D&D 5E So, I kind of want to stay with 2014 rules. What are my longterm options?

[JEB]

Hasn't WotC released PDF's of every past edition up to this point? Why is the assumption that they won't release PDF's of the 2014 core in the future?

1. Wizards hasn't released anything new for 5e on DM Guild for a while now; all their most recent digital products are exclusive to D&D Beyond users.
2. Several 5e products that have already gone out of print are nowhere to be seen on DM Guild (such as the 2014 Starter Set, the original Tyranny of Dragons adventures, Volo's Guide to Monsters, and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes).
3. One "Legacy Content" product, the Elemental Evil Player's Companion, no longer appears in searches on DM Guild. (It can be found with a direct link, and it does still appear on DriveThruRPG searches.) This change was made silently, but pretty much has to be intentional.

I certainly hope that they'll release PDFs of the 5e core rulebooks on DM Guild, but the above suggest it's unlikely. At least not for quite a while.

 

[see]

So what are my options longterm?

So, the biggest issue, as I see it, is being able to introduce the rules to new players. Options as I see 'em:

1. Buy lots of extra/used copies of the 2014 PHB (and other books as necessary) to lend to new players, hope you never run out/can replace. (Not that improbable given the sheer number sold, depending on your budget, how many loaner copies disappear forever, and how long you plan to do this.)

2. D&D Beyond subscription, depending on WotC never ending sharing option for 2014 content.

3. Hope WotC decides to make PDFs of the 2014 PHB available.

4. Make your own home-brewed retro/sideclone. Take the 5.1 SRD as your base. Take stuff from 3rd party open content and adapt (perhaps sections of Level Up), adding it to your base. Print for players as necessary.

(3a/4a. Hope sonmeone else does a 2014 retro/sideclone you like professionally.)

5. Various forms of copyright violation (printing copies of 2014 rules from D&D Beyond to hand out, pointing players at pirate sites, etc.)

 

[jayoungr]

I do not believe they have made any statements about using 2024 characters under 2014 rules

They did:

for combat "2024 rules are what should be used" (2014 rules "will grind") if 2024 character played with 2014 rules.

 

[jayoungr]

The two general issues that come up are changes to the core rules (like Heroic Inspiration or the Magic Action) and the balance between 2014 classes and 2024 versions of options. In honesty, it's no more difficult than taking things from One Ring or Tales of the Valiant and making them work.

However, I was responding to a post that implied that the DM wouldn't really have to notice or care whether the players were bringing 2014 or 2024 characters to the table. It doesn't sound like the OP wants to be constantly making adjustments for 2024 characters, whether it's easy or not.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes, I'd like players for games I am running to be playing the game I'm running and not a different game.

Does every player need their own copy of the PHB? I don’t think I’ve ever played in (or DMed for) a group where that was the case. My current group has 3 full sets of the core books between the 5 of us, and that’s been a luxury compared to some groups I’ve been in. Back in the day we used to all share one PHB between the whole group and it made character creation slow but otherwise worked fine.

 

[Remathilis]

However, I was responding to a post that implied that the DM wouldn't really have to notice or care whether the players were bringing 2014 or 2024 characters to the table. It doesn't sound like the OP wants to be constantly making adjustments for 2024 characters, whether it's easy or not.

That's OP's prerogative of course, but I don't find that any harder than incorporating Flee Mortals! or much of Kobold Press's collection of spells and classes. Or even using Post-Tasha races and backgrounds in D&D. The rules have already shifted enough that playing a MotM race had slight advantage over a PHB race. Certainly, I'd never play a pre-Tasha sorcerer subclass without house ruled bonus spells!

Which really comes down to three concerns the OP needs to figure out:

1. How much does he value Official support? Because WotC books going forward will need conversion to make them backwards compatible.

2. How much did he value 3pp support? There is a lot of stuff right now, but the vibe has already shifted towards either 24 edition support OR the 3pp's in-house variants of 5e. Out of the box compatibility is going to get harder to find.

3. How much duck tape is he willing to use to keep the rules working? As it stands right now, pre-Tasha 5e has different assumptions than post-Tasha. And 24 has a lot of quality of life minor bug fixes that help eliminate pain points. Is he comfortable with house ruling some elements back in? Hell, is he comfortable using post-Tasha options even?

In short, he's going to have to put in the work to keep it running unless he's content with the finite pool of options (even if that pool is large thanks to 3pp and DMs Guild).

 

[Reynard]

They did:

Who is "Kobold Stew"?

 

[jayoungr]

Who is "Kobold Stew"?

You can click the arrow next to the name and be taken to the original post. @Kobold Stew is a board member who watched the WotC informational livestream and took detailed notes on what they said, complete with a few direct quotations (like "will grind").

 

[MichaelSomething]

Isn't the most important thing having people who want to keep using the 2014 rules?

Maybe form a secret society???

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Isn't the most important thing having people who want to keep using the 2014 rules?

Not really essential. So long as the players are indifferent about which rules they use they will go along with whatever the DM wants to run.