D&D 5E Do you think we'll see revised core books in 2024? (And why I think we will)

[Aging Bard]

You aren't thinking big enough. WotC have already said they want a quickstart D&D where two new players, a character and the DM, can start playing in an hour. So let's extrapolate from this:
1) No DM: Eliminating the DM is a huge but inevitable step. The WofC plan has always been in the direction of the player, and the DM ultimately gets in the way of player wishes. To be clear, I strongly dislike this direction but fear it is inevitable.
2) Solo play: This is the logical conclusion of the above two events. And solo play will be a huge sales boost. Imagine the number of new players who can play however they want with no judgment whatsoever. It's the closest we have to a Star Trek holodeck.
3) Celebrity authors: Just like screen actors have taken over voice acting, professional authors may take over writing RPG modules, with former RPG authors reduced to converting the stories of professional authors to the RPG format. Again, not a result I desire at all, but a result that seems very likely.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think “moderate” best describes the changes I think we’re likely to see. Removal of alignment from races and monster stat blocks. Possibly the addition of a few races and subraces such as orcs, goblins, duergar, and svirfneblin. Maybe the Tiefling subraces but they do take up a lot of space. The codification of floating ASIs in place of racial ASIs. Spellcasting racial features Feats revised to allow you to cast them with spell slots gained from your class. Possibly the updating of more 1/short rest abilities to prof bonus/long rest. Maybe the optional class features from Tasha’s worked into the classes, but those might still be marked as optional, hard to say. Basically, taking some of the changes that are currently being grafted onto the base rules in supplementary books and working them into the core rules. But that’s the most I would expect to see.

I would love to see a proper 6e, but I don’t see it happening.

 

[Charlaquin]

Possibly the updating of more 1/short rest abilities to prof bonus/long rest.

For the record, I really, really hope I’m wrong about this one. It’s a trend I have hated seeing in new releases, and I will be deeply saddened if/when the few short rest holdovers we still have get written out. If nothing else, I hope they at least leave the Warlock intact, because it’s by far the most unique and interesting class in 5e.

 

[Mercurius]

Oh yeah, just to clarify my original post and vote (5.3 to 5.5), I think more of a 5.3 than a 5.5. Maybe I should have been more granular than the three ranges. But I think we'll see more than cosmetic, but not quite a "5.5." They'll play it safe with backwards compatibility but will take the opportunity to fix problem areas and revamp the core books with 10 years of learning beneath their belts.

5.1 for new art, covers and errata.
5.2 for a bit of re-organization and stuff added from other books (e.g. sub-classes).
5.3 for revamped races and classes, alignment, racial bonuses.

I think it unlikely they'll go beyond that, but who knows.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

There would be a heck of a lot of play testing and development to change the PHBs. It's the core product, man, stuff something like this up and they'll have another 4E on their hands and can kiss their jobs & reputations goodbye.

I see a lot of stick getting thrown at races and alignment in Enworld threads, but I'm betting doing those in would be cripplingly divisive. I for one wouldn't touch a product without.

 

[ECMO3]

Several years before 5E there was a huge deal made out of playtesting and "D&D next" with the dragonspear campaign etc and dragon articles etc. No one was around guessing if a new edition was coming out WOTC was saying publicly it was and they very publicly did the largest playtest in history before it was published (which turned out to be a huge success).

We have seen none of that to date, as such I think there is absolutely no chance of a 6E in 2024. We will get some expanded rules that are consistent and entirely backwards-compatible with the current rule set I think.

 

[TerraDave]

It will be a new edition.

 

[ECMO3]

I would love to see a proper 6e, but I don’t see it happening.

A 6E without playtesting would be a disaster.

 

[Charlaquin]

A 6E without playtesting would be a disaster.

I wouldn’t expect them to release it without any playtesting.

 

[TerraDave]

I also remain suspicious of their new designer blog…they always start communicating more in the run up.