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

 

[Chaosmancer]

5e no longer is just WotC's only, it is a platform on which multiple TTRPGs have been built that are mostly interoperable. When you say that this is not the case and that only WotC's D&D is 5e, you are tying 5e to just one company

No? I'm not tying anything to just one company. WotC made Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. Other people made rules, systems, classes, feats, items, monsters, ect ect ect ect ect that can be referenced, substituted or exchanged for their equivalents or added complete as new things to Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.

They are modifications to the system. Changes to it. It isn't like they are Skyrim that just so happens to run an an Xbox platform, they are Skyrim... modded and changed to have different rules.

I guess for me, it comes down to the core here. SRD means System Reference Document. What system is the document referencing? If you say "5e", well, 5e means Fifth Edition. So the Fifth Edition of what? Is the Fifth Edition of Microsoft Windows? The Fifth Edition of Warhammer 40K? No. It is the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, that is the system being referenced by the System Reference Document. So in trying to seperate 5e and WotC, it constantly comes across to me as saying "The System Reference Document created by Wizards of the Coast for the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons has no connection to, nor any ties to, the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons created by Wizards of the Coast". Which... makes no sense to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Right, 5e is the current edition, and it is getting an update with the 2024 rules. Will Tales of the Valiant still be what people are looking for then? You say it will still be supported, but what will that support look like going forward?

I think you are wrong in comparing some future 6e change to the change of 3.5 to 4e, because those were some rather unique circumstances, and the circumstances now are not really like those then.

I have no reason to believe either LU or TotV is going to change their game to accommodate WotC's shift to 5.5. Why would they? Each is its own version of 5e.

 

[mamba]

Right, so one big factor it is missing is a 6e that people hate and decide to flock to a game that is basically identical to 5e.

yes, that was more or less the premise (even a 6e that people like will not have a 100% conversion rate, but there will be fewer staying with 5e)

Except, also, unlike Pathfinder all of the 5e equivalents already exist. 4e was released in 2008 and PAthfinder was released in 2009.

I do not believe that matters, what mattered was compatibility and ongoing support, not that PF1 was released around the same time

 

[mamba]

Okay, so, go back to the original thing that started this tangent, which was people claiming that Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition is a seperate thing from 5e,

right, me among them

which is all the other things that are compatible with Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.

more or less, I’d phrase it differently but we are talking about the same products.

To me 5e is the totality of all products that are compatible with the 5e SRD to a very high degree (so not just based on it, we got the OSR from the 3e SRD…).

So any 3pp supplements for D&D, A5e, ToV, … along with the core books for all of these. That is 5e, D&D is a fraction of that (by product count)

They were not talking about this as a "in the future when..." they were saying this was a truth right now.

So you and me? We are agreeing on the core thing that started this tangent.

it is true right now, but with the current D&D edition being part of the 5e universe the difference between 5e and the current D&D edition is small. Once WotC moves to the next edition that difference will be much larger. 5e still will be all of the above, but the new D&D edition will not be part of its universe

 

[Chaosmancer]

You don't have to agree with me, of course. However, I think saying "5e = D&D" ignores the awesome work other publishers have done and are doing to build their own awesome and independent RPGs around 5e and I think it projects too much power over this awesome open slice of TTRPGs to just one brand and one company.

I'm going to zoom in here, because I think this is the core of the issue. I fully disagree with this idea that acknowledging the 5e is the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons ignores the work of other publishers. To acknowledge that as true would mean that saying "Eberron is DnD" would be ignoring the awesome work of Keith Baker, or "The Forgotten Realms is DnD" somehow discredits and minimizes the work of Ed Greenwood. It would mean discrediting my own work, even though I've never made money or published under a studio name.

Wizards of the Coast created the original system. The original system was Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. And people have done amazing work within that system, within that rules space. The fact that I see DnD 5e as the core of that space that everyone is referencing doesn't diminish their work.

 

[mamba]

Well, I still don't understand why you would say that any of that means the design work was somehow "lesser".

homebrew sounds derogatory, and I was not the only one who took it that way

 

[mamba]

No? I'm not tying anything to just one company.

have you read the rest of your post?

WotC made Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. Other people made rules, systems, classes, feats, items, monsters, ect ect ect ect ect that can be referenced, substituted or exchanged for their equivalents or added complete as new things to Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.

how is this part not exactly tying it to WotC?

Also, it is wrong. A5e is not an addition to D&D, it is a separate but similar system. So is ToV, If something has its own core books, it is its own TTRPG line.

That you can eg use the A5e monsters and add them to your D&D game is because they all exist as part of the 5e platform. You can do the reverse, you can add them to ToV, you can play a WotC adventure using ToV classes, and so forth. One. Big. Platform.

WotC created it, but it has become bigger than them. This is not just supplements for D&D

in trying to seperate 5e and WotC, it constantly comes across to me as saying "The System Reference Document created by Wizards of the Coast for the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons has no connection to, nor any ties to, the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons created by Wizards of the Coast". Which... makes no sense to me.

no one is saying there are no ties, we are saying it is more than just bits and pieces to be added to D&D

 

[DEFCON 1]

Isn't this exactly what happened to Pathfinder? WOTC moved to D&D 4e and a bunch of D&D 3.5 people said "nope". Paizo said "hey, check this out!"

Of course it wasn't as big as D&D but it build a pretty good sized audience over the past fifteen years.

There are lots of people who play lots of RPGs including lots of previous editions of D&D.

As I said above... Pathfinder was the exception that proves the rule. So many disparate things happened that allowed Pathfinder to not only come into being but also flourish, that I don't believe anyone actually thinks that will ever happen again.

Look, if you honestly think that people are going to stick with variant 5E rules if/when WotC actually produces an eventual 6E (which has been my point in all of this)... you certainly can do so. I myself would not take that bet however.

It is my personal belief that D&D 5E14, D&D 5E24, Level Up, Tales of the Valiant, and all the other books (for players, DMs and all manner of monster book) built upon the D&D 5E engine will find their audiences fall off a cliff if/when a 6E comes into being because their success and popularity is due directly to WotC's D&D 5E's success and popularity. Everyone making their bones off of WotC's base game will see that well dry up once most players have the new game to buy. But that's the risk they take by following in WotC's wake. They can make their money while the 5E game in all its permutations has its followers and popularity... and have to deal with the consequences if/when those followers and popularity go away. And hopefully they have now prepared for that.

If you believe otherwise... that's fine. Hopefully there will be pockets of players still playing 5E variants while everyone else has moved on to 6E. But if our 4E players here on the boards are any indication... those pockets of players playing an older game can be few and far between, and we have had plenty of them telling us they can't get 4E games going whatsoever. So let's hope history doesn't repeat itself when 6E comes around.

But then again... knock on wood that'll be a question most of us will not actually have to worry about any time soon, because for all we know this 5E24 "keep the game evergreen" strategy might actually work. And thus D&D 5E (and all the other 5Es out there) won't have to see what a 6E would do to their market share any time soon.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As I said above... Pathfinder was the exception that proves the rule. So many disparate things happened that allowed Pathfinder to not only come into being but also flourish, that I don't believe anyone actually thinks that will ever happen again.

Look, if you honestly think that people are going to stick with variant 5E rules if/when WotC actually produces an eventual 6E (which has been my point in all of this)... you certainly can do so. I myself would not take that bet however.

It is my personal belief that D&D 5E14, D&D 5E24, Level Up, Tales of the Valiant, and all the other books (for players, DMs and all manner of monster book) built upon the D&D 5E engine will find their audiences fall off a cliff if/when a 6E comes into being because their success and popularity is due directly to WotC's D&D 5E's success and popularity. Everyone making their bones off of WotC's base game will see that well dry up once most players have the new game to buy. But that's the risk they take by following in WotC's wake. They can make their money while the 5E game in all its permutations has its followers and popularity... and have to deal with the consequences if/when those followers and popularity go away. And hopefully they have now prepared for that.

If you believe otherwise... that's fine. Hopefully there will be pockets of players still playing 5E variants while everyone else has moved on to 6E. But if our 4E players here on the boards are any indication... those pockets of players playing an older game can be few and far between, and we have had plenty of them telling us they can't get 4E games going whatsoever. So let's hope history doesn't repeat itself when 6E comes around.

But then again... knock on wood that'll be a question most of us will not actually have to worry about any time soon, because for all we know this 5E24 "keep the game evergreen" strategy might actually work. And thus D&D 5E (and all the other 5Es out there) won't have to see what a 6E would do to their market share any time soon.

Again, 4e was and is much harder to play after WotC pulled the plug than any version of 5e will be. One advantage of our digital age.

 

[mamba]

It is my personal belief that D&D 5E14, D&D 5E24, Level Up, Tales of the Valiant, and all the other books (for players, DMs and all manner of monster book) built upon the D&D 5E engine will find their audiences fall off a cliff if/when a 6E comes into being because their success and popularity is due directly to WotC's D&D 5E's success and popularity.

that depends on how popular 6e will turn out to be. I agree the aggregate will, but that does not mean all individual TTRPGs will lose at the same rate, some might even gain players

If you believe otherwise... that's fine. Hopefully there will be pockets of players still playing 5E variants while everyone else has moved on to 6E. But if our 4E players here on the boards are any indication... those pockets of players playing an older game can be few and far between

4e was not a popular edition (some strong fans notwithstanding) and had already fallen off a cliff. 5e otoh turned out to be very popular.

At a minimum 5e will have a much larger base left, even if 6e were to manage the same conversion rates.