edition that they can no longer sell. Look at what happened to game stores with the switch from 3e to 3.5. There were a lot of stores that went out of business because they were stuck with a glut of 3.0 3PP books that they couldn't even give away.

To be fair, WotC has already got their money from all those books sitting on store shelves. I'm not sure how much they really care about FLGSs either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They don’t? How do?

I remember them stating it as a goal, early on.

But they never said that they changed their mind, or abandoned that goal, or (more likely) re-defined it, so in the minds of many they failed to deliver.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am not quite sure what you are saying here, but I think you are asking how Tasha's don't work seamlessly. It isn't seamless in the same way 1D&D isn't. You seem to think that having 2 different option for the same class available isn't seamless, because it could cause confusion, but how is that any different than the 5e ranger and Tasha's alternate ranger?

They stated that at the start of a large public playtest. They entire point of the public playtest is to see if players like your design goals and rules. Changing your goals and rules is the entire point of the playtest. If they talk about something at the start of the playtest and don't end up including it in the final game, it is probably something that most players didn't want.

I also think you are reading way to much into the original statement. I can play a simple champion fighter with no feats, where you just do a basic attack every round, or I can play a battlemaster fighter with lots of feats and have a character with lots of tactical options. They seem like a rules-lite OSR character and a 4e style character to me.

It's not like they gave a lot of detail when they first talked about it. It was litterally a couple of sentences in an interview before the playtest even started.

You think they didn't know people would take their public statements seriously?