D&D (2024) So Will 'OneD&D' (6E) Actually Be Backwards Compatible?

[Faolyn]

Well that is not what Kyle implied today. He called OneD&D 5e.

Well, I guess we'll see next year.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Where did I say it would be a reprint?

But hey, on this thread, MaxPerson has been talking about how they're not actually compatible.

Sorry. I probably mixed it up.

 

[mamba]

You didn't see any complaints about that? I know I complained about it.

I have not seen every post either though… specifically about being compatible? I know some just did not like them, but compatibility, no, do not remember that

 

[DEFCON 1]

Just because something doesn't appear in the Public Playtest doesn't mean it wasn't playtested.

We The People are not WotC's "Make sure this works" playtesters. We are the "Hey, is thing thing cool?" playtesters. There's a difference.

 

[Minigiant]

History suggests that the people who hate a thing in gaming, whether tabletop or videogame, will stick around for a very long time to tell you all about how mad they are.

That doesn't mean they'll buy anything or play it.

--
Ultimately it seems like ODND will be compatible in the sense that a character made with old books can play new adventures. But internally, you won't be able to swap and mixmatch features, feats, spells, and variants between them.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Just because something doesn't appear in the Public Playtest doesn't mean it wasn't playtested.

We The People are not WotC's "Make sure this works" playtesters. We are the "Hey, is thing thing cool?" playtesters. There's a difference.

Sure, but if it wasn't in the public playtest and it later becomes a point of friction, then it's hard to argue that it was well tested.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sure, but if it wasn't in the public playtest and it later becomes a point of friction, then it's hard to argue that it was well tested.

Or the WotC designers and Alpha playtesters did not believe what certain members of the public considered to be "wrong" or "bad" was what they believed to be how they wanted it designed.

There are hundreds of thousands of players out here... by sheer numbers alone any one of us could have completely whackadoodle beliefs on how certain things should work. And the Alpha playtesters hired by WotC are not there to make sure those whackadoodle beliefs work... it's to make sure that the WotC designers' intentions work the way WotC intended them to.

Someone may make an empirical statement that X rule is "bad"... but that's only coming from their point of view of what they feel the rule should be. And I'm sure there are plenty of people (and designers) out there that would heartily disagree with their belief.

 

[Hussar]

what about 3e to 4e? No idea what sales were then, just wondering

3.5 sales were in the toilet. That was never in debate. Heck, by the tail end of 3.5, before the announcement for 4e, there were maybe, 5 small to mid-sized 3pp still making 3.5e stuff. It was pretty dead at the end there.

 

[Jadeite]

3.5 sales were in the toilet. That was never in debate. Heck, by the tail end of 3.5, before the announcement for 4e, there were maybe, 5 small to mid-sized 3pp still making 3.5e stuff. It was pretty dead at the end there.

I'd say Paizo was pretty big even back than. But other than them, I'd say the only relevant one was Goodman Games. Most of the significant 3PPs of 3rd edition had moved on, including White Wolf, AEG, Fantasy Flight Games, Green Ronin, Privateer Press, Mongoose. Most of those had developed or purchased their own systems, though in some cases based on d20.
It's still impressive how much 3rd Party books you could get in the stores back than, compared to today where most of the stuff is only available through Kickstarter and Backerkit. But I guess merchants got hit badly by the edition changes as well.

 

[dave2008]

Well, I guess we'll see next year.

To be clear, I expect them to market it as Dungeons and Dragons like they do now. They don't market 5e as 5th edition generally now anyway. Notice no 5e on the cover of the upcoming book: