Jeremy Crawford: “We are releasing new editions of the books”

[OB1]

Here's what I'm guessing the guidelines will be in the 2024 PHB.

1. If you choose a 2024 Class, you use the spells, feats and subclasses from this book, and can use spells, feats and subclasses from any D&D product except the 2014 PHB. Your Species and Background can be from any source.

2. If you choose a 2014 Class, you use the spells, feats and subclasses from that book, and can use spells, feats and subclasses from any D&D product except the 2024 PHB (this could be limited to Xanthars, Tashas and MotM). Your Species and Background can be from any source. If you choose a 2024 Background, you can use 2024 PHB 1st level feats.

Mixing and matching spells, subclasses and feats between the 2014 and 2024 PHBs are the only real danger I see in creating OP or UP characters once the new rules are out.

 

[codo]

Dude, people buy stuff second hand and it's not like there won't be stock of these PHBs out there. They might borrow an old PHB from someone they know plays the game because you're just saying the 5E Player's Handbook. The idea that "New players will just buy the new one" misses that these are effectively called the same thing and only older players will know. If you are new and try to buy one cheap, second-hand, or simply borrow it, you'll be getting something that is not the same as the older one.

And I don't see how that's any less confusing than putting a "5.5E" on it. If you're new, you're just buying the one off Amazon, right? If you're an older player, of course you know what you're getting. As an argument for clarity, it is a terrible one.

Sure there will be some confusions from a few players buying a second hand book, or borrowing an old one, but I think you are vastly overestimating the number. Even if they did call it 5.5e you would still have problems with people getting old books by mistake. I don't think it would actually change the number of people who get confused much. New players buying old books won't know what to look for in the first place. They won't know the difference between 5e and 5.5 in the first place.

Even If some does get an older book, why should it really matter. The books are fully compatible. They could make a character with the old rules and play it just fine in 1D&D.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Sure there will be some confusions from a few players buying a second hand book, or borrowing an old one, but I think you are vastly overestimating the number. Even if they did call it 5.5e you would still have problems with people getting old books by mistake. I don't think it would actually change the number of people who get confused much. New players buying old books won't know what to look for in the first place. They won't know the difference between 5e and 5.5 in the first place.

Even If some does get an older book, why should it really matter. The books are fully compatible. They could make a character with the old rules and play it just fine in 1D&D.

They'll know 5E is not 5.5E. Again, this is a way more confusing way of doing things. I understand the idea of not trying to upset the fanbase by saying "No, we aren't changing editions!", but I find it to really muddle things when it comes to how things actually interact.

 

[Dire Bare]

2nd edition was also created to stop paying royalties to Gygax.

I am sure that there would never have been an AD&D if it wasn't for the royalties. It would have been a lot better for the health of the game if they never had an AD&D. I think there is a pretty good chance TSR would have never gone bankrupt in the first place if they had never spit there audience by simultaneously publishing 2 different games. No guaranties though, TSR was remarkably poorly run. I can't be sure they wouldn't have found another way to crash the company.

I'm pretty sure that is not the case. AD&D 2E isn't that different than AD&D 1E, and there is no difference in the branding. I've certainly never heard that claim before.

You're not obligated, but . . . I'm going to need a source to believe that one.

 

[Azzy]

Good. Backward compatibility is just a albatross around the designers neck and just there to promise people that the product that is there to obsolete their books and make them buy new ones will certainly not do that, no sir; now please lookin in that other direction so I can finish this magic trick.

No it isn't. It's the best way forward.

 

[codo]

I'm pretty sure that is not the case. AD&D 2E isn't that different than AD&D 1E, and there is no difference in the branding. I've certainly never heard that claim before.

If D&D had kept using edition numbers like they did with 1E and 2E we would have never had any problems. They used edition numbers in the normal way. To indicate a small incremental change in a book, and not a completlely new game like they did for 3E and 4E. Not to mention whatever 3.5E is.

You're not obligated, but . . . I'm going to need a source to believe that one.

I may be conflating Dave Arneson and AD&D with the various power struggles and lawsuits for control of TSR. There was so much going on sometimes it's hard to keep it all strait.

 

[Azzy]

I'm sorry, but having an edition number immediately tells you what you get. Just having a new PHB with the same classes but different from the other PHB that also contains the same classes is way more confusing than something that says "Oh, this is from a different edition".

Like, one way or another you're going to have to denote the difference between the old and the new. If not an edition number, it'll be a picture, a color, something. At least with an edition number it's up front about what you are getting.

The blurb on the back of the 2024 books will likely say "revised fifth edition" or something to that effect, just like the current rulebooks only say "fifth edition" in the blurb on the back of the book. Otherwise, Crawford has said that they will refer to them as PHB (2014) vs PHB (2024).

How much confusion has not having "fifth edition" on the front of the 2014 books actually caused? How much confusion was caused by the original D&D, Holmes, B/X, and BECMI all having the same names? I really think the confusion argument is greatly exaggerated.

 

[Parmandur]

If D&D had kept using edition numbers like they did with 1E and 2E we would have never had any problems. They used edition numbers in the normal way. To indicate a small incremental change in a book, and not a completlely new game like they did for 3E and 4E. Not to mention whatever 3.5E is.

It's worse than that, TSR made a dog's lunch of it before WotC ever got involved: twice versions of D&D predate "First Efition," and by normal publishing parlance, the 1989 books were the third typical edition of simply AD&D (the 1E refresh involved enough changes that they warranted a new ISBN, hence being a second edition). 2E was really the third, and 3E was really the fifth.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I called it that they were going to buff Wizard. I fully expect Monks ki problem to be even worse and for it to be filled with even more irrelevant ribbons.

Cool. I once predicted when someone was going to roll a Nat 20. Doesn't mean I pick winning lotto numbers. Just because you guessed and were correct doesn't mean you are always going to guess correctly.

No room for foresight is a strange hill to be on. Particularly when I, explicitly, acknowledge that substantive changes would change the assessment. But that still ultimately depends on what those changes are; their go at the Druid was substantial too, doesn't mean it was good.

This isn't "no room for foresight" it is "none of us are actually really psychic." Because, your acknowledgement that substantial changes would change things? Yeah, the point is no matter how much you might think you are right, you actually don't know what the changes to the druid after the playtest feedback will be. You guess. You can predict. You can read the tea leaves or reference the historical data. But you don't actually know, and basing your predictions on whether or not material will be used by the community on your predictions of the quality of the material is just swinging in the dark.

Enough sales to keep Hasbro afloat, without having to take a sales hit in the interim.

I don't believe the game designers actually believe any of this is a good idea that will work in the long term, but if they do then thats just a further indictment of the state of that company.

Yes, I'm sure the highly successful game designers of a highly successful game, believing in the potential success of their product is a death knell for a company that has been seeing booming success in recent years. And yes, I know, they aren't perfect, they have messed up more than once and in some big ways, but you seem far too confident that these people are utter fools when... you know... they are the most likely to see the data and trends that would inform their decisions? And they know just as much if not more about DnD than you do?

If the rules as written in 2014 remain as is, you are not operating in an evergreen model.

To lean into that analogy, imagine if Call of Duty 4 had to integrate the entirety of all the previous Call of Duty entries, all unchanged and operating exactly the same as they originally did, as one "seamless" game. Thats the effective equivalent of what we're looking at.

2014 isn't being updated if it isn't being deprecated. Ergo, you're stacking editions together and that isn't going to work.

That isn't how that works. Not even a little bit. I don't even know where to start trying to correct you on this.

Here, let's start with this. Call of Duty is a computer game, with a set limit on what it contains. DnD doesn't work like that. If it did, then it would have been a new edition of DnD every single time they released a new rulebook with new options. If I made a Call of Duty game and put in a new type of grenade, I've made a new version of that CoD game. But, if I'm playing an edition of DnD and I put in a new item.... it is still the same edition of DnD. In fact, no matter how many 3rd party books I've bought and added to my collection of rules, no matter how many times I homebrewed the game, even including when I homebrewed every single class in the game... it was STILL 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. And I could still buy 5th edition products and use them.

I don't believe the game designers think it isn't a new edition, because I give them the benefit of the doubt to know better.

Translation: I know what they are designing better than they do.

I'll never understand this type of thinking.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Nope. And its also a false equivalence, as WOTC isn't telling anyone they can use homebrew wikis and build guides from 20 years ago.

...

You realize the page I quoted and the builds I quoted were from 2022 right? And, despite how it may feel, 2022 was only a year ago. Not 20 years ago. So, I'm not sure how you can call it a false equivalence to bring up 5e guides from a year ago and discuss them.

Sure, the wiki's I've run into for 3.5 are even older... but that's my point. You claimed "someone going online and googling might find old 5e material" well... yes, and that material is currently being updated and curated. But I still sometimes search and find 20 year old material too. And if that has never once caused any noticeable problem in the community at any level... then why would the 5e wikis and guides that are being constantly updated with new material, which will obviously be marked with their year and with the materials they are referencing be a problem?

Even if people are confused finding an article from 2022... don't you think they might realize that an article three years out of date means it probably has the wrong information on it, and look for newer articles with the correct information on it? People on the internet aren't helpless. They can read dates and and use search engines to figure out things like "oh, this article was written in 2022, but in 2024 new books were released, that's probably why this isn't matching up" and if they CAN'T do that, then they will go to Reddit and ask, and be told that exact same thing.

This is just such a non-issue.

 

[Hussar]

I think that by, say, 2026, any confusion will likely fade into the background as the community adopts the newer revision books over time.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

are factoring it in, but I really think the WotC (and me as well), thinks that most groups aren't going to play with both at once. That is just not the way most 5e players play the game.

I think you’re wrong here. Players aren’t going to not use Tasha’s just because the phb got an updoot.

They’re gonna use both exactly because they don’t think too hard about it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think that by, say, 2026, any confusion will likely fade into the background as the community adopts the newer revision books over time.

That has been the pattern, and I expect the majority of folks will (eventually) go with the new books. I won't of course, but my way is very much not the way of the majority.

 

[Parmandur]

I think you’re wrong here. Players aren’t going to not use Tasha’s just because the phb got an updoot.

They’re gonna use both exactly because they don’t think too hard about it.

That was my experience of 3.x: never really purely 3E or 3.5

 

[Clint_L]

I'm sorry, but having an edition number immediately tells you what you get. Just having a new PHB with the same classes but different from the other PHB that also contains the same classes is way more confusing than something that says "Oh, this is from a different edition". Like, one way or another you're going to have to denote the difference between the old and the new. If not an edition number, it'll be a picture, a color, something. At least with an edition number it's up front about what you are getting.

Except it's not, because for D&D the word "edition" has previously meant a substantially new, mostly non-backwards compatible version of the game, and that's not what you are getting this time.

That's the problem. Yeah, if these were regular books the word "edition" would be fine. But TSR poisoned that well.

As Crawford pointed out.

 

[Justice and Rule]

The blurb on the back of the 2024 books will likely say "revised fifth edition" or something to that effect, just like the current rulebooks only say "fifth edition" in the blurb on the back of the book. Otherwise, Crawford has said that they will refer to them as PHB (2014) vs PHB (2024).

How much confusion has not having "fifth edition" on the front of the 2014 books actually caused? How much confusion was caused by the original D&D, Holmes, B/X, and BECMI all having the same names? I really think the confusion argument is greatly exaggerated.

It didn't cause any confusion because they weren't meant to be the same edition anyways. The point is that you're calling them both 5E, but they are not the same while covering the same material. That's the point.

Except it's not, because for D&D the word "edition" has previously meant a substantially new, mostly non-backwards compatible version of the game, and that's not what you are getting this time.

That's the problem. Yeah, if these were regular books the word "edition" would be fine. But TSR poisoned that well.

As Crawford pointed out.

I mean, this is substantially new (especially in regards to classes so far) along and has some backwards compatibility but probably shouldn't really be mixed with old material (old subclasses versus new, old feats versus new, old spells versus new, etc). But I feel like people are just making up reasons to not talk abut editions because there's too much fear that it will somehow split the community when I'm not sure it would any more than it already will when it starts changing classes and such.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That was my experience of 3.x: never really purely 3E or 3.5

Yeah man the more causal players I knew brought things from 3/.5 to thier 4e games, and they were actual different games.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I feel like the people haggling over the exact definition of "editions" is missing what people like @Emberashh and I are really pointing to: the fact that you have a second, older PHB out in the wild that is useable is just a messy thing. The whole point to revising something is to replace it, but we're not really getting a replacement as much as they are creating a rival and hoping it supersedes the original. And I think that's likely for a lot of classes... but if they want to do some needed nerfs to certain classes and builds, I think it becomes much harder when you are giving players an exit to go and just continue to use the old ones.

 

[mamba]

I feel like the people haggling over the exact definition of "editions" is missing what people like @Emberashh and I are really pointing to: the fact that you have a second, older PHB out in the wild that is useable is just a messy thing.

or we just think it is a lot less messy than you make it out to be.

The only thing that makes it ‘messy’ is the same class names are being used, and maybe the same subclass names. If these were Mage instead of Wizard and so on, we would basically be back at 4e essentials.

On the other hand having two editions would mean you would have to constantly harp their compatibility when it comes to adventures and half the people still would not believe it because of something someone posted on the internet.

The whole point to revising something is to replace it, but we're not really getting a replacement as much as they are creating a rival and hoping it supersedes the original. And I think that's likely for a lot of classes... but if they want to do some needed nerfs to certain classes and builds, I think it becomes much harder when you are giving players an exit to go and just continue to use the old ones.

this will get sorted out, and if some tables keep using the non-nerfed options, that isn’t really a problem either. They have been using that option for several years now, without much complaining.

How is that any different from some tables sticking with 5e while others switch to a theoretical 5.5? The only thing you maybe eliminate is some tables allowing both options.

Over time the 2014 books will get phased out as people adopt the 2024 ones. I don’t think the rate of adoption will differ much based on whether 1D&D is called 5e or 5.5

 

[John Lloyd1]

I'm pretty sure that is not the case. AD&D 2E isn't that different than AD&D 1E, and there is no difference in the branding. I've certainly never heard that claim before.

You're not obligated, but . . . I'm going to need a source to believe that one.

I remember reading that before, but I can't find a source. Some interview with Zeb Cook maybe?