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

 

[Artamo]

I know for me it just makes more sense to call them the 5.5 rules. Calling them the 2024 rules versus the 2014 rules feels odd. Like, at some point I’m going to forget what year this stuff happened. If it weren’t for ENworld, I’d completely forget 5e came out in 2014. I don’t call it the 5e 2014 rules as part of habit.

The inclusion of the year feels like a forced concession to distinguishing the two. I prefer 5.5 and have yet to meet a gamer who didn’t understand what I was referring to.

 

[bsss]

5e.

The qualifier, when needed, goes on the older rules.

Okay, what are we calling older-than-current-5e then? 4.999e?

 

[Clint_L]

I normally just call the rules “D&D.” If I told my groups we were playing “5e” tonight or “2024” they would look at me with abject confusion. The extra clarification is only needed for discussions like this, in places like this.

I didn’t even tell my players when I transitioned to the updated rules mid-campaign as they didn’t notice or care.

Edit: that last statement is not true: just remembered that our Druid player definitely noted the changes to wildshape so we just kept using the 2014 rules for her moon Druid. But I think that was about it.

 

[bsss]

I normally just call the rules “D&D.” If I told my groups we were playing “5e” tonight or “2024” they would look at me with abject confusion. The extra clarification is only needed for discussions like this, in places like this.

I didn’t even tell my players when I transitioned to the updated rules mid-campaign as they didn’t notice or care.

Edit: that last statement is not true: just remembered that our Druid player definitely noted the changes to wildshape so we just kept using the 2014 rules for her moon Druid. But I think that was about it.

Heck I'll even call other games "D&D" depending on the audience. My wife doesn't care if I'm playing "D&D" or "13th Age" or "bss's Basement Nerd Times". But you're right, the label matters to those who care to distinguish, which is generally in the context of caring about the rules and/or publishing history. Clearly there are two different things that could be considered in the 5e "family". Any understandable distinction between the two (as in not my satirical retro-versioning of 5e 2014's rules) is an acceptable name for them, and while I have no beef with "5e 2014" vs. "5e 2024", it's a bit wordy and I think "5.5e" is extremely understandable.

 

[CF07]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE allow DMs to black and greylist material for use in the Character Builder at the campaign level.

Absolutely.