D&D (2024) Does anyone else think that 1D&D will create a significant divide in the community?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've used the Dread rules for entire games in my D&D campaign, and all they are is basically a Jenga tower. So I'm pretty rules agnostic. Other folks take the rules very seriously - kids in my D&D Club will furiously debate D&D vs. Pathfinder, which I find adorable, like passionately arguing over whether regular-stuffed or double-stuffed Oreos are better. At the end, as long as the story is good and the game is fun, who cares?

It's the cultural moment. What once we just Ford vs. Chevy obsessives and sports fanatics has become a whole thing, with people devoting a great portion of their identity to whether they are consumers of Android versus iPhone products, Xbox versus Playstation versus Nintendo, or a million other things.

I'm not sure this way of thinking benefits anyone other than corporations, but there you go.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As an outsider who doesn't play 5E, it seems like anything they do that changes 5E could result in fractures, because the hobby feels fairly organized around 5E (to a degree it wasn't organized around D&D in the past, in numbers exceeding anything we've had in recent years). I am also following some of the debates and it seems there are a few issues around changes that could be contentious. If the changes are sufficient enough that blocks of fans are not satisfied with the new edition, that could create an opening for alternative systems to step in (the way pathfinder did when 4E came out). And the pie is pretty big these days so there is tremendous incentive for that. But I am not keyed in enough to really assess because I am just catching the vague contours of the debate and not sure how many of the changes would be deal breakers for people. I just have a sense that this is as big as the D&D pie probably gets, and unless that assumption is wrong, changes seem fraught with risk (but then I suppose it goes the other way, where not making the changes that some segments might want, could result in a competitor swooping in from that direction as well).

My guess is a lot of the contentious changes won't make it through to the final version. We've already seen some semi-contentious stuff from the first UA doc reverted in the second one.

They're throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall and there's no reason to think we know what 1D&D will really look like by the time the process is done.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

My guess is a lot of the contentious changes won't make it through to the final version. We've already seen some semi-contentious stuff from the first UA doc reverted in the second one.

The second packet is not based on the feedback from the first.
So we now only know that they are trying out different things.

 

[ersatzphil]

Some RPGs are closer to or farther from D&D, they do all have D&D in their DNA, but an RPG is an RPG, but D&D is specifically D&D.

I mean, not to pick a nit, but Old School Essentials is literally a reformatting of B/X D&D. What does that count as?

As a sidenote - at least according to the Vintage RPG podcast, isn't Traveller the only RPG that doesn't have D&D as an antecedent?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I mean, not to pick a nit, but Old School Essentials is literally a reformatting of B/X D&D. What does that count as?

Well, until they bring in the AD&D stuff in the Advanced Fantasy books.

 

[ersatzphil]

Well, until they bring in the AD&D stuff in the Advanced Fantasy books.

I have to admit - I’ve been playing the Black Hack for awhile now, and have wanted to try out OSE for some time, but it is extremely unclear to me what books I do and don’t need to buy for it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have to admit - I’ve been playing the Black Hack for awhile now, and have wanted to try out OSE for some time, but it is extremely unclear to me what books I do and don’t need to buy for it.

Yeah, they don't do themselves a lot of favors in that regard.

The ones that start with BASIC FANTASY are the BD&D line. You can either get this as one or two big corebooks or a set of smaller books so that only the spellcasters, for instance, have to look at those pages and everyone else can just have the booklets they need. (I'd get the big corebook, myself.)

The ADVANCED FANTASY line takes the AD&D stuff from the PHB, MM, DMG and Unearthed Arcana book that isn't already present in BD&D and adds it all in, while tweaking the math to match Basic D&D. So it will work very similarly and if you're not someone who regularly looks at the AD&D books (or maybe hasn't for a few decades), it should feel the same as it ever was. But it's truly interoperable, instead of just mostly so, as everyone I knew jammed them together anyway back in the day. It's available in the same types of formats as the BASIC FANTASY line.

 

[niklinna]

I have to admit - I’ve been playing the Black Hack for awhile now, and have wanted to try out OSE for some time, but it is extremely unclear to me what books I do and don’t need to buy for it.

How very old-school of them!

 

[ersatzphil]

But it's truly interoperable, instead of just mostly so, as everyone I knew jammed them together anyway back in the day. It's available in the same types of formats as the BASIC FANTASY line.

Aah so - in example, is the BASIC thief class identical to the ADVANCED one? The ADVANCED just adds druids and illusionists and whatnot?

 

[ECMO3]

Sure you can. If you are using a 2014 Race and a 2024 background you just…choose your ASIs. It’s not even a conversion it’s just…if your race and background both provide an ASI, you choose which to use, not both.

If you use a 2014 race and a 2024 background you should get both the ASIs from your race and the ASIs from your background, there is no reason you shouldn't, the ASIs are part of the race and part of the background. This is not like TCE where they put in a rule that changed the way to apply racial ASIs.

To be honest I don't think the ASIs in the background will survive to the final version. Considering that you can make a custom background, tying them to background is meaningless - If you want to be an acolyte but with strength and constitution ASIs, just make a custom background to do that.