D&D (2024) We’ll be merging the One D&D and D&D forums shortly

[Cadence]

And your impression that they are denying any incompatibility is false, because they have said that you may not be able to mix and match on a single character, but you will be able to play 2014 and 2024 characters in the same party. There is an implied “without some mild conversion”, but they’re being cautious to not make the claim you are saying they are making, because people keep hurling insulting verbal abuse at them when they talk about the playtest and the new core books.

We once played OD&D, AD&D, and B/X at the same table for an extended period of time with no trouble. True fact.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In other words, it's not 100% compatible, so it's not the same game, but a new variant. A new "edition" of sorts.

No, they’re being overcautious with their wording, because online fan communities (especially on the most popular social media platforms) are obnoxiously pedantic.

Because “you get your Druid circle 1 level later” isn’t an incompatibility by any measure but the most egregiously pedantic.

Or, one might say, a revision of the existing edition, as opposed to merely offering new options for that edition.

wotc hasn’t refuted there being revision in the new core books. They’ve denied (correctly) the claims that it’s a new game.

Because it isn’t a new game, it’s 5th edition D&D.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

We once played OD&D, AD&D, and B/X at the same table for an extended period of time with no trouble. True fact.

Sure, and I knew people who played 2e and 3e amalgamated on the fly, though I imagine anything before 2e was vastly easier to play mixing and matching.

I literally still use 4e monsters in my 5e games all the time (insofar as I use actual statblocks at all), and I run skills in ways that have never been official in any D&D based ruleset.

But 5e is compatible with itself in a way that those examples aren’t*. They could solve any reasonable perception of compatibility issues with a few dozen words in the beginning of “making characters” chapter of the PHB.

Stuff like the 2014 options not having weapon mastery built in just isn’t a compatibility issue on any level, unless they put weapon mastery dependent stuff in subclasses, which I don’t recall them doing thus far.

 

[Cadence]

Sure, and I knew people who played 2e and 3e amalgamated on the fly, though I imagine anything before 2e was vastly easier to play mixing and matching.

I literally still use 4e monsters in my 5e games all the time (insofar as I use actual statblocks at all), and I run skills in ways that have never been official in any D&D based ruleset.

But 5e is compatible with itself in a way that those examples aren’t*. They could solve any reasonable perception of compatibility issues with a few dozen

I don't even think a lot of the players at the table back then knew what version the DM was using for the creatures. Everything had a number to hit an armor class, an armor class, hit points, saving throw values, and did damage all in pretty much the same way (it feels like). I'm not sure in actual play what the compatibility problems would be unless someone tried to look up what someone else was doing and didn't have the right variant. But that last thing feels like it would happen here too?

 

[Micah Sweet]

We once played OD&D, AD&D, and B/X at the same table for an extended period of time with no trouble. True fact.

Awesome. Doesn't make them the same edition though.

 

[CleverNickName]

We once played OD&D, AD&D, and B/X at the same table for an extended period of time with no trouble. True fact.

For most of the 80s and 90s, we used B/X, BECM, and Rules Cyclopedia rules at the same time, in the same campaigns. Often while playing AD&D modules, or AD&D adventures that had been published in Dragon Magazine. We were kids--we played with what we could scavenge from used bookstores and our older siblings/cousins.

I suspect we will continue to do so when R5E books start hitting shelves. (shrug) If Bob joins our table with the newer books, I'm not going to tell her that she needs to go find "the right books" in order to play in our 5E group. We'll make do. Just like we always have.

 

[Cadence]

Or, one might say, a revision of the existing edition, as opposed to merely offering new options for that edition.

Ahhh! You made me go double check. Hasbro is calling the books "revised", but not the game.

It did show up one thing that nerfs the name "2024" to describe the new "set" of books, since only two of them will have that year in the official description (at least by current plans):

 

[Cadence]

Awesome. Doesn't make them the same edition though.

Certainly not by many definitions of what constitutes an edition!

For most of the 80s and 90s, we used B/X, BECM, and Rules Cyclopedia rules at the same time, in the same campaigns. Often while playing AD&D modules, or AD&D adventures that had been published in Dragon Magazine. We were kids--we played with what we could scavenge from used bookstores and our older siblings/cousins.

It was a great time This game was at the local comic shop around 81 or 82 where the older folks at the table (30+?) had played with Gygax at the dawn of time and did have all the stuff.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't even think a lot of the players at the table back then knew what version the DM was using for the creatures. Everything had a number to hit an armor class, an armor class, hit points, saving throw values, and did damage all in pretty much the same way (it feels like). I'm not sure in actual play what the compatibility problems would be unless someone tried to look up what someone else was doing and didn't have the right variant. But that last thing feels like it would happen here too?

Yeah tbh I don’t forsee any issue with a DM in 2026 using a mix of player options and monsters and magic items and just using the rules that make sense for them between memory and what’s in the most current printing of the phb.

 

[payn]