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]

right, me among them


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)


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

If by "new edition" you mean 6th edition, a theoritical edition that does not currently exist and that the company tells us they never plan on making? Sure. That will be part of a different "universe" of products than everything compatible with 5th edition... because it will be 6th edition.

But I would also point out, that if you want to talk "by volume" then... how do account for the Dungeons and Dragons homebrew on sites like Homebrewery and GM Binder, the vast number of youtube rules and advice videos, and the massive amount of Dungeons and Dragons branded content on DM's Guild? The vast majority of that is all "DnD", and it SWAMPS all the 3rd party publishers and WoTC combined in terms of quantity.... while still being explicitly and solely made for Dungeons and Dragons, not Level Up or Tales of Valiant or anything else. So the vast majority of 5e content made by ALL creators... is still DnD content.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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

I apologize that you find homebrew to be a derogatory word. I do not. I have deep respect for homebrewers who make high quality products, for free, often without even a brand they are pushing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

have you read the rest of your post?

how is this part not exactly tying it to WotC?

Because I am not giving anything to WoTC, except the acknowledgement that they made Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.

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.

Then why does A5e advertise itself and brand itself as "Still 5th edition [of Dungeons and Dragons]"? Pathfinder is its own TTRPG line, they have never once claimed to be part of 5th edition, they are only on their second edition. Warhammer 40K is their own TTRPG line, they have also never advertised "we are still 5th edition [of Dungeons and Dragons]"

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

The 5th edition platform for what? Was there a 3rd edition platform for Level Up? A 2nd Edition? No, they were made FOR DnD 5th edition. You keep trying to make it sound like 5th edition is not the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, but instead some other TTRPG that has no connection to WotC whatsoever. But you can't escape that the platform was built on DnD.

And did more people make more things beyond what the owner of DnD published? Of course they did! That has been true of DnD since Gygax decided to have a magazine and respond to fan letters. That is nothing new, and it doesn't change that the core system is still the DnD system.

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

I guess you can argue it is bits and pieces and other versions of DnD, but it is still DnD. We can't claim "we are still 5th edition" and expect people to not connect you to the product that was and is 5th edition. It doesn't work like that.

 

[mamba]

If by "new edition" you mean 6th edition, a theoritical edition that does not currently exist and that the company tells us they never plan on making? Sure. That will be part of a different "universe" of products than everything compatible with 5th edition... because it will be 6th edition.

yes, 2024 will not be ‘a different universe’ because it too is compatible, so we then have one more set of core books that is rather than something different

the vast majority of 5e content made by ALL creators... is still DnD content.

when I said D&D there I meant official WotC content, not stuff that is compatible with it. What you call DnD content here, I consider 5e content. It might have been made for D&D but most of it works for A5e or ToV just as well. That is true for 3pps as well as homebrew content

 

[mamba]

Because I am not giving anything to WoTC, except the acknowledgement that they made Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.

and assign all 3pp content to them in the process, sweeping A5e, ToV, etc. completely under the rug

We all know they created D&D 5e, no one is taking that away by acknowledging that other 5e compatible core books exist now.

Then why does A5e advertise itself and brand itself as "Still 5th edition [of Dungeons and Dragons]"?

where does the part in brackets come from?

I see them describe it as ‘A deeper, more flexible enhancement of the 5E ruleset’. What do you think they mean by 5e ruleset?

As to why PF2 and WH40k do not mention 5e, that is simple, they are not compatible with that ruleset, really no surprise there…

The 5th edition platform for what? Was there a 3rd edition platform for Level Up? A 2nd Edition? No, they were made FOR DnD 5th edition. You keep trying to make it sound like 5th edition is not the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons

of course the 5e refers to the 5e in D&D 5e (and now FrogReaver will breathe down my neck again because apparently I use ‘refer’ wrong). The 5e ruleset / platform is not D&D 5e however, it is the 5e SRD.

D&D 5e is one implementation of that ruleset, it was the first one, but it has not been the only one for a while now.

I guess you can argue it is bits and pieces and other versions of DnD, but it is still DnD

4e is another version of D&D, so is 3e, ToV and A5e are not other versions of D&D, they are other versions of the 5e ruleset.

We can't claim "we are still 5th edition" and expect people to not connect you to the product that was and is 5th edition. It doesn't work like that.

no one says you cannot make a connection, the 5e SRD is connected to D&D 5e. That does not mean A5e is the same as D&D 5e or something else that can legally be called a version of D&D. It still is a version of the 5e ruleset however

 

[Micah Sweet]

Other companies who had no reason to do so already announced their new 2024-compatible rule sets coming in the future.

Did they have their own core versions of 5e?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I get you choose to identify products that way but it's just as valid to reserve 5e for the actual 5e rules set and refer to compatible games by their branding.

I like this approach better than lumping it all together because it allows the differences in 5e compatible products to be more easily identified and expressed.

Agreed. Saying "it is all 5e" really does a disservice to the variety of the different rules and products that have been point out. One 5e compatible project is basically a Studio Ghibli game, another is Redwall, and a third is "DnD but crunchier". And those are really not the same products.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I am not sure how that follows. Just because 5e refers to D&D 5e does not at all mean that 5e compatible is not a wider set of products than D&D 5e compatible.

... Are their any 5e compatible products that are not compatible with D&D 5e? Any at all?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Did they have their own core versions of 5e?

IF you are asking if they had their own player's book, DM's book, and Monster book... then yes, they did.

 

[Chaosmancer]

when I said D&D there I meant official WotC content, not stuff that is compatible with it. What you call DnD content here, I consider 5e content. It might have been made for D&D but most of it works for A5e or ToV just as well. That is true for 3pps as well as homebrew content

And thus our disagreement. I didn't make things for "5e but not DnD" I made them for DnD 5th edition specifically. Yes, it can also work for the things compatible with DnD 5e, because those things are compatible. Just like they still work for DnD if you also include Fizban's, or Spelljammer, or any other DnD 5e product that came later or will work with the 2024 rules for the most part.

Because, to point a finer point on it, what you just said was "What you call DnD content here, I consider [5th edition Dungeons and Dragons] content." because we all agree that 5e refers to the 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons.