It was posted earlier in this thread that if newer material contradicts older material, the newer material takes precedence. So, if you showed up with a 2014 PHB and tried to use something that had been errata'd, the newer printed PHB would take precedence.
Right. You brought up the 2014 and 2018 in particular, so I thought there was something strange happening that I had missed in 2018.
Granted, it's not like the game has changed so incredibly radically that having a 2014 PHB would cause problems in most cases. I don't really track errata that closely, so, I'm the wrong person to ask.
My point though is that if we're insisting that the definition of "backwards compatible" is that I can use a 2014 PHB as is, in orgnanized play, then, well, that's already out the window and has been for years. The thing is, now they are flat out telling you what the changes are and that from 2024 forward, you can expect the OneD&D version to be the assumed PHB on the table.
That's why I keep bringing up the errata when I asked the question (posts 694, 710, and 725). All the new printings of the (5e) PHB have seemingly have their errata added to the list. Having small updates with a new printing seems to be a standard publishing thing, and putting out a printed or downloadable errata is something textbook companies seem to do and something bigger other game companies do too.
A player, as far as I know, can show up with any (5e) PHB printing, but needs to use the several pages of errata.
It's not really all that unreasonable of an assumption, is it? This is not looking like a terribly enormous change. Mostly cleaning up verbiage and another kick at the cat to fix some stuff that's been considered not terribly well done for a long time. Plus, apparently, our 2024 PHB is going to have some new stuff in it too - new races at the very least. So, it's not like we're not getting some value out of new books.
I'm fine with WotC ditching the "edition" terminology. But it seems like it's clearly not just a new "printing" by any definition or usage of printing I've ever seen, even if WotC did print out a huge errata file - which I don't picture them doing if it has new races and subclasses and would take scores of pages.
I was thinking that pondering how they could phrase it for Adventurer's League might be a way to try and guess what we'll end up with: 2024? 5e version 1.1? version 5.1? Expanded 5th edition? Swerve and call it a "Players' Guide" so that they don't have to sunset the 2014 PHB and deal with the question?
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Somewhere between the prospective DM saying they're thinking of running a D&D game and the dice hitting the table, the group presumably needs to say what flavor of D&D -- and often have throughout the years : 4e and/or essentials, 5e core books, 5e + Tasha's, 5e + all expansions, 1e PHB, 1e + UA, etc...
My pondering is about the question - when one wants to specify the 2024 set-up, what words will be the most commonly used to do that?