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[FitzTheRuke]

Did I say it was a big deal?

I am simply saying that having simple, straightforward, descriptive names is useful. 5.5e is all of those, while also being precedented. Many of the proposed alternatives are not. Hence, I believe "5.5e" will predominate. Because it is useful to have a name, and simpler names are generally more useful than complex ones unless that complexity adds value. E.g., surnames are far too much complexity for casual conversation, but rather important when (say) at a high school where there may be several dozen "John"s or "Mary"s or what have you.

That's why I preferred 5.50(e) when I thought they were actually going to label it something like '5e, 50th Anniversary Printing" or something like that. But it seems they are just going to call it "5e" and try to pretend that it is perfectly identical.

No one (or nearly no one, this IS the internet after all) disagrees that it's nice to have a name. A whole lot of us disagree with you that 5.5e is ANY of those (simple, straightforward, descriptive, or even precedented) nor that it will predominate.

It's only those fixed on the one time that WotC used that nomenclature 21 years ago (and liked it) that agree with you. A vanishingly small demographic, I'm afraid. Vocal? Sure.

The same thing happened when WotC made 4e Essentials. Some folks were absolutely fixated on calling it Four-point-five.

I will reiterate one last time that WotC didn't want to call 5e "Fifth Edition". And with good reason! It's HARDLY the fifth version of the D&D game! They wanted to simply call it D&D. Of course, you were right, we needed SOMETHING to differentiate it from what came before, so even the designers gave in and put Fifth on the books (tiny, on the back).

I absolutely agree with you that they should call the upcoming books "50th Anniversary D&D" - I think they're crazy to miss that opportunity here.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No one (or nearly no one, this IS the internet after all) disagrees that it's nice to have a name. A whole lot of us disagree with you that 5.5e is ANY of those (simple, straightforward, descriptive, or even precedented) nor that it will predominate.

It's only those fixed on the one time that WotC used that nomenclature 21 years ago (and liked it) that agree with you. A vanishingly small demographic, I'm afraid. Vocal? Sure.

I personally strongly dislike such nomenclature for books, and would have preferred something else get traction and history. But it is widely-used and familiar. It recalls software updates, where for example 6.X is all "the same version," but 6.5 is expected to be a fair amount of update to the original 6.0 release. It's used in all sorts of things, video games, utilities, even some operating systems (remember "Windows 3.1"?)

You certainly cannot really dispute that it's precedented. It undeniably, factually is. A previous publication of D&D used the "X.5" nomenclature. That is precedent. You might consider it weak precedent, or outdated precedent, or any number of other mitigating circumstances. But to say that there is simply no precedent at all would be objectively false.

The same thing happened when WotC made 4e Essentials. Some folks were absolutely fixated on calling it Four-point-five.

Yes; and they were flatly wrong to do so. Essentials isn't even a revision.

I will reiterate one last time that WotC didn't want to call 5e "Fifth Edition". And with good reason! It's HARDLY the fifth version of the D&D game! They wanted to simply call it D&D. Of course, you were right, we needed SOMETHING to differentiate it from what came before, so even the designers gave in and put Fifth on the books (tiny, on the back).

I absolutely agree with you that they should call the upcoming books "50th Anniversary D&D" - I think they're crazy to miss that opportunity here.

Right. It's frankly weird, because for all the things I believe WotC has been boneheaded about with regard to this edition, presentation has not generally been one of them. There was a brief flare-up of "Disneyfication" pearl-clutching (just the latest in a string of "This aesthetic isn't absolutely perfectly for me, and therefore there's something WRONG with D&D!!!", which now has been emboldened by the fact that those arguments actually worked at least once), and some sporadic hate for TCoE as having abandoned the heart and soul of the game, but otherwise presentation has been reasonably cohesive and effective.

To ignore such a powerful symbol is just...weird.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ah, gotta love the CR -1 Straw Golem. Because yes it was totally something so blindingly obvious and perfectly edition specific that no one could ever confuse them. Definitely not something like asking a question about "grappling" or how "opportunity attacks" work or how "Barbarian rage" works when those things have been radically different between editions. Nope, 110% of the time it's something even a simpleton could correctly identify the origin of on sight. Couldn't possibly be any of the myriad things that have similar names or similar concepts but significantly divergent expression!

I've literally seen several threads with supposed "confusion" that were absolutely obvious, and the confusion was rhetorical and pedantic.

I've rarely seen actual confusion, but as I said, any actual confusion that comes from talking about older editions of the game in the general dnd forums with no specification is the fault of the poster, not a sign of absolutely anything about the game or nomenclature.

I'm not hyperbolizing the difference. I'm mocking WotC's song and dance.

Regardless of your intentions, you are hyperbolizing. Your snark detracts more from your position than it does anything else.

I love posts like this, because they're condescending and snide about a disagreement the poster started and yet they actually agree on the claims in dispute.

You might want to read my post agian if you think this is the case.

I literally never said it was a new edition. I have said, repeatedly and consistently, that it is a revision or update to the existing one. My criticism, and in this case my sarcasm, has always been that WotC fears either backlash or confusion from accurately calling it a revision, and thus they will not actually call it what it is. They will do a ridiculous song and dance to pretend that nothing has changed, that everything is completely 100% undeniably the same, while in fact things have changed.

You've failed to track the criticism being made, and so your response to it is nonsensical.

I didn't say that you said any such thing. I pointed out that it's a very simple situation, and your snide commentary is ridiculous in a way that reflects, rather than magnifying something external.

They have called it a revision, an update, a refresh, and described those things less explicitly. The song and dance doesn't exist. What they have correctly insisted upon over and over again in spite of the disingenuous commentary of the internet hate-stans and snarks is that it isn't a new edition, it isn't "not 5e", it isn't a new thing in the sense of being separate from, it's still 5e DnD. "It's the same game" and "nothing has changed,...everything is completely 100% undeniable the same" are two completely different statements. The former is what they've said, while the latter is nothing more than a weird strawman you and others have invented in order to make your criticism seem like more than merely pedantry about what term is used to refer to the revision.

Also, I was following the lead of Morrus. Funny how when I do it, suddenly it's offensive.

Morrus wasn't snide.

I assume then you must think people are stupid for saying things like "last year in 2020" or the like? Where they explicitly say that time can feel like it hasn't passed at all recently? Because that's a real thing people have been going through.

Here you're replying to something I said to someone else, about how it doesn't even take being younger than 20 to not think of the early 2000's as so recent they basically just happened.

Nothing in the statement you've quoted here implies anything remotely resembling the absolute nonsense you're trying to throw my way in reply to it. It's an extremely weird assumption to make. If that is seriously your takeaway, please put me on ignore for a while, or at least stop trying to interact with me in this thread, because I don't have the energy to deal with that level of wild assumptions and truly cosmic leaps to inexplicable conclusions.

I'm not shy about criticizing people. If I thought someone was foolish, they'd know. "Stupid" is a faulty concept I generally have little patience or respect for. I tend not to reference it.

And since it's the only reason I can think of that you'd react like I said something offensive while talking about how I perceive time in a somewhat anomalous manner compared to most middle aged people, I will say that no, none of this has any impact on the oddity of trying to act like 20 years ago is super recent. The majority of dnd players weren't adults when 3.5 came out, if they were even born, and most people who weren't already older than 25 in 2000 are going to think of 2000 as having basically just happened.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Essentials isn't even a revision.

yes, it is.

They literally updated rules, repackaged them, changed focus, and refreshed how everything was presented. But most importantly, they revised multiple rules. The classes weren't revisions of existing classes, but the rules compendium updated the general rules of the existing game, albeit in quite small ways and few cases.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

yes, it is.

No, it isn't.

They literally updated rules,

Which were already updated. That's called errata. If every piece of errata means you've made a distinct revision of the text, then there have been thousands of "revisions" of D&D at this point. Which seems, to me, a very good reason not to equate literally all errata with "revisions" of an edition. Just as, for example, a textbook publisher publishing errata for a textbook is not actually the same as putting out an actual "revised" textbook.

repackaged them,

Every new book does this. Reprinting the PHB does this. Repackaging is irrelevant.

changed focus, and refreshed how everything was presented.

Most books do this. Any time you reprint old material, for example. Extant 5e has done this multiple times already, in multiple different ways. Nobody (relatively speaking, as others have said, this is the internet, you can find someone claiming almost anything) was calling Xanathar's Guide to Everything a "revision" of 5e, and few took seriously the grumbles that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything was either.

But most importantly, they revised multiple rules.

They printed the errata for rules that already existed. Errata which was meant to be used with the game as it was currently played, and which had been published for free specifically for that purpose. Rather different, wouldn't you say, to publishing brand-new alterations that did not exist before that book, and which have never been posted or featured, which can only be acquired by purchasing those books, or subscribing to a paid service which publishes them?

The classes weren't revisions of existing classes, but the rules compendium updated the general rules of the existing game, albeit in quite small ways and few cases.

Bolded parts: Precisely. That's exactly what is the difference here. There is always a sliding scale of anything (sorites paradox rears its ugly head), but you're straight-up admitting that nothing was replaced. The only "changes" were already-existing errata, rather than total overhauls. By that standard, 2009 4e was already far more of a "revision" since they had replaced the Stealth rules and made major changes to the Skill Challenge rules! Nobody (again, internet nobody, not necessarily a literal zero count of people) was calling that "4.5e." Hell, even Monster Vault can't lay claim to having "revised" the monster math, as that math first came out with MM3, five months earlier (June 2010 vs November 2010).

5.5e is generally moderate-sized changes (I mean, the Warlock class is getting heavily reworked, and the original intent of the playtest was to do things like getting rid of class-specific spell lists and other such things--their changes proved unpopular, however, so they've very slowly walked it back), and revising the existing classes, and revising the existing races (in some cases for the third time, see: dragonborn), and revising the existing backgrounds rather a lot (they all give feats now, for one thing!), and publishing entirely new rules in the DMG (the "Bastion" rules).

And that's not even touching the much more subtle things being changed, that would actually be in line with the merely presentational, organizational nature of 4e Essentials.

 

[Cadence]

Which were already updated. That's called errata. If every piece of errata means you've made a distinct revision of the text, then there have been thousands of "revisions" of D&D at this point. Which seems, to me, a very good reason not to equate literally all errata with "revisions" of an edition. Just as, for example, a textbook publisher publishing errata for a textbook is not actually the same as putting out an actual "revised" textbook.

Whether something can usefully be done as errata seems to me like a reasonable way for each individual to judge where something falls on the basically-same-thing/revision/edition spectrum. Of course we will all have a different view of what "usefully be done as errata" means, but it feels like it has been widely accepted for decades across d&d editions and its close relatives that a few pages of small corrections and the like don't make a new edition.

Going for the other end, how big would the errata documents for og2e->new printing 2e, 3->3.5, or og4e -> ess4e each have been? I know the 2e new printing actually had a disclaimer page saying it wasn't a new edition. But I never played np2e, 3, or ess4e and so don't have a good perspective. If PF had made the unchained class revisions (and just those parts of unchained) official errata, would that have counted as a new revision/edition because those changes have a lot of word count, or not because the (freely provided) updates would be easy for someone playing to use?

I wonder how many days it will take for someone to put together an unofficial errata document of the rules changes needed to get from the 2023 printing to the 2024 printing. It feels like when such a document is out there we can argue a bit more specifically (albeit probably not more usefully) about it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Whether something can usefully be done as errata seems to me like a reasonable way for each individual to judge where something falls on the basically-same-thing/revision/edition spectrum. Of course we will all have a different view of what "usefully be done as errata" means, but it feels like it has been widely accepted for decades across d&d editions and its close relatives that a few pages of small corrections and the like don't make a new edition.

Going for the other end, how big would the errata documents for og2e->new printing 2e, 3->3.5, or og4e -> ess4e each have been? I know the 2e new printing actually had a disclaimer page saying it wasn't a new edition. But I never played np2e, 3, or ess4e and so don't have a good perspective. If PF had made the unchained class revisions (and just those parts of unchained) official errata, would that have counted as a new revision/edition because those changes have a lot of word count, or not because the (freely provided) updates would be easy for someone playing to use?

I wonder how many days it will take for someone to put together an unofficial errata document of the rules changes needed to get from the 2023 printing to the 2024 printing. It feels like when such a document is out there we can argue a bit more specifically (albeit probably not more usefully) about it.

As stated, it's a sorites thing, how many grains of sand are in a heap.

But I agree that we can make a rough, approximate, intuitive comparison. I, personally, would not consider the Unchained stuff to be errata-level. It's one thing to say "add this paragraph to one action" or the like. It's another to replace multiple classes with versions that are no longer compatible with archetypes that used the original class--which is the case for at least U-Monk and U-Summoner, since their class mechanics differ in both when you get them and how they work. In some cases, it's not too hard to rewrite an archetype so it fits (e.g. the Synthesist archetype was never updated for the U-Summoner, but it's not that hard to tweak it), but other archetypes (particularly some of the Monk ones) specifically swap out or replace class features that either no longer exist or are acquired at different levels, sometimes with different and dependence-laden function. Officially, IIRC, it's not kosher to combine original-class archetypes with unchained versions of classes. That kinda puts things out of the running for mere errata--unless you're intending to errata both that class and all or nearly all archetypes published for it.

Now, if it had been as simple as "this is the new Summoner spell list" (which is the bulk of the power-loss for the U-Summoner, since "core" Summoner was MUCH more powerful due to getting otherwise high-level spells at low levels), then I could probably see it as just errata. Extensive and impactful errata, to be sure, but hardly more than rewriting a single list. You wouldn't need to go through and review a bunch of other mechanical bits and bobs to ensure compatibility. (To be clear, I'm sure there would be some because that's PF1e's nature, it's a tangled nightmare of convoluted interactions, but it wouldn't be nearly as impactful.)

I guess that's really my dividing line, if you held a sword to my throat and demanded that I make a call. Does the change induce significant cascade effects, e.g. fundamentally rewriting character sheets, updating extensive bolt-on content like PF1e archetypes or D&D 5e subclasses, etc. Essentials (and TCoE, for that matter) did not do that. They offered new options, but didn't replace or significantly rewrite old ones. I call "the new 5e books to be published in 2024" the name "5.5e" because it is replacing significant elements, albeit with the pretense of total backwards compatibility. Few who read the 5.5e Warlock are going to want to play a 5.0 Warlock, it's just better. There's no reason to not use the new Background rules for 5.5e, because the 5.0 ones are simply not going to be as impactful, and won't be compatible with new characters (without rewriting them...to make them into 5.5e Backgrounds.)

The changes aren't earth-shattering. It's still the same overall game. But the parts have been meaningfully rewritten and moved around. Some of the changes are under the hood and relatively unobtrusive, bordering on mere errata woven into official text, or mere presentation changes without any content difference. But some are not that. Races, classes, and backgrounds are not that. The changes to weapons, giving them special features if you're proficient, features that (usually) don't exist in 5.0, are not that. The "Bastion" rules are not that. Etc. This is both altering and expanding, and it's quite clearly intended to replace what came before, in terms of player-facing options, while still being compatible with the adventures and monsters of yesteryear, meaning in terms of DM-facing content.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not hyperbolizing the difference. I'm mocking WotC's song and dance.

Mod Note:
YOu seem to be mocking rather more than WotC's song and dance at this point.

I love posts like this, because they're condescending and snide

So, if you find someone is being condescending and snide, piling more of same on and escalating is not how to approach the problem. At least not on EN World.

So, dial is back, please[ If you cannot find it in yourself to be respectful and kind, maybe go do something other than posting on this site for a while. Thanks.

 

[Parmandur]

The song and dance doesn't exist.

I think thisnis a vital point: WotC isn't desperately trying to prove anything, they have made it clear what they are doing and are just rolling with it.

 

[Parmandur]

I know the 2e new printing actually had a disclaimer page saying it wasn't a new edition

Whi h makes a complete mockery of the standard of the pu listing industry concept of "Edition" incidentally. That was the fourth typical edition of the core rulebooks, not even the third!