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]

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

You do realize that a weaker smaller industry strengthens WOTC's market share and power.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well you aren't the gaming community. And a smaller community I'd just bad for everyone... I'd rather have 10% of 1000 vs 10% of 10.

Thats ridiculous. Bigger isn't always better. It has its costs. You just think they're worth paying, and I don't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wait... who all agreed? I think..."because it's worked so far" is a good reason to maintain a practice until you can show that something else works better... can you show that for ttrpg industry??

As long as you're convinced that more is always better, no matter the cost, we're not going to come to an accord.

 

[Imaro]

I am not sure how the above fact justifies your assumption at all. D&D became dominant because it was first, the entire hobby had ups and downs, even while D&D was mostly the number 1 or 2 during its ‘career’. That is stayed so close to the top for so long is due to inertia, marketing budget, and network effects.

There is no law of business that requires one company to be dominant in any given field, and in most fields that is not the case

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.

 

[Remathilis]

I want a healthy and diverse community, where people play different games that suit their interests and temperament. Having one companies product aggressively dominate the industry works against that. If diverse and varied gaming means a smaller industry overall (because no company is too strong to compete with), so be it.

That's all well and good until you can't find people who play your preferred game, companies making the game can't afford to keep making them, and game stores don't carry them because there isn't enough sales.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Explain to me why the gaming industry needs one company to be vastly more powerful and influential than all the others combined, or the industry collapses, when that isn't the case with every industry? Why does the TTRPG market have to have WotC lording over all so very much?

It is not the gaming industry it is the table top roleplaying industry and it does not really have to be WoTC, they are just inheriting the prime mover effect from TSR because they bought TSR's IP before it got replaced by another in the market.

it could just as easily have been Traveller or GURPS.

As for the network effect, this works in a number of ways. Given that D&D (some official version) is the biggest game in the market by far, if ones first exposure to ttrpgs is an introduction by someone else then that some is more likely to introduce you to a version of D&D. Which directs you to the current version of D&D when you decide to buy some actual material.
If one goes to seek players having heard of the ttrpg concept some other way one is more likely to meet and play with D&D players than some other system like FATE or whatever.
Even if one started out with some other system like Runequest but that group breaks up one may have a lot of trouble finding other players up for that system but D&D players are much more common, and so on.

Now if D&D had died with TSR then right now there might well be a company that is not WoTC and not D&D dominant in the ttrpg market and in my opinion it would be just as dominant as WoTC even if the market was not as big.

Now if WoTC shuttered and died right now, it would be my guess that in 20 years the dominant rpg would have been some flavour of D&D, given its current popularity, its influence in the fantasy genre and the existence of open source chassis for the game.

I think, however that the ttrpg market will always be dominated by a system because whatever system that is easiest to find players will be the dominant system and that dominance will be very difficult to overthrow.

The only way I could see D&D's dominance being overthrown, at this time, would be the emergence of some cultural phenomenon that promoted roleplay that arose outside the gaming world and got big enough to be fad.

 

[Minigiant]

that is self perpetuating though, and in no small part probably responsible for the fact that D&D is so dominant

No, it's because....

The other companies pride themselves in no selling out and maintaining practices that make them less money.

Like I said, if a billion dollar company/individual entered the market, they'd be able to take 20-2% of it in a few years.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You do realize that a weaker smaller industry strengthens WOTC's market share and power.

I don't see that as inevitable. There have been many times in the past when companies other than WotC have been stronger than they are now, and at all those times the total industry was smaller (because now is the biggest it's ever been).

 

[mamba]

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.

not all markets have network effects…

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's all well and good until you can't find people who play your preferred game, companies making the game can't afford to keep making them, and game stores don't carry them because there isn't enough sales.

I don't play WotC 5e, and I can go online right now and find people running my preferred games (not just Level Up). That issue is from my perspective overblown.