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

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

At character creation, you have to repeatedly choose to find the 2014 options instead of the 2024 options.

I imagine the point is the make it as painful as possible to continue with 2014 in order to push people into using 2024 without the bad press they'd get from completely removing it.

 

[Staffan]

I imagine the point is the make it as painful as possible to continue with 2014 in order to push people into using 2024 without the bad press they'd get from completely removing it.

This seems to assume malice ("Push people to 2024 rules whether they want to or not") when laziness ("Eh, we'll just put both into the system and people can use which one they want") provides a sufficient explanation.

 

[Parmandur]

This seems to assume malice ("Push people to 2024 rules whether they want to or not") when laziness ("Eh, we'll just put both into the system and people can use which one they want") provides a sufficient explanation.

The larger the number of people adopting 2024 ruoes organically, the greater the pull of laziness will be, too.

 

[Belen]

This seems to assume malice ("Push people to 2024 rules whether they want to or not") when laziness ("Eh, we'll just put both into the system and people can use which one they want") provides a sufficient explanation.

Since they had originally stated that they were removing the 2014 rules and only kept them after mass outrage and cancellation of subscriptions, then yes, Spell is completely correct. They had intended to force people to move to 5.5.

They have little incentive to fix the mess that they created.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Since they had originally stated that they were removing the 2014 rules and only kept them after mass outrage and cancellation of subscriptions, then yes, Spell is completely correct. They had intended to force people to move to 5.5.

Exactly. I am assuming a malicious intent because they have consistently demonstrated malicious intent until community outrage and financial threats (dndbeyond cancellations) forced them to backtrack.

 

[J-H]

Hanlon's razor... "Never attribute to malice what can instead be chalked up to simple incompetence."
Beyond spent 5+ years not being able to implement Barbarian Rage or add a way to show that a character had Mage Armor active. If they could spend all this time failing to implement a class-defining PHB feature and one of the most-used low-level arcane spells, is it a surprise that they also can't organize their database properly to keep separate things separate?

 

[Belen]

Hanlon's razor... "Never attribute to malice what can instead be chalked up to simple incompetence."
Beyond spent 5+ years not being able to implement Barbarian Rage or add a way to show that a character had Mage Armor active. If they could spend all this time failing to implement a class-defining PHB feature and one of the most-used low-level arcane spells, is it a surprise that they also can't organize their database properly to keep separate things separate?

They did not even try until the outrage and cancellations after they announced they were removing legacy content. They planned it that way. It was in their pre-PHB announcements.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

It's obvious that D&D Beyond was not from the outset designed to support multiple versions of D&D, and I bet that anyone on the team that suggested they refactor the code to support both 5e and 5.5 during the OneD&D period would have been told to instead work on something that had immediate business value.

It was only when they announced there would effectively be no support for 5e that they learned that legacy support was in fact a core requirement for many D&D beyond users, and they would lose a bunch of subscribers if people couldn't continue playing their 5e characters easily.

So no, I don't think WotC management intended to use the lack of legacy support to force people to move to 5.5, I think they just assumed that everyone on D&D beyond would switch to the new system right away, and were surprised when that didn't happen.

 

[Burnside]

So no, I don't think WotC management intended to use the lack of legacy support to force people to move to 5.5, I think they just assumed that everyone on D&D beyond would switch to the new system right away, and were surprised when that didn't happen.

I agree, but it's an assumption that only people deep in their own company bubble would make. It's an assumption that a third party like Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds would never make, both of whom obviously understood that both the new and old systems would require continued support and planned accordingly. I think DNDBeyond pre-WotC acquisition would also have known better.

 

[Clint_L]

Supporting multiple versions of D&D on DDB goes directly against the strategic goal that WotC very clearly laid out with the announcement of OneD&D: that they wanted to shift from an editions-based sales model, for a whole bunch of pretty good reasons, to a new model in which the game was allowed to incrementally evolve.

I agree with that strategy. However, I think they screwed up by making the changes to the newest version of 5e just enough that some folks have decided it's too much of a change, and so that there are a few glaring difference that are a problem on DDB (e.g. druids, weapon masteries). If they had kept the changes to a Tasha's level, I don't think we'd be having this conversation. Folks aren't too worked up about the DMG or MM, for example - it's the PHB.

It's not exactly true that DDB was never intended to support multiple versions of the game. For instance, it had no problem supporting players who bought Tasha's and those who didn't. And it's supporting the current situation pretty well, but obviously some adjustments are needed.

I don't think WotC should enshrine the 2014 rules. I think that traps them back in perpetual editions wars. I think it's worth taking a small hit to break free of that terrible business model.