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

 

[Dire Bare]

To be honest, I also just feel like my own takes on 5.1 or 5e2024 are rooted mostly in the community's need to identify them as distinctly different, which I honestly think is itself unnecessary and just another example of fandoms creating their own problems.

Yeah. A lot of digital ink spilled over small stuff.

 

[bedir than]

"Compatibility was just a marketing gimmick" I shout to the world as I used DM rules from 2014 with characters from 2024 in an adventure from 2019

 

[doctorbadwolf]

AFAIK I never argued whether or not it was a "new game". It is a revision, which means that which is not the same as the previous thing. Conveying that difference (when relevant) is what's important. The label(s) in use don't as long as the point gets across.

I disagree. Different labels get across different ideas.

To be honest, I also just feel like my own takes on 5.1 or 5e2024 are rooted mostly in the community's need to identify them as distinctly different, which I honestly think is itself unnecessary and just another example of fandoms creating their own problems.

Absolutely. Which is why I just call it 5e or dnd unless I am specifically speaking to a change in the revision.

Do the new PHB/MM/DMG have some revisions to those published in 2014? Yes. Do they need to have a name other than 5e, or just D&D within the context of them being the current ruleset? Noooo.

We're just too caught up in our need to identify and categorize that it stops becoming helpful and just creates more problems for ourselves, especially those who really need there to be a hard line between the two to justify picking one over the other. You don't need the justification. Just do it.

Edit: Hit post too soon. Was gonna say, the only thing that ultimately matters is that when a player and DM are at the same table and one says "it's in the PHB," it would be helpful to say which one. And for my purposes, 2014/2024 works just fine.

Yeup

 

[Morrus]

But a "Half Edition" isn't actually a thing.

I agree. 3.5 was a new edition.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I agree. 3.5 was a new edition.

But 2nd edition wasn't, not really

 

[John Lloyd1]

I prefer 5e to refer to the whole family of games including A5e and ToV. If you are just talking about the 5e produced by Wotc, it is D&D 5e. to specify a particular version, 5e 2014 or 2024. Or you could say D&D 5e (2024).

It can be ambiguous if 5.5 refers to ToCE or 2024 and 6e refers to 2024 or the edition that is yet to come. 5.5 and 6e are used inconsistently on this forum.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've had this argument a million times before, and I have conceded loss, but I still disagree with you here. I think 5.5 is the silly one. It's based on 3.5 - a marketing gimmick that was used for D&D precisely ONCE, 25 years ago, that part of the community just can't seem to let go of. I don't think it was a good idea/name THEN, and I don't think it's a good idea/name now, but enough people apparently like it, I guess.

People know what it means and it was a revision of 5.0.
It works.

 

[Azzy]

I honestly cannot wrap my head around the objections.

If we logically accept that the 2014 version of 5e, is not the same as the 2024 version of 5e, yet one is an obvious revision, and not rewrite, of the other...

Its just exactly what it is. A revision, an update, a 'new build release'. Its not a rebuild. Its not a new (6.0) release, but its also clearly, obviously, not the same game.

Its a half edition.

It it, though? Is the next version of D&D after this actually going to be a completely new "6e" or is it just going to be a continued iteration on 5e? If you want to use software version numbers, it would be far more accurate to call this 5.1 instead of leaping to 5.5.

 

[Scribe]

It it, though? Is the next version of D&D after this actually going to be a completely new "6e" or is it just going to be a continued iteration on 5e? If you want to use software version numbers, it would be far more accurate to call this 5.1 instead of leaping to 5.5.

Again, 5.1 was Tashas.

 

[unknowable]

It it, though? Is the next version of D&D after this actually going to be a completely new "6e" or is it just going to be a continued iteration on 5e? If you want to use software version numbers, it would be far more accurate to call this 5.1 instead of leaping to 5.5.

Again though, wotc stewarded D&D is one of the only games that completely reinvents itself every release, software don't do it as a rule, scholarly books don't go with totally new information or rewrites from the ground up.

Call of Cthulhu, one of the biggest long running ttrpgs outside of D&D... how different are its editions? The cypher system games, 1e to 2e changed armour and foci content with little else, 3e removes resource pools as hp and sorts the player options by genre.

And as I said before, in all D&D history there has only been one release that was a .5 release, it made less changes to the game and balance than 5e24 and both mode more changes than AD&D did between 1 and 2e. There is no notable precedent.

Foundryvtt v12 to v13 brought in some changes but it was not a complete overhaul that dramatically changes how it is used, Adobe software stays mostly the same year to year without stopping backwards compatibility, windows 10 to 11 is a similar deal.

Backwards compatibility is a feature, but it has a whole bunch of caveats in this case and marketing it as "5e" is the gimmick.