D&D 5E (2024) D&D Beyond's Development Roadmap Is A Complete Rebuild Of Platform

D&D Beyond has announced its roadmap for the future, including features in active development and those planned for later down the line. These include a full rebuild of the game platform's engine, a new character builder, tools for Dungeon Masters, and more.

Over the past few months, we’ve launched a new homepage, a revamped and more sortable content library, image reveals in the Maps VTT to help DMs immerse their players more easily, and several other quality-of-life improvements.

2026 is a year of refocusing and rebuilding D&D Beyond to make it easier to play D&D your way. Three major initiatives will drive most of our work:

• Rebuilding D&D Beyond’s Game Platform
• Improving Player Onboarding and Revamping the Character Builder Experience
• Launching a Suite of Dungeon Master Tools

 

[OB1]

Okay, I'll clarify, you want to hammer on semantics.

They did say that they were doing it. Not just that they needed to.


That... is not what killed the 3D VTT.

Not even slightly. It died because it's fundamentally quite hard to do, and would require a decent-size team of properly-funded and lead developers, especially as it's basically novel, and there's no real roadmap for a what a successful 3D VTT looks like. Seems like either they didn't have all of those elements, or decided that it was too expensive to do "properly-funded" and "decently-sized".

Whereas maps is just an inferior and more limited version of something offered by many other companies, and which has existed in full and functional forms for literally decades at this point. Certainly when the 3D VTT died maps was not impressive tool, either.


Yeah I don't find your reasoning compelling here, given it's outright wrong in the one example you gave.

Didn’t mean to be pedantic about semantics, I was just going off what you quoted them as saying.

DDB is a BIG reason Sigil was scrapped. It was already doing everything Sigil wanted to do (bring in new users) but at a fraction of the cost.

Maps has been an incredible new feature that people love. And fully developed internally by the WotC team. I get that D&D has been bad at developing in the past, but they were also bad at making movies until DaDHat. At some point you have to look at the present instead of always expecting failure due to the past.

 

[bedir than]

Multiple updates on 2014 material today!

Three WotC 2014 ruleset books got minor character builder updates, including the 2014 Druid in the PHB.
More than 3 dozen subclasses from third parties developed for 2014 rules are selectable in the 2024 character builder.

Turns out compatible continues to mean compatible.

 

[Belen]

View attachment 429934

Just noticed that the gif showing off the new Character Builder references 2024 rules as “5.5” in the spells section. Just a funny note.

Vindication!

 

[mamba]

DDB is a BIG reason Sigil was scrapped. It was already doing everything Sigil wanted to do (bring in new users) but at a fraction of the cost.

none of this is true… Sigil was scrapped because it turned out to be a lot of work with a pretty uncertain way to make that money back and the overlap between DDB and Sigil is essentially 0

Bring in new users is a far cry from everything Sigil was supposed to do. At that point you can also say WotC can stop creating new books, the old ones are still generating sales, that would be about as accurate

 

[Belen]

It is important to maintain 2014 rules. I have 3 groups that would quit DDB if they mandate 2024.

 

[Clint_L]

Is AI going to be used in the Game Platform rebuild?
We are not replacing human developers with AI. We have great teams in place leading all of our efforts.

This is a very artful response. I interpret it as "like everyone else, we now use AI tools, but not to replace our human developers."

 

[OB1]

Dice are finally rolling on Maps! Can’t wait to see this in our session Saturday. Have been waiting patiently for a while for this

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Multiple updates on 2014 material today!

Three WotC 2014 ruleset books got minor character builder updates, including the 2014 Druid in the PHB.
More than 3 dozen subclasses from third parties developed for 2014 rules are selectable in the 2024 character builder.

Turns out compatible continues to mean compatible.

Hell yes. even though i wont be likely to use most of this, i do prefer some stuff of the druid before the revision. (Mostly IMO wild shape got a downgrade) and even if i didnt have any use for anything older than Tasha's or whatever, i would still be excited to see them giving tangible support to to stuff that some folks still use.

It is important to maintain 2014 rules. I have 3 groups that would quit DDB if they mandate 2024.

While i truly do not understand how anyone could ever have a strong preference for the legacy rules over the current rules, I genuinely do not think we will see any abandonment of legacy rules anytime in the forseeable future.

 

[Belen]

Hell yes. even though i wont be likely to use most of this, i do prefer some stuff of the druid before the revision. (Mostly IMO wild shape got a downgrade) and even if i didnt have any use for anything older than Tasha's or whatever, i would still be excited to see them giving tangible support to to stuff that some folks still use.

While i truly do not understand how anyone could ever have a strong preference for the legacy rules over the current rules, I genuinely do not think we will see any abandonment of legacy rules anytime in the forseeable future.

I have used both versions. I do not like a lot of the change for the sake of change items.

For instance, changing beast types to fey or new invisibility.

They should have done 6e or optional adds like the way feats were handled in 5.0.

I just do not see much good in 5.5. I may use a few things like the new healing spells but I feel 5.0 is a more solid game.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

DDB is a BIG reason Sigil was scrapped.

DDB kinda, maps absolutely not. DDB and Sigil were at war literally from before DDB was acquired by WotC. In the great OGL 2.0 debacle, on thing that leaked was how aggressively opposed the leader of the 3D VTT team was to acquiring DDB. The way WotC handled them internally

Maps has been an incredible new feature that people love. And fully developed internally by the WotC team.

Maps a mediocre and limited version of a 2D VTT with really only technical (rather than disability) accessibility and "It's effectively free" to recommend it (which isn't nothing!), a thing that has existed since the 1990s. Even on accessibility it's beaten by things like Owlbear Rodeo. It was never in competition with the 3D VTT and isn't an impressive feature, especially given how slowly it's developed as compared to their initial goals.

I get that D&D has been bad at developing in the past, but they were also bad at making movies until DaDHat. At some point you have to look at the present instead of always expecting failure due to the past.

No. Absolutely not. Not in any area of life or work.

You have to look at consistency.

Every company is capable of lucking into one-off successes. BG3 and DaDHaT are currently those. Will they be followed up by more successes? Or failures? We shall see. DDB is also a one-off success but not really by WotC at all (they just acquired it) that hasn't improved all the much since it launched (I'm not saying it's nothing, but we're talking small iterative changes, no really good overhauls etc.). If they succeed, great, but expecting it is wild.