D&D (2024) Wizards of the Coast Backtracks on D&D Beyond and 2014 Content

Wizards of the Coast posted an overnight update stating that they are not going forward with previously released plans to require those wishing to use some 2014 content on D&D Beyond to use the Homebrew function to manually enter it. Instead, all the content including spells and magic items will be included. From the update:

D&D (2024) - How D&D Beyond Will Handle Access To 2014 Rules

D&D Beyond has announced how the transition to the new 2024 edition will work on the platform, and how legacy access to the 2014 version of D&D will be implemented. You will still be able to access the 2014 Basic Rules and core rulebooks. You will still be able to make characters using the 2014...

www.enworld.org

Last week we released a Changelog detailing how players would experience the 2024 Core Rulebooks on D&D Beyond. We heard your feedback loud and clear and thank you for speaking up.

Our excitement around the 2024 Core Rulebooks led us to view these planned updates as welcome improvements and free upgrades to existing content. We misjudged the impact of this change, and we agree that you should be free to choose your own way to play. Taking your feedback to heart, here’s what we’re going to do:

Players who only have access to the 2014 Player’s Handbook will maintain their character options, spells, and magical items in their character sheets. Players with access to the 2024 and 2014 digital Player’s Handbooks can select from both sources when creating new characters. Players will not need to rely on Homebrew to use their 2014 player options, including spells and magic items, as recommended in previous changelogs.

Please Note:

Players will continue to have access to their free, shared, and purchased items on D&D Beyond, with the ability to use previously acquired player options when creating characters and using character sheets.

We are not changing players’ current character sheets, except for relabeling and renaming. Examples include Races to Species, Inspiration to Heroic Inspiration, and Cast Spell to Magic.

We’re dedicated to making D&D Beyond the ultimate digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons, continuously enhancing the platform to ensure you can create, customize, and play your game just as you envision it. From your first one-shot to multi-year campaigns and everything in between, we're grateful to be on this journey with you.

- The D&D Studio

 

[Oofta]

Yeah that's what gets me a bit - people will defend the most obviously dumb and unnecessary decisions WotC takes, then where WotC does flip them, suddenly the same people are often like "Well, they listened, didn't they?" and it's like sure, but why were you so vehemently saying they didn't need to 10 minutes ago lol? (To be clear I am NOT referring to anyone in this thread, for example, I have not seen @Oofta defend them overwriting the 2014 stuff, only fixing the problem, which makes more sense to me, so please do not include yourselves in this critique!)

I will say fewer people defended this particular decision than usual, but it was still more than rationally should. And people have defended truly atrocious stuff, include the minstrelsy stuff with the Hadozee, which was like, laughably bad! The very second I saw the art, I, an old (46) British cis(ish)-hetero white male went "OH NOOOOOOO" even before I knew it was "controversial". But people were like "No it's fine!" and coming up with the most ludicrous reasons lol.


What you seem to be missing from your equation here is that this isn't separate coinflips or something.

The more errors WotC makes the the shorter-tempered people get with them. The more errors WotC makes, the faster opinions grow to the size where they need to be addressed. Even from a cynical POV, reporting/Tweets/etc on this get more and more clicks as WotC makes more and more errors.

We've seen a real change in social media about WotC, from a situation where the best way to get clicks and so on was to praise D&D/WotC, to one where being somewhat critical (not hateful, but critical) and skeptical of WotC is much more likely to get clicks.

That publicity may not have immediate negative effect on WotC/D&D's performance, but it doesn't help, it really does help, and it builds up. It doesn't go away just because they fix something. It's like if you have neighbours who keeps doing stupid stuff, like, leaving his trash out and the foxes rip up the bags, cuts his tree and then just dumps the branches in the streets, plays ultra-loud music at 2am because he was drunk and not thinking. No maybe every time he fixes this - he tidies the bags, he removes the branches, he apologies for the music and commits to not doing it again, but you now think this guy is, at best, a flake, and you expect him to do more stupid stuff, and with good reason!

I'm not defending their mistake. It was dumb. I'm saying I give them credit for admitting they made a mistake and correcting it. Do you really not understand the difference?

As far as "the more errors", the thing is that it's not a constant stream of errors. It's that any time they do something people disagree with, no matter how quickly they correct the error, there's no date of expiration and it's held over their heads forever.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As far as "the more errors", the thing is that it's not a constant stream of errors. It's that any time they do something people disagree with, no matter how quickly they correct the error, there's no date of expiration and it's held over their heads forever.

Well, that might be true. TT RPGers definitely bear grudges longer than consumers in most entertainment industries (perhaps in part because they're all also in some sense creatives and engaging with the material in a slightly stronger way, even the players). If so though that's surely a reason to put in more points to double-check decisions? WotC seems to be operating like that isn't the case - they're more incautious seeming than say, a videogame studio, despite the latter having a more forgiveness-prone consumer base.

Despite that, I do think that even with TT RPGs, for most things there is an expiry date, it's just, closer to a decade than a year or a month. Though I will give you that there are definitely particular mistakes one does not forget. I'm still annoyed by the 2nd version of Dark Sun being rubbish compared to the first, and that was in what, 1993 lol?

 

[KYRON45]

I don't think the OGL controversy was a major factor with DAD:HAT not making the money it could have, though it certainly didn't help D&D's brand.

The big screw-up there was the slot they released it into, where cinema-going was still not "back up to speed", and they sandwiched it between two movies likely to compete pretty heavily with it for audience, release-date-wise. I literally know D&D players who went to see John Wick or Mario over D&D, where, if DAD:HAT had been up against say, Twister or Trap or something (not to diss either of those), they'd have gone to DAD:HAT

Or it just wasn't a great movie. Was it exponentially better than its predecessors? Now thats a low bar to be sure....but just a plane ole 3 out of 5 movie on its own.

 

[Oofta]

Or it just wasn't a great movie. Was it exponentially better than its predecessors? Now thats a low bar to be sure....but just a plane ole 3 out of 5 movie on its own.

I think it could have been a better movie with a significantly lower budget if they had focused on a group of low level adventurers just getting together. Have them face low level threats rather than the special effects extravaganza that we got. As an example the scene of the black dragon wiping out an army was really cool for D&D geeks but really didn't add much to the story.

A lot of people are suffering from CGI overload exhaustion and I think more focus on character development and story would have worked better.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Or it just wasn't a great movie. Was it exponentially better than its predecessors? Now thats a low bar to be sure....but just a plane ole 3 out of 5 movie on its own.

3/5 movies make 1bn+ quite regularly. 2/5 movies have. And looking at Rotten Tomatoes, John Wick was 94%, DAD:HAT was 91%, Mario was 59%, but Mario did way bigger box than the other two.

So that's not the problem. I mean Mario was a 2/5 movie (at best) by the same logic. But it was ultra-child-friendly and a much bigger brand than D&D, so despite being pretty rubbish, it made over $1bn. My own brother, who has played and DM'd D&D for 35 years, when his family went to the movie that weekend, they went to the Mario movie - not because he thought it would be better or whatever - he had a pretty good idea it would be dull - but the kids, despite knowing D&D, were more excited by Mario, and it was guaranteed to be safe (unlike the 1990s Mario movie lol).

DAD:HAT was never going to make $1bn, but by positioning it where they did, the probably reduced the take from as much as $400 down to $200m-ish.

 

[mamba]

DNDB could still be a piece of crap.

it could, but not as much as claimed, more convoluted internally than actually missing features

The question was how much work is it

1) make it work
2) make it not ugly.

I fear making a 2024 PC will bemore work and searching for 2024 monsters will frequently pop up 2014 monster.

Do you get a Volo monster now when looking for one from the Multiverse? No idea, but I have not heard anything about that, and if it works there it will work for the different MMs too

 

[Belen]

Do you get a Volo monster now when looking for one from the Multiverse? No idea, but I have not heard anything about that, and if it works there it will work for the different MMs too

Yes.

I get everything now when I search but I also own it all as I had the Legendary bundle. I love it because I can pick which version of a monster I want. It also means that the players cannot know the stats of the monster because I may have 4 different version of an Orc.

 

[KYRON45]

I think it could have been a better movie with a significantly lower budget if they had focused on a group of low level adventurers just getting together. Have them face low level threats rather than the special effects extravaganza that we got. As an example the scene of the black dragon wiping out an army was really cool for D&D geeks but really didn't add much to the story.

A lot of people are suffering from CGI overload exhaustion and I think more focus on character development and story would have worked better.

To the movie going non gamer public; any movie that has people with swords and British accents is a D&D movie.
Has D&D been de-dorked enough to make it ok to take a date to? I don't say that to be mean, I'm like a 7th level dork myself.
Is the high school football team going to make it a point to go see it? Are the drama kids even going to bother to go see it?
Other than D&D being in the name; what about it is D&D enough for the general public to get that it is a movie about a game?

 

[mamba]

I don't think the people who play and design D&D are high enough up to manage policy and change.

Cocks supposedly plays, wouldn’t rule out that someone between him and the plebs also does

 

[Umbran]

This black background to white text,

Is unremarkable. It is a design nod to the fact that many use social media in "dark mode", in which black background and white text is normal.

"YOU CAN KEEP THINGS AS YOU LIKED, WE LISTENED TO YOUR FEEDBACK." message from D&D is starting to become too much of a regular thing.

They seem to be lacking in the change management department, yes.