D&D (2024) RD&D MM will have nearly 500 Monsters, and new NPCs.

[Staffan]

Once the new books come out, I predict that it's going to work out exactly as WotC intended: People will just call it "Dungeons & Dragons."

There will, of course, be a forever thread on reddit and a forever thread here arguing about the nomenclature, but 99.9% of the audience just won't care. (Honestly, all the talk about it this week has pretty much maxed out my interest on the subject forever.)

When talking about the books or game in general, "D&D" would be the right term to use. Edition nomenclature is needed when you need to distinguish one edition from another. If you're just talking about saving throws, for example, you'd assume whomever was doing the talking would be talking about the ability score-based saves of the current version, but if you're comparing how saves have worked in the current with previous editions you need a more precise term for the current one.

for 1DD yes, for 3.5 it seems pretty established

3.5e never pretended to be anything else. The core books even had 3.5 written on the cover.

 

[Parmandur]

Man, the really weird thing to me is people taking WotC's inane marketing BS from 2003 as reasonable: "3.5" was a 4E, nor a "half edition". 3E also wasn't the third iteration of D&D. It's all BS.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

When talking about the books or game in general, "D&D" would be the right term to use. Edition nomenclature is needed when you need to distinguish one edition from another. If you're just talking about saving throws, for example, you'd assume whomever was doing the talking would be talking about the ability score-based saves of the current version, but if you're comparing how saves have worked in the current with previous editions you need a more precise term for the current one.

3.5e never pretended to be anything else. The core books even had 3.5 written on the cover.

In fact, it's responsible for the point-five phenomenon. We wouldn't even be having these discussions if they'd just called it "3rd Edition Revised".

2024's revision would just be yet another late-edition revision like the 2e black books, and 4e's Essentials. (Though the later got called "4.5" by people stuck on the point-five bandwagon).

 

[Parmandur]

In fact, it's responsible for the point-five phenomenon. We wouldn't even be having these discussions if they'd just called it "3rd Edition Revised".

2024's revision would just be yet another late-edition revision like the 2e black books, and 4e's Essentials. (Though the later got called "4.5" by people stuck on the point-five bandwagon).

3.5 was a terribad name.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Man, the really weird thing to me is people taking WotC's inane marketing BS from 2003 as reasonable: "3.5" was a 4E, nor a "half edition". 3E also wasn't the third iteration of D&D. It's all BS.

Precisely because it's all BS makes me think that we should just call it whatever WotC decides to call it. It's certainly no more 5.5 or 6e than it is OneD&D. If they DO go with 50th Anniversary D&D (like I expect), at least it actually IS that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Man, the really weird thing to me is people taking WotC's inane marketing BS from 2003 as reasonable: "3.5" was a 4E, nor a "half edition". 3E also wasn't the third iteration of D&D. It's all BS.

No, it isn't "all". You're just pushing the corporate line, at this point, and rewriting history in an either disingenuous or forgetful way you should be a little embarrassed about imho.

3E was the 3rd edition of AD&D, which is what it clearly derived from. Absolutely no-one had a problem with them dropping the A, because non-AD&D D&D barely existed at that point. It was even publicly and transparently discussed by WotC, not the weird manipulation they're doing now.

That's why it was called 3rd edition. It was absolutely correct nomenclature and in-line with industry standards.

3.5E was an innovation, and the beginning of WotC (specifically) trying mess with branding on editions. They couldn't call it 4th edition, because they'd only just released 3rd edition. So they came up with the cunning plan - calling it a 0.5 edition, which was reminiscent of how software and games were being named in the era. This caused a certain amount of (rightful) mockery. But to be fair to them, it was a much smaller change than the smallest previous edition change, which was 1E to 2E.

The only true "BS" we've heard recently is WotC insisting that not only is 1D&D "not an edition change" but also literally lying about 3.5E in order to claim it's not even a X.5 change. That is true "BS" and over-the-line, frankly. I'm astonished Crawford came out with that without turning bright red.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Precisely because it's all BS makes me think that we should just call it whatever WotC decides to call it. It's certainly no more 5.5 or 6e than it is OneD&D. If they DO go with 50th Anniversary D&D (like I expect), at least it actually IS that.

I mean, I think we go with whatever people call it, not what WotC calls it. But WotC has by far the powerful voice here - if it chooses to use it sensibly. Calling it something like 50th Anniversary Edition can work, because it becomes Fifty or 50A or 50AE. But trying to make out it's not a thing and just "2024 core rulebooks" is going to end up calling it 1D&D, in practice.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I mean, I think we go with whatever people call it, not what WotC calls it.

Well, long-term we'll have to, sure.

 

[Parmandur]

No, it isn't "all". You're just pushing the corporate line, at this point, and rewriting history in an either disingenuous or forgetful way you should be a little embarrassed about imho.

3E was the 3rd edition of AD&D, which is what it clearly derived from. Absolutely no-one had a problem with them dropping the A, because non-AD&D D&D barely existed at that point. It was even publicly and transparently discussed by WotC, not the weird manipulation they're doing now.

That's why it was called 3rd edition. It was absolutely correct nomenclature and in-line with industry standards.

3.5E was an innovation, and the beginning of WotC (specifically) trying mess with branding on editions. They couldn't call it 4th edition, because they'd only just released 3rd edition. So they came up with the cunning plan - calling it a 0.5 edition, which was reminiscent of how software and games were being named in the era. This caused a certain amount of (rightful) mockery. But to be fair to them, it was a much smaller change than the smallest previous edition change, which was 1E to 2E.

The only true "BS" we've heard recently is WotC insisting that not only is 1D&D "not an edition change" but also literally lying about 3.5E in order to claim it's not even a X.5 change. That is true "BS" and over-the-line, frankly. I'm astonished Crawford came out with that without turning bright red.

Honestly, that's just corporate BS piling corporate BS: "Advanced" Dungeons & Dragons was a cynical and transparent legal ploy that didn't even hold up in court, and it wasn't even the line most people had played prior to 3E, by all the numbers I've seen. "Basic" was the mainline for most of the game. That they've recognized the absurdity of the naming scheme and are trying to avoid it is equally silly as a ".5" Edition, on the face of it: no more, no less.

If they came clean and called the new revision 17th Edition (I counted previously: it's at least the 17th full rules revision, arguably up to the 21st; one can also make a reasonable case for 9th Edition based on publiahing standards, since it will be the 9th set of ISBNs for the titles PHB and DMG though only 7th for the Monster Manual), that would be sensible but probably confusing for people. And avoiding market confusion is their prime directive here: for 12 year olds and their relatives browsing the vooks section of Target at Christmas, not hobbyists who can follow our bananas conversations here.

 

[Clint_L]

Honestly, that's just corporate BS piling corporate BS: "Advanced" Dungeons & Dragons was a cynical and transparent legal ploy that didn't even hold up in court, and it wasn't even the line most people had played prior to 3E, by all the numbers I've seen.

No, that's wrong. I assume you are referring to Basic. Basic had very high sales but wasn't nearly as widely played as AD&D; it was the D&D set that your Aunt got you because she heard you were into this D&D game (literally in my case). It was widely seen (and mostly marketed) as the kiddie game, and though almost everyone owned a copy, the vast majority of folks who stuck with the game moved on to AD&D (or were already playing AD&D when they received a copy of Basic, again as in my case). That's why sales for the expert set (and above) drop off a cliff, why TSR offered very few supplementary materials for the line, and why they barely referred to it in Dragon magazine.

I am aware that there were some folks who stuck with Basic and made it and its follow-ups their game for years, and more power to 'em. But they were very much the minority.