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

 

[CommodoreKong]

Another unforced error from WotC. They never should have forced players to upgrade to the new rules/system, especially since I imagine many DMs and players wouldn't want to upgrade in the middle of an existing campaign.

I would have done it as a toggle between the old and new content to give players who own 2014 content a chance to look at the new stuff and hopefully get them to decide to upgrade because they like the changes. But instead of choosing the carrot WotC decided to use the stick and found out people don't like it when you use the stick.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So they can just do that? All the functionality for this exists and they just chose to not use it?

Well, there goes the ‘DDB is a pile of crap and poor WotC cannot add this feature to it’ defense…

Given two choices, WotC way too often chooses the wrong one, a coin would make better decisions… be better than a coinflip guys…

Yeah, hard to say this was a technical issue now. Malice it is!

 

[Velderan]

Well, they listened to the feedback and did the right thing! Within a week. That's a good thing, right?

And for a company their size, anything happening within a week is pretty good! I have no insight into the level of effort this is going to take them to have this all in place before the 2024 PHB release, but I can imagine most of the time taken to respond was looking at a flood of complaints to try to figure out what people wanted exactly and then meeting with the folks that actually would do the work to find out how feasible it would be to make people happy. I don't think we'd get that done within a week where I work.

 

[mamba]

Every once in a while?!?

yes, look back at the threads we had when it was going on… I understand that it can still be annoying, but it is nothing in comparison

I see people posting about their pet peeves far more often

 

[Vexorg]

"we misjudged the impact of these changes"

No they didn't. They misjudged how much manipulation their customers would tolerate.

 

[DEFCON 1]

bad PR is an unforced error, that you have no way of figuring out how much it affects their bottom line does not mean it isn’t one


they have changed course as a result, and not for the first time. If you want to argue that it technically is not because of what we think but because of how we then decide to spend our money as a result of that is a distinction without a difference

We as a massive group of like-minded thinkers have made them decide to change their course. But no one individual had a hand in that. All that mattered was that the mass of voices got large enough saying "we don't like this" that WotC decided "Okay, we'll change it". But doing (in my opinion) was not a big deal to them. Slightly irritating? Sure. Yes, a potential revenue stream for them was slowed because of their pivot. But they have so many other revenue streams available to them that this one stream in the long-run will not matter. Same way that the pivot on their OGL response will not ultimately have much of an effect in the long-run. Because it just meant they had to think of different revenue streams (like say offering to sell other people's books on DDB) that might quite easily have replaced (or even exceeded) the money they would have gotten from the OGL change in the first place. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" and all that.

The only people who care about all this "bad PR" are all the players who don't like being treated as fools. WE care... but Wizards of the Coast as a corporate entity does not. To that corporate entity, we individuals (as I said) do not matter. A person does not matter... only "people" in a large enough group that might eventually affect the bottom line matter.

If you disagree with my take... that's cool. People can believe whatever they want. I just happen to think that I could die tomorrow and they'd lose lifelong my support of the Dungeons & Dragons brand and it would not matter one iota. Because someone else will step up to take my place in the giant mass of D&D.

 

[DEFCON 1]

"we misjudged the impact of these changes"

No they didn't. They misjudged how much manipulation their customers would tolerate.

Precisely. And thus they pivoted. And it won't matter in the long-run that they did.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Yeah, hard to say this was a technical issue now. Malice it is!

Hanlon's razor says;

"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

 

[Remathilis]

Hanlon's razor says;

"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

I think WotC did not consider two elements:

1. People wanting to wrap up older campaigns before adopting the new rules (and not everyone wanting to do that in September)

2. General resistance to upgrading, either until the full rules are out or ever.

Basically, they thought the new rules are the next best thing to sliced beard and everyone would want to adopt them Day One. I don't think they considered edition inertia.

My vote is irrational exuberant stupidity.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hanlon's razor says;

"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

I don't believe it can be adequately explained by stupidity. The fact that they could so easily backpeddle shows that they decided to make continuing to use 2014 rules in D&DB more difficult. That reads as malice to me.