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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marandahir" data-source="post: 9453720" data-attributes="member: 6803643">Given that they're calling it now "Revised 5th Edition" a la "2nd Edition AD&D -- Revised" from 1995, I think we can safely put it in the same category as the various revisions to Basic D&D (B/X, BECMI, Rules Cyclopedia, Classic D&D), 2e AD&D Revised, v3.5 D&D, and 4e Essentials. If you want to call that a 5.5e fine, but there's no promise there won't be a 60th Anniversary further revision (though for 60 years I wouldn't be surprised if they move onto using the term 6th Edition). I would note that: Original D&D was pretty much backwards compatible with Chainmail's Fantasy supplement; both Basic D&D and Advanced D&D 1st Edition were pretty much backwards compatible with Original D&D; and 2E AD&D was pretty much backwards compatible with 1E AD&D. By the time of 2nd Edition, however, the Basic and Advanced versions of D&D were mostly incompatible with each other, and 3E was a hard break from 2E, likewise 4E from 3E and 5E from 4E. It may be however that whatever comes in 2034, even if called 6th Edition, will be likewise backwards compatible with the Revised 5th Edition, returning to the iterative model of edition development. 3E ultimately came from WotC buying D&D and Hasbro buying WotC. 4E came from Hasbro pushing for a digital toolset and trying to follow the leader of digital MMOs (and trying to take back the market from being undercut by their own subcontractors like Paizo after the mistakes of the OGL). 5E came from WotC trying to re-unify the broken base via a massive public playtest to figure out what people wanted from the game. Each of these 3 edition revisions came from a major shift in market strategy. But at this point, WotC have been able to reimplement the OGL and 3rd party development for 5e in a massive way without significantly undercutting their own profitability. And now they're finally able to get the dream of 4E, the digital toolset, online (mostly by buying out a major subcontractor in D&D Beyond, but now also by the new upcoming 3D tabletop software). And they've done this without completely shattering their player base (despite the flourishing of spin-off systems like Morrus' Level Up and the resurgence of other fantasy tabletop games like OSR. And they lack their own subdivision of multiple competing D&D game variations like they had in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. So now they can pretty reliably drop back on iterative development of editions again, regardless of how they brand the game's edition.</blockquote>

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