D&D (2024) How D&D Beyond Will Handle Access To 2014 Rules

D&D Beyond has announced how the transition to the new 2024 edition will work on the platform, and how legacy access to the 2014 version of D&D will be implemented.

• You will still be able to access the 2014 Basic Rules and core rulebooks.
• You will still be able to make characters using the 2014 Player's Handbook.
• Existing home-brew content will not be impacted.
• These 2014 rules will be accessible and will be marked with a 'legacy' badge: classes, subclasses, species, backgrounds, feats, monsters.
• Tooltips will reflect the 2024 rules.
• Monster stat blocks will be updated to 2024.
• There will be terminology changes (Heroic Inspiration, Species, etc.)

D&D (2024) - Wizards of the Coast Backtracks on D&D Beyond and 2014 Content

Wizards of the Coast posted an overnight update stating that they are not going forward with previously released plans to require those wishing to use some 2014 content on D&D Beyond to use the Homebrew function to manually enter it. Instead, all the content including spells and magic items will...

www.enworld.org

 

[Minigiant]

I think marketing is peripheral to it. It is important in the brand recognition sense but I really wonder how many players are coming into the hobby cold. I think most are introduced into the hobby by being invited to play by some one in the hobby.
I think that people coming in cold are coming via Baldur's Gate or Live streaming and since live streams are D&D dominated and BG3 is D&D ip and that is an offshoot of the current network effect.

That's al marketing though.

Making your IP well known enough that game companies go into it buy rights for games and movies. Streamers seeing your RPG as a big eyecatcher.

Like I said, Tony Khan has the #2 wrestling company in a few years just by buying the biggest free agents and promotion the hell out of AEW. But he spent a LOT of money.

 

[Imaro]

You don't have to maximize profits at the expense of your product, your customers, and the rest of the industry to be a successful business.

Who is doing this? Just because you don't like the products a company is producing doesn't equate to said company maximizing profits at the expense of products or customers.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can only fight the 800lbs gorilla with another 80lbs beast. Or a bigger one.


Exactly.

Which is my point. No one currently has the money to replace WOTC in money and thuse marketing.


That time @Micah Sweet was talking about was when WOTC was half butting it during late stage 4e.

I was actually talking about the '90s, when we had a lot of viable, supported games and people playing them, and D&D had more of a "first among equals" position. A great age of TTRPGs creatively. I know most of my best memories of gaming came from there.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

that will be hard to overcome, agreed, but that does not mean it is necessary that there is one such company for the hobby to thrive. Both of these can be true at the same time.

The hobby is bigger than it ever was, by now it could sustain more than one big player imo, but that still means that this other player has quite the uphill battle to get into that position

It has nothing to do with the hobby thriving, but the network effect of getting players will drive the hobby to a massively dominant player.
A massive technological disruption could change this, either by making it trivial to find players and GMs interested in currently niche systems or something that replaces the casual player experience pulling them out of the market leaving the more immersion driven roleplayers.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Who is doing this? Just because you don't like the products a company is producing doesn't equate to said company maximizing profits at the expense of products or customers.

It has nothing to do with me. 5.5 is the weak "revision" it is because WotC is afraid to make a game that suits their preferred customers better because it wouldn't be compatible. They are actively trying to create a "diamond club" of 3pps who make content the way they want or you can't join. They care more about controlling the industry than making the best game they can for their customers. How is this not true?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Then I'm back to saying that the price of having the industry be this big (essentially corporate feudalism) is too high.

My argument is that the size of the industry has nothing to do with it. The effort of finding gamers to play with will drive the overall market to a dominant rule system.
There will be places where this does not apply. Places with a strong gaming club or friendly game store that the hobby can cluster around will have the opportunity to find people willing to try new systems and a more cosmopolitan experiece but in a lot of places one plays what is popular or have no game.
Online modifies that somewhat but it also reinforces the dominant system.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

And yet there are plenty of industries and markets where 1st has not equated to dominant... and especially in the way D&D is dominant... I don't buy this reasoning.

I do agree there is no law thar requires one company to be dominant and with the plethora of ttrpg publishers you'd think if there was a better solution one or even some of them would implement it... instead we've seen them flock to WotC's 5e and only reinforce the current structure of dominance because they want to make money.

TTrpgs are not every market and are closer to social media than any other market in my opinion and all social media a dominated by one player in a given market.
Microsoft poured billions into a hole trying to carve a market in steaming an failed.

 

[Imaro]

It has nothing to do with me. 5.5 is the weak "revision" it is because WotC is afraid to make a game that suits their preferred customers better because it wouldn't be compatible. They are actively trying to create a "diamond club" of 3pps who make content the way they want or you can't join. They care more about controlling the industry than making the best game they can for their customers. How is this not true?

I'm curious... do you feel the same about...
Chaosium
Paizo
Monte Cook Games
Free League
PbtA

And the many other ttrpg publishers who make small incremental changes across editions and/or their other game lines? What about the OSR and their numerous tweaked versions of older D&D... I'm just trying to understand your criteria here.

Edit: Of course it could be with the unprecedented popularity of 5e... they believe they've just about made the best version and now they just need to tweak and refine it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

That's al marketing though.

Making your IP well known enough that game companies go into it buy rights for games and movies. Streamers seeing your RPG as a big eyecatcher.

Like I said, Tony Khan has the #2 wrestling company in a few years just by buying the biggest free agents and promotion the hell out of AEW. But he spent a LOT of money.

I am not sure that the analogy holds with the wrestling example. Wrestling is a produced entertainment. You produce a wrestling match and persuade/bribe someone to stream/broadcast it and keep at it long enough (and do it well enough ) to capture a largely passive audience.
TTRPGs is an active hobby, it is not enough to produce a good game but also to persuade enough people that it is fun to invest time to learn and do.
It will be interesting to see how Daggerheart will do in the marketplace, A game based on a streamed property could reach people that are maybe fans of the show but not willing to try D&D. The thing, that I, think may be against it is that it appears to be on the crunchy side.

 

[Remathilis]

I've never gotten over how many people feel that to save the village, we have to destroy the village..