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

[MNblockhead]

Until they look inside and see the entirely re-written text. The new art might matter a lot to them too. People tell me they base purchasing decisions on that.

Yeah, for books I totally do. This will be especially true for the revised core books. If they are not aesthetically pleasing, I just get them on D&D Beyond and/or my VTT of choice. I have no room or time for books that don't offer me enjoyment beyond being a functional rules reference.

 

[MNblockhead]

No, sorry dont buy it. I get that folks aint up on all the specifics, but its not a well kept secret a refresh is happening. Nobody walks blindly into a shop to figure out whats for sale.

Uh, well that's exactly what I did when I bought the 2014 books.

But I was out of the hobby for a long time (a couple decades).

But, yeah, I suppose most people who are completely outside the gaming community, who hears about D&D somewhere, would google it and probably end up at D&D Beyond or Amazon and just buy the newest version.

 

[MNblockhead]

We who frequent a forum and devour every preview and press release and playtest are the 1%. Most players are not like us.

Huzzah! I've finally made it to the 1% !!!

Time to go kick some peasants.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Compiled 3.5 Revisions

Here is a running, compiled list of changes to the D&D 3.0 rules for the revised edition (aka D&D 3.5). Sources include: Shadowstar's scoops, Dragon, Dungeon, WOTC web site, WOTC Chat, Ed Stark interview, Andy Collins boards, Andy Collins, Ed Stark, and David Noonan via WOTC boards, and 3.5...

www.enworld.org

Anyone who thinks the 5.5e change is right now anywhere close to the 3.5 list…feel free to take a gander at the change log for 3.5 i noted.

Now 5.5 MIGHT be as big once we get all the changes including the mm and dmg…but from just the playtests so far..:no it’s not close.

And beyond the amount of changes, 3.5 changed various fundamental mechanics, all the combat options, action types, OAs, jump mechanics, shields, damage reduction was overhauled, many skills, etc etc.

I have looked, and I've made the comparison myself. I think it's pretty comparable in terms of PHB stuff already (we can exclude DMG/MM stuff from both changeovers as it's an unknown here). 2024 also changes various fundamental mechanics, including some of the ones you've listed - and the fact that you apparently don't know that rather undermines your comparison - for example jump mechanics are completely overhauled in 2024 playtests, yet you mention them here as if they are only changed in 3.5E.

Of course, we don't know what's actually going in. It could be just what they've listed in the playtests so far, it could be significantly less than that, or it could be hugely more than that! But even on what's going in so far, whilst I don't think it's really an edition change in a relevant sense, it's absolutely a set of changes on par with 3.5E. Especially as, based on the playtests, classes generally are getting more overhauled than 3.5E did (whereas 3.5E only did major overhauls to two classes).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No, sorry dont buy it. I get that folks aint up on all the specifics, but its not a well kept secret a refresh is happening. Nobody walks blindly into a shop to figure out whats for sale.

You're flatly wrong.

That's exactly what happened to me when I bought D&D for the first time. AD&D 2E had just come out. That wasn't just "not a secret", it was downright advertised - but I wasn't already inside the hobby, I wasn't reading magazines or browsing forums. I went straight into a Games Workshop store (as was the fashion at the time) and bought "AD&D" - and a couple of weeks later when I showed it to a friend he was like "You've bought the wrong edition!" - so I got an early taste of edition warring!

Anyway, this still happens. Absolutely normal people, new to the hobby DO walk into shops and just pick up "D&D". This is absolutely a thing and pretending it isn't shows that you're out-of-touch with how the a significant proportion of people got into this game in 5E, which wasn't through deep knowledge and careful research, but just becoming aware of D&D and going and buying it. The first new-to-5E group I DM'd for had done exactly what you're denying happens! They didn't really understand what they'd bought and through a friend of a friend I was asked to come and DM for them one time to get them started.

 

[Azzy]

You're flatly wrong.

That's exactly what happened to me when I bought D&D for the first time. AD&D 2E had just come out. That wasn't just "not a secret", it was downright advertised - but I wasn't already inside the hobby, I wasn't reading magazines or browsing forums. I went straight into a Games Workshop store (as was the fashion at the time) and bought "AD&D" - and a couple of weeks later when I showed it to a friend he was like "You've bought the wrong edition!" - so I got an early taste of edition warring!

Anyway, this still happens. Absolutely normal people, new to the hobby DO walk into shops and just pick up "D&D". This is absolutely a thing and pretending it isn't shows that you're out-of-touch with how the a significant proportion of people got into this game in 5E, which wasn't through deep knowledge and careful research, but just becoming aware of D&D and going and buying it. The first new-to-5E group I DM'd for had done exactly what you're denying happens! They didn't really understand what they'd bought and through a friend of a friend I was asked to come and DM for them one time to get them started.

I dunno. While I have a vaguely similar experience with 2e, the key thing you're missing is that we didn't have the internet back then.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You're flatly wrong.

That's exactly what happened to me when I bought D&D for the first time. AD&D 2E had just come out. That wasn't just "not a secret", it was downright advertised - but I wasn't already inside the hobby, I wasn't reading magazines or browsing forums. I went straight into a Games Workshop store (as was the fashion at the time) and bought "AD&D" - and a couple of weeks later when I showed it to a friend he was like "You've bought the wrong edition!" - so I got an early taste of edition warring!

Anyway, this still happens. Absolutely normal people, new to the hobby DO walk into shops and just pick up "D&D". This is absolutely a thing and pretending it isn't shows that you're out-of-touch with how the a significant proportion of people got into this game in 5E, which wasn't through deep knowledge and careful research, but just becoming aware of D&D and going and buying it. The first new-to-5E group I DM'd for had done exactly what you're denying happens! They didn't really understand what they'd bought and through a friend of a friend I was asked to come and DM for them one time to get them started.

Indeed. The belief that few to none engage with the hobby this way, when it is in fact a somewhat common occurrence, isn't just an example of being out-of-touch. It's also a bitterly ironic demonstration of the "people who talk about D&D on forums aren't representative" argument. An argument used by a lot of the very same people who hold that mistaken belief.

It's really quite frustrating. Being the non representative minority is only a valid rebuttal when it's useful, apparently.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I dunno. While I have a vaguely similar experience with 2e, the key thing you're missing is that we didn't have the internet back then.

I have personally helped introduce multiple people to tabletop, who had heard about it online.

To them, it was all "D&D." They did not even know that "editions" existed to be asked about, and if they had done the research themselves, they would have found it deeply overwhelming. Some of these folks are people who would have scoffed at the very notion of RPGs ten, fifteen years ago, because they had the crappy Hollywood image in their head of socially maladjusted losers indulging puerile (often sexual) fantasies as a bad coping mechanism. The idea that there could be so much content to the process, that there could be many distinct ways of doing RPGs that give different experiences and feed into different interests is genuinely a revelation for many.

It's why I usually tell folks I run "Dungeon World, which is a game like D&D, but isn't D&D." That's the quickest way to explain to them what I do. To even mention that D&D has multiple flavors and which ones I think are most similar to DW would be an "in one ear, out the other" situation.

And these aren't stupid people. Video editors, an anthropologist, a sound tech, a military man, a graphic designer. They just don't have any frame of reference whatsoever for what TTRPGs are, and thus get easily blindsided by finding that waters which seemed good to wade in are in fact deep enough for SCUBA.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I dunno. While I have a vaguely similar experience with 2e, the key thing you're missing is that we didn't have the internet back then.

I gave an example of essentially the same thing happening in 5E, and I know people who bought 3E and 4E books without knowing anything about the game beyond that it was called D&D and sounded cool.

The entire concept of editions and so on is basically alien outside the TT RPG/wargame/boardgame space - and hell one of these people was a serious boardgame guy but it didn't even occur to him that he was buying a specific "edition" of D&D.

We cannot pretend that everyone or even most people know about editions, or will know about or understand the differences between the 2014 and 2024 versions of 5E.

On top of that, the modern internet is far more full of misinformation, "influencing" and stuff which is essentially home-made propaganda than it was in say 2014 or 2004. Back then, accuracy was still valued (most of the time). Lies and propaganda were still called out and still bad to be caught in. Now? They're basically par for the course. Absolutely including about TT RPGs! The TT RPG community is full of this kind of nonsense, both from people boosting D&D and people critiquing it. So I am skeptical about how likely it is you will get good information there - sure you may find a nice video outlining the differences between 2014 and 2024 D&D, how to recognise the books, and how to decide which to get (which may be enough to scare you off getting either, of course), or you may just find an insane video dedicated to ranting about how great D&D is and everyone should play it and how anyone who doesn't agree and wants to play other RPGs is basically a bigoted hate-monger (I have seen such a video lol, though I can't remember if it was YouTube).

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, I would have liked that approach, but then I'm sure there would be a large number of people complaining that they now have to by 2 sets of books to use the new options.

Maybe, but that would have been a silly complaint, on par with complaining that you had to buy Tasha's to use the new subclasses. "If you want new stuff, you have to buy new product" seems a fair trade-off to both customer and company.