D&D 5E (2024) In Interview with GamesRadar, Chris Perkins Discusses New Books

[overgeeked]

Kids and young people in my experience have a higher tolerance for mixing things up and having a good time doing it.

The young at heart as well. It’s great fun to not be so rigid. You should try it.

The list of difference between the OD&D, Holmes, B/X, BECMI, RC, and AD&D editions of the game are far less than you seem to think. A lot of people mashed them together back-in-the-day.

It would be fairly trivial to play all the TSR editions of D&D at the same time at the same table. Adding in the WotC editions of D&D is where things would get complicated because there are more differences.

 

[mamba]

And yet WotC is dropping the terminology permanently, and no doubt will get away with it just fine.

they are not calling it a new edition for now, because they want to emphasize compatibility, but permanently is an awful long time, I am expecting to see a 6e eventually

 

[Parmandur]

they are not calling it a new edition for now, because they want to emphasize compatibility, but permanently is an awful long time, I am expecting to see a 6e eventually

I doubt they ever will, anymore than a trumpeting of a new edition of Monopoly (which dies get made every few years, just not as s marketing point)

 

[bedir than]

they are not calling it a new edition for now, because they want to emphasize compatibility, but permanently is an awful long time, I am expecting to see a 6e eventually

When D&D Next launched - "final edition"
When 5e went public - "final edition"
When One D&D launched - "a pillar will be to update and maintain the final edition"
When they said it's just a UA for 2024 D&D - "it's still just D&D, fully compatible"

It's been 12 years of the same statements without a lie among them. Maybe we can believe them?

 

[Cadence]

When D&D Next launched - "final edition"
When 5e went public - "final edition"
When One D&D launched - "a pillar will be to update and maintain the final edition"
When they said it's just a UA for 2024 D&D - "it's still just D&D, fully compatible"

It's been 12 years of the same statements without a lie among them. Maybe we can believe them?

I mean, in the near future? Sure, they seem to want to stick to that and it sure seems like they could easily not have to do a new edition thing for at least several years to come.

That there will never be another for literally all of time? I mean maybe it won't happen until after Hasbro goes under or dismembered, but it feels like there will almost certainly be a new edition some day in the future unless someone with lots of money and no desire for profits is happy to just sell copies of old property in perpetuity.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, in the near future? Sure, they seem to want to stick to that and it sure seems like they could easily not have to do a new edition thing for at least several years to come.

That there will never be another for literally all of time? I mean maybe it won't happen until after Hasbro goes under or dismembered, but it feels like there will almost certainly be a new edition some day in the future unless someone with lots of money and no desire for profits is happy to just sell copies of old property in perpetuity.

Not saying that the game will stand completely still or never change in any way...but I expect future iterations of the game will be more structurally conservative than even the '24 rules, as an Evergreen base helps provide a stable environment for products (Hasbro is an expert at just this sort oglf thing, to boot).

 

[Maxperson]

And yet WotC is dropping the terminology permanently, and no doubt will get away with it just fine.

I mean, there's nothing to get away with. The terminology is here to stay. It's never going away for D&D or any other game. They can use it or not, but it will make no difference.

TSR and WotC marketing BS is not objective, it is language manipulation to try and maximize sales. And half editions are not a thing. ISBNs indicating a new edition with the Federal government? That's a thing, and there have been 9 sets of ISBNs, and there are no "half-ISBNs".

ISBNs are as relevant to this as Elon Musk wanting to go to Mars is. Both editions and half editions are in fact a thing, and have been since at least 2e, if not earlier. And what is objective is the edition numbering. You cannot claim that 5e is not objectively 5e or that 3e is not objectively 3e. Since ISBNs are irrelevant and also unknown to probably 99% of those who play the game, there are only 5 editions of D&D. They are numbered for your convenience.

And yet people did mix it, and by most accounts easily.

Ideally, sure, but...Cocaine is one helluva drug, as is spite.

And yet people managed to mix them without serious issues?

So this is meaningless. When I was a teenager I used to play Stratego. I decided one day to combine it with D&D. Each piece had AC, HP and to hits based on the power of the piece in the game. Bombs exploded with enough damage to most likely kill any piece that hit it, except for 8's that had a chance to disarm them. I mixed them easily and without any serious issues whatsoever. According to the above, that makes Stratego an edition of D&D. Except it is obviously not.

It doesn't matter how easily you can mix the two or how often they were mixed. They were released concurrently which makes it impossible for the to be different editions of the game. Editions are sequential, not concurrent. They were the different games that Gygax claimed.

 

[Maxperson]

The young at heart as well. It’s great fun to not be so rigid. You should try it.

I mean, you literally cut out the sentence in that paragraph that said, "Now I have a hard time getting them to change up a single rule in a board game."

The issue isn't with me!

The list of difference between the OD&D, Holmes, B/X, BECMI, RC, and AD&D editions of the game are far less than you seem to think. A lot of people mashed them together back-in-the-day.

It would be fairly trivial to play all the TSR editions of D&D at the same time at the same table. Adding in the WotC editions of D&D is where things would get complicated because there are more differences.

As I pointed out, this doesn't matter to whether or not they were different games. It was trivially easy to merge Stratego and AD&D, too.

While you could play all editions of TSR D&D at the same time, you would need to decide which rules to apply to any given situation. Elves will either be TSR elves with the ability to choose classes and multiclass, or they will be BECMI elves that are a class unto themselves and cannot take classes and multiclass. You need to decide whether the classes will use BECMI saving throws, or whether to use the AD&D saves, which are different. It would make a huge mess to try and mix all those together with different PCs using different rules to save, cast spells, etc.

 

[mamba]

When D&D Next launched - "final edition"
When 5e went public - "final edition"

that was more because they expected to be shut down afterwards than as a promise to never have another edition

When One D&D launched - "a pillar will be to update and maintain the final edition"
When they said it's just a UA for 2024 D&D - "it's still just D&D, fully compatible"

that was the last two years and I believe them that 2024 will be compatible enough

It's been 12 years of the same statements without a lie among them. Maybe we can believe them?

for one it is not 12 years if you do not count the initial 'we will probably shut down after this' statements, for another tell that to the OGL

 

[mamba]

Not saying that the game will stand completely still or never change in any way...but I expect future iterations of the fame will be more structurally conservative than even the '24 rules, as an Evergreen base helps provide a stable environment for products (Hasbro is an expert at just this sort oglf thing, to boot).

didn't they say that some of the things that got rejected this time might well show up in the next iteration? If so that hardly makes that one more conservative than the current one.

Also, if the playtest polls decide what goes into the next version then there is no reason to believe that the versions will become successively more conservative